An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. ~ G. K. Chesterton
.
.
The stranger blocked our path.
He was tall and heavy set, with a thick and wild looking beard. He was dressed in a red poncho, and carrying an axe. The gates of Station Two loomed large behind him. We couldn't get to them without going through him.
He looked distantly familiar and it took a moment to place him as the other mysterious figure from the saloon in Station One.
He must have come straight here to make it ahead of us.
We drew to a halt.
"What's the big deal?" Naruto demanded. He threw out a hand to halt Gamanori, who was placidly hopping along with our prisoners piled onto his back.
Sazanami dropped his hand to the hilt of his sword.
A gust of wind blew past, flapping our clothes. A lone tumbleweed blew past.
"Tokichi," the stranger rasped. "You're under arrest."
Naruto squinted at him. "Who's Tokichi?"
The tension shattered. Sazanami coughed awkwardly. "That's me," he said. "He's after my bounty."
"Oh," Naruto realised. "That's okay, the whole thing is just a big mistake! Sazanami didn't really do it, and we caught the guy that did, so everything is sorted now." He folded his hands behind his head and grinned. "Wait until you hear the whole story, it's kind of a doozy."
The bounty hunter looked at him, seeming just a little put out by the change in script.
I smothered a smile.
"We're going to the sheriff's office now," I offered politely. "If you'd like to join us."
It wasn't that I thought we couldn't fight him… but if there was no need, then there was no need.
"What's your name, anyway?" Naruto asked. "Are you a bounty hunter? Were you after Gosunkugi too?"
He started walking, expecting the man to fall into step with us on the way to deliver the prisoners.
There was a moment of hesitation, where I thought that the bounty hunter would still try something, then he shook his head and turned.
"Gatsu," he said. "Yes. Yes." He paused. "That's an … interesting looking horse you have there."
Naruto gave him a weird look. "It's not a horse. He's a toad."
Gatsu gave him a look that was so bland it spoke volumes.
We made an odd procession, walking down the streets of Station Two. This town seemed a lot more lively than the last one, brighter and more well off, with a nice collection of temples and shrines.
"Ah, it's the ceremony of the Golden Bell," Sazanami said, after a loud tolling noise had cut through the air. "It's a shame to miss it."
"The what?" Naruto said, settling back down after it turned out not to be an attack.
I admit that I had jumped too.
"The main temple has a giant bell made of gold," Sazanami explained. "It's the center piece to the festival. They move it from the temple out to the belfry for a day, so that people can see it and admire it." He squinted upwards, tilting his hat back. "I've heard a legend that it was a key item in the last war, used to defend the border. But I think that's just a story."
I looked at Naruto and shrugged. "There are weirder things," I said, though maybe we could check it out after.
"Do you think that's what that guy was after?" Naruto wondered, jerking a thumb at the criminals. "A giant bell made of gold has to be worth a lot?"
"An item so famous and unique would be difficult to sell without notice," Sai criticised. "Regardless of how much money it was worth."
It was a valid point. Assuming that Gosunkugi wasn't vain enough to want to do it anyway, simply because the thing existed. He had stolen from the Tea Country court, so it wasn't like he was afraid of retaliation.
Which was a bit of a mistake on his part, frankly. He'd taken things from people who had the ability to hire ninja to get them back, and so here we were.
"Well whatever," Naruto said. "There's no chance of it happening now."
The next step of the mission – depositing the prisoners at the police station and acquiring a confession to both Sazanami's story and the theft – went slightly less smoothly. For one, although he was there willingly, Sazanami was also taken in to custody.
"I expected it," he said, and relinquished his sword to us rather than the police. "Please look after this for me."
Naruto took it, slightly awkwardly. "You bet! I'll keep it safe for you."
Gatsu watched, hawkeyed, as Sazanami was led through the hallway where the prisoners were kept.
"I didn't expect him to go," he admitted. "It has been a long chase to catch him."
I didn't point out that Sazanami had hardly been caught at all. He looked thoughtful, and I wondered if he was considering the likelihood we were telling the truth about the true criminal. At this stage, his opinion didn't really matter.
"Yes," I repeated, to the police officer who had taken the other prisoners, for about the tenth time. "We require information from Gosunkugi about a crime committed in the Land of Tea. We will need to question him."
