Burning the Candle [S-Rank]

[Shiruko Makoto]

Eighteen Years Old (loosely ctd. from here)

A milk run turned into an actual missions had at least proved one thing to Makoto: as useless as he usually thought Saito was, he was at least up to the standard their family set, and therefore at least better than all the rest of the other people on the mission. All of whom were entirely useless, especially the rest of the Wardens. While the medics had at least been doing medical things, the other Wardens hadn't even managed to help apprehend the criminals.

Ah yes.

The criminals.

Makoto honestly wasn't sure what to make of them. The Shrine had set the mission, and therefore wasn't behind them. He knew their family had no interest in randomly poisoning (irradiating?) a bunch of random townsfolk. The criminals did not seem to have a motive on their own. And the actual murder itself was still basically unsolved--they had the perpetrator, but not the motive. Which, as far as he was concerned, was not enough.

In principle, he'd heard of the fact that there were more factions than just the Shrine and his family. There were a number of smaller players dotted around the country, even before you started getting into the question of pirates. It would seem that one of them had been the perpetrators, for their own enigmatic reasons.

Now they simply had to find out why. Which would really only entail one of their interrogators and an closed room, probably. Most likely, they were done with the whole affair. In which case, he would find out about it later.

Well, probably. There was always the chance the faction would prove to be dangerous and require an urgent investigative--or takeout--team sent after them. A higher chance than usual, given the usage of a dangerous element.

But that didn't seem all that likely.

Shiruko Kanashimi

Moon Warden

"I'm asking you because I trust your opinion more than that of the Warden team leader," Kanashimi said patiently to his twin, who was attempting to demur. "I did already debrief him, as a matter of fact, but I didn't get a lot useful."

Saito sighed, drawing his cloak a little tighter around himself like he did when he was agitated. "...Honestly, there isn't a lot to tell. You already know I worked out that the poison was actually radiation chakra from checking the water supply, and that Makoto caught the person who killed their chief healer before anyone else was even really aware what was going on. The other one came in to help her, we caught her too, and both of them clammed up when they realized we saw past their smokescreen."

Not what he'd wanted to hear, but it would have to do. Unless... "Any...other insights?"

His twin's expression flickered briefly. "Probably a third faction." Colloquially, of course; there was far more than one smaller faction within the idiot politics of Moon Country. "And...probably dangerous, if they're willing to deal collateral damage like that...assuming it was collateral."

That was what he had been afraid of.

"All right. Thanks then." He would have to wait for Sheimi to finish interrogating the prisoners to get any more.

They weren't exactly in Warden-only territory, but Saito was only allowed to be in this particular section of the surprisingly modern (for that section of the city, anyway) pavilion because he was being debriefed on his joint mission. Well, people other than Wardens actually wandered into this area a lot, but they weren't supposed to...security could just be a little lax here because there was nothing important in this corridor save interrogation rooms.

Which also made good meeting rooms.

"How did he do?" he added, as an afterthought. His twin knew who he meant.

Saito shrugged loosely and turned his palms up. "Scarily brilliant. Alienated everyone else." With the undercurrent of 'what else is new?' "We'd definitely never have caught them without him. On the investigation part of the mission, he was at least two steps ahead of the rest of us the whole way. But he just didn't listen to anyone else." When Kanashimi raised an eyebrow, Saito qualified, "well, they weren't...really able to keep up with him, anyway. What we thought the initial mission would be sort of got away from us, and the rest of the team wasn't good at adapting to the change."

Not a great trait for a Warden, that lack of flexibility, but the pickings were rather slim in a place like Moon, which had to keep a nominally low ninja population proportional to the overall population to maintain their ruse of not being especially powerful.

Well, comparatively, they weren't. They probably couldn't manage to meet any actual official ninja village in force. But they could be annoying, they had strong fighters, and it was probably better that people outside the country not be aware of how much they were unaware of. Let them snicker behind their hands whenever they met a Moon ninja at their claims of no official organization; they couldn't possibly be aware of the truth of it. The neutrality part was at least accurate, and that was all that they needed to maintain for no one to bother digging. You simply had to back neutrality with force sometimes...

Kanashimi hated politics.

"I see," was all he said, but Saito undoubtedly picked up on what he was thinking, or at least the key points of it. They didn't have a 'twin link,' but lifelong experience and excellent cold-reading skills meant Saito could read him anyway.

