The past is another country
It was official, Raidou had finally found something that was even worse than academic bickering. Academic collaboration. And the worst thing was, Genma didn’t seem to see a problem, the kids were too young and chaotic to know the difference, and their employers were unsympathetic to the plight of the working ninja stiff.
So what if the lost island in the volcanic lake that they’d been sent to investigate had tuned out to be inhabited by an entire ecosystem of giant chakra using lizards which was either an unholy genetic experiment run wild, or a holdover from a bygone age, or, somehow, both at once. That was, as far as the University funding council was concerned, why they had sent their onstaff ninja to do the initial investigation. Which was probably fair enough, and Raidou would have been willing to concede that point, if they had in fact, stuck to their onstaff ninja. But no, calls had been made, funding had been provided, contracts had been negotiated, and now they had to deal with this.
Giant chakra using ninja eating lizards, guarding an ancient temple containing potentially world destroying artifacts, fine, perfectly manageable, terrifying S rank missing nin showing up unexpectedly, less fine, but that was why they were getting hazard pay. Terrifying S rank missing nin showing up unexpectedly, turning out to be a legitimate part of the expedition, and proceeding to run a series of unethical experiments that ended up producing human like intelligence in said giant chakra using ninja eating lizards. Suffice it to say, Raidou was not happy.
“Why the fuck are we working with him anway?” He muttered, bitterly, after checking that their unwanted colleagues were well out of earshot.
“He’s fronting half the funding for this expedition.” Genma sounded considerably less bothered by this than he really should have been.
“Work for the university you said, it’ll be a nice steady paycheck you said, we’ll just spend our days shepherding harmless academics around exotic locales you said. Does that man look harmless to you, or does he look like a terrifying S rank missing nin with no morals.”
“You mean like us.”
“Shut up. My point is that he is Not harmless.”
“I mean technically he’s more of a mad scientist than an academic as such.” Raidou levelled an unimpressed look at Genma.
“Really. Have you learned nothing over the last few years. The only difference between an academic and a mad scientist is how much funding they can access without having to answer awkward questions. Our bosses aren’t Better than him, they just don’t have the resources.”
“Are you saying we should quit?”
“No. I just wanted to complain. It’s therapeutic.”
“The kids like him.” Genma offered.
“The kids are enjoying the opportunity to play with other baby ninja their age, that doesn’t mean they have good taste. They have terrible taste.” Genma looked over at Ino clad head to toe in crocodile skin, Chouji happily munching away at a packet of chili squid flavoured crisps, and Shikamaru locked in a deathmatch of the most unplayable card game known to man with a newly sentient chakra lizard, and was forced to concede the point.
“You always said you wanted to meet the Niidaime.”
“That was a hypothetical, not a request for someone to break the laws of gods and men to drag him back to the mortal plane and then bring him along on a research expedition in order to make the giant chakra lizards hunting us smarter.” Raidou felt his point had been made, the only thing worse than trying to evade giant ninja eating chakra lizards was having those same lizards suddenly start using advanced tactics and forward planning.
“You’re very cranky today. Do you need a snack, I’m sure Chouji would be willing to share some for a good cause.”
Raidou did not murder his partner. He really felt he should have got more credit for that.
…
The air choked with the heavy scent of incense as they stepped through the door of Lady Butterfly’s domain. The low smoky tones of the singer in the corner washed over them, somehow both seductive and unobtrusive. The lighting was soft, angled to draw the eye gently towards bodies draped in delicate fabrics and heavy jewelry. It was a piece of theatre that Kurenai, as a Kunoichi could appreciate. Skill deserved respect, and clearly Lady Butterfly knew her business.
This was a very dangerous woman. Especially to men.
It was a smart move by Asuma, bringing Kurenai along. Not that he needed protection, he was too much a ninja to be particularly vulnerable to the subtle work Lady Butterfly did, but to bring a woman, a kunoichi no less, to a meeting with a woman who gained her power through the control and manipulation of men was its own kind of power play. Kurenai always forgot how sharp Asuma could be when he wanted, straightforward maybe, but oh so very clever. It was what she’d always loved best about him.
Kurenai could see the almost flicker of surprise in Lady Butterfly’s eyes as she registered Kurenai’s presence, and flickered her a sly predator’s smile in response. It looked like she wasn’t the only one who sometimes forgot that games and subtlety weren’t the only ways to be cunning.
