Loud thuds emanated in pitch total blackness, several pigeons resting on a small roof structure took off, feeling threatened by those booming sounds coming from inside the small inn in Tanzaku town. What transpired in that small room had nothing to do with the pigeons, in fact, one could've boldly claimed that the men causing the ruckus couldn't have cared less about some winged rats and may have considered their existence as a nuisance at best.
The inn room belonged to a small vendor owner. His name didn't matter, nor did any other details of his life. After all, he was no one special, he was born in a family of vendor owners and he never showed too much talent or skill in anything ninja-related, he was never in prime physical condition yet he had above average talent for managing a business, or so his parents may have thought. Truth be told his "talent for making business decisions" was more due to what his "friends" did to make their bread.
"I am telling you, it's not yet time for my payment, you're a month early. Some ninja gambled all the money off, I only have what Nabagu lost to me. I can give you guys everything back!"
The people inside his home did not lay a finger on the man himself, they were instead thrashing his room, tearing it apart with their bare hands, sometimes employing thick staffs when a more delicate touch was needed. These men were well adjusted to survive as hired muscle in a world where travelers packed incredible weapons to defend themselves and children could spit fire and cover their blades with the power of lightning. They could've torn a building apart with their bare hands brick by brick and still be able to mix the melting sugar in their tea delicately afterward.
"It's not the money that Boss wants, his enforcer had to prance around Tanzaku with his little ding-ling covered by just a piece of board and an old spinster's laundry. It's safe to assume that the Boss is a little bit peeved, see? Distressed... Worried... Absolutely livid he would say..."
The man to the right of the person trying to keep the conversation alive shoved his arm into a wall and carefully and slowly walked to the other side of the room crumbling the wall down, it was like his very skin was made of steel.
"And I'm telling you guys, it's not my fault, it was his decision to gamble against a ninja girl dressed in a full set of armor. It was clear the whole time that he won't out-hammer her but he kept going. I don't see what my part in his issues is!" the vendor owner yelled out trying to stop the muscle-heads from tearing his apartment apart.
The well-dressed gentleman keeping up the conversation with the man lifted a gentleman's cane blocking the vendor owner's path to approaching the brute who was crushing all of his eggs in his fridge with his fingers who were large enough to fit an egg in between of them.
"Don't get your pants in a twisty now, ya goose, we all know that good old Nabagu likes to get plastered, or as sophisticated peeps say – abuse some bad substances. He isn't in the most reasonable of moods when he does so and let's just say prancing around the town with his weenie getting filled with splinters from the board he stole from a fence of an old lady isn't even the worst thing he's done"
The talkative mobster wrapped his hand around the vendor owner's neck and pushed the man in closer to his own mouth. Mostly to let it be known to the man of the great importance of his words.
"Now... You see where I'm going, obviously when one of Boss' enforcers goes on pirouetting around the place with a splinter and board tutu on his waist half naked that puts a bad image on the Boss' face and... Well... Boss dislikes having a bad image, he's sensitive in that area"
Another giant mobster, so tall and bulky that his frame couldn't even fit into the room was desperately looking for something else to smash but couldn't find anything at all, all things considered, the vendor owner was taking the complete obliteration of his home quite well. That being said, it wasn't because he was a calm and collected person nor because he was afraid, it was because with the Boss' support behind him he could've made all of this loss back in no time.
"What you could do for the Boss, after all the unfathomably generous donations he made to your endeavors, is give at least a little bit of information that would help us track the young lady down and pop a knee or two, discuss our differences and compare our points of view, you see..." the spokesperson of the mobsters tried to make his point as sweetened and as far from the truth as possible.
The vendor sighed, "I don't know, she wore some weird armor that covered her vital parts, it was mostly green and grey, she had short red hair and hung around with some loser brat of her age, that brat was really weird looking, when he smashed the hammer into the pressure plate the hammer got torn to smallest shreds, on the shorter side, dark-haired and looking pretty well trained..."
"I see, that's what happens when you use shabby tools with great strength... So the boy has more strength than he knows how to deal with, interesting... Did they wear any headbands?"
"Yeah, the girl had one on her forehead and the brat wore it as a belt... They were Konohagakure ninja"
The mobster who was still looking for things to smash found a cookie jar and smashed it onto the floor starting to stomp it. The shop vendor rushed to him pushing the gentleman mobster's staff aside and tried to stop the brute from destroying his precious cookies.