"I can't allow that," the sheriff said. "There is no access to prisoners without authorisation."
"I have the authorisation of the Village Hidden in the Leaves," I corrected. "As a representative of the Land of Fire as granted by the Daimyo."
I wasn't one hundred percent sure that Land of Fire had a treaty with this place as to that effect but … 'I'm a ninja' was generally a pretty strong statement. Officially, ninja were representatives of their country of origin in a whole lot of ways. We were military, and we interacted with legislative branches in actual, legally obligated ways. Granted, ninja tended to bend 'legal' as far as it could go without breaking, if they didn't circumvent it altogether, but there was some official power behind it. We weren't (always) just renegades that ran around doing whatever we felt like.
He still seemed doubtful. I showed him my headband and ninja registration card.
"I'll have to inform the chief," he said at last, which was at least progress.
Even my patience was starting to wear a little thin. Naruto was starting to fidget.
"Maybe you can take Sai to scout the town?" I suggested. "See if there is anything going on, maybe pick up some breakfast?" We'd travelled all night, and it didn't look like we were going to be done here anytime soon. We'd done worse than skip a meal in the past, but there wasn't any need to push ourselves.
Naruto nodded thoughtfully. "Okay, you stay here with Gatsu and sort this out. We'll make sure that nothing else is happening."
I still wasn't confident in sending them away together, because time was ticking down if Sai was going to try something. I still had no idea what that might be.
"Keep an eye on each other," I suggested, trying to smile like it was a light-hearted admonishment. Naruto could take Sai if it came to an out-and-out fight, but Sai would be a fool to make it one.
I sank back into the visitor chairs to wait. Gatsu was leaning against the wall like an intimidating block of muscle and seemed disinclined to talk.
Maybe we'd made a mistake, handing Gosunkugi in before we'd questioned him. It wouldn't have been that much harder to wait until he woke up and then give him to the police.
But… I was a little leery about doing it that way.
All on our own, there were a lot of paths that we could have taken to get a man to talk. I didn't think Naruto would have allowed it, but how hard would it have been to send him away for half an hour, until we had the information we needed?
No. Definitely not. This would be done properly, legally, and ethically.
"So, you're the ninja from Iwa?" The police chief said briskly, stopping to a halt in front of me. He was a tall man, wide shouldered, and wore his uniform with crisp practicality. There were streaks of grey in his hair, and wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, but he was not frail.
I straightened. There was a spark of intelligence in his eye that made me think the question itself was a trap. He wasn't a ninja, not unless he was good enough to completely present his chakra as civilian, but he clearly wasn't as unknowledgeable as the rest of the station.
"Konoha," I corrected with a smile. I pulled the coat of my sleeve until he could see the village symbol on the headband there. "Gosunkugi has also committed crimes to the south of here, so we were dispatched to arrest him."
"And you want to interrogate him," he said bluntly.
I tilted my head slightly. "Yes," I agreed, because we had to call a spade a spade. "We need to know where the item he stole is located. Also, there is another crime that is of interest to us. Several years ago, Gosunkugi murdered a family of three and framed our friend Tokichi for it. I'd rather like that matter to be settled."
His lips pulled down in a tight frown. "If that is the truth," he prevaricated.
"Yes," I agreed, since he seemed at least willing to consider the whole matter. Good that this wasn't the type of police that would consider any conviction better than none. Sazanami would have been in trouble if that were the case. But, he probably knew attitudes of the law here reasonably well, and would hardly have surrendered if justice was completely off the table.
I hoped.
"I will allow you to ask your questions," the chief began. "Under certain conditions. At no point will you be alone with the prisoner. At no point will the prisoner be harmed. You have no authority to make plea bargains. You have no authority to sentence the prisoner. At any point, the interrogation may be cancelled."
I considered it. That cut out several options – some of them, I was glad to see go – but still left some fairly wide margins around the edge. "I accept," I said, and hoped I knew what the hell I was doing.
Surely they had someone here whose job it was to ask prisoners questions? They had to investigate all these crimes.
Except that might take weeks and Tsunade would not be impressed with us in that case.
Nothing for it but to try.
Maybe I should have kept Naruto here to shout at him. That generally seemed to get people to spill.
"Very well," the police chief nodded. "I hope you are prepared. Gosunkugi has already been questioned and has been uncooperative. Follow me."
