Yar's Adventures #1: "Hmm ... ninjas."

Yar_Kramer · March 21, 2007, 10:53am

This is a story idea I’ve had for … well, not that long, but unlike some of my other works I’ve started and then given up on, I think I’m slightly more likely to finish it, because (a) it’s slightly shorter, and (b) I have an actual idea of where I’m going. The setting is … sort-of inspired by Wilfredo’s “RPGCverse” setting, in that he’s free to use some of Yar’s powers and personality here as a basis for me in the RPGCSaga 2007, and the precise kind of setting is more or less optional, but it’s not strictly the same one.

Yar Kramer had just set up the tent when he sensed other people nearby.

It was a standard hero’s-quest magic tent – it set itself up instantaneously, and four people could comfortably sleep in it (probably six or seven, uncomfortably), and the minute you all lay down in it, you fell asleep and dreamed about a short tune. You then woke up the next morning, and all your wounds were healed and magical capacity restored, and the tent disintegrated after you all got out.

He stretched his psychic senses outward to see who or what they were. There were five of them, all of them moving, and their emotional states seemed to be quiet, professional aggression. They had a definite destination in mind, and they moved in absolute silence with no hint as to their passing, unless you knew the right trick.

Hmm … ninjas.

Yar Kramer was six foot two, twenty-one years old, and about as generic as heroic-types come, with spiky black hair, blue jeans, and a brilliant red jacket that was open to expose a black T-shirt. He was an Esper – his powers were all psychic, or mental, or other things of that variety. It had been a slow month at RPGC HQ, and Yar had decided to go for the adventurous equivalent of a walk. He’d brough several healing items, but no Materia – he wasn’t too worried about running into any particularly deadly monsters, since this region had several villages with ninja schools; level 3 was unusually strong for the creatures around here.

Yar stretched out further with his ESP. There was a large number of humans in the direction the ninjas were headed – enough that it was probably one of the villages. Yar assumed that they were returning home from a mission or something, so he simply noted which way they were going and climbed into the tent.

He’d been asleep just long enough to hear the tent’s jingle when he was awakened by his danger sense going off.

One of Yar’s many psychic powers was the ability to sense when he was in danger. He could tell where it was coming from, how deadly it was, and how close it was. This seemed really near and really deadly.

“Leave this place or die!” growled a voice in Japanese.

Yar blinked. His Japanese was slightly rusty, but being telepathic helped. “Uh … sure thing,” he said, sitting up. “I’ll just be heading right out of there then, see ya.”

The tent disintegrated as he stepped outside of it. He took three steps, and then dodged as a kunai whizzed past his left ear. “Ah, so it was a boolean, inclusive ‘leave <tt>OR</tt> die’,” he said, reaching for his belt to grab his candleblade.

“Hah. Something like that,” said the voice. “Or perhaps … ‘die <tt>AND NOT</tt> leave’.”

“Cute,” said Yar. He knew he was dealing with a cold-blooded murderer here. Not just a mercenary-for-hire who impassively kills for money. No, this was someone who genuinely wanted to kill him, apparently for the hell of it, and could just joke about it. In which case, it probably wasn’t your average village-ninja who’s just come back from anything wholesome, it was the bad kind who was inevitably up to no good.

All right, the most important thing to do was to keep calm. Well, of course, obviously the most important thing to do was to keep alive, but failure to do one generally led to failure to do the other. He drew his candleblade and hit the trigger; there was a shoom as a blade of absolute darkness appeared, wreathed in a bright corona, emitting a low buzz. He swung it in an erratic arc that deflected six more kunais, which all seemed to be coming from different directions.

Hmmm. Things were getting a bit hectic.

The voice gave a low chuckle, seeing the look on his face. “You shall not be allowed to live by Kuno Ichi’s warriors --”

Yar frowned. “Wait, whose warriors?”

“Yes. I did just say we’re called Kuno Ichi.”

Yar’s semi-telepathic translation was coming up with “Agony One”, but he knew for a fact that a “kunoichi” was a female ninja. “Well, I’m glad to hear someone has a sense of humor as atrocious as mine,” he said, and swung his candleblade in a wide arc to deflect three more kunais.

“You’re lighting yourself up like a beacon,” said the voice from another direction, “and you can’t see into shadow.”

“I don’t need to see to fight,” grunted Yar, stretching out with his ESP. Let’s see … just the one so far, but he was hopping around, and fast. Absolutely silent, too. Yep, this was a ninja all right.

Yar dramatically pulled out a pair of sunglasses and put them on, which – if you didn’t want to factor in things like the fact that it was night time, and other such concerns of common sense – looked really cool. However, he then subverted the point of looking cool by switching the candleblade off and put it on his belt. This meant that his opponent needed a moment to adjust to the darkness … but, a ninja probably didn’t need that long, and could probably fight blindfolded if he wanted, never mind. Oh well, at least he wasn’t making this easy anymore.

He slipped into Arrow Time. This point of view didn’t slow things down as much as Bullet Time, but he didn’t need it in this case and he could sustain Arrow Time longer. He leisurely dodged another kunai, but this time he caught it, spun around, and tossed it back.

“Well now! Thank you,” said the voice, whcih had apparently also caught it. “Very kind of you to return my kunai. But you’re not a shinobi. How did you manage that?”

Yar detected a measure of unease, and grinned. Unease, properly cultivated, could lead to terror, panic, a complete inability to deal with one’s opponent, and, hopefully, running away. Time to turn on the theatrics! “Because … I’m an Esper,” he said in a low voice, letting his grin fill it up.

“Oh? A psychic?” said the voice from almost directly above. “I wouldn’t have expected to meet one here.”

Yar then used a technique he jokingly called the Jedi Mind Trick, because it had more or less the exact same effect. You could easily make a weak-minded fool believe that he didn’t need to see your identification and that these weren’t the droids he was looking for; while you probably couldn’t get the same effect on someone with the focus and cunning of a ninja, you could give them a really spooky impression of reading their mind, without doing something as unethical as genuinely invading their thoughts. “This kid must be bluffing,” he said, giving just a gesture with one hand.

There was a moment of hesitation. “What?” said his opponent, the unease blossoming.

Yar made it a point never to read more of someone’s mind than their name, since identity was usually so fundamental to someone’s thoughts, it was almost as obvious as their face. “That’s right, Ishimaru Saburo,” he said, and started generating a dim, purplish glow around himself that didn’t illuminate him so much as accent his silhouette; it didn’t do anything else, but it looked cool. “I did just read your mind.” For good measure, he made his eyes glow as well, behind the sunglasses. This certainly didn’t help his own eyesight any – imagine if your eardrums gave out a constant hum – but they helped the effect.

“Ha … I … see,” said Ishimaru Saburo, sounding like he was trying to make up for lost bravado. It wasn’t working, especially since Yar now had a name to attach to the disembodied voice. “But!”

“Does he know about the mission? Does he know where the others are?” said Yar, giving another gesture. “Does he know what I had for breakfast this morning?”

“I … wait, what!?” Ishimaru had to know that that wasn’t something he was likely to think of himself, in context.

“That’s right,” said Yar, starting to hover. (Telekinesis didn’t just mean moving other objects.) “You don’t even know you can trust your own thoughts. How do you know I’m even here? How do you know this isn’t more than an illusion you’re looking at?”

Ishimaru suddenly felt as if he was surrounded by danger. He saw a million sets of eyes staring at him from all directions – almost none of them human. The faint light of the stars and moon seemed to slip away as well. He felt himself rapidly approaching panic, but he was damned if he was going to let this “esper” know that, and he figured that if he was beset completely by enemies, then he might as well go straight for the one that was right in front of him and making itself the most visible.

Yar’s attention was split between the various psychic powers he was using at the moment, which is why the next kunai hit him in the left side of his gut.

And that was it for all the special effects.

“That’s how I know you’re not an illusion,” said Ishimaru, with an audible triumphant smirk.

