Chapter 9
Morro looked about ready tear into Lloyd's stomach and rip apart all of his vital organs, when he finally managed to rise from the creek water, twice as wet ,but at least this time, no fish was invading his mouth. Koso could tell from a mile away what the wind master was thinking though and decided to mention,
"You know fighting while chained together would be foolish, if one of you breaks a leg or two, the other will have to drag that dead weight around."
Morro, though clearly still pissed seemed to agree with that statement and instead of lunging at his fellow captive again ,settled for low grumbling that no one could decipher. Lloyd paid no mind to the former ghost, and went back to staring at the water again, probably to avoid having to acknowledge Morro's presence next to him.
Morro rolled his eyes as he began to crouch a little with his arms stretched out far as his eyes searched the somewhat murky water for prey. The sudden movement caused Lloyd to be pulled down slightly, with him.
The green ninja glared at Morro annoyedly, before deciding that it would be best to keep his energy and awareness up and he knew would probably have a hard time doing that on an empty stomach, considering he had no idea if or when he would be able to eat again. With his laundry list of past kidnappers Lloyd was used to his captors suddenly withholding food from him, whether it was for, cooperation, or just to spite h he rarely knew. Besides if his old enemy was willing to embarrass himself, he might as well too. Lloyd with his mind made up, began to squat down in a similar position to Morro and Koso's.
Morro noticed this and couldn't stop a sickly scowl from appearing on his face once again, though he did not say anything and instead focused back to the water.
For a couple of minutes there was nothing,but silence, then there was a sudden loud splashing noise. Lloyd and Morro turned to see what it was and they were both met with the sight of Koso bent down both of his hands grabbing something moving in the water. There was too much dirt being kicked around to see, but that wasn't a problem for long, for the within the next minute Koso was hoisting a large red fish out of the water. Turning towards the two staring teenagers, Koso couldn't help a small smirk from appearing on his face as he unsheathed his sword, and cut the squirming fish in half, before tossing its chopped up body into his hat.
Turning back towards his watery hunting ground, Koso spared them a sideways glance.
"He put up a better fight than the last one, why not give him a quick death, besides he wouldn't fit with his full size."
"Isn't your hat going to smell like fish now?" Lloyd asked, earning what somewhat resembled a chuckle out of Morro.
Koso simply frowned and refused to answer. Not wanting to, Lloyd and Morro both turned back to the water, trying to look for any approaching fish. Thankfully it hadn't taken long for the battered dirt to be run off due to the strong flow of the creek and the water was able to clear up once more.
It was at this moment, Morro spotted a fish, and tried to grab it immediately….
He missed, it swam away as soon before his hand could come even close.
Cursing under his breath so Koso wouldn't hear him, Morro went back to staring at the water. Another fish swam by his feet,but like the last one it was too fast and disappeared before he could even blink.
It went on like this for Morro for the next few minutes, with occasionally Lloyd beside him , suddenly thrusting his hand into the water only to pull up a loose water plant instead of his desired target that was already half way up stream at that point.
Needless to say it was not going well for them.
For a brief minute Morro wondered why they were all swimming in the same direction despite it being against the flow of the stream. However his question was soon answered in the form of a bunch of dark purple flowers on the sides of the bank in which the fish kept swimming towards and once they got close would use their mouths to grab the flowers by the stem before swallowing them whole.
So they were trying to scavenge a particular food source.
Morro never considered himself to be particularly smart, certainly not educated either considering he didn't learn to read until he was ten when he moved in with Wu and to this day still struggled with basic math and spelling ,but every now and that being said Morro knew at that moment if he wanted a f*cking fish, he needed bait.
So wasting no time, Morro quickly made his way towards the flowers, paying no mind to the surprised and stumbling blond behind him.
Until he spoke that was.
"What are doing?"
"Nothing you need to be concerned about."
Before Lloyd could reply, Morro had already lead them to the small Grove of purple flowers hanging off the bank a few feet upstream from them. Bending down Morro quickly plucked a particularly large flower , before turning around and making his way back dragging Lloyd behind without a care.
"Flower picking now? Gotta say Morro didn't expect that from you" The blond said with a sneering chuckle.
"Quiet! When I have a stupid fish we'll see who'll be laughing then." Morro retorted.
Before the blond could respond, Morro suddenly crouched down again pulling the green ninja with him, then thrust his flower holding hand into the water and waited impatiently for a fish to notice him.
A few minutes went by ,but no fish had come near him yet, meanwhile Koso had already caught two more fish at once and hauled them into his hat. This did not make the wind master pleased as he stared at his fishless hand in disdain, wondering how far had his life sunk to the point where he couldn't catch a simple f*cking fish. Morro couldn't stop himself from looking disdainfully at the indifferent Koso, when suddenly he felt something…. something…...slimy!
Looking down in excitement Morro was ready to see a plump fish nibbling at his fingertips! Only while there was in fact a fish, it wasn't simply prying at his fingertips in order to grab the purple flower ,but instead…had its gigantic mouth all the away around Morro's lower arm stopping at his elbow.
Morro's eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as he stared at the offending fish, no coherent thoughts coming into his head at all other then,
Sh*tsh*tsh*tsh*tsh*tsh*t!
"Sh*t!"
Oh, wait he said that one outloud.
Within a fraction of a second,
a looming shadow was cast over the crouching teenager.
