Industrious: Engineering Marvels - Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Here are the things the movie left out.

Travel, mud, tedium, and planning.

We inserted into enemy territory during the dead of night, having caught a ride on a 'civilian' freighter which was running neutral cargo under a Portuguese flag to Istanbul. This meant we had been officially cut off from the command structure after leaving port in Lisbon. That said, we'd been given contact information for the Greek resistance, who we had been assured would help us infiltrate and exfiltrate the country. If there was any pressing information, General Phillips would pass it on to us by way of those same resistance members.

Other than that, though, we were completely dark.

Well, besides...

“Bub, if you don't get that camera out of my face, you're gonna' be chokin' on it,” a low Canadian-accented voice growled as I looked up from my gear maintenance at the poker game going on. The severe-looking man who had introduced himself as 'Logan' Howlett and his half-brother Victor Creed II were facing off against a man smoking a matching cigar to Logan's and wearing a bowler hat even as he stroked his bushy mustache. He was, like almost everyone else, part of the group that had been rescued when Steve had gone AWOL to save Bucky and went by the name 'Dum-Dum' Dugan, likewise holding a hand of cards sitting next to Barnes himself.

“Leave the kid alone, Logan,” Bucky muttered, not looking away from his cards. “He's just doing his job.”

“Didn't know his job was pissing me off,” Logan replied with a grunt.

“He could be breathing wrong and it'd piss you off,” Victor ribbed his brother with a grin.

I sighed. “Nick, get the hell away from Logan before he takes one of your hands with the Camera.”

“Listen to tha' ninja over there if you know what's good for you, kid,” Logan concurred as he spoke around his cigar, fanning his cards out again and dismissing the blonde from his presence.

Sadly, the spindly young man with the camera took my defense of his overzealous attempts to do his duty as an invitation to redirect his attention towards me.

“Ray-ah! That is, Technical Sergeant, sir!” Nick stated, stepping as carefully as he could through the crowded basement of the Greek Orthodox church we were currently holed up in. “I never did get your interview done.”

I sighed, running an oiled cloth over the blade I'd managed to forge in the last few days before we shipped out. Howard had done a real bang-up job on the bow, don't get me wrong, and the man knew how to make machinery sing, but after even a few years of making swords it was hard to trust a blade I hadn't crafted myself.

I hummed and decided to stop fighting the inevitable. I'd been dodging the young private who had helped Dugan and Frenchie steal one of the advanced Hydra tanks and lucked into getting attached to our unit. He was green as grass, but he'd seen combat and was steady with a gun. More than that, he'd apparently written for his high-school's newspaper before enlisting. As the least-qualified and rookie of the group with something like that in his background, someone had decided to hand the young man a camera and order him to shoot propaganda reels and photos to boost morale back home and to augment reports that would be sent to Phillips and other high-ranking officials in Washington.

Private Nicholas Fletcher, all five feet and nine inches of him, eagerly snapped a photo of me cleaning my gear before sitting down and pulling out a pad from his pack to get started.

Closing my eyes briefly to force away the remnants of the camera's flash, I awaited Nick's first question.

“So you're a ninja, right? One of them Chinese shadow warriors?” He pressed with a wide smile an infectious curiosity.

“Japanese, not Chinese,” I replied, his smile flickering. “But I'm American.” His expression brightened again. “Born and raised in Louisiana, third generation.”

“A ninja from Louisiana,” Dougan chuckled. “That's rich, pull the other one!”

I snorted and, with a flick of my hand, sent a throwing knife whistling through the air to impact next to his head. He jerked as he realized what had happened, his eyes wide at the knife that had missed him by only a few inches. Logan and Victor, who had stilled at my action, each snorted and went back to looking at their cards. Bucky, rolling his eyes, yanked the throwing knife from the crate it was embedded in and hurled it back my way.

I caught it midair and sheathed it back with a flourish.

“Keep the friendly fire to a minimum, will you Ray?” Bucky asked, putting his cards down to grab his canteen.

“Just demonstrating my skills, Sergeant Barnes,” I replied. “Don't want anyone doubting my bonafides.” Adding a bit of my original southern twang, I threw a wink at Dum-Dum, who rolled his eyes.

