>>5942557>>5942570>>5942574>>5942580>>5942603>>5942661>>5942794>>5942354>>5942375>>5942380>>5942391>>5942340-1 Will of Fire. You have 2.
Three versus one. And the one is a genin, while the three probably have varied skill levels all the way up to jonin.
A fight didn’t really look winnable. If the three of them simply charged you all at once you would be overwhelmed in less than an instant.
But if a situation wasn’t winnable, you could always try to change the situation. You required time to fish for a winnable situation.
Your subconscious is in full overdrive. You’re seeing anything that may possibly be relevant flashing before your eyes. Team Yudai? Katsuro said they were heading off on their mission in a week, and that he’d look for you. It’s been a week and you’re right here.
Hope wells up in your heart before cold logic takes root. There’s no way their team is inexplicably going to beeline your location right out of the gate, and furthermore the chance that their route took them anywhere near here was an extremely dubious proposition from the start. Most likely they wouldn’t even pass within twenty miles of you on their trip to the north.
Your mom, maybe? You imagine a tearful reunion as she bursts out of the bushes and saves your ass. Another pipe dream.
All you could count on right now was your own wits. So you had to use them.
“I have questions.” You state.
The girl in black issues forth another husky giggle but stays silent.
“You’re not in a position to make demands. You want us to talk you into surrender? We have no reason to. I’m just as happy with bringing your body in dead as I am bringing it in alive. It’s irrelevant. I only made the offer out of courtesy to a countryman. If you were educated correctly by your leaf rat teachers you would know that going around answering the questions of doomed men is a waste of time.” Counters the masked man, his posture tensing up. “You surrender or you die. There’s no room for negotiating.”
Your hand involuntarily edges towards the seal in your pocket. It was your only lifeline, but you couldn’t just go for it without playing your hand. Even if you ripped the paper seal, Hotaru wouldn’t be able to help you in an instant. And that’s if you even managed to tear it before three different vectors of death didn’t strike you down on the spot.
You’re watching the faces of eyepatch and the girl in black. Scrutinizing the emotions of the masked man was impossible by design, so you don’t bother.
Eyepatch looks resolved. He’s radiating a palpable aura of stern surety, his face a taut canvas, teeth grit, eyes hard.
The girl in black looked amused, but hyper alert. Her eyes are practically vibrating, shifting from your face to the pocket you edged your hand towards earlier. You make eye contact with her. She smiles. You and her both know there’s something important in that pocket.
“I want him to surrender.” She explains. “I’m sure he will when he learns how serious we are. May I?”