They didn't have time to talk much more; he had to go meet with Sheimi. This was the sort of investigation he would be put in charge of, and probably already had been. Initiative still counted for a lot. Part of the reason he and Sheimi had both attained good rankings in the Wardens even relatively young had to do with that.

Most of it was necessity to him, but he really did tend to enjoy his work. For the most part, anyway. It was just the political aspects he wasn't fond of.

He met Sheimi coming out of the secondary interrogation room, looking like a cat that had gotten not only the canary, but a bowl of cream to wash it down. Clearly, a good session.

"The purple-haired bitch folded like a paper fan," Sheimi said cheerful after they slipped into a debriefing room. "Without orange around, it was actually harder to keep her from babbling about everything and keep her on topic."

"You can have that effect on people when you like," he said. "What useful did you get?"

"Even orange folded eventually, so plenty." Her expression shifted from cheerful to serious. "First off--these aren't amateurs. Even when purple cracked, like five seconds in, I couldn't get their real names out of them. Only codenames. I'm not using them because they're really dumb codenames, but they'll be in the report. They definitely work for an extra faction."

Troublesome.

"Secondly, there's not an ounce of remorse in either one. Purple didn't give a shit about straight up murdering a healer--she was more worried about what we'd do to her. Think she wants lenience." Sheimi snorted, leaning back in her chair and looking moody. "Yeah, right. Didn't promise her shit, of course.

"Orange didn't give a shit she poisoned a whole town. All she really said of substance was that she was following orders, and she was frustrated that our people managed to foil them. I get the impression that neither of them knew the why of what they were doing; they're just flunkies."

He nodded impassively, but smiled inwardly. Sheimi always got results, usually with colour commentary. "Any leads for me to chase?"

"A couple." She leaned forward again, drumming her fingers idly on the metal table. "First of all, they seem to operate almost entirely in the south. Have access to chakra training, but that doesn't mean much in this country. Prefer violence to intimidation or blackmail, don't care about collateral damage. Pretty sure we're looking at Red Hat."

Red Hat was the apparent name of a minor southern faction that had only made a few moves in the past. They didn't encroach much on major areas, nor had they trafficked or done anything to draw spectacular attention from either the Shrine or the Shiruko clan in the past. They had claimed to be the strongest faction at the southern tip (for whatever that was worth, really), to general apathy. It was certainly possible this was an attempt to assert it.

It also meant they'd stepped up in threat level somewhat.

"Second Sphere isn't going to like that," he said, mentioning another faction that 'held territory' (which all such minor factions only did in areas with crimes that neither of the major ones cared about) near the affected village. They were a little more notable than Red Hat, but much less violent. The local folk even appeared to tolerate them, from scattered reports. "Are we thinking there's a potential gang war? That could be something to get ahead of."

"Not sure I'd use the word 'potential,'" Sheimi said after a thoughtful pause. "Actually, if it had already started...that would explain this. Especially if our maps are slightly out of date and that village is now on the border of Second Sphere territory."

It was a good assessment. And definitely something to stop. The trick with gang wars was to break up all the fighting and handle the reason for it without appearing to side with either faction unless the other one went demonstrably beyond the pale. He wasn't sure if the radiation incident quite qualified. Speaking of...

"Did you check the water samples?" he queried. She was also the best in the Wardens with water, for similar reasons to Saito being the best Healer for it.

"Your twin was right," she said with a shrug. "That's definitely radiation chakra. Non-specific; not accidental jutsu fallout but a deliberate infusion. Anyone with chakra training would be likely to shrug off the dose unless they drank way more than the average amount of that well water, but civilians...well. And as to the medical plant he said it had also been dosed with to mask some of the symptoms, he's probably right about the reasoning and he'd be more familiar with anything medical than me. There's definitely something medicinal in there though; he's right about that too."

He'd already guessed as much, but it was good to have it confirmed.

"So they are every bit dangerous enough to go shut down, but we'll probably have to deal with a budding gang war in the process." He ran a hand through his hair, a rare sign of frustration from him. "And of course, we don't want to make Second Sphere look better when we do this. I'm going to need to pick my team carefully. Are you free?"

Sheimi blinked, shocked, and then a slow smile spread across her face. She looked a touch sad, though. "I'm your first choice, huh? But no, I'm stuck on garrison and training for the next week and I'm guessing you want to move before that."

She had been his first choice; maybe she wasn't subtle but they would need some serious firepower too and she was flexible to boot.