When Morro managed to take his panicked eyes of the fish that still hadn't released his arm, he saw Koso's perturbed expression quickly morph into one of mild shock when he saw what was happening.
"Hmph, appears you've attracted the attention of a Swallow herring, known fo-"
"Would you shut up," Morro seethed, ",and tell me how to get this little shi-thing off!"
Koso cocked an eyebrow in response before, simply shrugging and reaching behind him and unsheathing his red sword once again.
"Unfortunately, the swallow herring, is a stubborn type, kind of like someone I know
and they won't release easily," as he said this Koso began pointing the tip of his sharp sword towards Morro's arm, making the teenagers already wide eyes, expand even more as nervous sweat (that he would later swear was because of the heat) began trickle down his face.
"So, I'm afraid I'll have to take somewhat extreme measures to detach him."
Lloyd annoyedly felt Morro drag him along and begin to back away from the ominous Koso and his deadly sharp blade.
"Not to fear though, this won't take long." Koso said dismissively.
"W-wait, hold on!" Morro yelled backing away even further, trying to put as much distance between him and the older man ,but it was in vain, for in a split second Koso had already grabbed onto his fish covered arm in a vice grip that was for too unyielding for the former ghost to break.
"Now now, hold still, I might be a little rusty after sixty years of not existing in this world."
"Shut up! Let me go!"
Morro struggled fruitlessly as Koso raised his sword in the air, much to Lloyd's own shock.
Then quick as sparrow the sword came crashing down. On instinct the green ninja looked away preparing to hear the sound of flesh being cut.
However instead of that, what actually happened was Koso using his sword's tip, cut a narrow line down the length of the fish killing instantly whilst also cutting it open. Once it was cut the dead fish was easy to rip off Morro's arm completely, the only evidence it had been there it's gooey stomach residue.
Morro who had squeezed his eyes shut when he saw the blade coming down, shot them open when he felt that his arm was still attached to his body. Koso stood, frowning disinterestedly above him dangling the dead fish as if it were a banana peel left on the floor.
"Now was that so bad?"
"You….you! You fu-"
Morro cut himself off when he saw Koso's eyes narrowing and his hand rising ever so slightly from his side.
"Hmm, it appears I was able to beat one lesson into that stubborn head of yours."
Morro narrowed his angry eyes at the comment, glaring irately at the man.
"I hate you."
"Loathe me all you like, it won't change the fact I saved your arm just now."
"I could have gotten it off without your help."
"I'm sure."
"Urgh." Morro grumbled angrily "Just give me the stupid fish, I caught it myself." He said reaching for it, only for Koso to stretch his long arms out, keeping the dead fish from Morro's reach.
"That you did I'll give you that. I have to put your prize with the others, when I slipped my first catch in my hat earlier I was able to cast a cooling spell inside the small space to keep the fish fresh, you wouldn't want a spoiled fish for lunch now would you?"
Morro seeing the logic in Koso's statement decided to relent and went to sit by the bank.
"I caught one fish, that's all I need, I'm done looking like a fool."
However when, Morro did this he failed to remember he was still cuffed to a certain green ninja who hadn't caught anything yet and would be. d*amned if he was going to let a former enemy drag him around like a rag doll.
When Morro felt a weight keeping him from moving forward, he turned around to see Lloyd, giving him a sideways glare, before he crouched down once more , waiting for a fish.
Huffing, annoyedly Morro decided to comply and stepped slightly closer to give the green ninja some slack.
A few minutes passed, no luck with grabbing anything. Though Morro thought of suggesting going and grabbing one of the purple flowers, he realized that if the green ninja wanted to he would have already, he was many things,but stupid surprisingly wasn't one of them. It was likely the blond either didn't want to copy him, or that he simply didn't want to risk a swallow herring attacking his arm as well.
Just when Morro was getting a little annoyed and noticed Koso might have been nearing that point as well Lloyd saw a small streak of silver headed towards him. When it suddenly flew out of the water, he barely had enough time to catch it ,but with incredible luck Lloyd managed to grab it mid air.
"Gotcha!" The green ninja yelled triumphantly…...only that was short lived , because the fish slipped out of his grasp within the next second, and with how close he was standing, landed right in Morro's face, its squirming long tail flapping against his face for a split second before the former ghost angrily wrenched his hand up to try and grab it.
Only for it to slip out of his grasp as well and fall towards the water. However before it could reach the safety of the water once more, it was suddenly stabbed through the heart by Koso's sword effectively becoming a fish kabob that very moment.
Koso cocked an eyebrow in slight amusement as he saw Morro's blushing red face as he stared angrily at Lloyd, who return his glare with a smug frown.
"Ah, very good great nephew. I assume you'll be satisfied with this for lunch."
Turning his attention back to his 'great uncle's Lloyd answered.
"Uh, yeah that should be fine." With a moment's hesitation Lloyd added.
"Thank you…..for not letting it get away." It couldn't hurt to try and pretend, he was grateful, maybe this way he could gain the man's trust enough to get a chance to escape. At least that was what Lloyd told himself.
Koso's eyebrows Rose in slight surprise at the sudden sentiment of gratitude.
"You're welcome, now we better head back to my humble abode, hope you lot know how to cook."
"What?!"
Hey guys thank you for reading! Also I just wanted to thank Fallingtoast for giving me some ideas for this chapter!
See ya next time!