It hadn’t hit any immediately vital organs, but Yar quickly realized that this was largely academic. Well, shit, guess that’s it for this, then. No point in relying on superheroic “thou shalt not kill” policies when you truly and definitely have no other options. He pulled out the kunai still lodged in his eyaaaagh ow ow ow stomach and gave it just a little telekinetic push at several hundred miles per hour, then heard a strangled scream as it hit his enemy.

Great, I’m seriously wounded and I’ve just killed a ninja with one of his own weapons. It was probably a good idea not to be anywhere near the other ninjas. He clamped his left hand down firmly over the wound (ow) and pulled out a High Potion, quickly downing it.

Nothing happened.

Oh, great.

A quick self-examination revealed … yes, probably a status ailment of some sort that made healing-items useless. Shiiiit. Probably some kind of poison as well. Yep, he could feel his health draining. He stretched his ESP out as far as he could with the pain and the poison throbbing through him, then started running headlong in the direction of the village, moving at top speed – and with the help of Arrow Time, top speed was very fast indeed. Probably even faster than the ninjas, unless they really wanted to catch up with them, heh. The important thing, he knew, was to keep up his adrenaline levels and not go into shock – at least, until he could be sure he’d be in the hands of someone who’d want him to wake up.

The thought briefly occurred to him that if he was wrong, and Ishimaru Saburo had been one of the “good guys” of this village, his buddies might, shall we say, impede the progress of his recovery. At this point, though (keep adrenaline up, don’t go into shock), he was willing to take what he could get, and if they wanted him alive for interrogation, well, he could probably escape from that.

Yar felt dizzy as he drew nearer, most likely because of blood loss. Might as well just take a rest … No! Keep adrenaline up! Don’t go into shock! He felt himself tiring out quickly, though. Probably because he hadn’t gotten much sleep and was, aheh, seriously wounded, whee! He barely registered the sounds of shouting from somewhere above him. Gotta keep adrenaline up … don’t go into shock …

He was slowing down. Probably too late, oh well. He decided to let himself just collapse, probably leaving some kind of awesome trail of blood as his momentum dragged him another half-dozen feet or so (he really wasn’t thinking clearly now at all), and was surprised when several pairs of arms caught him.

He decided he didn’t need to keep his adrenaline up anymore, but he wasn’t entirely certain. “Can I go into shock now?” he slurred, in broken Japanese. A sudden thought struck him. “Or … is it too late?”

His body passed out at that point, either from loss of blood, or because it wanted to spare him the embarassment of hearing their reactions.

GG_Crono · March 25, 2007, 10:22am

In short: Very amusing.

In long: Your prose is very good, and your senses of creativity and humor shine through. It’s a bit random, but in a good way. Your descriptions of the “powers” worked quite well in the setting, and the diologue is very well-written. And I also feel I must add that the phrase “Arrow Time” makes me giggle. Just a bit.

All in all, a nice piece. I do hope you keep writing, be it a continuation of this or just…anything. You’re good at it.

Yar_Kramer · March 26, 2007, 9:41am

Thanks, I’m about 2/3 done with the second chapter. It will introduce a few more characters – one of whom should be fairly familiar to some; the rest won’t be, really.

Yar_Kramer · March 28, 2007, 11:36am

Yar woke up badly.

It felt something like a hangover. As far as he knew, anyway; he’d never gotten drunk, and tended to avoid alcohol. But it felt like he’d imagined a hangover would feel. In fact, it occured to him, it felt exactly like he’d had a serious wound in the stomach region, accompanied by status ailments to the tune of Poison and some kind of Curse, then tried to take a subsequently-ineffective High Potion, and lost a lot of blood whilst running several miles.

He stayed perfectly still, though; hopefully any casual observers would still think he was asleep. He felt a draft where his shirt had been torn by the knife, but no pain. No gain, either. He cast his senses outwards, first directly “up” and then sweeping around in a clockwise motion. Before his senses had reached the direction of his feet, he could tell that he was in some sort of hospital, with both doctors and patients.

Most them were ninjas. A lot of the ones who weren’t seemed to be ninjas-in-training.

His thoughts were stopped in their tracks by the discovery of someone three feet directly to his left. Um, hmm. Female, sixty-seven or thereabouts, name: Nakamura Azumi. Also a ninja. And presumably one of the doctors here, because he couldn’t sense anyone else with an interest that seemed to be in him.

And he sensed that she was peering at him with an emotional state of cautious expectation, or even impatience. Yar wasn’t the world’s greatest Esper, but he didn’t need to dig deeply to know she was thinking, “Well? Aren’t you going to act awake?”

Oh well. No point in pretending he was asleep to someone who was a ninja and a doctor. He stretched and yawned theatrically, opened his eyes, rolled over and sat up, and found himself face-to-face with, first of all, her chest.

Yar’s libido wasn’t his top priority. Admittedly, his lifestyle usually led him to greater concern for his own survival than that of his bloodline, but he definitely wasn’t a skirt-chaser. Nevertheless, when certain circumstances were thrust upon him, he allowed himself, as a twenty-one-year-old male human, to indulge himself in thoughts like, “Hot damn, that’s a rack.”

He didn’t allow himself more than a half-second of this indulgence, though, because he wanted to continue to recover from his stab-wound. He gave a half-smirk, looked her in the eye, and said the Japanese equivalent of, “G’mornin’, Doc. So, did I survive, or am I dead?”

Strangely enough, she looked only a decade or so older than Yar himself. She had raven-black hair tied in a ponytail, and she was dressed in a black kimono. She matched him, smirk for smirk, and said, “No, you died of your wounds and the poison at around four AM, and we’ll never know who you were or the identity of your attacker.” The grin vanished, and she leaned forward. “That’s really not a nice thing to say to a doctor, you know.”

Yar winced. He felt the pain of some memory or other rise to the surface as she said that. “Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t thinking.”

She shrugged, and sat back. “That’s quite all right. My name is Nakamura Azumi, and I’m the Master Doctor of Sakurakagemura,” she said.

Cherry-Tree’s Shadow Village, thought Yar. Or at least, “sakura” was a type of cherry tree.

“But yes, I did heal you,” Azumi continued. “Potions help, Mr. Kramer, as do the spells they use in tents and inns, but the main reason you’re alive right now is because I’m the best doctor in the nation.”

She said this without a trace of pride or boast, and Yar sensed that she wasn’t lying, either. “Thank you,” he said, bowing as best he could while in bed. “Uh, how did you know my name?”

“You’re welcome,” she purred. “And it was on your driver’s license in your wallet. I’m also the Shadow Governess of the ninja organizations in this nation, by the way. I don’t mind telling you that because we did a little bit of investigation into the forest, and found a ninja who’d apparently been killed with one of his own kunais.” She arched an eyebrow significantly.

Yar’s mind raced. Oh well, might as well be honest. “That would be Ishimaru Saburo,” he said. “He was a member of Kuno Ichi.”

Azumi sighed and slumped slightly. “Them,” she said. “And why was he attacking you?”

“Because I set up my tent in the wrong place at the wrong time,” said Yar, looking around. He was in a simple, largely unfurnished room with bare wood for its walls, floor, and ceiling. His red jacket was on a chair next to the bed, and his shoes were on the floor next to it. There was a closed window directly over his left shoulder. “I happened to do so about ten meters away from five of them. So pretty much, luck,” he concluded.

“Yes, that kind of erratic aggression sounds like them,” murmured Azumi, folding her hands behind her head and leaning back slightly. This also had the effect of … making her chest more prominent. “And how did you defeat him?”

“Luck, again,” said Yar.

She folded her arms, tilted her head slightly, and … well, not exactly glared at him. It was a relatively simple, disapproving frown. It was the kind of look, if he’d been married and in his mid-thirties, that his wife would have given him if he’d been drinking and was now trying to make excuses, and she was prepared to let him talk himself into much deeper trouble than he’d already talked himself into.

Yar shrank back slightly. He knew when to give in, and that was now. “Well … because I’m an esper,” he said. He lifted up the bedsheets and then let go; gravity momentarily took a holiday. “I was still lucky, but he also didn’t know what I could do.”

“And how did you get the kunai to go that fast?” Azumi purred, leaning forward with the evident intentions of flashing her cleavage.