...But why had he picked her? He had a brother who also qualified as serious firepower, as did he.

"Too bad," he said. "I suppose I'll grab Makoto, but that means I'll have to screen the rest of the squad for compatibility with him."

She snorted. "If they don't meet his standards, they're probably not worth putting on a mission like this. But Fukuzawa Hana got back from the mountain hunt yesterday; you might try her. I hear they get along. She's got a touch of medical training too, which you'll probably need."

Of course his brother got along with someone who couldn't talk. How like him. "She'll do, I suppose. I'll have to check the files for the others, if you're really not available."

"I really do wish I could be," she said, and clearly meant it by her scowl. No one liked glorified nanny duty. "When are you leaving?"

"Ideally? Tomorrow. Realistically? The day after, I suppose." Kanashimi nearly sighed; it was frustrating to not be able to rapidly assemble a team, but when his focus had shifted to heavy long-range assignments, he'd lost the ability to do that. "I'll collar my brother and Fukuzawa, then shake down a couple more with relevant skillsets. Something tells me this isn't going to be an easy one, and I want to get on it as soon as we possibly can."

"Good luck," she said sincerely, meeting his gaze. Something in her bottle-green eyes glimmered. They'd been in the same class together, worked well together, and had mutual respect for each other. He wasn't sure he was ready to pry deeper into her feelings--or his own--beyond that.

"Thanks," he said, pushing back his chair and standing up. "I'm fairly sure we'll need it."

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

"But what did the note say?" Kanashimi asked his youngest brother, keeping the exasperation (mostly) out of his voice. "I understand you were able to track them, but what did it say?"

He could tell it was only Makoto's respect for him that kept him from snapping or scoffing, or declaring yet again that it didn't matter. "It just said 'I know it was you.' Like I said, not important. Probably from the healer to the poisoner."

"Almost definitely," he agreed. "Which means that at least one of our criminals is likely to be a local, or at the very least have a connection to the chief healer, meaning we have some way to trace them."

Makoto frowned and leaned back in his chair. "Didn't we get any of that out of the interrogations?"

"Sadly, no."

They were in another of the interrogation/small conference rooms. Kanashimi had yet to pick the last two members of the team, which his gut was telling him was more liable to be a strike team, with people who had the finesse to do this without making the other gang likely involved look good in return. Gangs loved when they could spin it as authority supporting them, and Second Sphere would jump on this if they could.

"We do have a lead on the why of it all, at least," he said. "This looks like Red Hat making some kind of breakout move--either for more territory without caring who they step on, or as an action directly against Second Sphere."

He waited for his brother to connect who those were. He had a good memory, but hadn't really ever been heavily into dealing with the gangs--Moon Country's effective 'third factions.' "Gang warfare isn't exactly my area of expertise," Makoto said carefully, with that precise edge to his voice he always got when he was nervous. "Do they have some kind of grudge against each other?"

Kanashimi shrugged fluidly. "I don't know. Our intel hasn't indicated any. That doesn't mean that they don't, or that they haven't acquired one. It also could have been something else. High on the list are a territory grab, a personal vendetta using gang resources, a showy move of power, or an inroad toward some contested resource between the two." He left out that only the second wouldn't lead to a gang war; Makoto could put that together on his own. "The main takeaway behind all of this is that I'm assembling a team to go either prevent or stop open fighting between factions, depending on how the situation looks when we get there. I want you on it."

Makoto's expression rippled and then smoothed out. "...I'm in. Who else is?"

You don't have to hide that you want me to be proud of you. It's all right. It could also just have easily have been hiding how much he wanted to finish what he'd started, but Kanashimi knew his brother. It was probably the first.

"Fukuzawa Hana, and I haven't picked the other two yet." He gauged the reaction careful. Neutral, no ripple, which meant... "She's the pink-haired woman with dual knives who can't speak anymore," he added for Makoto's benefit, considering how he frequently didn't bother remembering names.

"I know her." The rebuke was mild. "A good choice. I don't know who else would be. This counts as long-range tactical...what about Kiyomizu?"

Kanashimi briefly pondered the idea of his brother developing a crush on the same woman he probably had one on and rejected it. The day when Makoto was romantically interested in anyone was the day he checked his youngest sibling to make sure he wasn't an impostor. What he was undoubtedly after here was demonstrated competence. "I tried; she's stuck on garrison until well after we'll have to move out. I'll find a pair and we'll assemble the team here tomorrow morning."

