Chapter 2

Sand Capital
Ryoma, Recently Promoted Ninja

The Wind Daimyo’s seat of power was, despite ruling over the Land of Wind, not called ‘Wind Capital’. Its full name was actually ‘Capital Magnificent with Rooftops of Gold, Walls of Marble, and Sands of Coral Amidst a Bounty of Four Heavenly Winds’.

Most people simply referred to it as ‘Sand Capital’ or ‘Wind Capital’ for short. This was a fine-worthy crime to do in the presence of the Daimyo.

The capital sat at the mouth of the largest gulf in Wind Country. This gulf, salty as it was, regularly receives rainfall from the south Nanmen Ocean, which fed a great deal of basic agriculture in the region and served as a strong naval position from which the Wind Daimyo could maintain control over trade and agriculture in the various scattered rivers which started in desert mountains and flowed to the sea. Food and freshwater was what determined power in the Land of Wind, and the Wind Daimyo maintained a state monopoly on both.

“Ninja from Sunagakure, we’re here to fulfill the request of Lady Ikeda Yuko.” He explained calmly, raising the official mission-request up and allowing the guard at the massive timber and sandstone gates to inspect. The guard certainly didn’t look happy to see either of them, or the symbols they carried, but did little more than grunt as he read over the page.

If this was a more confidential mission, then he’d flash the appropriate seal, wait for them to send a message to the client, wait for the client to send a message back, and the details of the task at hand would be kept entirely secret.

If this was a very confidential mission, he’d show up in the client’s room, bypassing all the security to get in and to leave. That was pretty hard for him to do though, so he was glad this was a ‘low confidentiality’ mission.

Nodding, the guard handed the page back with a stern look. “Please wait, Samurai will be called to escort you while in the capital.” Ooh, what a daring abbreviation! Ryoma’s lips quirked in amusement under his white veil, but he nodded placidly at the words.

It was just a bad idea to let ninja wander around your center of civilization on their own. Normally, ninja villages resolved this issue by assigning shadow-escorts to watch over the foreigners and take them out if they tried something funny. The capitals and other notable residences usually just cut the fat and assigned an outright samurai escort.

A samurai, after all, could usually just murder a ninja from such a position. They were very similar to ninja, in that they could use chakra to enhance and supplement their abilities. They were very different from ninja in that they skipped all those ‘stealth, utility, and etcetera’ applications of chakra and jumped straight to ‘move fast and murder someone’ applications in their education.

Rich enough to afford the best arms and armor, trained in specifically kicking ass from birth, and having the right to call up large masses of commoners to join their ‘kill this guy’ operations. Samurai were scary, and you usually couldn’t beat one in a straight fight.

Which was the trick of it, what kind of idiot ninja fights fair and square?

Two men clad in intimidating plates of steel and carrying swords on their belts approached. Their faces were obscured beneath wide-visored helmets, and their shoulders square. Their plates carried the honors of the sand capital, and their glares could be felt even through the helms.

Samurai, after all, did not like ninja for many reasons. The most prominent one being that ninja were slowly replacing them in their various honorable positions of authority. Ninja cost money, sure, but didn’t have any of that pesky legal authority or traditional rights that Daimyo had to give samurai, making them an attractive option.

Given another ten or fifteen years, the only real notable samurai left would be found in Iron Country, assuming nothing changes. Iron Country was a shogunate, after all, they weren’t about to phase out their samurai anytime soon.

“Honorable samurai, here to escort us?” Ryoma asked politely, performing a small greeting-bow and gesture as he spoke.

“Hn.” The one on the left grunted. “Correct. Let’s get this over with, ninja.”

Ryoma nodded, ignoring Mari’s little bristle at the disrespect in the samurai’s tone. He sent her a sharp look in warning, before beginning to walk forwards past the gates and into the city streets proper. “We are responding to the request of Lady Ikeda Yuko and require guidance to the Ikeda compound, we will be in your care.”

“Hn. Korezane, take the lead.” The samurai commanded his apparent junior, stepping around and behind the two of them to watch their backs. The junior nodded, turning around and starting to move through along the clay brick road and towards their destination.

Samurai were a prickly bunch around ninja, and it really wasn’t worth trying to be friendly with them. That usually just made them more suspicious of you. It was easiest to just be professional and polite, something they could understand and regard with reasonable amounts of disdain.