Yar smirked, looking pointedly at the ceiling. “It’s a trick I call …” He searched for the right Japanese phraseology. “… er … railgunning. You just move an object a couple feet really fast, let go without stopping it, and let the laws of physics take their course.” He shrugged.

“Interesting … trick,” said Azumi, sitting back with enough force to cause some jiggling.

Yar snorted. “Would you please can the fanservice?” he said, affecting an air of greatly strained patience.

“You don’t think I’m sexy?” said Azumi, with mock indignation.

Yar looked her directly in the eye. “Begging your pardon, milady, but ‘trying to decide whether or not I should be killed’ isn’t anywhere in my top ten list of sexy attributes.”

She laughed. It wasn’t entirely a laugh of humor. “All right, what would you prefer? Friend, or foe?”

Yar made a show of considering this. “Well, let’s see, this is a whole village full of ninjas, and unlike the late Saburo-kun, they’ll presumably know what to expect from me, and they can each kill me 69,105 ways before I hit the ground. And that’s just the ones that don’t have medical training who can keep me alive longer. So, I think I’ll probably go with ‘friend’.”

“We’ll see,” said Azumi, sitting up straighter. “So you used this ‘railgunning’ technique to kill your attacker.”

And that was it, really. Sooner or later, he’d have had to seriously face the fact that he’d just killed someone anyway, but here it was. True, it had been in self defense, and there really aren’t any other options when you’ve already been stabbed and hadn’t already arranged some other means of stunning or escaping your opponent at that point, but that didn’t mean you had to like it. “Yeah,” he muttered, thinking, Great, I’m gonna find myself caught between “Better him than me!” and “But he died and I’m the one who did it!” any second now …

Azumi watched his face. “You aren’t a killer,” she said. “I can see it in your eyes. Whatever you did, it wasn’t by your choosing.”

“Yeah, uh.” Yar sagged back in the bed. “Thanks.”

Azumi watched him. “Where were the others going?”

“Towards the village,” said Yar.

Azumi nodded. “Well … as the Master Doctor of the village, I hereby judge you fit to leave the hospital,” she said, sounding sympathetic. “Don’t go too far, though. I’ll have to speak to the Council, and they might want to hear from you as well.”

Yar’s first stop was to the village marketplace. Fortunately, plain black T-shirts were easy come, easy go; replacing his sunglasses, which had fallen off and broken while he was running, wasn’t that expensive either. The especially good news was that they accepted Gil as currency.

Azumi, sensing that he wanted to be alone, had given him directions to a clearing about a mile away from the village; it was, she assured him, a road less-travelled, so he was unlikely to meet anyone.

He sat down on a fallen log and sighed, leaning back and folding his hands behind his head, trying not to think too hard. Of course, he’d have to think hard about it eventually, and he knew he’d be able to get over it in less than a day, but …

“Is this seat taken?” said a voice in English.

He blinked, looking up, surprised that he hadn’t sensed anyone coming. There was … someone who looked a young woman standing there, slightly older than him, with bone white skin, dressed in black street clothes and wearing a silvery ankh around her neck. There was a curlicue of black makeup under her right eye that made it look sort of like the Eye of Horus.

He was right: she was someone who only looked like a young woman.

“Not really,” said Yar. “Um. How can I see you?”

She sat down next to him. “Your powers only recently became developed enough,” she said. “I mean … anyone can see me if they want, or if I want them to, but most of the time they don’t.” She shrugged. “You’re an Esper, though – a special case. That means you’ll probably see me even when you don’t want to.”

Yar nodded slowly. “And why didn’t I see you last night?” he said carefully.

“Well … you were kind of distracted,” she said. “Saburo was pretty angry, though. He swore to haunt your family for seventy-seven generations, right up until we reached his afterlife. Then he left to take up permanent residence with the rest of his ancestors.”

Yar chortled. “Yeah, I was gonna say …” He did a quick burst of mental multiplication. “… hell, that’d be almost two thousand years. Even longer than either of our cultures have actually existed.”

She giggled. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” she said.

She smiled. It was a beautiful smile.

Yar found himself smiling back. “Hey, y’know, I can’t help thinking we’ve actually met before, but I can’t remember when,” he said.

“Oh, not many people remember the first time meet me,” she said. “But it was twenty-one years ago, on October ninth.”

Yar blinked. “You mean, the day I was born?”

“Yep!” she said, standing up. “Anyway, I’d better go now. I have people to see, and all that.”

Yar couldn’t help himself. “Yeah, I bet you have,” he said. “Oh, uh, but, Death?”

She paused. “Yes?”

“Thanks for coming to talk with me,” said Yar. “I really appreciate that.”

Death smiled. “Not a problem,” she said. “I could tell that … well, you’d probably need someone to talk to, and we’d have to meet face to face sooner or later.”

Then she was gone.

Yar leaned back again, but this time with a smirk. He’d have to think about this, and what it might mean every single time he was near someone when they died, especially if someone else gave him a funny look or said “Who are you talking to?” or something like that (hmm, should be an easy enough problem to deal with).

Then he grinned and said, “Ah, what the hell,” and got up and headed back towards the village.

There was legend which stated that, every two hundred and fifteen years, a child would be born with the spirit of a fox-demon instead of a human soul – or alongside it, depending on who was telling the tale. The presence of this fox-demon could manifest itself in a number of ways: many tales told of warriors with great power, or cunning, or simply a great propensity for being a mischevious trickster. It was impossible to determine at birth whether you had a child or a kitsune; in fact, the main common factor between all of the tales was that (a) those who possessed a fox-spirit had been born roughly two hundred fifteen years after the last one, and (b) they said they had the fox within them.

In these enlightened times, of course, nobody believed a word of it. The last so-called kitsune had been born two hundred thirty-one years ago, and in retrospect, he had clearly been just a power-hungry general, using it as an excuse. The ones further back than that couldn’t properly be historically verified.

This attitude failed to take into account two things: first, the fact that history is written according to the current fashions, whether for romance or for realism, and second, the presence of a sixteen-year-old named Yoshikuni Ishio. Admittedly, he had been showing signs of being more powerful than others even when he was twelve, and he was commonly seen as a troublemaker, and he was good at figuring things out, but statistically, there’s bound to be someone who’s higher than average in more than one area sooner or later.

Rigmarole · March 28, 2007, 5:40pm

Judging by the first two parts:

The story/character is developed in your mind but hidden to the reader. I feel I don’t have a clear grasp on the setting which makes the events come off as random (for instance even the sentence “Gil was accepted currency” shows many things going on that a reader has no idea about). You go for witty writing, a fine choice by itself, but until you ground it on a more robust plot or characters, it gives off the “white map” effect. That may change in the next parts, true. Till now I view it as a series of episodes which sometimes causes my interest to lapse.

I got a couple of grins btw. Don’t leave it in the middle.

One sentence before your last ***** break you have this line “(hmm, should be an easy enough”. Incomplete or superfluous “an”

GG_Crono · March 28, 2007, 8:55pm

I’m feeling a tad scatterbrained at the moment, so you get the condensed version of my thoughts tonight.

Pretty good stuff, keep up the good work, and if that was a Dr. McNinja referance I saw in there, kudos.

Yar_Kramer · March 29, 2007, 1:18am

Sorry, I suppose I should clarify things up a bit …

It sort-of takes place in an RPG-ish world, primarily based on Final Fantasy (hence the reference to potions, tents, etc). Gil is the currency-of-choice in all Final Fantasy games; more subtly, that particular line pokes fun at the fact that for some reason (i.e. in the setting, not just “because Final Fantasy fans don’t like dealing in exchange rates”), the same currency is accepted in the entire world in each game, national and cultural (and sometimes species) boundaries be damned.

As for the setting … mmm … based vaguely on the universe of Wilfredo Martinez’s RPGCSaga universe. RPGC in his story is (as I see it) a sort of union for RPG-style characters, that gets them organized enough that they can defeat someone before they summon Meteor, or steal even one of the Four Crystals, or set off whatever countdown they want to set off so that the four ragtag heroes must hurry up and spend up several hours leveling up and completing the last sidequests and get the final sets of equipment and abilities and whatnot before the time runs out. You can use Yar’s profile in the RPGC Saga 2007 signup thread as a basis for him; he’s not really a member of this RPGC so much as a hanger-on. He’ll probably have a snide one-liner about the distinction if someone asks him in one of the stories.

