Chapter 17: Intoxication of What?

"I'm bored", Takeko sighed, the woman was sprawled out on the floor stretching her arms and twisting her torso around every few moments. She was restless and looked every bit like a housecat without something to claw. Or at least something to bemuse herself with, but nothing caught her attention so she would continue to roll around on the floor.

"I can't help you with that, I'm trying to get one simple word into these thick-headed dwarves and it's not working!" Oda said irritably, his patience wearing thin. He watched the dwarves continuously eat and eat as if their lives depended on it. Their lives did a couple hours ago but now they were just binge eating, they had become rowdy and noisy with the constant fights breaking out every now and then among themselves. And somehow Takeko had managed to block it out from her mind. She payed no mind to them and ignored the bouts of yelling and contesting between them, it was exactly as the elves had said, barbaric, loud with short temper.

"I wasn't talking to you", Takeko puffed out softly, her brows furrowing as she rolled onto her stomach, her feet high in the air swinging back and forth and a lazy circular motion. The dwarves watched her with an amused expression as they ate their food and drank their beer, it had been so long since they had been in such good moods.

"What?! A muskrat? What's that?! Can you eat it?" The loud-mouthed dwarf shouted back at him, he knocked back his head to chug down a huge swig of beer soon burping loudly moments later. The other dwarves responded with huge bouts of laughter and yells of encouragement, Takeko finally getting enough pulled herself back onto her feet dusting her drees. She walked up to Oda and gave him a reassuring pat on the back before heading towards Yoichi. Oda merely grunted back.

"Not a muskrat! Musket! A Musket! Do you think about anything besides food?!" Oda hissed through his gritted teeth, his patience had been tested on too many times today and he felt like as if he was talking to dozens of Toyohisa's, a nightmare indeed. This had better be worth it he thought angrily, if they can't manufacture the guns he would definitely punch someone and it didn't even matter who it was he punched. "Also, you get out of control when you eat!"

"Huh? The hell is he?!" One dwarf responded, and even as he spoke he had an empty bowl in his hand, an obvious indication for more servings of food.

"Let's fight him!" The previous dwarf agreed, at the back on Oda's mind he could just how meek and polite the dwarves were before they ate too much food. It was such a shocking difference that if you put the two dwarves from past and present you wouldn't even recognise them.

Takeko peered out from the available window to see the elves whisper to one another with worried and terrified expressions, it seemed that the younger generation had never seen dwarves before ad had only heard tales of them. Their first impression of them was exactly as their fathers and grandfathers had told them, it was no wonder why they hated each other. From her corner of her eye she could see Olmine fuss about with how much food they had eaten and how much money it would cost to keep the stomachs of the dwarves full. Finally she just yelled out in frustration and proceeded to kick an empty wooden box in the process hurting her own foot.

She turned to around, the spectacle was amusing enough but it wasn't enough to bay off her boredom. She caught her eyes on Yoichi drinking, he was downing cup after cup, his face becoming more and more flushed after each cup. She got up and took the cup from his hands, sniffing the contents pulling her face away immediately.

"Slow down on the alcohol", she said setting down the cup and reaching for some water instead. "I think you're a little young to be drinking this", she said inspecting alcohol. It looked strong, mildly surprised he could handle such alcohol.

"Don't be a bore, Keko", Yoichi said with a cheerful smile his eyes narrowing. "In fact, join me. Some alcohol in your system makes everything more fun", he urged coming closer to her holding out the bottle. His breath reeked of alcohol as she edged away in reflex. Yoichi liked her better when she was a little looser, despite her best to hide that she was progressively becoming more stressed he could see it. He preferred the spontaneous, crazy woman which laughed happily and danced in a sea of blood.

"I'm not so sure, I've never had alcohol before", she said hesitantly. She said blinking her eyes in curiosity but she was still wary.

"Really? Then your missing out. Come on~" He brought over another cup and poured a small amount and held it out for her. "You don't need it in your system to become weird for you, but I'm curious to see what you would be like with it", he laughed. SHe took the cup away from his hand, sniffing at the cup before downing the whole of its contents, the arid drink slid down her throat but it was an overall clean flavour, it was smooth as well, and not too empowering as she heard from her peers.