"Not too early, I hope," Makoto grumbled, and Kanashimi hid a quick grin.

"Nine will be fine," he said evenly, keeping the amusement out of his voice. "Pack efficiently but thoroughly; we can't necessarily rely on finding resources on the ground in a mission like this." Meaning their clan seals would be a huge advantage here.

"I always pack efficiently, but note taken." Makoto stood and stretched. "Is that all? I should probably go do a refresher on the two gangs if we're going to stop a war between them."

"Yes. Go ahead." He'd done the same earlier, after his conversation with Sheimi, so he could try and fill out his team with people who had the skills to deal with them. "I have to go talk to Fukuzawa and then start going through personnel files."

No one said having the ability to lead teams was ever fun.

Makoto nodded sharply, looking as if he just barely resisted giving a lazy mock salute, and left.

Leaving Kanashimi to stare at the blank wall, running through the same chain of thoughts over and over.

I've never run a mission with him before. Never had the opportunity to, in fact; he'd only recently gained the ability to choose and assign his own missions, and previously those responsible for doing so had kept them off the same team. Some of the others say he's a nightmare to work with. Impossible on a personal level, but he gets the job done. Is he going to listen to me? I'm fairly sure he respects me far more than he does anyone else.

Though, there was another worry at hand.

Is he going to be less effective if he is working with someone he listens to? Is part of his effectiveness being able to just go haring off on his own after leads without caring? But that wouldn't be good in this situation anyway; this was not really an investigative mission. It was a dangerous mission.

And finally, a third thought occurred, one that in most families might have been the first.

I am taking my little brother into a gang war. Deliberately.

'Oops' probably didn't begin to cover it. In normal families.

In their family...

It's fine. He'll be fine. He's more capable than most of the corps. Rationally, that was true. Irrationally...

Irrationally wasn't a train of thought he wanted to chase down the rabbit hole just yet. Besides, he had other things to do. Kanashimi got up to go and talk to the other hopeful member of his team, shoving that worry to the back of his mind.

~

Fukuzawa Hana was never difficult to find. When she was off-duty, she was typically at or around one of the weapon ranges, working on her knives or knife skills. He pulled her aside, explained the mission to her, and got a slow nod and a thumbs-up in response. As he'd expected, in other words, that was only a quick side-trip between the smaller meeting/interrogation rooms and his nemesis, the personnel files.

He didn't usually mind the paperwork that came with his recent, mostly unofficial rank and responsibility increase, but team composition was new to him, and he'd heard other senior Wardens complaining about doing it before. It was an exercise in frustration.

First of all, you had to filter out all the people who were already assigned to an active, specific duty. The ones who were not on urgent missions could be request if you could prove your mission was urgent and that their skills were vital, but that happened so rarely you could count the number of times in the past twenty years on one hand. Guard duty was considered a specific duty if (and only if) it was specifically assigned, which meant you had to know the difference between the notation for 'unassigned, by default on guard' and 'assigned, usually to help run all the boring things going on around the place more than to guard.' Which was a frustratingly small difference.

Secondly, you had to pare away those people who lacked the skills you needed. This also, for him, would involve people not skilled enough, period, but that wouldn't be considered a problem; rookies were not typically sent on long-range tactical assignments.

Finally, you had to consider team composition, and this was the killer. Checking for the proper range of skills happened in the second stage of filtering; it was teamwork capability that was extremely irritating to calibrate for. Kanashimi hadn't actually been aware of the frankly disturbing amount of psychological information on most Wardens in the files until he had gained access to them.

Out of a combination of thoroughness and curiosity, he checked his own file's section and snorted quietly. Apparently, he was considered 'flexible' when it came to teamwork compatibility. Really, he just was better at hiding his annoyance with incompetence than some. Because he was designated with that, he didn't have too much relationship data listed, other than family.

Hana was next. She had a few prior relationships, platonic and otherwise, listed in her file. She was listed as 'fairly flexible, but do not place on training duty.' He was fairly sure that was a personality thing more than a speech thing. Her strengths were listed as 'melee and ranged taijutsu' and 'infiltration,' which would all be assets on a mission like this. He put her file with his on the 'team' pile. He'd mark them all as on assignment later.

