Unknown Location, Kaminari no Kuni
...???? Hours
“Out of the fire and into the frying pan, eh, Mochizuki?” quipped Shiranai as he sat next to the girl on a stack of bodies while flames licked at their charred-black feet. Tama turned to face him, grinning in response – or at least, her bare skull did, still draped by the panda-hoodie. Senna now tugged at his arm, causing him to look over at her. Giving him a seductive look, she pressed his hand to the bolt-sized hole right above her left breast, still pumping out arterial blood...
With a start, Shiranai opened his eyes, fighting the urge to vomit. Ice-cold water ran down his face and chest, from where he had been splashed moments before. The world spun crazily, much as it had done aboard the Raiden’s Breath in the final moments of the train’s fiery death. But this time, the spinning was coming from the fact that he was suspended in the air via a chain that connected manacles on his wrists to a ceiling above. As far as he could tell, he was imprisoned in a windowless chamber of some sort, its features hidden in darkness save for a single overhead light that shone fiercely from above and was trained on his head, forcing him to avert his eyes to avoid being blinded. There was no way to tell where he was – no geographic clues or landmarks, and not even a means to tell if he was above or below ground level. Wherever he was, it was also cold, and he shivered violently, having been stripped to a loincloth and drenched. Clenching his teeth, he breathed deeply, attempting to utilize his mednin knowledge to control his physiology and get his body to start warming itself. He looked upward at his bindings, lamenting that his hands were spaced just widely enough to prevent the completion of handseals. Unfortunately, he did not possess the talent for one-handed seals, preventing that option.
“Greetings, Shogun. I apologize for the rather austere accommodations,” now said Hayata Makoro, who emerged from the shadows, hands behind his back in a scholarly pose.
“Why?! Why are you doing this, Makoro?!” growled Shiranai, now straining at the manacles in vain.
“I’m impressed, Your Majesty,” said Makoro, clapping his hands as he paced a circle around the chained mednin. “You’re probably the first person who’s directly asked me that question. You see, my servants – the various lower-ranked trash that call themselves nukenin, do what I tell them to because in their simplistic minds I am the strongest and therefore I must be correct. The mercenaries and various professionals I employ do my bidding because I pay them well. Amakusa Ryuu gladly accepted my offer of aid in his plans to take the country because of his own greed, and never cared about what my motivations were. The simple and underwhelming truth is that I have labored for the last thirty years in pursuit of a singular purpose: revenge. The irony, which is not lost on me, is that the man I seek revenge on is long-dead. He is, or was, Hayata Takama, my brother.”
“If he’s long dead, are you not satisfied?” asked Shiranai, gritting his teeth. It was more obvious now than it had ever been in the past that Makoro was truly mad. “I’ve heard the stories. You’re the only missing nin who has ever been able to disappear from all of our records. Why throw that away?!”
“A man’s death does not absolve him of the burden of sin,” said Makoro, darkly. “As long as I, the aggrieved, still live, he must pay. And if he cannot render payment, his son will.”
“You’re talking about the Raikage, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Shin, my nephew. At first I thought he would have no future, being too much like his father, and be an easy target. But over the years, as he became a well-rounded man and a more powerful shinobi and eventually the Raikage, I was forced to also expand the scope of my plans. I knew I could not wait for longer, so I acted.”
“The Raikage will never give in to the demands of a terrorist,” spat Shiranai, uselessly straining against his bonds.
“Oh, but I think he will. He is, after all, a Hayata. Not that he won’t need some convincing, though,” said Makoro, now waving his hand lazily in the direction of a darkened corner of the room. A group of five henchmen, their eyes flinty with malice, now approached bearing ominous-looking tools in their hands; a large wooden crucifix, more chains, and three very large nails. One of them pulled on a nearby lever, loosening the manacles that held Shiranai to the ceiling and causing him to drop to the ground. Before he could formulate a plan for escape, two of them roughly hoisted him under his armpits and laid him on the cross, spreading his arms. Another now took up a hammer and a nail, and started to poke at the flesh of the mednin’s wrist. At this point, the future Shogun of Lightning Country realized what was in store for him.