She coughed slightly but there was a warm fuzzy feeling growing in her chest, her throat burned and her stomach felt like it was on fire. And for some reason she liked the sensations that her body was giving her. Yoichi eyes followed her movements and tallied her expressions, it seemed she enjoyed her first drink. Good, very good. A party was no fun without some drunks. SHe leaned over to grab the bottle and before Yoichi could stop her she downed the contents of the bottle as well. She coughed a little more this time but licking her lips she replied to Yoichi.

"I like this. It's strong but I like it", she laughed, her head tilting to one said, her body weight resting on one arm and she leaned onto one side. Her sense of balance was starting to disappear already. Yoichi was agape, she had just began drinking and she was already into it? In fact the alcohol didn't affect her as much as he thought it would.

"Say, what do you think of a drinking competition? The dwarves are doing already so why not us?" Yoichi said with and sly and suggestive grin as he leaned forward on his seat, coming close so only she could hear him. His playful and mischievous personality coming through. Takeko only being a little intoxicated had her mind still clear enough to understand what he meant, she looked to her left where Toyohisa was chowing down food like there was no tomorrow and Oda continuous argument with the dwarves had risen up a level in volume.

"It's loud already", she mumbled, her eyes glazing over the dwarves, the Drifters and the few elves. Her lips curled into a smirk as she came closer to Yoichi, her sleeves sweeping across the table. "I bet we can make it even louder", she whispered. Her eyes bright and clear, her face dusted with pink.

"Hahaha! Then let round one start!" He straightened himself on his chair, he poured out another cup.

"Hey, lisshenupp. D'you know dat guy Yoshitsune?" Yoichi's words had slurred and their previous competition had been completely abandoned, if talking itself was a challenge let alone thinking straight then they would've stopped ages ago, but being both stubborn they kept on drinking. "Heesh a preddy awful guy. Hey! You lishenin', old man?!" Yoichi said angrily waving his cup around like a weapon, the dwarf who was unfortunate enough to listen to him just nodded his head absentmindedly with beads of sweat rolling down his forehead.

He was drunk enough to fall off of his chair, the jostle of the movement led to his clothes being pulled down and ruffled, the collar of his vest was now pulled over his shoulder revealing his lean and pale skin underneath. "The thing ish…all a sudden, he's all like shoot down this fan or whatever but it's weird, like I won't hit it", his words didn't slur so much as before but his face was scarlet red and he could barely keep his eyes open. He hiccupped a couple more times and the cup he was holding was soon abandoned. "My head feels funny…I think I had enough. You win Keko", he hiccupped a couple more times.

"That's some nasty sake", Oda remarked with a deadpanned expression. 'He got me wrong about wearing it off the shoulder he thought to himself', he had other thoughts as well which were nothing but sinful and erotic images of Yoichi in positions no other person would think.

"If there's sake, I'm gonna drink as much as I ate", Toyohisa stated loudly as he whipped his head around as he heard the talk of alcohol. He had stopped eating but now he needed to wash down his meal with something strong. He had lost sight of Takeko though and no-one had seen her for quite some time, or even heard from her.

"That's enough outta you!" Oda shouted loudly abruptly, countering Toyohisa's notion of chugging down more sake than he could handle. He already had enough of the dwarves, he could not stand another baboon drunk. He was already getting white hairs and it was not a good look on him.

"Eehh? Where are you Takeko?" Yoichi called out oblivious to the racket and commotion, his eyes searching for a wisp of black hair. "Did you chicken out…hic…Keko?" He pulled his clothes back in order as he looked around the room for the maiden.

"Thash shtrange, I could've shworn I let my cup, rightsh here", she fumbled out from underneath a table. Flushed and her eyes half-lidded, she threw the bottle of sake aside and tried her best to stand up only finding herself falling back down at each attempt. Her sleeves kept being pulled down from her fumbling around so normally her collar would be covered by cloth but it had been dragged down by the weight of the sleeves. In the process her cleavage area had been exposed, but due to her intoxication she realised nothing. Oda looked at her with a blank expression with his eyebrows twitching, just wonderful. The last sane person of the group had gone down.

