“Come on! Can’t you go any faster?! Aah, come on already. If my legs weren’t out of action, I’d have already caught them by now and pounded all we needed to know out of them. Hurry up, Kakashi! The enemy’s not going to stand around waiting for us, you know!”
“Seriously, you…” Kakashi pushed Guy’s wheelchair and raced along the high scaffolding, cutting through the storehouse. The entire time, Guy had not been quiet for even a second.
“What’s the matter, Kakashi? You’re slowing down! Are you really a Konoha shinobi?!”
“You’re really making me feel great here.”
“And you! Get that hot blood of yours boiling! Then you naturally rescue others and can even save yourself. That’s what’ll make you feel great in the end, you know!”
This Might Guy doesn’t understand sarcasm at all.
They abandoned the wheelchair in the galley, and after first pushing Guy up into the air duct, Kakashi jumped into the duct himself. They crawled along with Guy in the lead, pulling himself forward quickly with the strength of his arms alone.
Now that I’m thinking about it, this guy didn’t just do left leg squats, he did push-ups like a maniac all day long, Kakashi thought, watching the man in front of him. Honestly, your ridiculous stubbornness makes me feel better, Guy.
When they came to the other side of the dining lounge ceiling, Guy stopped abruptly. And Kakashi slammed his face into Guy’s butt.
“Don’t stop so sudden—”
“Shh!” Guy beckoned Kakashi with a finger.
They looked down on the lounge through a vent cover set into the ceiling. Immediately to one side of the vent hung a large chandelier. In a corner of the lounge he could see a white grand piano, along with a neat arrangement of sofas and tables. There was even a bar serving alcohol by the windows.
“What are they doing?”
“Well,” Kakashi replied, “it doesn’t look like anything fun, does it?”
At that moment, several ninja were in the process of overpowering the passengers. They thrust kunai at them and showered them in jeers while they pushed and prodded the passengers all together in one place.
The baffled men and women, both young and old, were driven like sheep together into the center of the lounge. Small children clung to their mothers’ waists and sobbed loudly. A man who complained was struck down by a shinobi.
“How many?” Kakashi asked, sharply.
“From where I sit, six—no, maybe seven?”
“Are the two from before there too?”
“Dunno.” Now it was Guy doing the asking. “How many Konoha jonin are concealed aboard?”
“Three.”
Before his voice had the chance to fade away, those jonin made their move.
One disguised as a passenger leapt away from the crowd and launched kunai at the enemy ninja with both hands. Two of the enemy collapsed to the floor.
Kakashi sent his eyes racing in the direction of a shriek to find another jonin crossing swords with the enemy directly under the luxurious chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
Perhaps they hadn’t foreseen rebellion from the passengers; the enemy became overexcited. Several passengers fell because of some poorly aimed shuriken thrown by the enemy. An attacker’s kick sent a jonin flying and crashing into some passengers, who tumbled to the floor.
“What are you doing?!” An enormous man in the center of the lounge howled. “What is Kahyo doing?!” He appeared to be the leader of the gang and wore chain mail over a navy ninja costume, beard covering the lower half of his face.
And then, Kahyo.
So that was the name of the woman who owned Kakashi’s heart.
The third jonin jumped from the grand piano, clutching kunai in both hands, and sprang at this leader. The enemy drew a longsword he had hidden beneath his cloak to meet her challenge.
The fact that neither side carelessly activated any ninjutsu was likely because they were five thousand meters up in the air. If anyone made a wrong move and damaged the ship itself, it would be an invitation to catastrophe.
The kunai of the Konoha ninja and the leader of the attackers slammed against each other, sparks flying. The other two jonin were also facing off with enemies of their own.
“We gotta get in there and help, Kakashi!”
“With that body, what do you intend—Never mind. Just hold on a minute.”
An unpleasant apprehension overwhelmed the urge he had to run in and support his fellow ninja. He soon understood why.
Kahyo.
Just as Konoha had slipped their own in amongst the passengers, the enemy apparently still had a trump card to be played.
This premonition of his was correct.
The first sign of it appeared around Guy’s mouth. The voice urging Kakashi on expelled white mist. His breath was white. At the same time as Kakashi noticed this, he felt the precipitous drop in the cabin temperature. Returning his eyes to the battle in the lounge, he saw the movements of his ninja allies had stopped.
At first, he had no idea what was going on.
The three jonin also didn’t seem to understand what was happening. They twisted their upper bodies desperately, but their lower halves didn’t move an inch, almost as if they had been frozen solid.
Kakashi soon realized this was no metaphor. His compatriots were really frozen!
The thin ice snapped and crackled as it crawled upward on their bodies like a living creature. It quickly reached the tops of their heads, sealing the jonin in ice.
“W-what the…” Guy flapped his mouth open and closed, and the breath that came out was no longer white. “What’s going on?”
“An enemy’s mixed in with the passengers too.” Kakashi felt the temperature rising on his skin. “And it looks like they’re an Ice Style master.”
“You got any ideas who it is?”
“That time two months ago when Naruto captured Garyo—” Looking down on his frozen allies, Kakashi clenched his teeth tightly. “He said he faced an Ice Style master.”
“So then, these guys are Garyo’s lackeys?”
“Probably.”
“So? What’re we doing?”
“Hold on. They’re moving.”
“We are volunteers with the Ryuha Armed Alliance!” the large leader shouted. “All non-ninja passengers gather in the center of the room immediately!”
When he was finished, his underlings jabbed at the fearful, weeping passengers with kunai and herded them into the center of the dining lounge.
Another four or so newcomers came rushing into the lounge. Kakashi assumed the group had split into two groups to set up explosive tags within the ship.
The attackers deployed in pairs around the passengers and set up a monitoring system.
“Our demand is the immediate release of Lord Garyo, unjustly imprisoned at Hozuki Castle!” The leader roared thunderously. “If our demand is not met by precisely noon today, we will execute a passenger every ten minutes!”
Shrieks rose up from amongst the passengers.
“We know that Konohagakure serves as escort for this sightseeing tour! And we are well aware of the abilities of Uzumaki Naruto. If Konoha should attempt to use Uzumaki Naruto to regain control of this situation, you will be forever scorned as the village that abandoned these hostages to their deaths!”
Kakashi and Guy exchanged looks.
“We have already set up explosive tags in several places on this ship. If any one of us confirms the presence of Uzumaki Naruto—even if we falsely confirm the presence of a bird that resembles Uzumaki Naruto—Tobishachimaru will explode in the sky and fall to earth as nothing but flaming cinders!”
By noon—thirty minutes left.