“Alright, you're a ninja. Doesn't prove you're from Louisiana,” he argued.

“No, I prove that by knowing the difference between jambalaya and gumbo, thinking the Kingfish was the best politician our state ever produced, and being able to pronounce Nah-Orlens properly,” I parried.

Frenchie coughed, holed up in a corner with a book as he was. Without looking up, he replied, “We'll have to agree to disagree on that last mark, monsieur.”

Nick cleared his throat pointedly, drawing my attention back to him before I could start shit with the black Frenchman. “Ah... sir, what is the difference between jambalaya and gumbo, if you don't mind me asking?”

“Rice,” I replied shortly, beginning to put away my gear now that I'd made sure the sea salt in the air during the trip over hadn't gotten into anything. “Gumbo's kind of like a stew or soup. You ladle it out over rice. Jambalaya, on the other hand, is cooked with rice already in it. That's the basic bitch answer, though. Jambalaya usually has farm meat in it like chicken, pork, and sausage. Gumbo almost always has seafood more than that, though, like shrimp and crawfish.”

“Remind me to see about you having the next cooking shift once we get out of here,” Bucky stated off-handedly, absorbed in his game. “That sounds like some good shit.”

“So you're from Louisiana, then? Are a lot of people ninjas down there?” Nick asked, obviously trying desperately to stay on-topic.

A series of sputters and laughs swept through the basement, loud enough that a few of the sleeping men groaned or snored loudly in response. A moment later, the waking soldiers quieted, none of them wishing to be woken up during their sleep should they wake up someone else.

“Ah, no,” I shook my head and refreshed my memory of the official history I'd agreed with General Phillips on handing out. While I trusted Steve, Bucky, and Peggy, I was a bit warier of the rest of the soldiers I was serving with. Even if they were all good men, most soldiers drank during their leave. And a drunk man wasn't a man you could count on to keep secrets. Loose lips sink ships and all that.

“My great-grandparents fled the collapse of the Tokugawa Shogunate during the Meiji Restoration,” I explained, then took pity on the confusion behind his eyes even as he scrawled notes. “That was in the eighteen-fifties and sixties, so around the time of the American Civil War.” His eyes lit up in realization and he nodded, gesturing for me to go on.

“Once it became clear that the old guard, who my family traditionally served, were going to lose, it was decided that they would take what they could and leave for somewhere better. They arrived in California just as the Civil War was winding down and worked on the railroad going east before hearing about the rice farms in the deep south and settling in Louisiana with their young children in the eighteen-nineties.”

“Why were the rice farms important?” Nick asked, his head bent over now as he wrote.

I shrugged. “Most people in the states prefer wheat or corn or something. Japan mainly grows rice as their primary grain. It probably reminded them of home.”

“Can I ask why you don't carry a rifle?” Nick switched tracks, nodding to the cache of weapons sitting next to me. “You've just got a bow, knives, sword, and a pistol, but no long-arm. Is it because of that whole Jap-thing about a warrior's soul being in their sword? Like, tha' um... Samurai or whatsit?””

I snorted, chuckling, and shook my head. “No such thing. The Japanese Empire cooked up a crock of shit that's basically a cult. The... well, the traditional version of Shinto is a mix of a bunch of different spirits and magic and folk superstitions. It's not really a religion like you think of when I say Christianity or Islam or anything. Anyway, the higher-ups in the empire threw all of that stuff in a mixer and handed out a bunch of rules on how to run everything so that they could make everyone believe the Emperor is a literal God and brainwash them into doing what he says.”

“What's that got to do with the whole 'warrior's soul' thing?” Nick pressed, writing down more notes regardless of whether he seemed to think I was on-topic or not.

“Well, you'd die for him if your god told you to, wouldn't you?” I asked, and he paused, not expecting the bluntness of the question. “It's like the Crusades or back in Ancient Egypt. Everyone's been taught that disobedience isn't just against the law, it's a sin to defy the will of God. That's part of the reason why they prefer to fight to the death. Imagine living with the shame of having not given everything in the fight not just for your homeland or your family, but the being who's going to judge your very soul.”