The world it takes place in is somewhat intentionally vague; RPGC just exists Someplace. People can go Someplace Else from there, and return. Sometimes, there seems to be an entire world in the particular Someplace Else we’re visiting this week/month/year/whenever. Sakurakage’s setting in particular is largely a parody of Naruto, with my own bits (Azumi is based on Tsunade, Ishio will turn out to be based on Naruto, Kuno Ichi shares some things in common with Akatsuki, etc), though if I ever write something stand-alone in this setting, defined as “not just a place for Yar to visit and have an adventure”, I’ll make sure familiarity with Naruto isn’t required.

Death, on the other hand, is taken directly from The Sandman. I suppose she isn’t an essential component of this particular story, but I felt it was necessary to speed up Yar’s emotional recovery from having just killed someone. I mean … I could have spent the remainder of the chapter with him moping about it and tying himself in moral-vs-practical knots, then finally saying “hell with it” and wandering back to the village in an only marginally better mood. I could also have skipped all that, cut the end of chapter 2 short, and then opened chapter 3 with “Yar spent several hours moping about it, then returned to the village,” which speaks for itself, really. A chat with Death seemed to be the most logical alternative – which is an example of the really weird places my mind has a propensity for going.

I admit that the characters (and the rest of the setting) are somewhat ill-defined, but I suppose one of my priorities is to keep each chapter relatively short, if only so I can keep my own interest up and don’t end up burning myself out halfway through. I should probably get myself a beta-reader, though, either way … >.>

GG_Crono · March 29, 2007, 6:40pm

Gaiman’s Death is very cool, no matter how you slice it. A friend of mine has a yet-to-be-written fanfic idea that basicaly involves herh and Discworld’s Death having a spot of tea together. Which would be totally awesome to see.

Yar_Kramer · April 27, 2007, 12:26pm

Heh, cool. (By the way, what had you thought was a Dr. McNinja reference?) Anyway … I fixed the typo/unfinished sentence in the previous chapter, and also added a reference to how Azumi knows Yar’s name (I’d meant to put it there last time …) Anyway, here’s the next chapter. Originally, I was going to have it end with a Burly Brawl between Yar and Ishio, but (a) it was fairly contrived at first, and (b) it was neither necessary for nor supported by the story. So, here’s a relatively proper version.

“Well, that was a surprise,” said Azumi, looking up from her crystal ball.

Standing next to her was Saito Denjiro, her Trusted Advisor, a smartly-dressed ninja who seemed to have a constant smile. “Kisei-sama herself,” he said. “I suppose this would add weight to the idea that he means no harm.”

“Yes,” said Azumi, sitting back. “She cares about everyone. She would have probably made comment if he was planning anything.”

“This does not mean we should stop watching, however,” said Denjiro. “While Death-sama is the best-understood of the Endless, their ways are far too mysterious.”

“Right,” said Azumi, peering back into the crystal ball. “Now that he’s paying attention, let’s see how long it takes for him to figure out we’re watching him …”

One thing which surprised Yar at first was the fact that he’d been allowed to keep his candleblade. He eventually reflected that it was a sign of trust, plus it wouldn’t do him very much good against a ninja anyway. Well … okay, maybe he could take on one ninja like Saburo, but not an entire village’s worth.

As he walked through Sakurakagemura – he decided to think of it as “Sakurakage village”, just for his own English-speaking-and-thinking peace of mind – he noticed several ninjas. Some of them looked just like ordinary people, except that they were slightly better-dressed. Others, naturally, he couldn’t see at all. Neither of these drew any kind of attention. But the ones who walked openly in public drew interesting creations from … call them civillians. Their thoughts immediately sprang to “Oh, a ninja!” (or at least “Aa! Ninja desu!”) They simply didn’t think about their identities beyond that, even when a ninja’s face was uncovered. Even – and this was the really interesting bit – when one of the ninjas with an uncovered face recognized his own brother. It was like a blind spot built into their culture.

Yar couldn’t detect any guns, either. All of the ninjas were armed, yes, but it wasn’t with firearms. They probably didn’t need them, though. In the village of Sakurakage, a shuriken beat a pistol at quick-draw. In fact, Yar wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had told him that a shuriken could move faster than a bullet – not that he would have believed the claim, of course, but he would have believed the reputation. In Sakurakagemura, guns didn’t kill people, ninjas killed people.

It wasn’t long before he realized he was being watched. He paused, and looked around. No one seemed to be looking at him, though. He cast his senses out. No ninjas were looking, either. Then he caught it. “Oh, I get it,” he murmured aloud. “Some kinda low-grade scrying technique.” He made a few funny faces just to annoy/entertain whoever was watching.

(“Five minutes,” said Azumi, who was more or less looking Yar directly in the eye.

“Damn,” said Denjiro cheerfully. “I guess he’s better than I thought.”)

His stomach growled, and he realized he hadn’t eaten anything. He looked around, and headed to the nearest cheap restaurant – which appeared to be Koji’s House Of Ramen.

A trio of sixteen-year-old ninjas sat alone at a table, their backpacks at their feet. They were old enough to wear the black garments, but didn’t take enough pride in them yet to wear them constantly. Of course, in the case of this particular group, pride was fairly unevenly distributed to begin with.

“Ishio, your problem is still that you don’t look like you take things seriously enough,” said Kurohashi Sayomi, a young woman with a hairstyle that looked like she didn’t take looks seriously at all.

“Aww, c’mon, Sayomi-kun,” said Yoshikuni Ishio, a young man with straight shoulder-length hair. “You take things too seriously!”

Sayomi glared at him. She’d long ago gotten used to the “-kun”, which was technically a masculine suffix, but …

“Calm down, you two,” said Hamano Miharu, in a semi-resigned tone of voice which indicated that she knew that trying to stop them altogether was useless, but damned if she was going to let them come to blows. “Ishio-kun, you go a little bit too much for style and not enough for substance, and sometimes you come dangerously close to breaking the rules.”

Ishio folded his hands behind his head and leaned back. “Yeah, yeah, yeah …”

Miharu turned to Sayomi. “But you still have to admit, Sayomi-chan, that his results are pretty impressive. And he’s saved both of us a bunch of times because of how …” She gestured. “… rambunctious he is.”

Sayomi slowly nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “That really is true.”

There was a pause. Then Ishio glanced towards the door. “Hey. Looks like we’ve got the visitor.”

They turned. The red jacket was the first thing that caught their attention.

“Yeah, what was up with him?” asked Ishio. “Miharu? You’re Nakamura-sama’s apprentice, what happened and stuff?”

“Nakamura-sama handled everything,” said Miharu. “She said it was just a flesh wound, plus a curse and a poison she wanted to deal with on her own.”

“He took a wound from a member of Kuno Ichi,” murmured Sayomi. “And he’s still alive, but the one who gave him the wound is not.”

Ishio nodded, stroking his chin as if he wished he had a beard, watching as the newcomer ordered a bowl of ramen and sat down at a nearby table. “Hmm … you thinking what I’m thinking?” he said.

Miharu frowned. “Ishio …”

Sayomi rolled her eyes. “Well, if he’s spoken with Nakamura-sama, he probably knows better than to retaliate. Let’s say for the sake of argument that, at the moment, I’m interested in some ‘fun’.” She glanced at Miharu and winked, making sure Ishio didn’t see it.

“Righto!” Ishio reached into his backpack and took out an apple, then threw it.

Yar turned and caught it. He smirked, bowed to the surprised looking youth, and placed it down next to his ramen. He wished he was skilled enough that he could have simply raised his hand and caught it without even turning, but he had to work with what he had right now.