She recovered quickly though, with all the grace her profession demanded, and served them tea with exquisite poise, and perfect manners, and a level of control that screamed power to anyone with the wits to see it. Had Kurenai been any less of a kunoichi she might have thought the Lady utterly serene, unruffled. Again, her respect grew. A very dangerous woman indeed.
“I hear one of your girls was killed last night.” Asuma cut straight to the point blunt as always in that way that always caught people off guard, made them reveal more than they should. Kurenai let him take care of the questions. She was busy watching the Lady’s face and posture, and so she was the one to notice the tension in jaw and spine, the too carefully controlled blink, the slight curl of fingers, that all together spoke of fear, and helpless rage. Kurenai splayed her fingers out over Asuma’s thigh, dug her painted nails in with careful precision in a pattern that would tell him just what she saw. Lady Butterfly was angry at the death of one of her girls, genuine grief and anger at the challenge to her authority so tightly intertwined that they were impossible to separate. It was a very kunoichi reaction really, Kurenai was unsurprised by the familiarity, after all ninja and prostitutes often found themselves so very alike.
She would tell them nothing outright, and that, in itself, told them much. Whoever it was that had done it, she dared not move against them, even all her power and cleverness and influence, even with rage against them burning in her bones, even with two ninja demanding answers of her and by implication offering to kill the ones who had crossed her.
There weren’t many people with that kind of power.
They got little else out of her, aside from the time and place of death, useful knowledge to have, but also hardly a secret. But Asuma was good at what he did, as good as Kurenai was at what she did and he managed to extract one final deadly piece of information.
Whoever was responsible, carried the Daimyo’s blood.
…
It was a dark and stormy night, the chill wind howled over the cliffs and the lights of the port were barely visible though the lashing rain, when the dread ship Calamity put in to shore.
The door to the bar slammed open with a thundering crash, dragging the patrons’ attention away from their glasses of rum and ale. They were a rough crowd, scars and missing eyes and limbs, telling as clear a story as the array of weaponry their hands strayed towards. They were a rough crowd but the sight of the crew that descended upon them was enough to make the cruellest pirate’s blood run cold. They had all heard tell of this scourge of the high seas, but had dismissed it as a sailor’s tall tale. A nightmare, of a group of ninja gone rogue, gone pirate, gone mad, that had made unholy deals with the dark gods of the deep, that gave no quarter and feared no enemy or storm.
And yet, there they were, in the flesh. It could be no-one else. The masked, one-eyed, white haired captain, the deceptively pretty ship’s surgeon that if the stories were true could wreck a ship with one punch, the blue shark man with an enormous sword slung over his back and an uncannily pretty boyfriend with dead dead eyes hovering possessively by his elbow, the man dressed head to toe in bright green whose bright smile belied the predatory grace in his movements. Crewman after crewman strode through the door each matching the description of a legend, of a nightmare, bringing with them a wave of small bright eyed half feral children, all the more terrifying for their wide eyed innocence. They’d all heard the stories after all, they knew what those children were capable of.
There was a moment of utter silence as the ragtag assemblage of pirates tried to decide how to react to the demons in their midst, and then the Dread Pirate Mauvebeard spoke up.
What exactly he said, no one who survived the night could ever quite agree on, only that it ended with the crew of the Calamity sitting down to drink with them. Memories of the event blurred together at that point, what happened clear only in flashes of memory. Someone bought a round, someone else bought another, there was dancing, and singing, and no small amount of violence. More than one person swore they’d seen someone challenging Maito Gai to an armwrestling contest but no-one could quite remember who, several people lost at gambling with the small blonde child, even more people won at gambling with the Calamity’s surgeon. No-one would admit to knowing how the fire started but there was a general consensus that the last anyone had seen of Mauvebeard he was standing on the roof of the burning pub calling on the gods to strike him down if they dared. The ensuing lightning bolt was generally considered to be a fairly conclusive response.
The next morning had seen the crew of the Calamity being dragged away by a pair of tired looking preteens with murder in their eyes. No-one really felt up to questioning it. At least the crewmember with the unsettling stare had done them the favour of regrowing the pub before leaving. Otherwise they might all have been willing to work up a serious case of grudge over the destruction. As it was, a good time had been had by all and no-one was prepared to rock the boat, especially as no-one had managed to keep track of the bartab.