Morbid curiosity and that same thoroughness led him to Makoto's file. There it was--'intractable' and 'difficult.' The skill list was extensive, of course, including a number of different specialties (most of which, Kanashimi knew, he could spoof with cleverness even if he didn't have too much focus in them), and a list of relationships. Family was indicated, as well as teammates he'd worked well with in the past. Sheimi was on that list, along with Hana and another name he recognized largely from her file. It was not a lot longer than that. He closed the folder and put it on the 'team' pile.

That probably speaks more to our training standards than it does anything else, he mused. He'll put up with some fairly severe personality defects for competence.

He checked the other name from Hana's file out of curiosity--assigned to the other coast on pirate patrol. Oh well.

The pile of folders was already fairly small. He flipped through them idly. He still needed someone who knew specifically how to handle the gangs, and preferably an intelligence operative. They had firepower and tracking covered, and taijutsu very thoroughly covered. Furthermore, he needed people who were rated as highly skilled in said fields.

Finally, he made his choices.

Nakihara Mitsuko - specialty, intelligence and information gathering. Special notes: sister is a Healer, has some limited training in it. Kitamura Jun - specialty, third faction intelligence and infiltration. They'll do.

Kanashimi marked all the files as on active duty. He didn't have to give people a choice about it, technically, even though he usually did--but he doubted many Wardens would pass up a mission like this.

Not personally knowing either of his choices, they were a little harder to track down. Jun was actually in the weapons range, working on maintaining a crossbow. He happily agreed when he heard it was a mission to intercept a gang war however possible, and remained undeterred when Kanashimi warned him their boat would not be directly to the area but to the cluster of towns around ten to fifteen kilometers north, meaning they would have a fair amount of walking to do.

"I've been wondering when Red Hat would make a move," Jun said. "There've been rumblings about it for a while. I'll gladly go help shut them down."

Mitsuko was a little more difficult, largely because it was her day off. Inasmuch as Wardens ever got days off, anyway; a 'day off' just meant 'on call' unless the person had specifically requested some leave time. It was a nice day, as it usually was in Moon, so he headed down the boardwalk to see if he could spot her.

That turned out to be the right move. While he was keeping an eye out for a blonde girl at one of the cafés along the front, he caught sight of a glimpse of yellow out of the corner of his eye on the beach. It wasn't exactly a common hair colour in Moon, shades of red, pink, and silver being far more common, so he turned just in case.

It was...hard to tell, given that the picture in her file didn't have her in a red bikini and playing a game with a beach ball, but he was fairly certain that was her. He blinked twice, trying to convince himself it was the sun in his eyes and not that he needed a moment to gather himself, before heading down.

Wardens didn't have an official uniform, but the fact that he was fully dressed and armed must have indicated well enough why he was there. People stayed out of his way. Mitsuko--and that was definitely her; he could see her face clearly now--had stopped, beach ball tucked under one arm and a single blonde eyebrow raised.

"Nakihara Mitsuko?" he asked, perfunctorily.

"Am I being recalled to active duty?" she asked. He couldn't read anything off her, and not in the way that he and his brother would close up and go blank, but in the way that she was obviously deliberately sending conflicting signals. He couldn't tell if she was annoyed or just plain unbothered.

"Not today," he said. "However, there's a mission starting tomorrow that you've been assigned to. You're requested at meeting room three by ten AM, slightly earlier if you want a briefing ahead of time." She was in intelligence operative, after all.

Mitsuko gave him a measured look, and tossed the beach ball to one of her friends, who apparently knew better than to argue. "Don't bother. I'll be in in fifteen. If this wasn't important, it wouldn't be set for so soon, and I'll need the time to prep."

"That works even better. I'll see you there." He turned, then paused and added over his shoulder, "Glad to have you on board." Even though something in him told him that competent or not, the team he had assembled would be Trouble in some unforeseen way. That was probably just his paranoia talking.

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

Whatever Trouble she may or may not be destined for from the team composition, Mitsuko arrived promptly when she said she would, listened to the briefing and asked informative questions, then strode away to, much like Makoto, research the gangs they would be dealing with.

Kanashimi flipped through the extensive psych data on both her and Jun, trying to see where his instincts were coming from. Jun didn't seem like he'd be the root of any problems; his file indicated he was a pleasant person, enthusiastic about his job, fair and knowledgeable, and all around an uncomplicated person. Exactly the same sort of nondescript person the Wardens loved hiring, in other words, if a few notches more competent than average.

