It was, in short, a Horo Horo nightmare.
At least that was what the Chuunin was telling himself, staring at the summons. Impossibru, a voice somewhere within himself said, shuddering with horror, and his stomach gave a reaffirming, noisy rumble to accentuate the fact. Why now. Has it not been YEARS why did they have to find him what were they THINKING FINDING HIM.
Horo Danshi looked up at the smoke-strung ceiling of the drinking establishment -- a very respectable sort of place yes sir just the sort of place that Horo Danshi the Dipshit Kid of Kumo honored with his patronage no ruffianisms HERE thank you very much officer (now about that parole…) – and, closing his eyes, willed reality to change. He’d had the gift, his momma had told him so, and by Raiden’s sorely-twisted titties he needed that gift to work its magic now. Into the darkness of the backs of his eyelids, the black-haired, brick-jawed shinobi of Kumogakure willed with all of his might that the little paper parcel bearing his name, and which had floated on unseen currents of VERY UNNATURAL AIR to flutter down in front of him at his barstool-perch, might just not be there anymore when he opened them again. He removed his hands from the envelope in deference to the mysterious properties of the act. There was a sort of universal balancing act to expect, after all. Keep no physical contact with the letter whatsoever, and who knew? No letter when the eyes were opened. Keep fingertips in even the slightest contact with the thing? It would still be there in a few more seconds, guaranteed.
Raijin render me the stuff of lightning and annihilate this, mine enemy heart and mind, Horo Danshi recited silently, eyeballs shuddering with effort behind his pale, thin eyelids. Raiden lend me your strength and let me be a mountain, because like, mountains can’t read and stuff.
One more silent prayer to his ancestors past and successors (didn’t he have some marriage to worry about, now that he thought about it? HMMMMMM…) still to come, Horo exhaled, wiped the frantic sweat from his brow, and opened his eyes.</COLOR>
The letter remained. Somewhere, Everywhere, the Universe shrieked in vengeful laughter.
On his part, Horo Danshi shrieked for a different reason entirely, and jumping up off of his stool made a mad dash for the doorway. If Raiden, Raijin, or anyone else was watching though, they sure were apathetic about the Dipshit Kid’s plight. The ANBU messenger’s tranquilizer darts found the Dipshit Kid’s backside straight and true, and as the nerve-interrupting toxins did their work and rendered the chuunin dead to the living world, it was all the man-boy could do to accept the weight of unconsciousness, and not shock himself back to the world of the waking with the force of his tears.
A few moments after the man’s form had fallen by the doorway, the ANBU messenger agent slipped out from the roof’s outline, where she had been combination-transformed into a broken ceiling fan. Slipping down soundlessly, she snatched the envelope off the table, ripped it open, and deposited the letter in front of her quarry. Frowning slightly in unprofessional squeamishness, she used her gloved thumbs to pull his eyelids up and open, the man’s witless gaze now trained upon the missive.
”Horo Danshi,” she read. ”By order of Regent Commander Santaru Rin you are ordered to the Ichimokuren restaurant today, at 1300 hours, to debrief with the Regent Commander on past operational missions under current review. Compliance is mandatory and enforceable. Co-signed by Takaki Masao, Main Branch Sennin.” A slight pause, as the death squad agent squinted through her mask to read the tiny, handwritten script accompanying the end of the printed message. ”Keke…ke…ke,” she made out, painfully.
The clock in the corner of the room read just after 1000 hours. The messenger sighed.
”Witnessed and delivered, ya prick,” she growled, and proceeded to haul him out of the drinking hole, into the brisk, wet drizzle of the village morning.
***
When Horo Danshi woke again, he was tied to a chair in a restaurant that he did not recognize. The fact that it was a restaurant at all was apparent from the first waking blink: the assault of savory smells, the hum of conversation, somewhat reduced: several instincts took in these facts, the ambient light, the shadows glancing about the room, to determine that the time of day was somewhere in the middle-afternoon. He had been kept out for a Horo Horo while, it seemed. Around him, the handful of patrons still eating were ignoring him with a carelessness that was so un-studied that it could only be natural. So…a shinobi joint! Though the Chuunin did not recognize any of the faces here, and Kumogakure was not so large or so rich that he would not have known at least one oh by Shinbatsu’s crotch stitching it’s an ANBU JOINT.
The very thought of which was enough to make Horo Danshi stop looking around the place at all, and instead study what was directly in front of him very, very carefully.
And the thought that came to mind, all of his focus summoned onto one place, into one theme and location, was this:
What tacky-ass restaurant puts checkerboard patterns on their tables ewwwwwyuck.