I fell into step, feeling a flash of wry amusement at the new information. Not only was Gosunkugi awake already, but they'd already started questioning him and they hadn't said.
Well played.
I felt Gatsu push off the wall and follow us as well. Well, whatever. If he wanted to loom menacingly, I wasn't going to complain.
The room that the chief led us to was plain. There was a single table, with Gosunkugi seated on one side. His hands were shackled and resting on the table, but didn't appear tied down.
There were two chairs opposite him. I paused in the doorway for a moment, observing, before choosing to sit down directly opposite him.
I need to make him want to talk.
I braced my elbows on the table and laced my fingers together. Gosunkugi had been stripped of the rich, almost formal clothes he had been wearing before, and was dressed in a simple prison overall. His hair was mussed, there were still smudges of dirty across his face, and he looked deeply disgruntled.
But not afraid. He looked like a man that was confident that he was going to get out of this.
His eyes flickered to the police chief, who sat down beside me, and to Gatsu, looming behind us.
This was a case where our quick combat worked against us. Gosunkugi didn't understand enough to be afraid of the real threat. It had happened too fast – he might not even know how he had gone from yelling at Naruto to the police station.
Despite the fact that there was no possibility of combat – and if there was, I would hardly be threatened – my mind was combat clear. I was aware of everyone in the room. I was aware of every potential weapon in the room, however bare it was.
I was aware of every shadow.
We were all sitting around the same table. The light was coming down from above.
I couldn't have created a better trap if I had planned it.
I could certainly use this.
Okay, let's do this.
Firstly, I tried something that I had never consciously done before. I gathered my chakra, and spread it through the air with a shiver of killing intent.
Sweat broke out on Gosunkugi's forehead.
I'll kill you, I thought experimentally. It felt … flat. Empty. But how could I work up the passion of a fight over this? I wasn't afraid. I wasn't desperate. I didn't need to.
Yet-
Yet the most terrifying killing intent I had ever felt had not been at Zabuza's feet. It had not even been the wild, uncontrolled bloodlust of Gaara.
No. Terror had been Itachi and his sense of duty, willing to go so far for so little. Terror had been Orochimaru's dispassionate, cool gaze. The blinding, rising tide of it, swallowing everything. It had been his cold reptilian gaze that could kill you and simply… not notice.
I could kill you, I thought, and layered it into my chakra. If I needed to. And it would not be because I enjoyed it, or because I wanted to, it would simply be because you were in my way.
I felt distanced from myself, almost as if I had gone to shadow.
"Gosunkugi," I said coolly. "You're going to answer my questions."
He swallowed, nervously. His eyes were wide, pupils blown out with fear. There was a slight tremor to him, shaking the chains on his handcuffs with a metallic clacking noise.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he bluffed. "I'm an innocent man. Officer, I was attacked by… by a young ruffian while I was on my way to visit this lovely town, you should invest more heavily into controlling the rabble-"
My brow creased slightly. That wasn't good.
Stage two, then.
I channelled some chakra into my shadow. It swelled beneath the table, spreading out to envelop all within it. I latched on to Gosunkugi's shadow.
He shuddered. The shaking stopped as he was immobilized, but his eyes started to roll. He was almost panting with fear.
I paused. That was a reaction greater than what I was going for. I'd been going to use the 'you can't even control your own body' as an intimidation tactic, certainly, but this was…
Oh.
Shadow Possession was a spiritual connection. We used that to control the body, but right now I was emitting killing intent and it was going straight from my chakra to his. It no longer relied on him sensing it from the air around him.
Well. I could work with this.
I pulled on my shadow, like I was meditating, laying in on thicker and darker. "Gosunkugi," I repeated. "You're going to answer my questions."
.
.
"Can I speak with Sazanami as well?" I asked, as we exited the interrogation room.
Gosunkugi had been mostly cooperative, shrill and terrified though he was. I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about that, but I had the information I was after and he had confessed to more than just framing Tokichi. I didn't think he would be seeing daylight for a very long time.
The police chief gave me a wary look. "Do you have questions for him as well?" he asked, a little dryly.
He and Gatsu hadn't felt the extra boost of the Shadow Possession, but I wasn't exactly expert enough at killing intent to direct it solely at one person. They'd probably caught a bit of that, though neither of them looked like they were badly off.
