Ryozo was sitting in his room inside the ship. He had gone out of his way to rent the best defensive ship he could. It belonged to the daimyo of Land of Lightning, and he had to pay premium while also pulling so strings to get this ship. He also had to pay the full price of the ship as there was a fair chance that it would be damaged during the sail.
He would have gotten at least half of that amount back if he could deliver the ship back in one piece. That’s why he wanted to have 20 jonin as his protection. Even though it would have cost him a pretty penny, the return of having the ship in one piece would have justified the cost.
But now, not only had he paid Konoha enough for 20 jonin, but they were under attack by pirates, and from the reaction of the ninja on the deck, pretty powerful ones at that.
’My precious money,’ Ryozo thought while crying over his money which would surely go down if the ship got damaged. A knock on the door brought him out of his reverie.
"Who is it?" he asked, as steady as a tense man could.
"I am Akito, your jonin. The fight is over, and you can co out now."
Ryozo was hesitant when he heard that. ’Fight is over? I haven’t heard a thing. How the hell is it over? Don’t tell ... surely there is no enemy on the ship trying to end while the ninja are busy, right?’ he thought.
But there was also a chance that this was true, so he slowly made his way toward the door. Through the peephole, he confird that he was really one of the Konoha jonin.
"Can you call Captain Taizen here please? I am a little on the edge because of the fight and could only open the door with confidence if I see him," Ryozo said, with as much respect as he could.
There was a reason he had spent so much money on the ship. Not only was it big, but also secured enough to hold on against attacks from jonin level ninja. Obviously not all of the ship, but only so rooms, one of which he was occupying at the mont.
He was sure he would be safe inside the chamber of the daimyo’s ship if it was an enemy, or could take so ire from a ninja in case he really was an ally—anything better than losing his life.
Akito grumbled sothing about a spineless fool but then went back to the deck to bring Taizen back.
"Ryozo-san, I am here. I hope this is enough for you to co out?"
"Yeah, Taizen-san, sorry for troubling you. I hope you guys will understand my situation." Ryozo ca out of the cabin, rubbing his hands with a semi-apologetic expression on his face.
"We obviously understand, Ryozo-san. Now can you please co to the deck with us? We have so things to discuss," Taizen said.
"Sure, sure," Ryozo said and followed Taizen back to the deck.
"What is that? I thought you guys dealt with the enemies!" He nearly shouted his lungs out when he saw the enemy ship moving toward them at the sa speed as before, now less than 100 ters away from them. At the speed it was moving, in a few seconds it would reach their ship.
"Calm down, Ryozo-san. That is an empty ship, we almost... All of the enemies are dead, and now we are discussing what we have to do with the ship," Taizen tried to calm the man down. It would be shaful if they failed their mission because their client died of a heart attack.
"But... how? That... dead?" Ryozo was blubbering so nonsense as he was processing what he had heard. How could the fight be over, all of the enemies dead? But the ship was still intact, and there wasn’t a single drop of sweat on anyone present there... No, one person was not looking like the others.
Ryozo’s eyes went toward Kaida, who was standing there looking toward the enemy ship like he was appraising his new toy.
’Wait, that is blood... so much blood,’ Ryozo thought as he looked toward Kaida’s legs, which were stained with blood. His eyes went wide when he connected the dots in his mind.
"Glad you caught up. Yeah, he handled the enemies alone, didn’t even need our help. There were two jonin and a dozen chunin on the ship, and before we could do anything, all of them were dead. I must say, you got this damn good bodyguard for a dirt cheap price," Akito said, placing his hand over Ryozo’s shoulders. The rchant flinched hard at that, but to his credit, he managed to not shout like a little girl.
While he was scared and confused, his rchant brain not only connected the dots but also focused on an important part of the information.
"You guys are thinking about what to do with the ship?" Ryozo asked, looking towards the ship which was standing just a few ters away from their ship.
Just the cursory look toward the ship gave him enough info about it.
"Yeah," Taizen replied.
"Then let ease your burden a little, how about grrah...grrah I am sorry." Ryozo emptied his stomach when he saw the result of mayhem on the deck of the enemy ship. So bodies had various cuts, so had their heads separated from their bodies, while there were also so flesh bits laying here and there.
The poor rchant couldn’t handle all that carnage and emptied his stomach in the sea.
"Yeah, so I was saying, how about I buy this ship from you guys? I can pay 10 million ryo for this beauty." The rchant tried to make this a deal of a lifeti for the ninja, but his condition and the experience of the people didn’t work in his favor.
"You must be joking, Ryozo-san. Even a ship half the size of this one goes for 15 to 20 million ryo, not to ntion all those cannons and shit on the ship," Fushiro said, moving towards Ryozo with a smile on his face. "Surely you were not trying to trick us, were you?"
"No, no! I must have misspoken due to all that stress. I was proposing 30 million. Trust , this is a very good offer for this ship, as it clearly needs so much work after being neglected. See the bottom, there the wood is starting to rot a little, also..."
"Thank you for your offer, Ryozo-san, but I think we would let the village decide what to do with the ship. You can discuss about it with Lord Third and Shikaku-san. And since you have so graciously pointed out the value of the ship, we can’t let it stay here. So how about we let one of us take it back to the port while we continue our journey?" Kaida interrupted Ryozo’s sales pitch mid-sentence. Well, he didn’t have to do much; when he turned to face Ryozo, the man himself stopped talking.
When he heard about the Konoha ninjas’ plan to reduce his already small protection team, he wanted to refute that, but the boy who was saying this scared him.
Even though he had decades of experience working with ninja, he had never been on the receiving end of a ninja’s anger. For the nth ti, he cursed himself for saying useless things in front of Shikaku and this boy that day.
"But we already have so few capable n, and we may need every one of us in the Land of Water."
"I am sure this is enough proof that we are more than capable of providing you with security," Kaida said.
"Actually, I am not in that much hurry as well, so how about you guys send this ship back and then the person cos back, or better, we can go with him..."
"No need. If we just wait here, I can handle the rest," Kaida said.
"Then I don’t have any problem with that. Please take your ti," Ryozo said. Then, seeing no one saying anything else, he decided to take his leave.
When only Konoha ninja were remaining on the ship, Taizen finally spoke.
"You will scare the shit out of him, Kaida. Please don’t give him a heart attack next ti."
"I am sorry, I was not trying to."
"We know, but your looks are... Anyway, about the ship..."
"I can send a clone to deliver the ship to our port in Land of Hot Water, while you please send a report back to the village about this," Kaida said.
"Nice idea."
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