A dozen or so members of the cargo ship crew were lined up neatly on the dock, waiting for Sasuke and his students. A man looking slightly more polished than the others—presumably the captain—stepped forward. “The Lord Hokage has informed us of the situation. We’ve set the ship’s controls as arranged to set sail in ten minutes. It’s on full autopilot until the ship reaches the port in the Land of Water.”
“There’s no crew left on board?” Sasuke asked.
“No, this is everyone.”
“So then the only people in the boat are those guys?” Boruto said, surprised.
“Mm.” Sasuke nodded. “We couldn’t risk having the crew caught up in the fighting, so we had them disembark before the ship pulls out.”
“So they’re like rats in a trap then,” Mitsuki murmured, looking up at the massive boat.
Sasuke had apparently prepared for just about everything in the brief window before the ship sailed.
According to the captain, the cargo ship was the maximum allowable size, spanning a total of eighty meters and weighing 1,600 tons. The drawbridge-style door to the rear created a small wharf when opened, allowing two jet skis to be ridden out onto the water to test water quality or in times of emergency. The interior was divided into three levels, and the only way to move between levels was to use the staircase out front or the central stairs.
“The fact that the stairs are the only way in and out makes going after them pretty easy, but sneaking in gets a lot more challenging. You’re basically totally exposed.” Mitsuki frowned.
“We can just go in another way,” Sasuke said, and pointed to the center of the ship.
Following his finger, Boruto saw round windows on what looked to be the ship’s second level. They could hide by those windows after the ship pulled out until they saw their chance and then break the windows to slip inside—that was the plan, apparently.
Carefully cloaking their chakra, Sasuke and his team clambered up the outside of the boat and glued themselves to the window area. Peering inside, Boruto saw a simple bed and a small desk inside the gloomy room. There was no sign of Shigetsukyodan.
“We go in through here once we pull out of the port,” Sasuke instructed, and the team nodded.
The ship was set to sail at five a.m. They held their breath in the predawn gloom and waited for the moment to come.
“Four, three, two…” Sarada counted down, looking at her watch. “…one, zero!”
At precisely five o’clock, a dull horn sounded, and the ship slowly pulled away from shore.
After confirming that the port was receding, Boruto turned toward the window and raised a fist. “‘Bout time to break the glass?”
“No, there’s no need for that.” Sasuke said. He touched his hand to the window. In an instant, the glass melted away like water.
“Whoa!” Boruto’s feet slipped in his surprise, and Sasuke caught him to stop him from plunging down into the water. He lifted his elbow and popped Boruto through the empty window frame to the inside of the ship.
“How’d you do that?!” Boruto’s eyes were wide with admiration.
“I caused a highly compressed Fire Style heat to instantly spread across the glass and melt it,” Sasuke said, stepping through the window frame. Sarada and Mitsuki followed.
Sasuke started to activate his Sharingan to discover the enemy’s position, and then stopped. He looked back at Sarada. “Sarada, can you search the ship with your Sharingan?”
“Huh?” His daughter was surprised by the question. “Yeah. But are you sure you want me to do it, Dad? This ship’s pretty big. It might be better if you—”
“You’ll be fine. Go ahead and try.”
This is actual battle, a valuable experience, ideal for helping my students grow, Sasuke thought. He remembered their fight with Momoshiki. Instead of hammering down with a Rasengan blow himself, Naruto had gotten Boruto to do it. At the time, Sasuke had questioned why Naruto would go out of his way to hand the final strike to another, but now it made perfect sense. Naruto had wanted to give his son experience in an actual fight.
Sarada closed her eyes. When her lids flew up again, the Sharingan had been activated. A red light shone in her irises, three dark magatama shapes floating up in them.
“There’s a total of three groups,” she said. “Four people on the deck, four behind the central stairs on the second level, and one in the far west on the third level. And…they’ve laid explosives.”
“Explosives?!” Boruto shouted, eyes opening wide. “Where? How many?”
