Yukie Fujikaze didn't storm out of the bar to return to the ship. She stormed out to burn the script.
We burst out of the House of the Moon just in time to see her cross the line from "difficult client" to "felon."
A courier was standing by a hitching post, adjusting the saddlebags on a sturdy, brown work-horse. He was whistling a happy, pacifist tune.
Yukie didn't ask permission. She grabbed a steak knife she must have swiped from the bar table and slashed the tether rope in one violent stroke.
Snap.
The fibrous hemp parted with a sharp crack, fraying instantly in the cool air like a broken guitar string.
"Hey!" the courier yelped.
Yukie grabbed the mane. She didn't mount gracefully—she wasn't a ninja, and she was drunk—but she hauled herself up with desperate, frantic strength, kicking her legs over the bare back of the animal.
The horse smelled of musk and grain dust, its coat twitching violently under her unpracticed grip.
"Yah!" she screamed, kicking the horse's flanks.
The horse, startled by the sheer manic energy of the woman on its back, reared up and bolted.
"She stole a horse!" Naruto shouted, his jaw dropping. "Can you do that?!"
"In Grand Theft Auto, yes," I muttered, breaking into a sprint. "In a pacifist village? She just declared war on tourism."
"After her!" Anko barked, abandoning her croquette.
The chase was a disaster.
Yugakure was built on a slope—a series of tiered districts leading down to the port. Yukie was riding gravity down through the crowded streets.
She tore past a souvenir shop called Tanuki-ya. Out front stood a massive ceramic statue of a raccoon dog holding a sake bottle, grinning with a goofy, drunken expression.
The sunlight glinted off its ceramic glaze—ping—a blinding white highlight on its painted sake bottle that felt like a mocking camera flash.
Yukie glared at it as she thundered past. She looked like she wanted to smash it. It was a mirror she didn't want to look into—the drunk, shape-shifting clown.
"Move!" she shrieked at the tourists.
She weaved through the Sasaki-ke district, the "Samurai House" where the actors were lodged.
The door to the inn opened and our cast stumbled out, likely heading to the port.
Michy—the pretty boy playing Shishimaru—saw the galloping horse and shrieked, diving behind a potted plant.
Kin—the actor playing Brit—didn't flinch. He watched Yukie gallop past, her hair wild, her face twisted in rage. He let out a low whistle.
"Now that's an entrance," Kin noted, impressed.
Yukie ignored them. She spurred the horse faster, blurring past the district markers.
She passed the Tokyo (Eastern Capital) sign—the high-end shops.
Seconds later, she blurred past the Binboccha (Poor Man's) sign—the discount stalls.
The smell of roasting wagyu beef vanished instantly, replaced by the scent of damp cardboard and boiled tea leaves.
It was a visual descent. She was riding from royalty to poverty in ten seconds flat, crashing through the social strata of the village like a wrecking ball.
She reached the choke point.
Separating the High Town from the Port was a massive, wide stone staircase. It was steep, lined with vendors, and crowded with people.
"We can't catch her before the stairs!" Naruto yelled, leaping over a cart of cabbages. "She's gonna break her neck!"
Ahead of us, I saw the crowd parting.
And I saw "him."
Samurai Extra #4.
He was wearing the standard armor of the film crew's extras. He was carrying a prop spear. To anyone else, he was just a background character trying to get to work.
But through my polarized lenses, I saw his body language. He wasn't surprised. He was calculated. He was tracking Yukie's trajectory.
Ninja, my brain fired a warning. That's not an extra- that's a spy.
He didn't attack her. That would break his cover.
Instead, as a delivery boy walked past him carrying a crate of glass bottles, the Samurai "stumbled."
He clipped the boy's shoulder.
"Woah!" the boy cried out.
The crate tipped.
Tink. Tink.
CRASH.
A dozen bottles of cooking oil and premium sake shattered against the top step.
The pungent aroma of sesame oil and rice wine exploded into the air, heavy and nauseatingly thick.
The liquid gushed out, coating the smooth, polished stone of the staircase in a glistening, golden slick.
It spread like liquid amber, coating the grey slate in a deadly, reflective mirror that distorted the reflection of the panic above.
"Oh no," I whispered, wincing before it even happened. "Physics."
Yukie hit the stairs a second later.
The horse's hooves struck the stone.
Normally, the iron shoes would find purchase. But on a mixture of oil and alcohol? The friction coefficient dropped to zero.
Skreee-thump.
Iron shoes shrieked against the stone, sparking briefly before finding nothing but air.
The horse's legs went out from under it in four different directions.
It was brutal.
The animal slid sideways, shrieking. Yukie was launched from its back like a stone from a catapult.
"That's a lot of broken coccyxes," I hissed, closing my eyes for a split second as the sound of armor clattering and bodies hitting stone echoed up the street.
The horse slid down the stairs, bowling over a stand of bamboo umbrellas before coming to a stop, dazed but miraculously moving.
Yukie wasn't so lucky.
She slid across the wet pavement of the lower landing. She spun uncontrollably, mud and oil slicking her expensive cloak.
She slammed into a temporary construction wall at the bottom of the hill.
THUD.
A cloud of sawdust puffed out from the raw timber, suspended in the air for a moment like a halo of failure.
She didn't get up.
Above her head, painted on the raw timber of the construction barrier, was a zoning coordinate.
Export Sector 4-4.
(Shi-Shi).
Death-Death.
She had hit the literal dead end.
We skidded to a halt at the top of the stairs, looking down at the heap of royal misery.
"Is she dead?!" Naruto yelled, panic rising in his voice.
I scanned her with my eyes—no Byakugan needed. Her chest was rising, but shallowly. A nasty bruise was already forming on her forehead where it had kissed the beam.
"Unconscious," I diagnosed. "Concussion protocol."
I looked to the side.
The delivery boy was apologizing to the Samurai Extra, bowing profusely for spilling the oil. The Samurai patted the boy on the shoulder, acting magnanimous, blending perfectly into the background.
He looked up. Just for a second. He looked at Yukie's unconscious body, then adjusted his helmet and walked away, vanishing into the crowd.
The tip of his prop spear tapped rhythmically against the ground—tap... tap... tap—a steady, patient sound amidst the chaos he had caused.
"The escape is over," Anko announced, sliding down the railing of the stairs to check the body. "Sasuke, grab the horse. Naruto, grab the Princess. We're loading up."
I watched the Samurai disappear.
The escape didn't fail because she was weak, I thought, a cold chill running down my spine. It failed because someone greased the exit.