Actually out of the two, Gatsu looked worse off.
I was absolutely certain that the police chief had had dealings with ninja before.
"No," I said. "He's a friend. I just wanted to let him know that Gosunkugi had confessed." I gave him a friendly smile. I felt cold and distant inside, so it was a little difficult, but I put effort into it until it felt natural.
It didn't seem like he brought it, not truly, but he called one of the other officers over to escort me.
Even better, I thought. It would have been tricky to have this conversation under his watchful eye. Easy to dismiss him as a 'civilian' simply because he wasn't a ninja – but that didn't mean he was lesser.
"Shikako," Sazanami greeted politely. Like Gosunkugi, he was cuffed and wearing uniform, but his confidence was of a different sort. A little more nervous. A little more hopeful.
I smiled at him, sliding into the seat. "Good news," I said. "The police have his confession, and the police chief is going to take care of all the paperwork. They might keep you for a few days to clean up the loose ends and do a bit more investigating, but it looks like you'll be a free man soon."
Hopefully not much more than a few days, anyway. That was very fast for a legal process, so I thought it was a little optimistic, personally. Then again, maybe the chief just really, really wanted to get rid of us ninja.
Sazanami slumped in his chair. "Oh," he said, sounding dazed. "That's funny. I thought it would feel different."
I regarded him carefully. "You thought it would feel like before," I guessed.
He chuckled. "I guess it sounds silly when you put it like that. It's not like the truth would make the last few years just vanish."
"It doesn't change what's already happened," I agreed.
"No, it doesn't," Sazanami said. "But it's over. Finally, it's over."
"What are you going to do now?" I asked, curiously. "Stay a bounty hunter?"
"I don't know. I always thought that I would go back and start up as a sword smith again…" he looked pensive. "But I don't hate this life. And I don't know if I could live in a town that once believed the worst of me with no cause or reason."
Carefully, I dropped my hands beneath the table into my lap, and folded them through a set of handseals.
The genjutsu dropped lightly over the police officer beside me. To him, we merely kept talking in the same vein – light-hearted words between friends.
"You know, when we met in Station One, you said that there were special ways to get information on bounties," I said leadingly.
"I don't know if I would say 'special' ways," Sazanami said. "But you have to know what you're doing. Newcomers are easy to spot in a lot of ways. What you guys did was a pretty classic mistake." He looked thoughtful. "There is someone you're looking for, isn't there?"
I leant back in the chair, picking my words carefully. I had to be so, so careful here. This was important, but it couldn't sound it. Couldn't sound more meaningful than 'we met yesterday and maybe you can help me'.
Damn. This was a terrible idea.
"Yes and no," I said. "There is someone I'm looking for information on."
Sazanami glanced at the police officer, who was looking a little bored and not reacting to our conversation.
"He can't hear us," I clarified. "The conversation he can hear is filled with technical weapon terminology. More about the uses than the smithing, sorry." Okay, so 'light-hearted' in only a certain sense. But it was something we both could be expected to know, and probably a few levels of jargon higher than the poor officer could easily understand and remember. "Try to not make any huge exaggerated movements or anything, though."
It did cover sight as well – simple layering of what was already here with no differences – but the less I needed to change, the easier it was to keep going.
"Right, of course he can't." Sazanami ran a hand through his hair. "So you wanted me to keep an eye out at the bounty offices? You found Gosunkugi pretty quickly without them."
I hesitated. "The man I'm talking about," I said carefully, "is a very dangerous ninja who just also happens to be a bounty hunter. If you think about how easily we dealt with Gosunkugi… that's how easily this man would deal with us. The opponents he deals with have ten million ryo bounties."
"That's a little out of my league," Sazanami said.
"I know," I admitted. "I'm not asking you to do anything about him. Just… if you happened to notice that he had been around…"
It was also why I had waited until Gosunkugi had confessed to have this conversation. Sazanami was free. I didn't have anything to hold over him. Because it would have been so, so easy to say 'do this, or he might have an accident on the way to jail' or 'or we'll take him to Konoha and the truth will never come out'. And that was stupid and short term and awful.
Cruel. It would have been cruel to blackmail someone into doing something so dangerous, would have built resentment and turn Sazanami against me totally, even if he did what I needed him to.