Chapter 14!
Reviews;
ShugoYuuki123: I'm a little worried about how the Wave Mission is going to go, mostly because I really, really like Haku and Zabuza and want them to live but also because I don't want Asuka to end up as a Mary-Sue who saves everyone. Even though I really, really want to do that too. So as you can see, I am at an impasse.
moon so bright: Thank you, I'm glad you think it's unique, that is what I was going for!
Shinkansen: I hope that you keep smiling!
Wooionion: The rocket propelled wheel chair was definitely one of the more successful inventions.
helrio uzugaku: I'm glad that you think that it's funny! I'm normally not that good at humor, so this is kind of a shaky attempt.
Littlebirdd: I love Amelia Bedelia! Those books were my entire childhood!
MoonShadow296: I always wondered why they didn't just find a way around doing them, it seemed like a relatively obvious solution to me. Destiny is something that I personally think is a little weird, the thought that no matter what you do your life is set on a straight path is a little scary personally. You're right though, Naruto meeting those two was a very important thing, and I feel like it's not something that can and/or should be, no matter how much I want to.
Vaughn Tyler: Thank you again!
NinjaDemonAngel: Why, thank you very much! I was trying for something I'd never seen before and Asuka came up. So there she is.
Sabie0521: She causes so much havoc for her village.
SynesThroretical: As much as I like having things light hearted and fun I also have to drag them back down to something more realistic and downcast. It's important to me, and her heart, while it hasn't been too much of a problem yet, is something that is still and always will be there. In regards to the wave missions it does seem almost universal. In everything I've ever read it has almost always been present.
"Are you sure sending them on a C-rank so soon was a good idea?" Iruka asked, looking after his former students despairingly. They were so young, so unprepared for the outside world. At least Asuka had looked worried, the other two had seemed ecstatic.
"It would have happened eventually," the Hokage assured him, "Best they get their feet wet with something simple. I've had a few low-risk missions set aside for all of the genin teams. Team 7 was just the first to get sent on one. Of course, now that's all they'll be able to be sent on."
Iruka couldn't tell if the man was amused or annoyed.
He just hoped they would be okay.
The sun was out, the birds were whistling and there was a pleasant, faint breeze floating around. It was the perfect day for a long walk, Kakashi decided, looking out at the path and back over at his students. They had brought a rain of irritation down on the village with their D-ranked shenanigans and had subsequently been permanently banned from such tasks. Kakashi was positive it was all his green eyed students fault, taking every instruction they were given at word point and literal meaning. Now all that was left for them was C-ranks.
He wasn't as upset as he should have been. The tasks were mind-numbing and dull for both those doing them and those supervising.
The jonin adjusted the strap of his holster one last time before facing his cute little students. Sasuke was holding Naruto back from trying to kill the client again and Asuka looked to be plotting something if the narrowed glare she had aimed at the man was any indication. Which it was, he knew.
Oh boy. This was going to be a long mission.
Storage scrolls are the most amazing things ever invented. I couldn't make them, I am an engineer, not a seal master, and I honestly have no interest in them. They're useful yes, but I wasn't the kind of person that could make something that complex.
Rockets, satellites, and super computers sure, no problem, just give me the materials. Seals? Hah. You're funny.
Seals are not math, they are not science, they are not based off of elements or currents or nature. It based off the human mind, off of imagination and fiction. It just doesn't compute with my brain. So, no sealing for me.
Thankfully when you fix enough junk and sell enough fixed and improved necessities people will sometimes sell you things that aren't money. Like exploding tags, storage scrolls and security seals.
My scrolls contained what I thought I needed. Food, water, things like that. And, most importantly, my fire arms. I didn't want to walk out of the village with them (there were three working models then) strapped to me or taking up a hand. It would bring up too many questions, ones I didn't feel like answering at that particular moment.
A demonstration would be easier, one that I could give later on, if all went as it had before.
I stuck close to Kakashi as we walked, aware that Naruto and Sasuke kept looking at me. They'd been doing it since I'd told them about my little problem. They kept clinging to me or worrying over me and if they didn't stop the first person to know what a bullet felt like would be their legs.
Kakashi at least hadn't treated me any different after he learned of my misfortune. He just didn't try to pawn me off on Gai as much. He did encourage me to train my insistence on hand to hand ability with genjutsu specialty, but I was a stubborn brat and refused. I never admitted that I had forgotten that it even existed until he mentioned it.
It would have saved me so much trouble.
If only I wasn't so obdurate when it came to learning to fight with my fists.
Ah well, now that I had a good long rang weapon that no one could really counter (ninja were fast but not faster than the speed of sound (Except maybe the Raikage, and I had no intention of shooting him)) I figured I was set and evenly balanced out. For the time being at least.
I was still working on improving. For the time being I was still working with tech from the 1800s while I tried to get the right ratios for slow burning powder instead of black. So far it just exploded. In my face. A lot.
Consequently I now held the familiar scent of gun-powder near constantly.
Kakashi I knew noticed, his mask would occasionally twitch with a nose wrinkle when I got close enough. It wasn't a bad smell but it was strong, and Kakashi's sense of smell was frighteningly powerful. Kiba had told me I reeked of explosives last time I'd seen him.
Nothing new, but stronger now.
A blip on my chakra radar alerted me to the presence of two new ninja, both of a rank higher than me and Sasuke and much lower than Kakashi. Naruto too, but he had so much chakra it was sometimes hard to tell.
There were two of them, emanating from a good ways out of sight. A took a few steps closer to Kakashi, reaching into my bag for one of the smaller storage scrolls I had, this one only about as long as a pencil and about as thick as a silver dollar.