"Oh come on! Not the cookies! Is nothing sacred to you!?" the vendor owners yelled out pulling at the waist level of the brute as that was just about the only area he could reach. These mobsters were larger than most rooms, they had arms the size of a carriage and their skin was dark grey, their eyes were bloodshot and constantly flying from one edge of the room to the other looking for things to destroy until the gentleman mobster ordered the brutes to stop, after which point the giants simply stopped and stood still with their heads down almost to their waist so that they could fit into the room.
"The Boss thanks you for your contribution, expect your competitors you've named in the last meeting dealt with as... Apology for today's rude transgression, it is just very important for the Boss to maintain his high status and this unpleasant problem needs to be dealt with, you see..." the gentleman mobster bowed allowing the brutes to crawl out from the hole where they came in from and rumble down the stairs to the lobby.
*****
„Come on, Boss, you know how it is when I'm tipsy, I got to get my gambling done and... Well, I just lost control for a while..."
The large man whom Meiko gambled with the other day was kneeling in front of a large chair which was turned at an even larger window which was as huge as the whole wall of the great conference hall which it was placed in. The only sign of any life on the other side of the chair was a small trail of smoke rising from it, the chair was apparently much larger than the small man sitting in it.
Without as much as a warning, the chair turned around revealing a comically short person sitting in the chair with a strangely misshaped head which was just about as large if not a tiny bit larger than that of most people where his normal stature was much smaller. He must've measured up to a normal person's waist, not much below that. He was the only one in his syndicate of significance except his enforcers wearing a suit, the other more important members of his syndicate wore exquisite and incredibly expensive kimono and had swords by their side.
"You see... I made a gamble with you" a very husky and rough voice came from the short man's mouth, something that could've only been a sign of great throat damage due to his longtime smoking addiction. Had someone hung around the man for a couple of days they'd have found that the man smoked like a cheap chimney and took great pride in his ability to smoke up a whole cigar with a single draw of breath despite his lungs appearing to be one-tenth of what a normal man had.
"I've replaced all of my other muscles after we've formed the deal with the Bellucini family in Kumogakure and gained access to the Land of Rivers Gold Mine. And what lies deep inside of it... You told me... Come on, now, tell me what you told me, I want to hear it from your own ungrateful mouth!" the short man ordered the kneeling muscle to talk.
"I said, "Boss, please don't do that sick and twisted shit you did to the others, don't replace my skin with that thing... I won't let you down... One day you'll need a normal flesh and bones enforcer and then I'll be there", that's what I said, Boss..." the man bellowed like a whining dog with a broken leg, probably because he was just that – the man's lapdog with a broken leg and kneecaps that got blown up after the other enforcers spat at them.
"That's what you said... Now I remember" the little man tried to colorfully mock the irony in the situation which his lapdog prophesized and the one that actually transpired. The shorty kicked his desk with his comically small leg and seemingly colossal, as compared to the rest of his body, feet so that his short frame span around in his large and comfortable office chair.
"Do you have any idea what it's like to be a short man in this world? What it's like to live in a world where everyone's so special, one daddy's little princess has a puppy that can headbutt stone to dust, one good boy can control insects and tell them to eat away at the very essence of their enemies... What it's like to be born in such a world and not only be unable to do any of those things but also be handicapped, even less than those other folk who couldn't care less about war or peace but care only about having enough shit to slap at their walls so that they stand firmly and stick those fucking bricks together?" the man spoke out spitting his cigar to the side only for one of his modified enforcers to pick the thing up and eat it, munch it up before swallowing the thing and breathing out a small cloud of smoke.
The poor man just kept on kneeling, only because he had little choice but to remain in his position having his crushed knees in mind.
"So I spend so much time, do all these things to finally start getting people to respect me. I make business trades, I buy and sell property and not all goes according to plan but... Small details can be adjusted by means that some people may call questionable. After all, I was blessed to actually have something to compensate for my short legs and everything else... I had a brain that saw an opportunity everywhere. So I go ahead and build myself a life where I'm finally respected and what do you do?"
The little man hopped down the chair with a little difficulty, walking up to the mobster who was kneeling in front of him and looked him right in the eyes, now that the leader of the syndicate was standing and his ex-enforcer was kneeling while bellowing about his popped kneecaps and broken legs the two were finally at the same level as far as the height of their eyes went.
"Look, Boss... Just... Whatever you do, don't do to me what you did to those other guys, I can fix it all, I can make you respected again just... Don't bring me to the mines..." the wounded man begged and whined, begged and whined like a dog with broken legs looking at a man who held a treat in his hands.