While Yoichi was still intoxicated and had yet to filter out the alcohol through his system didn't see the problem, but Oda was getting more and more annoyed. From now on he would ensure that those two stupid brats wouldn't get their hands on any sort of booze. For Toyohisa it was the first time he had seen her bare skin so openhandedly but he wasn't focusing on the sexualisation of her cleavage but rather the various ragged scars scattered across her collar bone and the upper part of her arm and shoulders. But what intrigued him most was the circular scar where the skin had sunken in, an obvious scar from a bullet , the scar was just above her right breast; any lower and the bullet would've gone through her heart. His eyes narrowed at the revelation of the new information.

Oda sighed with a tired expression, his eyes blank as he began thinking about where everything had gone wrong in the old world. "Ugh…that's it. No more alcohol", she coughed and after a few failed attempts to get up she managed to stumble around the room in a drunken daze, knocking into the wall a few times before finally sitting herself down on a wooden chair. "Never again…" She slowly massaged her head with her palms her mind going haywire, her first experience with alcohol had been a horrible one.

Nothing changed at all in the room, in fact the noise and racket just seemed to go up even higher. Great big peals of laughter, inappropriate jokes and just the offense of being alive was enough to set some of the dwarves off as they brawled one another. And within the chaos Oda just stood there with an enraged expression as he tried his very best to bottle up his anger, how did he end up here with barbarians. He had the whole of Japan in his hands and because of one foolish mistake he lost it all at the whim of ex-subordinates. With his dazed look and glazed eyes he was completely enraptured in his thoughts, without even realising the commotion in the room had gone down as the food began to settle down in their stomachs.

"Well? Lemme see this so called 'musket'", the dwarf said using his hand to beckon forth the weapon, or whatever it was. He was still not even sure what the man was talking about.

Oda mentally sighed as his expression changed into hesitation and doubt, "Just…don't break it", his brows furrowed in irritancy, it was about time these bloody fools got their act together. He pulled the matchlock from his sash which was draped around his waist, he unravelled the many layers of cloth wrapped around it and gently lowered it down onto the table. The matchlock was nothing impressive from the outside but if they knew what it could do it would be a different story.

Takeko roused herself from her drunken stupor, she slowly opened one eye and glanced to her left, she had a rather placid expression but a snark grimace soon emerged from her lips. She was still against the fact that they forcibly advancing this civilation's rate of technological growth. There is a set path for every world and every life form, they must grow at a steady pace and on their own. They shouldn't even be be here in the first place, but in the end all the problems stemmed from the Offscourings. The room burst into a discussion of what it really was, with many of their observations hitting the mark. It seemed the dwarves were really skilled as they heard from the elves but their true abilities had yet to be revealed.

"The trigger mechanism's like a crossbow".

"Seems pretty simple".

"So the metal piece falls onto this plate with a spring…What is this? Some kind of shooting device?"

"Yukagi's just trees isn't it? What is this thing?"

A wicked grin split across his face, it seemed that the dwarves were worth in investing their lives to liberate, they were already catching on so quickly. If they were able to produce the matchlock then it wouldn't matter how much food they ate, how much noise they made and how much collateral damage they created as long as they make the musket come to life.

"Well? What is it? How do you use it?" A dwarf asked impatiently, his voice laced with scepticism.

"Ah yes. It is a weapon known as a 'musket'. You load the pipe with gunpowder, and it fires a lead bullet", Oda said cynically as he straightened out his posture crossing his arms behind him. His stance was relaxed and held the air of superiority.

"A weapon? That fires lead? I've never heard of this 'gunpowder' stuff", the dwarf answered back with confusion, never had they seen such a weapon so queer and so out of place, but then again the men who used this weapon were originally not from their world. They did not abide their rules, they did not follow their ways and they did not listen to anyone but themselves, they were singular beings that no-one could match.