“All over. A lot.”
He drew a breath in through his teeth. “Seriously?”
Sasuke closed his eyes and quietly activated his own Sharingan to confirm that Sarada’s conclusions were accurate. The explosives were in a total of eighteen locations. They looked to be set off by timers rather than proximity.
“From here, we each move on our own,” Sasuke announced, and his students stared with wide eyes.
“What? You mean we’ll be separated?” Mitsuki asked.
Sasuke nodded. “Boruto, you take the third level. Sarada, second. Mitsuki, head for the deck. Don’t challenge them directly. Aim for a surprise attack and render them helpless. And don’t damage the boat if you can help it.”
“What about you, Old Man Sasuke?”
“I’ll collect the explosives.”
Mitsuki and Boruto glanced at each other, half-anxious, half-excited. Sarada, eyes lowered, looked much less confident.
“You seem anxious, Sarada,” Sasuke said.
“To be honest, I’m kinda worried,” Sarada confessed haltingly. “When Mitsuki and I chased down those guys in the audience at Lily’s concert, the man in the ceiling didn’t hesitate to kill them to shut them up even though they were his own comrades. I don’t know if I’m really ready to take on a group with that kind of mindset all by myself.”
“That kind of mindset?” Sasuke chuckled. “That mindset is precisely what limits them. Anyone who doesn’t value their comrades is garbage.” The words were those of his former teacher. A long time had passed since his young ninja days, but Kakashi continued to be Sasuke’s master even now.
Sarada looked even more uncertain. Sasuke set the palm of his hand down on her head. “Don’t look like that. I’d never let my comrades be killed.”
He had the sudden realization that he was now passing down to the children of the next generation words that had been given to him so long ago. It was a strange feeling, like he’d extended his own life somehow, like everything he’d worked to protect was coming full circle as he passed the torch he’d received as a child himself from the adults around him.
“Yeah. I’m feeling like I’ll be okay now. I’ll fight hard, Dad.” Sarada said, looking up from under her father’s large hand.
“Mmm. And take this.” Sasuke fastened a small wristband machine onto Sarada’s wrist. The top of the device had a small opening to launch the scrolls inside.
“Dad, this is…”
A scientific ninja tool, a revolutionary invention that allowed someone other than the weaver of a jutsu to use it by sealing the ninjutsu into a small scroll. It was the cutting edge of ninja tools created by the scientific ninja team, the pride of the village of Konoha.
Mitsuki climbed the outer wall of the ship and looked out at the deck from the cover of the railing. This wasn’t a passenger ship, so the deck was small and visibility was poor. He saw no sign of anyone moving, but he could hear whispered voices in conversation. He climbed up onto the wooden flooring and moved from shadow to shadow until he spotted several men crouching behind the line of lifeboats. Four in total. They appeared to be doing something with the square devices that surrounded them.
Explosives.
He decided it was best to disarm the explosives first, even if it meant letting some of the men get away. Cloaking himself in darkness, Mitsuki crept slowly toward the men. He stretched out an arm and reached toward the devices the men crowded around.
“Hey! What’s this?!”
By the time one of the men noticed his arm and raised a voice in alarm, Mitsuki was already grabbing the square box and shrinking his arm back toward his body. He took a look at the device he’d recovered.
“What? This is it?”
The acrylic box was empty, still waiting to be filled with explosive material. He tossed it onto the deck and kicked at the wood beneath his feet.
Two of the men held up guns while the other two tried to flee into the belly of the ship.
Two gunshots rang out, but neither bullet so much as grazed Mitsuki.
He closed the distance between them in an instant and grabbed the man on the right by the neck to slam his head into the face of the man on the left. The fierce collision made a dull whuck sound, and the man who’d been headbutted swooned and collapsed. The other one was still ready for action, and he grabbed Mitsuki’s wrist to try and peel his hand away from his neck. Mitsuki slammed his head into the wall.