He sensed surprise from all three of them, and then the boy who’d thrown the apple stood up and approached. Yar focused; name: Yoshikuni Ishio. Age: sixteen. Then he flinched just a bit, sensing a rush of ninja-magic, but there didn’t seem to be any actual attack there, so he waited for Ishio to approach, then frowned as he realized that the shorter girl had suddenly become embarassed and the taller one had a mixture of amusement and annoyance.

He totally unprepared for the fact that Ishio’s appearance had changed to what looked like a buxom schoolgirl wearing a seifuku that was two sizes too small for her. “Haaaai!” she said cheerfully.

(“Someday we’ve got to stop him from doing that,” said Denjiro, while Azumi tried to smother her giggles with her fist.)

Yar looked her up and down. “What the hell is it with you ninjas and fanservice?” said Yar.

In a puff of smoke, the “schoolgirl” transformed back into the young man. “Aww, c’mon!” he said. “Don’t tell me if you had the power to transform into a girl, you wouldn’t abuse the hell out of it!”

Yar considered this, then said, “Can’t say I’d feel compelled.”

The boy laughed. “Name’s Yoshikuni Ishio,” he said. “Nice ta meetcha.” He held out his hand.

Yar stared at it hard, then carefully reached out to shake Ishio’s hand.

“None too trusting, are you?” said Ishio, with a playful sort of pointedness.

Yar arched an eyebrow. “Not really. You?”

“Nope!” Ishio said cheerfully. “At least … not towards unfamiliar faces.”

“Even faces that say ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’?” said Yar.

“Especially faces that say that, yeah,” said Ishio. “Cuz, I mean, I dunno why they’re your enemy.”

“Fair enough,” said Yar. “Though in this case it’s ‘happened to be nearby.’”

“Makes sense t’me,” said Ishio. “Hey, careful, y’know, ya don’t want to reveal too much to me!”

“Really?” said Yar. “You don’t want to lull me into a false sense of security so that I’ll potentially tell you something that I’d rather keep secret from anyone you’re likely to speak with afterwards?”

Ishio had the guilty look of someone who genuinely hadn’t thought about that. “Er …”

“Heh.” Yar took a mouthful of ramen, then swalloed. “So, what, you’re a ninja-trainee now?”

“Technically, we’re all full-fledged.” Both of the girls had walked over, and the taller one had spoken.

“But we’ve still got a lot to learn!” added the shorter girl. “My name’s Hamano Miharu, by the way, and this is Kurohashi Sayomi.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Yar, taking a bow. “So, given what ninjas are primarily known for … how many people have you killed?”

Yar took a moment to gauge precisely how uncomfortable the ensuing silence was for each of them.

(“Hmm,” said Denjiro.

“I think he’s testing them,” said Azumi slowly.)

Miharu said, “Nine, but I’m a medic, so I’m below-average in general.”

“Okay,” said Yar. Let’s see … she’s not comfortable with this at all.

Sayomi said. “Seventeen, plus one alien.”

“Uh, right,” said Yar. Very little discomfort here. Mental note: verify the alien with other sources …

Ishio said, “Three and a half.”

“Three and a half,” said Yar. “What.”

“Uh, he committed suicide,” said Ishio. “And we still got paid.”

Yar nodded. “Seppuku?”

“No, he decapitated the guy who’d hired him and then attacked three hundred other mercenaries and then set off a bomb when he’d gotten into the middle of the group and took most of them with him,” said Ishio.

“So not exactly something you’d write a death poem for in advance?” Yar said flatly.

Ishio shrugged. “He didn’t seem to be the poetic type.”

Yar nodded, and chalked that up to extreme discomfort, which he was trying to deal with by joking. Not joking about killing, per se – but to try to distract himself from what he’d done, and it wasn’t working that well. “You’re just the greatest comedian ever, huh?” he said.

“Comedian?” said Ishio, seeming to perk up. “Okay! What do a master chef and an investment banker have in common?”

“If you use the word ‘shokuzai’,” said Yar (in Japanese, the words for “ingredients” and “moneylending” are pronounced like this), “I’m going to punch you in the face repeatedly.”

Ishio’s ear to ear grin turned nasty. “Ha! I’m a ninja, gaijin!” he said, oozing bravado from every pore. “Just try and touch my forehead!”

Yar nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. Now this would require actual Bullet Time. Bending his personal timeframe to the point at which a hummingbird’s wings would seem inert, he stood up, walked around behind Ishio, reached around, and lightly placed his hand on the young man’s forehead.

“Waugh!” All three of them were startled.

Yar sat back down again. “So, howabout some ramen.”

“You’re not a ninja,” said Sayomi. It wasn’t a question.

“I’m an esper,” said Yar.

“Wait, you mean like, psychic powers and reading the future and stuff?” said Ishio.

“Yep,” said Yar. “Toss a coin.”

Miharu got out a coin and tossed it. “Edge,” said Yar without looking, then telekinetically ensured that, when it landed, it rolled into a crack in the table’s hardwood, where it stuck on its edge, sticking out.

“That was cool!” said Ishio, getting out a coin of his own. “Here, do mine!”

Yar said, “I predict that it will orbit around your head five times, then smack you in the nose.”

“Ow!”

Sayomi’s cool demeanor finally cracked, and she broke into a grin, chuckling and shaking her head.

Ishio caught his coin, then pointed at her. “Ha!”

A man in black more or less appeared next to them. “The Council will see you know,” he said to Yar.

“Really? I didn’t know this was a waiting room,” said Yar. “Is there time to finish my ramen?”

The man said, “The Council will see you now.”

“Guess that’s a no then,” said Yar. He pocketed the apple, then turned to the others. “Well, I guess I’ll see you later, then. Saiyonara!”

“Ah,” said Denjiro. “Does that mean it’s time for us to say goodbye as well?”

“No, my clone’s there already,” said Azumi. “It would be hard to switch without causing comment, especially from him. Besides, technically I’m safer here.” She looked up at him. “Don’t worry, it shouldn’t take longer than fifteen minutes if he doesn’t know anything, and I can sustain this for another twelve hours.”

Denjiro chuckled, then nodded. “All right,” he said. “Then we prepare for Kuno Ichi’s move.”

Azumi nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Oh, and after Miss Kurohashi’s comment, our guest will probably want to hear more about the Ningen Ryoushi …”

GG_Crono · April 27, 2007, 3:37pm

Most amusing. Your writing remains good, and I admit I giggled in a most un-manly fashion at the bit with the coin. Also, ramen is good.

Keep it up, 'n stuff.

Rigmarole · April 27, 2007, 4:57pm

The part between the fourth and fifth * * * * * read just like anime.

Yar_Kramer · April 28, 2007, 10:36am

Heh, thanks. Hopefully it won’t take a month for me to come up with the next chapter this time …

Yar_Kramer · August 1, 2007, 2:06am

Whoops, spoke too soon. (More than three months too soon, in fact.) That said …

Whoa. This one turned out to be way more emotional than I expected. I had to reread chapter 3 just so I could get my sense of humor back.

(Those of you who are Naruto fans will notice a really freaking obvious parody. I mean … assuming every single prominent character wasn’t fairly obvious as it is. Oh, and you’ll have to wait until the next chapter to find out about the Ningen Ryoushi.)

There was a time and place for everything. In this case, “everything” included “putting on a show of complete and utter fearlessness and courage,” and the time and place for that was “not when a Council, which capitalizes its name, and which is headed by a ninja, is grilling you in their meeting hall about a situation which they believe might threaten them.” Admittedly, Yar had found that “courage” often meant “being the only one who knows you’re scared shitless,” but he wasn’t that scared, so he didn’t bother to conceal it.

Apart from Azumi, only two of the members of the Council were ninjas, a man and a woman. Yar therefore felt predisposed towards the assumption that these two were subtle and cunning and sensible, and merely giving the rest the benefit of the doubt. They were in a small room, Yar standing at one end of a table, Azumi sitting at the other end, and with three other Council members – four men, two women – on each side. They all looked more or less alike, to Yar’s untrained eye.

“Tell us precisely how you discovered his name,” said Kokan Ichizo, a slightly fat, balding man who wasn’t one of the ninjas – damn, am I thinking in those terms already?