“I, uhh... yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Kind of fucked up, though,” Nick admitted quietly. Then shook himself. “So... why the sword and bow, then?”

I shrugged. “Because I'm better with them, they're what I've trained on. I'm actually kind of a shit shot, even with the pistol. Back in ancient Japan, there was a lot of crossover between samurai and ninja, just like today there are a lot of 'proud soldiers' who do sneaky shit for their country during war.”

Nick snorted at the significant look I gave our little gathering of misfits. Logan, Victor, and Bucky all looked various shades of amused. Dougan flipped me the bird at the implicit accusation.

“So samurai used bows instead of swords?” Nick asked, pushing for clarification.

I shook my head. “Samurai were mounted horse-archers by choice, first and foremost. After that, they favored a polearm like a naginata.” I held up a hand as he opened his mouth. “A foot or two of a curved blade on a long stick. The idea was to keep your enemy as far away from you as possible during the fight. That way they were less likely to hit you. A samurai's swords were basically a sidearm for when things went south and they got unhorsed or needed to fight in close-quarters. I, personally, am trained as a swordsman.”

Because, well... I like swords.

“And your parents, sorry to bring them up again, but they're the ones who trained you as a ninja?” Nick asked.

“By that time, no one living in our family line knew anything past a few parlor tricks,” I replied, absently pulling a throwing knife and letting it dance across my fingers. The movement caught the teenager's eyes and entranced him. “The thing about ninja training? It might sound useful, and some of it is, but most of it is less applicable to daily life than knowing how to saddle a horse, feed the farm animals, drive a car... that type of deal. It had just fallen out of use over the past eighty years or so.”

Nick blinked. “So... how'd you learn the stuff you can do?”

Shrugging again, I flipped up another knife and added it to the dance. “My great-grandparents brought over a bunch of family heirlooms. Some of them were ancient scrolls that served as training manuals.”

“Do you still have them?” Nick asked, voice excited.

I shook my head, affecting sadness. “No, they went up in the same house fire that took my family.”

He winced. “I'm, uh... sorry I brought it up, then. W-was that why you joined the military?”

I gave him a nod. Officially, Phillips had backdated my enlistment and had snuck my papers into a regiment that had seen heavy casualties before being disbanded and reassigned. Apparently a few men had even ended up in the OSS under him, which is how he'd known about it. They'd been briefed on some of the situation, specifically me needing a plausible background and had passed word around to other former members they could contact to 'remember me' if anyone came around asking.

“At least half the reason. The country I was born in and regarded as my home was attacked. With my family's farm burned down and no one to care for, I decided to put the training I'd given myself to good use.” I paused. “It seemed like the obvious thing to do.”

“And the other half?” Nick asked, his pencil still moving as he flicked his eyes up at me.

“Hmm?” I asked, playing a little hard to get as I sheathed my two knives.

“You said it was 'at least half the reason,'” Nick noted, obviously curious. “What was the other half?”

I chewed on the question for a moment, trying to pick the right words. “Say someone came to you, they're wearing a suit and look all official and tell you they're from the government, and they told you your neighbor was a communist.” Nick blinked, taken aback by the apparent non-sequitur. “You've never seen or heard them do anything that would lead you to believe that, but they have proof. Or at least, they say they do. They might even show you something that looks pretty shady. But you've known this person several years, maybe all your life, so you object. They cock their head and look at you, then, and ask if maybe you're a communist too, if you don't want to help put away an enemy of America. Maybe your boss needs to know.”

Nick listened, frowning, as I went on. Distantly, I noticed the sound of cards being dealt and conversation had quieted.

“So, scared that these 'government men' could get you fired, you agree to testify that your neighbor's a communist. They grab your neighbor and take them away, you never see them again.” I pause. “The next year, that man shows up at your door again and tells you your other neighbor is a jew. You don't see why that's something to worry about, but he tells you all about how the jews are part of an international cabal weakening the country. They need your help to prove it, though. You object again, weaker this time, and they ask if you're helping the Jews. Maybe your friends and family need to know how disloyal you're being.”

