They had twenty minutes until the first execution.
Watching the enemy from inside the air duct for the last ten minutes, Kakashi had learned that their companions were also on standby on the ground and that this attack had already been communicated to Konohagakure.
And that wasn’t all.
They had blown off the door to the pilothouse and gotten the pilots under their control as well.
“You the Hokage?” He could hear the leader’s angry roar slipping out. “What’s happening with Lord Garyo’s release?!” Apparently, he had begun negotiating with Tsunade. “We can’t wait that long! You have twenty minutes left. In twenty minutes, we do the first execution!”
He couldn’t hear her reply.
“We are serious! If Lord Garyo is not released by noon, we will execute a passenger every ten minutes!” After this angry shout, the leader came out of the pilothouse and spoke to the passengers. “You heard what I said! Whether you live or die is on the head of Konohagakure!”
A shiver raced through the group of passengers shrunken and huddled together.
“What’re we going to do, Kakashi?” Guy whispered sharply. “We bungle this, and they’ll blow up the ship.”
“We need to lower the ship’s altitude somehow. This air duct connects with the pilothouse, too. You should be able to get there if you keep crawling. Can I leave that to you?”
“What are you going to do? The first thing we need to do is collect all those explosive tag—Urp!”
“Ah! Idiot! At a time like this—”
Guy vomited magnificently, leading the attackers occupying the dining lounge to suspect that something was off.
“What was that, just now?!” Instantly, a huge commotion arose—a hornet’s nest jabbed with a stick. “Urgh! What’s that sour smell?!”
“The ceiling! Someone’s hiding in the ceiling!”
At once, several kunai shot through the ceiling—thk! thk! thk!—grazing the tip of Kakashi’s nose.
Kakashi and an ashen-faced Guy immediately fled to either side. In no time, lances were thrust into the ceiling, ripping Guy’s cheek open.
“You okay, Guy?!”
“What, this little—Urp!”
Wait. That’s not a lance. It’s an icicle, an ice sword.
The ice sword ripped through the air duct and chased after them.
“Guy! You’re in charge of the pilothouse!”
“L-leave it to me…”
They turned their backs on each other and crawled frantically through the air duct.
Kakashi had to twist his body up any number of times to avoid the ice swords. They just kept coming after him, like sharp fangs sprouting up from below. And they came to assault him from the front as well.
“Hngh!” He momentarily summoned his chakra to release a jutsu. “Lightning Style! Violet Bolt!”
A pale purple tongue of lightning gushed from Kakashi’s hand. Zzzmp! Together with the sound, the ice sword coming at him was vaporized and blown away.
Lightning Style, Violet Bolt. This was a new jutsu Kakashi had learned after losing his Lightning Blade.
In a narrow escape, an ice sword shredded the lingering afterimage of Kakashi fleeing through the hole in the air duct.
He had fallen into the washroom. By the time he grasped this, he was tangled up with a woman wearing a blue dress. Kakashi gently covered her mouth as she opened it to scream.
“Shh!”
“Mmmm!” The gagged woman struggled fiercely to try and get away from him somehow. “Mmmm… Mmmm!”
“I’m not going to hurt you!”
It was at that moment that he realized it was her. The long, flowing, curly hair, the large, wide-open eyes—they belonged to her, the woman still fresh in his memory.
“We met once before!” Kakashi told her. “You were about to fall and I caught you. Do you remember?”
And here it seemed the woman finally remembered who Kakashi was.
“I’m going to take my hand away. Can you stay quiet?”
The woman nodded with fearful eyes.
“I’m a shinobi from Konohagakure,” Kakashi said as he released the woman’s mouth. “I’m guarding this sightseeing flight. What are you doing in here?”
“I…” She got her breathing under control before replying. “I had just gone into the washroom when they attacked.”
“And so you stayed hidden like this?”
The woman nodded again.
In the small washroom, they were standing with their bodies very nearly pressed up against each other. A faint scent of lavender drifted up to Kakashi’s nose.
“At any rate, it’d be better to get out of here.”
He looked up at the hole in the ceiling of the washroom, but the ice sword had disappeared without a trace. The user had released the jutsu.
Did Guy manage to escape okay?
“We’ll go out through this hole.” Kakashi flashed a smile at the reluctant woman to reassure her. “It’s fine. We’ll come out in the kitchen next door soon enough.”
The woman blinked eyes wide with surprise.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, no…” She hurriedly looked away. “Let’s go.”
So Kakashi lifted her up and pushed her into the air duct, and then followed after her himself.
They crawled along, and in no time at all they were dropping down into the kitchen through the opening he and Guy had used to climb into the ducts. Guy’s wheelchair was still there, right where it had landed when they tossed it aside.
The woman started to say something, but Kakashi held her back, suddenly bit his thumb, and pressed her to the floor.
“Shinobi Conjuration!”
Poof! White smoke surged up, and eight ninja hounds appeared—Pakkun, Buru, Urushi, Guruko, Shiba, Biscuit, Uhei, and Akino.
“W-what?” The woman’s eyes widened. “What are these dogs?”
“Where are we?” Buru shouted. “Oh, if it isn’t Kakashi! Been a while!”
“Shh!” Kakashi held his index finger up to his mouth. “You’re always so loud, Buru.”
“Seeing you looking all gloomy like this…” Akino grinned from behind sunglasses. “Looks like you’re still hesitating about formally becoming the Hokage, huh, Kakashi?”
“Sorry for being gloomy.” Even dogs are getting on my case. “Anyway, to get right to it, I need your help.”
“What’s up, Kakashi?” Pakkun asked. “It’s not like you to be in such a hurry.”
“I don’t have time to explain everything. Right now, you guys are five thousand meters above the ground.”