“By reading his identity,” said Yar aloud. “It’s the most fundamental and superficial part of the mind. It’s as easy as reading their face.”

They all looked at him impassively. “Tell us some more about that … trick you used to make him think you were reading his mind,” said Hirata Masami, the kunoichi, a trim woman in black robes with a gaze so sharp Yar was almost more worried about her eyes than any weapons she had.

Yar smirked. “It’s … just another one of my techniques,” he said. “It uses the power of suggestion to … well, the intention is that the target’s thoughts follow my words as if they were his own. How successful it is depends on the target’s intelligence and strength of will. For instance, a complete weak-minded fool would be utterly taken in, but if tried to use it on, say, Mistress Nakamura here, I’d probably get into more trouble than I would have avoided in the first place.”

There was a pause. A few glances went to the male ninja, Akemayu Hisoka. He was a tall, muscular man who wore dark glasses, and dressed in black. Yar filed away the glances for future reference.

“Can you describe the fight in as much detail as you can?” said Nagata Seison, a surprisingly young man with a ponytail. “Don’t bother with the witty banter, please.” At least, Yar assumed he was surprisingly young. Yar had decided not to try to read their minds on the grounds that this wasn’t a very politic thing to do, but Azumi was another example of “seventy, looks half that.”

Yar took a deep breath. “Well, okay. First …”

It took a bit, and he forced himself to remember every single detail. Every single excruciating detail. Which he then spoke aloud. It took two minutes.

“And then … heh.” He grinned, shrugging in a self-depricating manner. “I was distracted with the number of illusions I was trying to create, so Mr. Saburo’s next kunai hit me in the gut, slightly to the left, inflicting a poison and a curse on me. I pulled out the kunai and threw it, using my railgunning trick to send it back, where it hit him.” He frowned. He still didn’t like having killed him.

He sensed that this slightly impressed everyone except the three ninjas in the room. Well … okay, Masami was grudgingly impressed, Azumi had already heard this and dealt with it on her own, and Akemayu Hisoka …

… was completely focused. As far as Yar could tell, he wasn’t feeling anything.

Now’s not the time. “And so then I stumbled back here with my nearly mortal wound, which Nakamura-sama ensured wasn’t quite so mortal after all.”

“No,” said Azumi. “It was a mortal wound, and I healed it.”

“Heh. I see,” said Yar slowly. “You’re that good at it?”

She smiked, and then said in heavily accented English, “Ai wrote da book ahn it.” Yar rolled his eyes.

The only man who hadn’t spoken yet – Takemura Hisayuki, probably late thirties, brownish hair – blinked. “What?” he said in confusion.

Nagata Seison said, “I believe Nakamura-sama was speaking in English. She used an idiomatic expression which indicates a complete mastery of the subject.”

“Oh. Right.” Takemura Hisayuki nodded in agreement.

All eyes turned to the other woman, Mizuno Ikuyo, who seemed about sixty. “I detected no outright contradiction of fact,” she said. “And no inconsistency that cannot be accounted for with stress of battle.”

“All right so far,” said Azumi, then looked straight at Yar. “Though I suppose nothing’s ever certain.”

Yar shrugged. “Well … I guess not. I 'unno, are there any secret ninja techniques you can use to prove I’m, y’know, not a bad guy?”

“If there was, we’d have to kill you anyway,” said Masami, leaning back in her seat.

There were guarded chuckles all around, except from the stoic man. “I’ll pass on that, thanks,” said Yar.

A smartly-dressed ninja walked in, carrying a manilla folder. “My apologies to the Council for interrupting,” said Denjiro with a frown, walking straight towards Azumi, “but I have something fairly urgent that you should all see.”

Azumi took the folder; inside it were eight photographs. They showed each of the councillors including Azumi, plus a rather shaky one of Yar buying the black T-shirt.

On the back of each one was the Japanese characters for “TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT. KUNO ICHI.”

They all looked at the photos. “They’ve gotten really bold, that’s in ten hours,” said Azami impassively, as the non-ninja Council members became alarmed. “Well, at least that’s another potential point in Mr. Kramer’s favor.”

“What’s up?” asked Yar.

Azumi looked up at him. “They’re going to try to kill us,” she said simply. “Mr. Saito, tonight the Council’s going to be sleeping in different buildings, with a guard of no less than four ninjas. Mr. Akemayu and Miss Hirata will be in their own group of four. As for you, Yar …” She turned to Akemayu Hisoka.

He stepped forward, and turned to face Yar directly. “How far are you willing to go to prove that you aren’t a threat?” he said. He had a deep, sonorous voice.

“However far you want,” said Yar, meeting his gaze unflinchingly.

“Even reading your mind?” said Hisoka, arching an eyebrow.

“Especially reading my mind,” said Yar.

Akemayu Hisoka took off his sunglases.

He had perfectly ordinary brown eyes, but his eyebrows seemed to open up, revealing glowing red circles with strange black pinwheel-like patterns on them.

Even though he was standing still, Yar started to feel a strange sensation of falling forward, as if the strange red circles were expanding to the size of planets, and he was caught in their gravity well. He couldn’t close his eyes, or even look away.

He tried to put this into perspective; on some level, he knew this was just some sort of illusion, or special effect, while the real work consisted of … well, some variant on Yar’s self-proclaimed Jedi Mind Trick, or hypnosis, or general mind-reading, or …

Yar suddenly found himself in Hisoka’s mind.

Interesting.

Yar didn’t have any control over what he saw. Not that Yar ever really put that much effort into reading peoples’ minds anyway, but a blur of half-formed images flew by, memories and incomprehensible, half-formed thoughts, constantly-suppressed feelings …

Hisoka was in a small room, with Saito Denjiro sitting behind a desk in front of him. “Are you sure the two-way nature of the Art of the Red Eyebrow won’t become a liability?”

Oh. ‘Akemayu’ = ‘Red Eyebrows’, thought Yar. Duh.

“I can control my thoughts,” said Hisoka. “And what memories my target will see.”

Really? thought Yar. Thanks for showing me this one, then.

The memory vanished, and the words Do not thank me yet surfaced in front of him.

Oh, FINE.

A memory from long ago. A man who might have been an older version of Hisoka, who was ten years old in this memory.

“See?” said the man, grinning broadly, and wrapping his arms around the ten-year-old Hisoka. “Your papa told you he’d come back, didn’t he?”

The young Hisoka giggled. “Of course I did, papa!” he said cheerfully, giving his dad a squeeze, not that he was strong enough to do so very hard. He knew that nothing could kill his dad, he was the greatest ninja ever – well, besides Lady Nakamura, of course, or Saito Kenta …

The memory faded, much as the first one had. Then Yar found himself looking, through Hisoka’s eyes, at a funeral, two years later. Family surrounding it, in various degrees of tears. On his left was his older brother Hideo, and on the left, his sister Akira. Presiding over it was Azumi, who looked identical in every way to how she looked “now,” but Yar’s attention was caught by the presence of Death, watching the proceedings from off to oen side, and looking quite human.

Lying in what would soon become a funeral pyre was Hisoka’s father.

“And so passes the memory of Akemayu Daimaru,” said Azumi impassively …

This memory ended more abruptly than others. In fact, it seemed to have been wrenched away. Yar sensed a touch of franticness as Hisoka presumably searched furiously for a different memory to show him.

It was scant hours after the funeral. Hisoka ran through the woods, the unearthly beauty of that woman who called herself Kii (but whom Yar called Death) etched in his mind. “Kii-san?” he called out nervously, his voice tinged with barely-suppressed worry.

The memory shifted to another one, much more recent. Another ninja lay dead nearby, a dagger in his chest. But he wasn’t the center of attention at the moment.

“Lady Death,” said Hisoka impassively. His eyebrows blazed with the Sharin-Mayu; he knew perfectly well he couldn’t have seen her otherwise.

“Yes, me,” said Death, frowning disapprovingly. Once more, she appeared not as a human, but as … well, one of the Endless.

“Why did you appear at my father’s funeral?” said Hisoka, immensely casual. On the inside, he wrestled for control.

Death sighed. “I … spend one day every century as a human, so I can get a better feel for what life is like,” she said, staring at the dead man.