"Why are you going through so much trouble for this thing? Isn't a bow or a crossbow just as good? Why do you want it so much?" The dwarf queried with dubiousness, he could not understand why the Drifters were crazy enough to free them from the Orte hold just to make this weapon. What made this weapon so different from the rest, so much amazing, so powerful?

Yoichi smirked as he found someone who agreed with his ideas, his eyes narrowing at the revelation, "I don't get it either. Bows don't make any noise and they don't waste time", he had seen the rifle that Takeko used from time to time to be slow to reload and made so much noise that it could attract the enemy and once it was out of bullets she would have to abandon the weapon entirely and just use her naginata. "What's so great about muskets?"

"Hmm…well, they do make noise and smoke, I guess I'll give you that", Oda said slowly, choosing his words wisely. Just the idea of one single pull of a trigger could end a life would probably be a little too soon for them to hear so he would have to tread carefully. Here in this world there were no set rules, so the people were dumb and dull to the advances of technology, they would have to nurture their minds carefully or there could be chaos.

"Gunfire is the battle-cry of the musket", Toyohisa proclaimed, Oda snapped his attention to the brat, so the fool has finally come back to his senses. "It makes a statement when it aims at you. Plus, you can train on it quickly. Guys who were farmers yesterday can be killing trained soldiers the next", he said with the voice of an undisputable force, his eyes showing the undeniable truth of the weapon. He had seen it in actions before, there wasn't any Drifters except for those before the time of the invention who didn't know it. It was a terrifying weapon which mankind should've never even made. But it was inevitable in his eyes.

"None of that make sense boy, any weapon takes time to train with and master", one dwarf rebutted.

"A weapon like that wouldn't even be called a weapon", another chimed in.

Suddenly the cracking sound of bullet being discharged caught everyone's attention, the dwarf who previously spoke before found that his ear ringing in pain and the wall behind him had been shattered with a small but noticeable hole in the wall where a small ball of lead was wedged. The dwarves backed away from the spot where the wall had been cracked and where the impact of the bullet made an indented crater.

They drew their eyes to the opposite direction of where the bullet had been shot from, from her chair Takeko sat there patiently until all eyes were on her, she drummed her fingers against the barrel of her rifle, her eyes laced with boredom.

The entire room was in utter silence, the dwarves breaths held and the visible beads of sweat rolled from their face with gritted teeth. What was that? What in the world was that just now!? Toyohisa and Oda had a knowing smile on their faces as they observed the dwarves expressions.

"The muskets sound incites the feeling of fear, the damage it creates invokes the feeling of despair and dread, the smell of the smoke which rises from the barrel inflame the sense of worry and queasiness. Everything about a gun invokes the feeling fear. Fear. Once heard, never forgotten, the forever ringing sound of the gun and the cries of the lost", Takeko said as she swung her rifle back and forth with blatant disregard of the dwarves unease.

"The gun will manifest the most horrible and dreadful of emotions in a human, it will bring out the worst in the best and it will corrupt those who use it. Now just imagine a whole vanguard of these weapons", Takeko said gesturing to her rifle with her left hand. Her eyes narrowed, she was deep in thought if they were in their own world she would've been happy but for some reasons he couldn't help feel uneasy.

The only thing that answered her back was silence.

'As I thought, those two are no fools. Well perhaps Toyohisa, an idiot savant maybe. They have a long range and great power, but these are not the true strength of the guns. It's how easily they deal with killing and feelings of remorse. With just a pull of a trigger, anyone can become a warrior. It's a way for every peasant to become a soldier. This is what I left unsaid' Oda's inner musings were found out by no-one as the dwarves were still enraptured by the newfound weapon. But if they had heard it, there would be a definite divide between the men and the dwarves.

The morals of right and wrong was so very delicate, there was probably no wrong and right, just the claims of foolish men.

Review, follow and fave, doing one of these will make me happy considering I am the only one who updates anymore, the other person who wrote Into The Fire stopped a year ago. So sad. So I am literally the only one who is still dedicated, where is my praise! Jokes, jokes, I do this for my amusement.

Edit: 19/10/16 future me has changed Takeko's attitude towards some things and her personality has changed. I'm not satisfied with it but it will do for now.