The Akira Files

Paper Bombs and Death

“It’s Akira, he’s…he’s gone over the railing!” Her voice was filled with worry and I almost couldn’t help but turn my head.

‘No stay focused. Zabuza can’t be taken so lightly. I can’t turn around.’

Zabuza glanced over my shoulder before staring at me. “If you want, you can look. I won’t move yet, I still want to watch how the kid does.”

I nodded before looking over my shoulder to where Akira used to be, he wasn’t there. At first I thought maybe Zabuza had moved him but the more I looked around, the more I realized the hard truth Akira was gone.

Akira’s POV

I struggled as my clothes dragged me down, the pain still making my movement slow. My head broke the surface every now and then before a wave would wash over me again. As the pain slowed to a dull throb I was able to move more fluidly and keeping myself up became easier.

 I treaded water for a minute as I gulped down some much needed air. I raised one hand to gently rub my neck. Even lightly dragging my fingers across it hurt indicating that a bruise had already formed.  I winced trying to picture how it looked.  ‘It’s going to be so sore tomorrow.’

I slowly turned my neck as I looked for a way back onto the bridge, I really didn’t want to have to swim all the way to shore. It was then that I noticed a ship pulling up to the unfinished end of the bridge where a long ladder led to the top from a small platform. ‘What the…? What’s a ship doing here?’

I started to swim closer keeping silent as I approached using the crashing waves to hide my own sounds. As I got closer I noticed a short man standing on the prow looking very pleased with himself.

 ‘Gato.’ I thought with disgust lowering myself further into the water so I wouldn’t be seen. As I neared the boat I slipped beneath the waves and swam so I was touching the hull of the ship. I surfaced again and stayed in the shadow of the boat.

“Alright men, Zabuza has betrayed us. When they’re weak we will kill them all and take over the land of waves.” He said.

The thugs laughed but kept it low if I was on the bridge I would never have heard it. My mind went into overdrive the moment I heard ‘kill them all’. My friends were up there fighting completely unaware that these people were even here.

‘That’s it, I’m gonna do something about this.’ I thought as I climbed onto the anchor chain just so I could be out of the water a bit. I searched threw my weapons pouch finding a lot of wire, a waterproof bag of paper bombs,  5 kunai, 6 shuriken, 3 smoke bombs and those gloves that Kakashi gave me.

‘Alright, now I need a plan. This is gonna take longer than actually putting the plan into action.’ I glanced back up the side of the ship. ‘Wait a second, I think I’ve got it.’

I eased myself back into the water which, after the air whipping away my body heat, felt much warmer, pleasant even. I swam to the hull and placed a paper bomb high enough so the water couldn’t reach. As I tried to attach a bit of wire to it I managed to slice my hand open for the third time…