Mitsuko's file was...a little more complicated. She liked to unnerve people with a combination of flirtiness, cheeky remarks, and catching them off-guard with her cleverness. She was also very good at acting, as well as reading body language. Some of it was basically expected of an intelligence specialist, but it also hinted of a bit of an ego. Which...could potentially be a problem. But he couldn't argue with results, and her file also indicated she tended to get those.

Well, it was sealed now. He didn't love dealing with personnel issues, but he would manage any that came up.

Probably.

~

It was nine-thirty when Makoto arrived at the private Warden docking zone off the northern edge of the beach, and he looked sour when he spotted Kanashimi perched on top of one of the short stone pillars linked to others with chain to fence off the area.

"Where is everyone else? Did you tell me to get here early for some reason?"

"Yes," Kanashimi said, unbothered by the indignance. "I wanted you to be here on time. I want us to leave at ten." He had, in fact, told the rest of the team to be there at ten or slightly before.

"It's nine-thirty," Makoto said, his tone slightly snippy in the way he used when he was attempting not to sulk.

"And I told you to be here at nine," he pointed out mildly. Inwardly, he was amused, but he didn't let his expression flicker. Sure enough, his brother's briefly shifted to a slight tinting of guilt. "You aren't usually late for missions from what I know, but you are usually late to meet me. So I preferred to gamble on the safe side."

"Safe as me taking your head off for making me get up earlier," Makoto retorted, but it lacked heat. Logic usually deflated him, and caution even moreso. Somewhat worrying, at times, but useful here.

Briefly, he entertained the thought that Makoto would be the source of Trouble his instincts were still insisting on. It was starting to give him a paranoid edge he wasn't accustomed to feeling this deeply. Then he dismissed it; if he had problems with his little brother, that was a failure with him, not Makoto. He ought to know how to handle his brothers by now.

He resisted the urge to check if Makoto was properly kitted out; he visibly was, a pack slung over his back and his primary weapon in a quick-to-hand place. He could question the choice of weapon, but it wasn't as if his own was conventional anyway.

"Good," he said instead. "Aside from Fukuzawa, I picked up an intelligence specialist and a third faction expert. The third faction expert is Kitamura Jun and the intelligence operative is Nakihara Mitsuko. Do you know either one?"

Makoto's expression flickered before smoothing, as if he'd wanted to scrunch his face up in obvious thought like he had when he was a child but he had stopped himself. "I don't believe so."

"They seem competent," Kanashimi said after a pause, when it was clear that his brother was doing his damnedest not to question their teammates' ability to be useful on the mission. "Hopefully they're up to your standards."

He couldn't resist adding a bit of bite to that, in hopes of some genuine contrition. He wasn't happy with the stunning depths of mediocrity the Wardens frequently could find to field, but he didn't deliberately set off to irritate everyone who bothered him with their incompetence, because where would that get anyone?

However, Makoto's exacting standards were apparently something not even Kanashimi, as his favourite relative and quite probably favourite person, could force him to relax. It took exactly two seconds for his hackles to go up.

"If they are, we won't have a problem," Makoto said with more than a bit of snippiness to his tone. "I fail to see why expecting basic competence and chastising people for lacking it in what is supposed to be a specialized, highly-capable special ops branch is an issue."

It only took a little bit of anger to make him start talking even more like a book than usual. Kanashimi resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and rub it, perhaps with a little performative sigh thrown in. He wasn't Saito.

"One, your 'basic competence' is most people's 'one-ninja army.' Two, even our family's most basic competence level far outstrips that of what I remind you is an island full of people who pretend they don't have a ninja village." At the very least, the fact he was talking kept Makoto quiet. "Three, even with people who are grossly incompetent, being snide and condescending to them doesn't actually help them improve. It just makes them dislike you."

His brother could do better, too; that was the sticking point. He knew it; that whole mission that had netted them Flare had proved that.

"And finally, you are not the team leader, meaning it is not your job to call people out for not doing their jobs." He leveled an even stare at Makoto, who at the very least wasn't looking sulky, even if he still seemed more prickly than contrite. "If one of your teammates screws up, I will call them on it and take what corrective measures are needed. You will say nothing about it unless asked. I trust you think I can recognize a screw-up when I see one?"

He could talk like that too, when he needed to.

"I wasn't saying you weren't competent," Makoto half-mumbled. Which seemed to be as apologetic as he'd get. "Or to undermine your authority. I just don't like it when people miss the obvious."

Kanashimi softened his tone and his gaze somewhat. He ran his hand through his hair, trying to think of what to say.