"The mines? You think after what you did I'd fill your skin with the merchandise, pump you up!? You'd think I'd waste the time of my blacksmiths and the invaluable precious ores on your sorry ass!?" the little man shouted in his husky voice so hard that it broke, kicking the man down with his oversized foot and pulling out two large crossbow-shaped pipe-like weapons from behind his jacket, they were so incredibly large that it was tough to imagine just how he could've fit them in there since they were almost as large as the shorty himself.
The man extended the pipes at the crippled man and fired the weapons, the string mechanisms inside fired off a bunch of kunai at the man's chest while several more hit him in the neck making him die instantly.
The four large grey enforcers behind the man rumbled and growled like they weren't even human anymore, a remnant of pains of the past and all that they went through to acquire this ability to make their boss actually feel threatening.
"It's not like you to just snick a guy like that, Boss, did your knuckles feel rusty today?" one of the other mobsters with the kimono and tattoos all over his body and a shaved head, one of five others in the room, asked.
"I don't feel like getting trash in between my fingers, I plan to eat at momma's tonight and I'd have it all over my food. My knuckledusters got a bit rusty so I'm having my guys work on new ones, they should be ready shortly. If they work I'll get all of ya some. My guys need to be and look like..."
"Boss?" another rich and sophisticated looking made man asked for a clarification as to why their Boss stopped talking in the middle of his speech.
"Fuck... I forgot the name of that teen actor who plays Shikio in that movie..." the little Boss man complained out loud before lighting up another smoke, he fully intended to enjoy this one.
"Fukuharu Shunko?"
"Iito Seichi?"
"Okumura Yoshitaka?"
"Haga Akimichi?"
"Onaga Maritsumo?"
Each of the five of the slightly brighter and more sophisticated of the mobsters started suggesting the man names of actors. Now that the movie industry started booming recently some of the artists made a name for themselves making them, it wasn't that common for an artist to make a name for themselves. Especially not for an actor in a play, people usually remembered a character that they played and not the actor, the actor was only mentioned if he did not become the character they played, it meant a great sign of disrespect.
In a lot of ways, Mana's success at entertainment paved the way for other famous people to appear and start getting idolized. Only novelists used to be known for their work before and even then most of them signed under a nickname so that their fame didn't overshadow their actual work.
"Nah... This young little guy, a midget like me, he wore those huge shoes..." the little man cursed to himself.
"I wouldn't say... Midget, Boss... You're just... Of short stature, there are taller people and there are smaller, you're just smaller than the total average..."
The other members of the syndicate nodded and looked at each other nodding in sync with each other. After this fiasco of his memory and the point he was trying to make the Boss sat back down and angrily rubbed his oversized eyes that didn't quite fit with the rest of his body, as he stretched his aged skin and his scars that he had acquired in gang fights when his syndicate was in its earliest stages it looked a bit weird and creepy when the whole skin seemingly moved as it was shaped, almost like clay.
The door opened and the gentleman mobster walked in followed by two of his empowered experiment-made enforcers. "I've got news for ya, Boss!" the man almost sung out in his beautiful singing voice. The gent had a small time career singing in Tanzaku on Friday nights and planned on moving to Konohagakure soon but the place was a tough business to break into.
"How're the brutes? Performing well?" the shorty asked his subordinate to which the man only danced with his shoes, letting them freely tap onto the incredibly overpriced marble floor and then bowed after pressing his cane at his belly playfully.
"No one's as great as smashing cookies as these two!" he replied.
Being fully aware of how his subordinate acted when he was in a good mood the Boss just gestured for the man to get his point over with.
As he was walking up closer to his Boss the gentleman rudely stepped over the corpse of his buddy which was being slowly dragged away, after the corpse got into the mobster's way the other brutes flipped him over their shoulder when bringing him outside to dump him somewhere. It wasn't even the first person to disrespect Boss that week and respect was a subject Boss was very sensitive with.
"We got something, a teenage girl with green armor and short red hair, a kunoichi from Konoha, hangs around with a weird looking pretty muscular guy from Konoha who is a medical ninja and definitely pack a wallop... We asked around and we know where the young lady is resting her half a million ryo richer redhead!" the gent smiled bowing to the applause of his Boss.
"See, men, now that's some bloody service... Someone fucks up and this guy comes in a couple of hours later and says, "Hey, this bitch had the cojones to do it, go do yer thing"! The Boss clapped for a couple of seconds before sitting up and resting his hands while leaning his body on his office table.
"Well, what are the lot of you waiting for? Do yer thing!" he yelled out. The gentleman swung his cane playfully and marched out the door, four brute mobsters followed him as if they were compelled to, the remnants of what little human intelligence they had before whatever happened in the mines which were now overwhelmed by the memories of insufferable pain dictated their every move...