“It’s really not personal, Your Majesty,” said Makoro as he exited the chamber, leaving behind the boy’s screams and the intermittent clanking noises of hammer on nails.
Emergency Assembly of the Council of Nobles
Grand Chamber of the Imperial Diet
Raiden no Me, Kaminari no Kuni
...0800 hours
The high-roofed, palatial Grand Chamber was abuzz with activity and the competing volumes of hundreds of separate conversations at once, only calming down slightly after a series of furious raps of the gavel issued from the Speaker of the Council. He was a graying man in his sixties, and a samurai by birth with the rank of Marquis. It was his job to enforce the complex rules of protocol that governed assemblies of the Council of Nobles, and he had occupied the role for a very long time.
It had been only two days ago that the Raiden’s Breath had met its fiery end and the Crown Prince and future Shogun of the land, the mednin Shiranai, had been captured by the missing nin Makoro. Already, Ami had weathered a stream of nonstop hearings, and now she stood at the Chancellor’s podium, bleary-eyed and increasingly, undeniably desperate. Kumo, with the lone exception of Countess Bakunin, had been silent since Shiranai’s capture. Her letters to Hayata Shin had gone unanswered and she had been informed that the ANBU Vice Commander was still recovering from a severe injury and was unable to reach her. As she looked over the assembled nobility, the only friendly face she beheld was the blue-haired countess’s, who had come of her own accord, as opposed to by any direction of the Raikage. Nearby, Ryuu grinned triumphantly.
“Esteemed peers of the Council, you have heard the testimony and seen the results of Chancellor Tachibana’s failed political gamble, intended to trick you all into endorsing a no-name shinobi of Kumo as your rightful leader, for the sole purpose of undermining our influence and placing the country’s governance into the hands of the Raikage Hayata Shin, a known radical and heretic who does not endorse the Glory of Raiden! As a nation, we cannot tolerate more selfish misadventures such as these from our leadership. Therefore, I formally move to hold a vote of no confidence against Chancellor Tachibana Ami!” declared Daiki, prompting a cacophony of blended shouts of approval mixed with equally strong booing and calls for his expulsion.
“I second the motion,” responded another voice from the crowd, belonging to a well-dressed but intimidating man in his thirties, the Marquis Lee Kuan Yew, who had always been a longtime enemy of the woman. The Speaker now furiously rapped his gavel against its wooden sounding block.
“Baron Tsukahara, you cannot simply call for a vote of no confidence against the current head of state without nominating a replacement,” he warned Daiki, who rolled his eyes.
“In that case, I move that we formally recognize Daimyo Amakusa Ryuu as hereditary Shogun of Kaminari no Kuni,” responded the redhead, prompting an overwhelming chorus of raised voices, cheers, catcalls, applause, and banging of geta against wooden desks.
“Absolutely not!” roared Kouhei, now dressed in his full military splendor and flanked by Naoto and Princess Miyu.
“Seconded!” shouted various members of the Diet. Ami now cleared her throat.
“May I remind the Council that until we have conclusive evidence of his death, His Majesty Shiranai vi Kaminari is still the Crown Prince of Kaminari no Kuni?” she stated.
“You have no proof that he is alive, either!” jeered Ryuu from his seat.
“Daimyo Amakusa, in the event of the disappearance or presumed death of the Shogun or his immediate successor, our custom demands a one-week period of search be conducted before he is presumed dead,” responded Ami.
“Very well, I make the motion that we table this emergency session to concentrate our efforts of verifying the whereabouts and status of Crown Prince Shiranai. We will resume in three days,” said the speaker, about to rise from his seat.
“Seconded!” piped the Countess Bakunin from her seat, followed by a ripple of “ayes” from the room.
