The woman flung her baby at him.
“Your baby!” He instinctively reached out to catch it, but by the time the he realized what was actually happening, it was already too late.
With a fump, the baby turned into a ninja in a deep-purple costume and thrust a kunai toward Konohamaru. He threw his head backward, but the blade still scraped his cheek. Blood poured down the side of his face.
The baby’s a ninja transformation! So then is the mother an accomplice?
The thought had no sooner formed in his mind than he felt a foot slam into his back. At some point, the helpless mother had also transformed into a ninja, and now she came flying at him with a right uppercut aimed squarely at his side.
“Pretty nasty trick to pretend to be weak to get my guard down!” He kicked hard at the ceiling to send his body in the opposite direction and evade the not-a-mother’s fist. But he wasn’t going to be able to dodge the other one’s kunai closing in on his left. He caught it with his wrist covering and absorbed the force of the blow, then turned around to strike the ninja with a backhand to the face.
He saw something glimmer in the corner of his eye—shuriken! He jumped back down the aisle as far as he could to get some distance and faced the two ninja once again.
One, a man past middle age, still had a bib tied around his neck, a vestige of his baby transformation. A cloth covered the other one’s face, but judging from his build, Konohamaru assumed he was a man as well. The sole distinguishing feature he could make out was a mole beneath the left eye. Both had weapons at the ready.
“So you are a jonin, judging from the way you carry yourself,” the man with the bib said.
“Hmm, dunno.” Konohamaru wasn’t about to give his enemy any information. “All us Konoha ninja are pretty strong. Maybe I’m not even a chunin yet.”
“You’re too modest.” The man in the bib shook his head. “I am grateful to the fates.”
“Huh?”
“I never dreamed I would be given the opportunity to kill a jonin with my own hands.”
All right, tough guy. Konohamaru glanced out the window. Their speed was dropping, albeit by the tiniest increments. Sasuke had probably frozen the mechanical parts at the head of the train. I gotta take care of this before he gets back, give him a little present.
“There’s no need for you to fight.” The man with the mole took a step out in front of the man with the bib. “We will dispatch him.”
“We?” Konohamaru raised an eyebrow.
The door leading to the ninth car opened behind the mole-faced man, and a new purple shadow strolled in.
“So there’s more of you!” Konohamaru jumped back again.
Three against one.
Before this had a chance to register fully, a fourth purple-clad ninja appeared behind the third, then another behind him, and still another behind that one.
Four, five, six…
Twelve against one.
This was no time to worry about taking them alive. As the twelve ninja closed in on him, Konohamaru backed away until he bumped up against the door and was forced to stop.
No, no, hang on a sec. This many people are gonna fight in this tiny train car?
“Whoa, time o—”
Twelve ninja slashed toward him from three different directions. There was nowhere for him to run in the claustrophobic space. So then Shadow Doppelganger—Wait, no, a melee in this small room was too dangerous.
Gah! For real! What am I gonna do here?!
For the moment, he focused on dodging their kunai. A powerful gust of hot wind blasted past him, nearly singing the top of his head—Fire Style: Fireball Technique. The enemy ninja flinched and retreated, forced back by the sudden eruption of crimson flames.
“Uchiha Sasuke!” the mole-faced man groaned as he beat back the roaring flames.
Sasuke stood over Konohamaru, still crouched on the floor. “Situation?” he asked.
“This is probably the entire enemy contingent on the train. Leader’s the old guy in the bib. Very likely they’ve got a larger organization backing them.”
“Take them alive,” Sasuke instructed.
“Right,” Konohamaru said, and the other ninja vanished.
Konohamaru looked up and gasped. The man in purple at the far end of the enemy line was already frozen and falling to the floor. The man next to him also dropped to his knees and toppled over. In the blink of an eye, Sasuke had taken down two ninja.
“Leave him to us!” A man jumped in front of the one in the bib to protect him.
Without a word, Sasuke thrust his still-sheathed hidden sword downward. The man caught the sword stroke with his wrist covering, but there was no way it could absorb the blow completely, and the man flew back against the wall.
After a moment’s hesitation, the bibbed man charged toward the window, broke the glass, and leaped outside.
“Ah! Hey! Stop!” Konohamaru glanced at Sasuke, but he didn’t seem to be paying any mind to the man in the bib.
Which means I’m supposed to go after him?
Konohamaru jumped through the window to give chase.
Alternating between hand strikes and the back of his sword, Sasuke knocked his enemies out cold one after another. Even just in terms of speed, he was on an entirely different level than his opponents. They had no chance, despite outnumbering him, and they dropped like flies.
Soon only two of the purple-clad men remained standing. One of them was the man with the mole who had transformed into the mother. Sasuke stared at him, silently willing him to surrender.
“Dammit.” The mole-faced man sighed and waved a short sign.
Pok!
A horn-shaped steel pillar sprang up from the floor at Sasuke’s feet. He deftly stepped out of its path and punched the man closest to him in the jaw, knocking him out. The pillar continued to grow. It ripped through the ceiling of the car and twisted upward into the sky. Sasuke had never seen this ninjutsu before, and while it appeared quite powerful, it was still no match for him. At any rate, there was just one enemy ninja left now.
Sasuke looked squarely at the last man standing, the man with the mole.