Can't have him going into this all prickly with everyone. He's not liable to soften for anyone else if I go and rile him up.

"The thing with you," he said slowly, choosing his words carefully, "is that you sometimes--often--think so fast that no one else can keep up. You put things together faster than anyone else can. But no one is going to listen to you if you keep alienating them, which would be a tragedy. You are probably the smartest Warden we have. You might even be the smartest person in our family."

Makoto looked back up at him, pale eyes wide and startled with the praise.

"It seems to me," he continued, just as evenly, "that you are trying to be good enough at your job that you don't have to worry about being nice to people, because you don't think you can or want to do that. But the thing is, there is not a point where anyone can be that good. If you aren't at least polite to your coworkers, they will resent you and dampen your effectiveness, or even outright undermine you. And that attitude can also cause problems on its own, too. So just...tone it down, okay? I don't want to see your efforts going to waste."

His brother didn't seem to know how to respond to that. He looked like he was considering it, at least, giving a quick nod and perching himself on another of the pillars. Kanashimi hoped he at least made the attempt.

Makoto was just so bad at dealing with people. He just never seemed to want to make the effort.

They didn't have time to let the awkwardness of the talk sink in, fortunately, as the rest of the team started arriving. Fukuzawa was the first, casually spinning a kunai on one of her fingers. She gave Makoto a salute, and he nodded back to her. Belatedly, Kanashimi realized that inviting his brother here earlier than the rest made him look like his second for this op...

Which. Was something he was fine with and would have chosen anyway. Never mind.

Jun was next, arriving exactly at five minutes to departure time. He greeted all of them cheerily, apparently unperturbed by the fact that Fukuzawa didn't speak to him (though maybe he knew why) and that Makoto was curt at best. Kanashimi was starting to get the feeling that their intelligence operative was going to start playing power games.

"...spray paint?" Makoto was asking Jun, actually sounding somewhat polite. Wonder of wonders.

"Oh, these are the colours for both factions," Jun said, unruffled. "Just in case we need to incite something. I included some guidelines for more common tags in my pack, too. We can get to them on the boat."

His brother seemed genuinely intrigued by that notion, as did Fukuzawa, who leaned in curiously. So it was that the three of them, deep in discussion (with both men apparently able to translate her hand gestures and expressions well enough for understanding) missed the arrival of their last team member.

But he didn't.

She might not have been dressed in a bikini anymore--in fact, there was nothing inherently provocative about her outfit at all--but Mitsuko was walking like she owned the entire beach, with a long stride that managed to work her hips slightly suggestively. Her chest wasn't exactly thrust out prominently, but the cut of her clothing was clearly designed to accentuate her...assets.

All of which he ignored other than noting it down mentally, because he was better than that. It was all smoke and mirrors anyway.

"Nakihara," he greeted her cordially as she drew up to them. All three of the others looked up at that, halting their discussion about sowing discord as a means of breaking up (or, perhaps disturbingly, accelerating) a gang war. Each had an instant reaction.

Fukuzawa didn't bother hiding her distaste. It was clear she understood exactly what the play was, and didn't think very much of it. Her own outfit was much more sensible, with tougher armor-like lining as opposed to form-fitting fabric. The expression on her face was a shade shy of a scowl.

Jun looked vaguely like someone had hit him over the head, as well as embarrassed to have that reaction. He was a form of intelligence operative too, of course, so he did know the tricks, but if you didn't have a lockdown on your self control it didn't always matter if you knew that.

Makoto...Kanashimi had been briefly afraid he would react somewhat like Jun, but it didn't seem like he needed to worry about that. His gaze was cool and assessing, much like it was whenever he met someone new. He didn't even appear to have any difficulty retaining that focus, not even for a flicker of a second.

Mitsuko had apparently noticed that as well, though she did flash Jun a coy smile as if to say 'gotcha!' before turning to Kanashimi, her posture straightening out to purely professional. "I'm not late, am I?"

"Only just not," he said. If it was only a harmless bit of teasing, especially with a fellow intelligence agent, he'd leave it be. Although he was still sure she'd made sure she was the last one there to check the team's reactions. "We'd best board."

They did, Fukuzawa--Hana--still giving Mitsuko wary looks. She appeared to prefer to stay closer to Makoto, who still displayed a lack of affectedness. Obliviousness? Focus? Genuine apathy?