Nick bit his lip, grimacing as he frowned.

“The next year he comes back and tells you about the family across the street. Their daughter is... a little slow. She's a really nice girl, wouldn't hurt a fly, just doesn't catch what people are saying or understand big words. He goes on and on about how they need you to help make sure she's not allowed to have kids and make the country a stupid place full of stupid people. You want your country to be great, don't you?”

“I-I get where you're-” Nick started, warding me off, but I talked over him, raising my voice ever so slightly as I stared him down.

“Next year it's some man who they say likes other men. They don't ask for your help this time, the government man just nods at you as they haul him away. You're too scared to object now, so you nod back. Another family goes next year, they have a different skin color than you. You console yourself that the government people are really looking out for you, helping make your life safer, so you thank the man as they take away a family you've known for ten years. After that, it's a woman who teaches at a university. She wrote a book that expressed some dangerous thoughts. A teenager who campaigned for union rights. Again and again they come to take people away and you're satisfied because you aren't them.”

I allowed the weight of that statement to settle.

“Then, finally, you answer your door to see the government man standing there with another calm smile. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a set of handcuffs. You look back to see your wife and children are watching you nervously. You turn back and ask him, 'Why?' He shrugs and asks, 'Does it really matter?' And when you look around for someone to help you, you realize there's no one else left. They've already taken all of them.”

I reached down to my canteen and unscrewed it in the silence after my little story, taking a swig of water. “So, yeah, that's why. Because evil wins when good men do nothing, so sometimes you have to kill the sick sunnabitch asking you to turn over your friends and neighbors. If not because it's the right thing to do, then because they'll eventually come for you.”

It was the reason why I was willing to go to war here and now, where I hadn't been willing to fight for Konoha during my previous life. As nice as the Hokage was, the village was still built on the near-absolute power of a military dictator who could single out virtually anyone to be dragged away into the darkness and never heard from again. The Elemental Nations had no concept of inalienable human rights, equality before the law, innocent before proven guilty, balancing governmental institutions, representative democracy, or anything other standards of modernity I'd grown up with during my first life.

It was one thing to be content to bide your time as one built up resources, made allies, and made careful plans to move forward in a time of peace. Yes, the hidden villages had political tension, but during my time as Kotaro it was at worst a cold conflict. Any large, sudden moves I could have made threatened to destabilize that fragile detente.

Here and now? While the United States of the nineteen-forties was hardly a utopia of freedom and equality, despite their propaganda, it was far better than the alternative. And that alternative, something undeniably and truly evil was here, now, knocking on the door with a weapon in hand that could destroy all the principles that I aspired to.

Thankfully, I didn't need to linger on those heavy thoughts too long.

Into the lingering silence of the church basement, the door at the top of the stairs opened. Instantly, hands sought out weapons, ready to defend ourselves-

-and then relaxed as Steve came down the stairs, accompanied by Private James Morita. Captain America, out of uniform for the moment, looked us all over before nodding. “Wake everyone up, we're go for the mission.”

We all stood at once, bursting into a flurry of movement as gear was pocketed and slid into place, ammo checked and guns loaded. Victor, passing by me to grab a rucksack, clapped me on the shoulder. “Brave words, kids. Now you gotta back 'em up.”

Burying my surprise at the compliment and challenge, I nodded back at him and strapped my sword on...

...only to be struck by the feeling of a building charge.

Full Moon.

The sensation of rising power, unchosen potential beginning to manifest... then starting to fade. I blinked, the feeling of finding yourself falling after missing a step you'd assumed to be there clouding my thoughts. The aftertaste of faint soul-deep pain and an ache of something missing wore at me for a long moment.

“You ready, Ray?”

I shook myself, nodding at Bucky, and grabbed at the balaclava I'd taken as part of my uniform before throwing up the hood of my coat over it. My voice came out slightly muffled. “Ready.”

I could wonder over what had just happened later.

I had a Hydra base to blow right now.

~~

Not much to report this time around.  Hope everyone enjoys.

And, of course, thank you again for your support.  Everyone here makes these stories possible with their contributions.  Stay awesome.