“And when we do, we will resume the vote of no confidence with Daimyo Amakusa as Shogun-nominee!” shouted Daiki, prompting a chorus of affirmatives from the room.
“Yes, of course,” said the speaker with obvious distaste, before slamming the gavel down.
Office of the Raikage, Torre Celeste
Kumogakure no Sato, Kaminari no Kuni
…0900 hours
A neatly hand-written letter lay on Shin’s desk, its contents obvious for all to see.
Attached to the letter was a picture of a crucified, wild-eyed Shiranai, his face haggard and bloody. It was obvious that there was not much time left.
...???? Hours
“Out of the fire and into the frying pan, eh, Mochizuki?” quipped Shiranai as he sat next to the girl on a stack of bodies while flames licked at their charred-black feet. Tama turned to face him, grinning in response – or at least, her bare skull did, still draped by the panda-hoodie. Senna now tugged at his arm, causing him to look over at her. Giving him a seductive look, she pressed his hand to the bolt-sized hole right above her left breast, still pumping out arterial blood...
With a start, Shiranai opened his eyes, fighting the urge to vomit. Ice-cold water ran down his face and chest, from where he had been splashed moments before. The world spun crazily, much as it had done aboard the Raiden’s Breath in the final moments of the train’s fiery death. But this time, the spinning was coming from the fact that he was suspended in the air via a chain that connected manacles on his wrists to a ceiling above. As far as he could tell, he was imprisoned in a windowless chamber of some sort, its features hidden in darkness save for a single overhead light that shone fiercely from above and was trained on his head, forcing him to avert his eyes to avoid being blinded. There was no way to tell where he was – no geographic clues or landmarks, and not even a means to tell if he was above or below ground level. Wherever he was, it was also cold, and he shivered violently, having been stripped to a loincloth and drenched. Clenching his teeth, he breathed deeply, attempting to utilize his mednin knowledge to control his physiology and get his body to start warming itself. He looked upward at his bindings, lamenting that his hands were spaced just widely enough to prevent the completion of handseals. Unfortunately, he did not possess the talent for one-handed seals, preventing that option.
“I’m impressed, Your Majesty,” said Makoro, clapping his hands as he paced a circle around the chained mednin. “You’re probably the first person who’s directly asked me that question. You see, my servants – the various lower-ranked trash that call themselves nukenin, do what I tell them to because in their simplistic minds I am the strongest and therefore I must be correct. The mercenaries and various professionals I employ do my bidding because I pay them well. Amakusa Ryuu gladly accepted my offer of aid in his plans to take the country because of his own greed, and never cared about what my motivations were. The simple and underwhelming truth is that I have labored for the last thirty years in pursuit of a singular purpose: revenge. The irony, which is not lost on me, is that the man I seek revenge on is long-dead. He is, or was, Hayata Takama, my brother.”
“If he’s long dead, are you not satisfied?” asked Shiranai, gritting his teeth. It was more obvious now than it had ever been in the past that Makoro was truly mad. “I’ve heard the stories. You’re the only missing nin who has ever been able to disappear from all of our records. Why throw that away?!”
“A man’s death does not absolve him of the burden of sin,” said Makoro, darkly. “As long as I, the aggrieved, still live, he must pay. And if he cannot render payment, his son will.”
“You’re talking about the Raikage, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Shin, my nephew. At first I thought he would have no future, being too much like his father, and be an easy target. But over the years, as he became a well-rounded man and a more powerful shinobi and eventually the Raikage, I was forced to also expand the scope of my plans. I knew I could not wait for longer, so I acted.”
“The Raikage will never give in to the demands of a terrorist,” spat Shiranai, uselessly straining against his bonds.