Ah. “Kii” sounds like the first part of ‘kisei’, the Japanese word for Death, thought Yar.

She turned back to face him, looking fairly … well, not angry, so much as hurt, and disappointed. “And it gives me … a much higher appreciation for the value of human life.”

“If I had not killed him, he would have killed me,” said Hisoka, his voice increasingly strained. “If it had not been me, it would have been another man in my place. We are shinobi. It has been the way of these lands since time immemorial. This cannot be the first violent death you’ve witnessed at another’s hand …”

Yar found himself thinking, Oh, right, that’s not the only word for death, there’s also ‘zanshi’, which is ‘violent death’ …

Death sighed, looking at the floor, and sat down heavily on a nearby barrel. “I know, but … well, I actually felt like I got to know you that day, twelve years ago. And you even saved my life … I mean … at first, anyway. I didn’t really think you’d end up … well, doing this.”

She smiled; it was a bittersweet smile that felt like an icy knife in Hisoka’s gut, and certainly gave Yar a pang.

“It is the way of things,” said Hisoka softly, but there was a touch of doubt in his voice now. Death had once considered him a friend, he realized, one whom she could tell these things to, and it was the most grevious of sins to commit an act againt a friend …

“I know,” said Death, looking at the dead man once again. “But sometimes I wish it wasn’t.”

Hisoka blinked. “You … wish you weren’t the Lady Death?”

“I didn’t say that,” she said. “I’ve met … every single person who’s ever lived and died twice, and I’ve met everyone alive today at least once. Sometimes I’ve been disappointed with them, and if someone killed them I’ve definitely been disappointed with the killer, but …” She shrugged. “I’ve only ever even thought about not wanting to be Death … twice.”

Hisoka stood there, watching her for several moments. And suddenly, he shut down the Sharin-Mayu, knowing he had accidentally learned more than he even remotely deserved knowing. The look on her face had betrayed feelings he himself had felt at Hideo’s funeral three years ago. Lady Death had two siblings who had themselves died.

The memory faded, and Yar found himself in the Council’s meeting hall, staring into Hisoka’s brown eyes.

“That’s a nice trick,” said Yar cheerfully, as Hisoka replaced his glasses.

“Well?” said Azumi.

“He is no threat to any of us,” said Hisoka. “He is barely able to kill another man in self defense, let alone assasination. He means no harm.”

Masami uncrossed her arms and stood up straighter, as if expecting the contrary. Azumi arched an eyebrow, and said, “Really?”

Hisoka stepped past Yar, not facing any of them. “Lady Death knows,” he said simply.

There was a pregnant silence as the rest of the Council exchanged a collective glance. It finally gave birth to Azumi saying, “Well, if that’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me.” She shrugged. “Oh well, time to get ready for an assassination attempt.”

“Sounds good to me,” he said. “So do I get my honor guard of four ninjas, or what?”

Azumi considered this. “Actually, let’s look into that …”

GG_Crono · August 1, 2007, 12:34pm

Emotional? Definitely. But it’s well-written. Was it worth waiting three months for? …maybe.

Your writing remains superb, as always. And I’ve never seen Naruto, for what it’s worth.

See you in another month or so?

Yar_Kramer · August 1, 2007, 3:27pm

Eh, end-of-semester blues, plus getting stuck on what I should actually do on that scene (I know where the story’s going in general, but some of the individual scenes …) get me every time. Fortunately, I have a fairly clear idea of where I’m going to go next.

Hmm. While I was lying in bed last night, I briefly toyed with the notion of naming each of the chapters, and I got the bright idea of naming them all after movies. I decided not to when I found myself seriously considering naming chapter 4 “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

Yar_Kramer · September 23, 2007, 3:28pm

“That last chapter was too sappy!” said Ishio, frowning, as they walked down the street away from Koji’s House of Ramen.

Sayomi rolled her eyes. “Then you probably shouldn’t be reading that,” she said.

“Eh, fine,” said Ishio, tossing the manga aside. “At least it was only 50 yen.” (About 42 cents USD, or €0.31)

Miharu picked it up and blinked; it had a picture of a girl on the cover, with emphasis more on looking pretty than particularly cute or sexy, and generally as if the artist intended that she be identified with rather than lusted after. “Uh, okay, why did you buy this in the first place?”

Without a trace of embarassment, Ishio moved his hands in a complicated motion, and in a puff of smoke, transformed into his female form. “For visual reference!” ‘she’ said cheerfully. “Also, because it only cost 50 yen.”

Sayomi thumped the side of ‘her’ head, causing the transformation to revert. “You know, I can’t remember that ever actually being funny,” she said blandly.

“And if you’re just going for shock value, you probably shouldn’t do it so often,” said Miharu.

“Aw, fine,” said Ishio, shrugging. “Let’s just go --”

The trio each abruptly stopped, and whirled around to face a group of trees. None of them had acted first, or were following the lead of the other two; they’d each apparently simultaneously turned to look at the trees of their individual volition. None of them said anything like “Did you see something?” or “What was that?” because they knew they’d seen something, and they each knew that the other two had seen something as well, and ninjas didn’t say things like that.

The trees looked perfectly ordinary, and gave no sign of any movement that wasn’t unusual for trees of that size.

They stared for several moments.

A dark figure of any description failed to become the least bit visible.

They continued to watch. Then, just as suddenly, they relaxed. Miharu looked to Sayomi. “It wasn’t a …?”

“No,” said Sayomi. “Anyway, it’s nowhere near hot enough this year.”

“Okay,” said Ishio, shrugging once again, as if that little interesting event hadn’t happened. “Let’s just go to the training grounds.”

They walked away. The ninja who had been hiding in the trees very carefully slipped away, leaving no trace he’d ever been there.

Azumi led Yar to a windowless building near the edge of the village and stepped inside, flipping a light switch. “So, Mistah Kramer,” she said, “welcahm to a dei in da laife of a Kageontai.”

Yar shrugged. “I was mentally translating that as ‘Shadow Governess,’” he said as he stepped in. “Or, well, ‘governor’, but ‘governess’ made more sense in context, I guess. Any particular reason we’re speaking English?”

It seemed to be some sort of storage room, like an attic at ground floor; there were lots of cardboard boxes, and a few trophy cases here and there containing various weapons as well as other strange objects which Yar didn’t recognize. And some objects he still didn’t recognize but sensed the vague sense of danger he associated with weapons. To top it off was an overwhelming sense that people didn’t come here very often.

“Well, dis taime it matters if someone hears ahs,” said Azumi, leading him to a doorway at the opposite end of the room. “We don’t knoh hao Kuno Ichi’s going tu … scout ahehd.”

“Ah, makes sense,” he said, looking around the new room, which seemed to be a small library with several beds against one wall; a large book rested on a reading stand next to one of them. “I take it English isn’t the most popular language around here?” he said, wandering towards the bed.

Azumi chuckled. “Only for da alphabet,” she said. “And still not dat popular anyweh.”

Yar stared at the cover of the book. Gleaning what someone was saying while they spoke was all well and good, but reading was trickier. Especially kanji. “Uh … Shinobi no Ijutsu,” he said slowly. “Ah, The Medical Art of the Shinobi.” He looked at the name of the author. “Nakamura … Az … oh. Hah. You weren’t kidding, were you?” he said, smirking and turning to face the author.

Azumi grinned wryly. “Ai take a breik frahm bein’ all seriohs,” she said. “Don’t worry, dat edition has no secrets.”

Yar oppened the book at random. “‘Skull injuries from impact with objects’,” he said, and looked down further. “… ‘speeds of impact’ … wait …” His grin widened. “‘For instance, if this edition of book were thrown or dropped, the minimum fatal speed of impact for an average human’s skull is 31 km/h,’ what!?”

“Laek ai sehd,” said Azumi, shrugging. “Bot dat’s not whai yoh and ai are here.”

“Yeah I know,” said Yar. “So, how long’s Kuno Ichi been bugging you?”