Kakashi made a hum of question and I looked up at him, shrugging a little bit.
"There's someone ahead of us," I explained, "Two people. Dunno who. They feel," I grimaced, "moist."
God I hate that word. Moist. It made me think of Dr. Horrible's weird best friend.
"Oh?"
I nodded, unrolling the scroll to reveal a circle of lines that I couldn't even begin to understand. I popped out a gun based on the Colt 1858, with a slightly shorted muzzle. As well as that I had a powder horn and a small leather bag of shots, both of which I dropped over each shoulder so they crossed over my chest in an 'X'.
"What's that?" Naruto asked, looking at me curiously while I opened the gun and started loading, keeping it pointed to the ground.
"An invention."
The blond's eyes shone. "An exploding one?"
I looked up, meeting his gaze squarely. "A killing one."
They were walking right into a trap. Not one of wires or ropes, no. A trap of sharp chains and perfect tangent. Gozu waited patiently in the water, his brother close, ever connected by the chain that they stained with blood. The chain that would soon be dripping red from the brats walking towards them. The only possible threat was the man, a chunin or a jonin. Judging by the look of the runts he would be their jonin teacher.
So, three brats and someone only a little higher in rank than they were. That would be no problem.
At least that's what Gozu thought before the trap was sprung. It only took a few seconds for their teamwork, the thing that he and his younger twin excelled at, to tear the jonin into small, bloody pieces. The girl closest to them jumped back, putting herself between them and the client, like a good little girl, and brought her hands up to point some kind of cylinder at them.
The two ignored her, Gozu mumbling a near triumphant 'one down' to his brother as they went after the blond brat next, who had frozen into place, wide eyes locked onto the pair as they bore down on him, killing intent palpable.
He would have been dead if some other brat hadn't interfered, landing on their arms and using shuriken to pin the chain that swung between the two to a tree. The pair, as one, cussed and disengaged the mechanism that held the chain to their claw covered arm, rushing the child again. Gozu did, his brother engaged that annoying kid that had taken their chains away.
Green eyes stared up at him, wide eyed, the cylinder was pointed at his chest. He jumped up just as a crack split the air, stinging his ears.
That was nothing compared to the fire that shredded through his right hip.
His shout (not scream, he was manly man) was cut off by an arm clotheslining him, sending him to the ground as he choked and gagged and cried, hand flying to his hip. It slapped against familiar, sticky fluid. He didn't know why it hurt so much or even what had happened. But there was a tiny hole in his hip and it hurt more than if he'd just been outright stabbed.
When he rolled over to look at the girl responsible her eyes were wide and her hands were shaking.
He scoffed at himself, looking away again. Brought down by a brat that had never been in a real fight before. That was pathetic.
Off to the side his short tempered little brother was screaming curses and threats at the girl.
My father's voice echoed in my head.
Never point a gun at someone unless you plan to kill them with it.
I had made the gun. I had pointed it. I had pulled the trigger.
That didn't make me any less sick watching the blood flower around the ground around the ninja. I was glad and ashamed of my gladness that he had not died, that the bullet had only buried itself in in his hip, which would not kill him if the bleeding was stopped. Kakashi was making sure that it did while I lowered the muzzle to point at the dirt, taking in a deep breath.
I hadn't realized until that exact moment the irony of what I had done.
I had been shot to death.
And then I brought that method of murder into a world of people who wouldn't flinch away from using it.
I decided then that no one, no matter who they were or how much I liked them, would learn how to craft my weapons.
"Were you trying to kill him?" the Static Man asked once he had both of the brothers tied up and not dying. He didn't sound angry, or accusatory. Merely curious.
I shook my head. "No."
It was then that Naruto's hand was revealed to be bleeding, not badly but certainly loosing fluid.
"There's poison in those claws," Kakashi informed him, "if we don't get it out, you can die."
I'm sure you know the rest.
Stubborn as a damn mule the blond refused to turn back or abandoned the lying old drunk who had put our lives, the lives of children, at risk because he couldn't be bothered to ask for help outright and offer non-monetary compensation for services. It wasn't like it was illegal. Not used much but still a possibility.
I shook my head, smiling fondly and snapping the safety back in place.
"Child," I sighed at Naruto, "You're going to get yourself killed one of these days and Sasuke will go into avenging overdrive and that's what I'll be left with," I predicted.
The blond scoffed, puffing his chest out. "No way! I can't die until I become Hokage!"
Kakashi was shaking his head at us, clearly finding our antics ridiculous.
It was not long before we were on the road again, and this time I had a leather holster (custom made in exchange for a fading light system) strapped to my thigh, the weight of the pistol inside. I will admit, a geeky part of me felt like a cowboy and it was hard not to try and cur off in the next town, a port, to try and find a duster to go with the imagining.
We loaded into a boat at the edge of the docks, one owned by a friend of Tazuna's, and started the long trip to the next land, travelling through the night. It was lucky that I was a master of sleep deprivation or it might have been a little bit difficult going all through the nocturnal hours with only a few minutes of sleep apiece. Kakashi didn't get any at all, I'm sure.
As the morning tried to dawn the fog was thick and heavy, filling the air with ghostly wisps and damp humidity. Out of the mist rose the bridge like a great beast, half decayed. Most of the construct was still skeletal, canes standing watchful and still, walls looking like they would form something but that the flesh of the ribs had been strips.
When I told this to my team they gave me very weird looks and I was promptly told to go to sleep.
I listened, and by the time I woke again it was time for yet more walking. We were almost there at least, and the fog had crept off.
That wouldn't last long, unfortunately.
"I will not die without fighting for a life I am not yet done living." ― Bethany Wiggins, Stung