Much of the trip was spent in silence, occasionally glancing around at the various people and mercantile activities of the capital as they were escorted from the outer gates, past the ‘inner’ gates, then the ‘shell’ gates and into the section of the city reserved for the higher nobility. Not the Daimyo himself though, he was past the last set of gates, the ‘pearl’ gates in the innermost section of the city.

True to the fancy names, the capital was actually a fairly beautiful city, he had no qualms in admitting that.

Soon enough they were at the much smaller gates of the inner compound walls of the Ikeda clan. The job-page was shown off to the guards at the gate, who sent word inside, who eventually sent word back to the gates that they were to be allowed inside, and the samurai who had been escorting them here were allowed to walk off and return to whatever they were doing before. All very bureaucratic and formal in process.

“Tch, those guys were stiff!” Mari complained quietly, glancing back at the roads as they were led into the compound to greet the client.

“It’s understandable, we’re ninja after all.” Ryoma waved off in an unconcerned manner. “They’re samurai, they have a lot of reasons to dislike us.”

“I’m pretty sure that one in the back was staring at my butt.” Mari grumbled, placing her hands on her hips.

“It’s understandable, it’s a nice butt after all.” Ryoma restrained his urge to smirk, seeing his partner sputter and stumble at his blunt statement. The guard escorting them had a little smirk and jolt of laughter at the antics, turning around and gesturing at the table and kneel-mats of the greeting-room.

“Lady Ikeda will be with you shortly, please take a seat.”

Ryoma nodded absentmindedly, walking over to one of the ‘seats’ while reaching up to remove his broad straw hat. He let it fall back, hanging from his neck by a little string and revealing his fluffy brown hair to the world. The veil was really more like a bandana than anything else, if he was being honest. It stayed where it was on the lower half of his face.

Mari set her immense iron fan to the side before taking her own kneel upon the mat. They had actual chairs here, he could see them in the hallways, but the kneel-mats were traditional.

He could also see another guard watching them from a slightly subtle position, but that was fine and expected here.

“…This place is downright fancy, huh?” Mari commented idly, looking about the room and the various decorations on display. “They certainly don’t skimp on the decor.”

“This room is about as big as my entire apartment.” Ryoma observed, measuring the length and width of the place and comparing it to his living space.

“B-bwuh?!” Mari let out a shocked noise at that, looking at him in an aghast manner. “T-the entire thing? My place isn’t exactly big, but it’s at least twice as big as this room!”

“My rent is really cheap.” He nodded in a self-satisfied manner. “It’s pretty spacious for one guy and his equipment, so I don’t need to upgrade anytime soon.”

“You live in a little apartment, you eat the supply rations- what the heck do you spend your paychecks on?!”

“I spend some of it on my puppets.” Ryoma tapped his side, reminding her of his expensive hobby. “The rest of it goes into my savings- just in case.”

“Blegh.” Mari leaned forwards in a despairing manner. “I can’t believe it, I’m working with a monk.” She grumbled quietly to herself for the next few minutes, as they waited for their client to arrive.

“Yahallo!” A cheery woman’s voice called out from the hall, bringing their attention to the doorway. Their client, or at least a woman matching her picture and description, walking through the doorway, stepping into the room. Simultaneously he and Mari rose and performed a polite bow, which she waved off and lowered herself into a seated position. It was a somewhat inelegant movement, if he was being honest.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Lady Ikeda Yuko was a fairly average woman all things considered. Dark haired, dark eyes, rounded face, a tiny amount of tanning from the blazing light common to Wind Country. She stood about five foot one, and by eye he estimated she was about one hundred and thirty pounds. Enough that she had a noticeable heft, but he had seen bloated caricatures of obesity in his past life, she was honestly fine by comparison to such.

Of course, when compared to the dainty and slight ideal of courtly noblelady, she was significantly diverged. Nobleladies were vicious about pecking-orders. It was pretty surprising that she was so chipper, with that in mind. “Lady Ikeda Yuko? We’re the Jonin from Sunagakure you’ve requested.” Ryoma greeted with a nod.

“Oh! So prompt and polite!” She waved a hand at that, smiling at the two of them. “You’re early you know? I wasn’t expecting anyone for at least two more days!”

“We presumed to be early, just in case.” Ryoma responded. “We can depart whenever you’re ready.”

“Oh, well not till tomorrow, how about? I haven’t quite had all my things packed up yet!” She gave a little laugh at that. “I can’t go all the way to Tea Country with nothing, after all.”

“Understandable. The contract didn’t specify a means of arrival- do you have a route in mind already?”