“On and ohff, ten years,” said Azumi. “Though, dey were mostly defeated ah year ago. Et’s mostly cleanup work we’ve been doing, bot da worst thing we can do ez not take any of 'em seriously.”

“Fair enough,” said Yar. “Anything I should know in particular when things become violent? Like, what kind of strategies they have, that kind of thing?”

“Yah, dey each make up their own strategy,” said Azumi. “Hard to see who dey might send, though we know it isn’t Ishamaru Saburo. And if we could get enohf of an advance warning to tell you any good strategies once we saw who it was, we could stop them from getting near you.”

“Wonderful,” said Yar, noting that her English seemed to be improving and deciding she’d just gotten rusty, and was getting better now that she was actually using it. “Guess I’ll just have to rely on my uncanny luck, again, though we’ve got plenty of time to discuss strategies for who they might be before the time comes,” said Yar. “But speaking … oh, I just remembered something Sayomi mentioned.” He tilted his head and arched an eyebrow, then said in Japanese, “An alien?”

Azumi grinned, like a magician about to perform one of his more uncanny tricks. “Ah … the Ningen Ryoushi.”

“Hunter of Men,” Yar echoed.

“They came to our world on the hottest days of the hottest years, seeking out scenes of violence,” said Azumi in Japanese. “Then they hunt humans for sport. Those they deem worthy, they take their skulls as trophies. Those unworthy are skinned and hung upside-down where they can be easily found by the next person to wander through the area.”

Yar arched an eyebrow, feeling a chill run up his spine. He believed her story – or at least, Yar (who could pick out lies just by looking) sensed that she believed it, and he couldn’t think of any reasons why she could be fooled that were more believable than what she’d said so far. “I see,” he said. “So they’re, what, merciless killers?”

“Not entirely merciless,” said Azumi. “They didn’t kill pregnant women, or the unarmed, or invalids, unless they attacked them. They wanted something that could fight back.”

“And they found ninjas,” said Yar, smirking as he realized where this was going.

Azumi nodded, raising her eyebrows. “It wasn’t long before they started dying,” she said. “And it was only a little while longer before we stopped dying. In the process, we discovered that they have wrist-mounted self-destruct devices. Go a few dozen kilometers northeast of here and you’ll find a kilometer-meter-wide swath of forest that has been simply annihilated. After that, we found that slicing the self-destruct devices in half worked perfectly well.”

Yar’s hand found its way to his forehead. “Good thing they, uh, didn’t decide to bomb you,” he said.

“No, the Ningen Ryoushi were primarily hunters,” she said. “All-out wars didn’t seem to be their style.”

“Weird,” said Yar, then frowned. “We have gone way off-topic.”

“Hmm, yes,” said Azumi. “What had you been going to say before we got distracted?”

“Oh right,” said Yar. “Speaking of time – where’s the, uh, terrible trio likely to be?”

Azumi laughed, and told him.

Yar walked into the training grounds, which amounted to a slightly less-dense forest, in that there were plenty of trees, but you could see all the way to the other side.

He also sensed at least three ninjas bouncing around in the trees. Ah, yes, it was the three he’d met before. Looks like they were getting closer, too …

His psychic powers, not to mention arrow time, allowed him to increase his reaction times exponentially. He was therefore able to dodge the thrown toy kunai before it hit his face, and he was already parrying Ishio’s punches and kicks before he’d fully turned to face him.

… um, female Ishio’s punches and kicks. “You wouldn’t hit a girl, would you?” ‘she’ said impishly, batting her eyes at him.

Yar heard Sayomi mutter something irritatedly from somewhere behind him, and rolled his eyes. “Well, I believe in this thing called ‘gender equality’,” he said, and shoved Ishio with enough force to send him sprawling into a nearby tree.

Ishio vanished in a puff of smoke. Yar sensed something weird coming out of this, as if something psychic was being disassembled and sent home. He turned, and saw (and sensed) Ishio, Sayomi, and Miharu standing on a tree branch that looked too narrow either for them to stand on or to have any kind of balance.

“Ow! You’re good,” said Ishio, jumping and landing in front of him.

“You’re not bad yourself,” said Yar. “Hey, I was wondering if you guys wanted to have a friendly spar before, uh, all hell breaks loose tonight.”

“A spar,” said Miharu, tilting her head. “Did Nakamura-sama suggest this?”

“Mostly,” said Yar, arching an eyebrow.

“What kind of spar?” asked Sayomi impassively. “Martial arts, techniques, or tag?”

Yar arched his eyebrows. “Tag, huh?” he said. “What’s that like?”

They explained, with only a small amount of bickering at cross-purposes, that it was a form of practice the village had. Essentially, it was treated as a deathmatch, but with toy weapons and light taps. Everyone was It, and if you got tagged, you were out of the game. Sometimes, they used their Doppelganger Technique and sent their clones into battle (thus rendering everyone at half-effectiveness), and occasionally raised the stakes on that by using real weapons and martial arts on the basis that no one would really get killed because it was just their clones dying. The idea was that if you could tag a ninja to a sufficient degree that he or she would become It in a normal game of tag, they’d be dead.

“And these,” said Sayomi, producing a box containing plastic versions various of ninja weapons, “are Singing Blades. They’re blunt and plastic, but the more dangerous the wound they’d give, the higher the note. If it would be instantly deadly, they sing.” She demonstrated by throwing a plastic shuriken at her own arm; it bounced off, letting out a “ding” like a xylophone. Ishio caught it and threw it at his own forehead, where it seemed to play a half-second of music on a music box.

Yar nodded thoughtfully, and then grinned. “So, martial arts, techniques, and tag?” he said. “Let’s do all three, in succession.”

Ishio snorted. “Ya think you’ll last that long?”

“All three?” said Sayomi. “You don’t actually know any ninja techniques, do you?”

“Well, I was thinking more, it’d be my skills against yours,” said Yar. “See where it gets either of us.”

“That makes sense,” said Miharu. “It’d do all of us good to run into something completely outside our experience with just other ninjas once in a while, especially if it’s on the training grounds.”

“As opposed to facing an Esper who wants to kill us,” said Sayomi.

“Or a better one,” said Ishio, glancing sideways at Yar’s stomach.

“Thank you,” said Yar, radiating graciousness.

“Let’s start with straight-out tag,” said Miharu. “I’m the best at that, so I’ll go.” She moved her hands in a complicated motion, and a second Miharu appeared next to her in a puff of smoke.

“That’s a nice trick,” said Yar, as the trio (including the original Miharu) jumped into a tree.

Miharu giggled. “It is, isn’t it?” she said cheerfully, which Yar sensed was a technique called “acting innocent to try to fool your male opponent into lowering his guard.”

“No, I mean …” Yar grinned. “I pretty much can’t tell the difference between you and the original. My compliments to whoever invented the technique.”

Miharu smiled and nodded. “You going to pick some blades?” she said, taking two handfuls of various singing blades and deftly putting them in place on her belt.

Yar shrugged. “I’ll pass for now,” he said. “Heh, I’m not used to using weapons like that anyway.”

“Well, if you say so,” said Miharu. “May the best one win!”

Miharu bowed. Yar bowed back. In a blur of motion, she vanished into the trees. Yar promptly began tracking her psychically.

After a moment, he started walking casually through the trees. He affected an air of complete unconcern; hey, he was just going for a walk – armed, but who isn’t these days. Ninjas, what ninjas? Oh, that one, hey, I’m just ambling along, man, no worries.

Miharu suddenly went still, quite nearby. Almost before she was tensing into combat readiness, Yar turned to look directly at her, giving a friendly grin and waving. In his experience, waving and smiling to someone who thought you didn’t know where they were and wanted to kill you, was at least enough to give them pause, if not actually spook them.

If it had given Miharu pause, it obviously hadn’t given her much, because five shurikens immediately zipped out of the tree towards him.

GG_Crono · September 23, 2007, 5:46pm

“‘For instance, if this edition of book were thrown or dropped, the minimum fatal speed of impact for an average human’s skull is 31 km/h,’ what!?”

That bit in particular got a laugh. Good jorb.

Yar_Kramer · September 24, 2007, 3:28pm

Heh, thanks.