“Oh, but I think he will. He is, after all, a Hayata. Not that he won’t need some convincing, though,” said Makoro, now waving his hand lazily in the direction of a darkened corner of the room. A group of five henchmen, their eyes flinty with malice, now approached bearing ominous-looking tools in their hands; a large wooden crucifix, more chains, and three very large nails. One of them pulled on a nearby lever, loosening the manacles that held Shiranai to the ceiling and causing him to drop to the ground. Before he could formulate a plan for escape, two of them roughly hoisted him under his armpits and laid him on the cross, spreading his arms. Another now took up a hammer and a nail, and started to poke at the flesh of the mednin’s wrist. At this point, the future Shogun of Lightning Country realized what was in store for him.
“It’s really not personal, Your Majesty,” said Makoro as he exited the chamber, leaving behind the boy’s screams and the intermittent clanking noises of hammer on nails.
Emergency Assembly of the Council of Nobles
Grand Chamber of the Imperial Diet
Raiden no Me, Kaminari no Kuni
...0800 hours
The high-roofed, palatial Grand Chamber was abuzz with activity and the competing volumes of hundreds of separate conversations at once, only calming down slightly after a series of furious raps of the gavel issued from the Speaker of the Council. He was a graying man in his sixties, and a samurai by birth with the rank of Marquis. It was his job to enforce the complex rules of protocol that governed assemblies of the Council of Nobles, and he had occupied the role for a very long time.
It had been only two days ago that the Raiden’s Breath had met its fiery end and the Crown Prince and future Shogun of the land, the mednin Shiranai, had been captured by the missing nin Makoro. Already, Ami had weathered a stream of nonstop hearings, and now she stood at the Chancellor’s podium, bleary-eyed and increasingly, undeniably desperate. Kumo, with the lone exception of Countess Bakunin, had been silent since Shiranai’s capture. Her letters to Hayata Shin had gone unanswered and she had been informed that the ANBU Vice Commander was still recovering from a severe injury and was unable to reach her. As she looked over the assembled nobility, the only friendly face she beheld was the blue-haired countess’s, who had come of her own accord, as opposed to by any direction of the Raikage. Nearby, Ryuu grinned triumphantly.
“I second the motion,” responded another voice from the crowd, belonging to a well-dressed but intimidating man in his thirties, the Marquis Lee Kuan Yew, who had always been a longtime enemy of the woman. The Speaker now furiously rapped his gavel against its wooden sounding block.
“Baron Tsukahara, you cannot simply call for a vote of no confidence against the current head of state without nominating a replacement,” he warned Daiki, who rolled his eyes.
“In that case, I move that we formally recognize Daimyo Amakusa Ryuu as hereditary Shogun of Kaminari no Kuni,” responded the redhead, prompting an overwhelming chorus of raised voices, cheers, catcalls, applause, and banging of geta against wooden desks.
“Absolutely not!” roared Kouhei, now dressed in his full military splendor and flanked by Naoto and Princess Miyu.
“Seconded!” shouted various members of the Diet. Ami now cleared her throat.
“You have no proof that he is alive, either!” jeered Ryuu from his seat.
“Daimyo Amakusa, in the event of the disappearance or presumed death of the Shogun or his immediate successor, our custom demands a one-week period of search be conducted before he is presumed dead,” responded Ami.
“Very well, I make the motion that we table this emergency session to concentrate our efforts of verifying the whereabouts and status of Crown Prince Shiranai. We will resume in three days,” said the speaker, about to rise from his seat.
“And when we do, we will resume the vote of no confidence with Daimyo Amakusa as Shogun-nominee!” shouted Daiki, prompting a chorus of affirmatives from the room.
“Yes, of course,” said the speaker with obvious distaste, before slamming the gavel down.
Office of the Raikage, Torre Celeste
Kumogakure no Sato, Kaminari no Kuni
…0900 hours
A neatly hand-written letter lay on Shin’s desk, its contents obvious for all to see.
Attached to the letter was a picture of a crucified, wild-eyed Shiranai, his face haggard and bloody. It was obvious that there was not much time left.