Presumably, if he ever acts that struck around a woman, it'll be one with big brains.

But as they boarded the small specialized Warden stealth boat headed south, Kanashimi still couldn't suppress that little paranoid instinct jumping up and down in the back of his head.

The sooner they got this whole thing sorted out, the better.

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

Even if his paranoia would have calmed down to let him rest on the boat, Kanashimi couldn't rest on the boat. They had several hours ahead of them which they ought to use.

The Wardens were old hands at this kind of situation, proving that while their selection of people could sometimes be off, their gear and tactics were at least very good. The boat was outfitted with a soundproof cabin for the skipper to drive it from, allowing the transported Wardens to have a strategy meeting on the open deck without worry of unauthorized personnel hearing anything. Some Warden captains didn't bother to use transport time in order to strategize, which was a waste in his opinion. It wasn't like you could do much else on one, meaning usually in those circumstances the team would just do nothing.

He didn't like doing nothing.

So once they were out in the water, skimming along the eastern coast without hugging the shore too tightly, he called his team over to the seaward side of the boat to talk strategy. Gratifyingly, Mitsuko was not subtly taunting her teammates anymore that he could tell, and Makoto also seemed relatively subdued in his normal level of snark. Either the team was up to his standards, or he was considering Kanashimi's own earlier words. He'd take either; he had no desire for there to be either a verbal or physical fight on the open water. For numerous reasons, not the least of which was common sense in not wanting the boat to capsize.

(Aside from the small steering cabin and the deck that was just large enough for them to fit the five of them comfortably on one side, there wasn't really much else to it. The Wardens were practical, not extravagant.)

"Now that you're all acquainted with each other, it's time to talk strategy," he began. He wasn't much for speeches; might as well get to business. "Obviously we'll need to get the lay of the land first before we decide exactly what to do, but we can have a loose plan we can adapt on the fly. Jun, Mitsuko? Ideas on how to gather intel when we get there?"

The two intelligence operatives traded a 'may I? Yes, go ahead' look and Jun spoke first.

"All those smaller third factions have a number of non-member informants and operatives," he said. "They are less well-protected and easier to identify than the actual members with information, because they have to be. There is a mild risk in shaking them down, but if we are careful it isn't much of one. Even if we aren't, it's much less than directly attempting to intervene without knowing what's going on and why."

"There does exist the possibility that this isn't a direct gang war," Mitsuko added. "It's a good guess, but we need to know more. Subtlety is very necessary here. More than usual since Red Hat is involved and as soon as they realize we're serious players in this they're liable to get aggressive."

"Then we're on a timer considering as we already arrested two of their operatives," Makoto said evenly. "We still don't know what exactly the point of that operation was. On the surface, it would seem pointless."

Hana made a motion that looked like she was mimicking waves with one hand, then shrugged. Mitsuko stared at her, seemingly lost until Makoto translated.

"Yes, it could be a test of some kind," he said. "You're right though; we can't be certain. And we can't rely on someone cracking the two prisoners. Even if they could, getting any kind of messenger to us would be rather difficult. I'm assuming we're maintaining radio silence with home base?"

"Yes," he said. "That will leave the infiltration option open, should we need to take it. I don't expect that's our first or best option, but I assume it's on the list?" The question was directed at Jun, but he merely spread his hands as if to say he wasn't yet certain. Mitsuko picked it up, perhaps to make up for not quite grasping her teammates' sign language.

"Infiltration with these groups is never a first option, no," she said. "If we need to do it I can manage for myself and one other. I assume Jun has their colours?"

"Naturally," Jun said, apparently unoffended. "Red Hat use a particular shade of red by preference with dark grey. Second Sphere uses blue and black. I have the spray cans for all of those here."

Hana ran her hands through the air above her torso, throwing them outward at the bottom and making a soft 'pop' noise with her mouth. This time everyone grasped that she meant to indicate the effect for the Transformation jutsu.

"Yes, but we can't necessarily rely on that," Kanashimi warned. "They might have some people with chakra control who could potentially see through. It isn't difficult to come by the training down here."

"They save those people for higher ranks," Jun said. "So we should be fine unless we're exceedingly unlucky."

"For those of us who would like to take into account the chances of potentially being exceedingly unlucky, how about a few precautions?" Makoto asked dryly. "Such as procuring some scrap cloth, spraypainting or colouring that, and wearing it as armbands? I hesitate to suggest the other option of pretending we're new recruits who do't have proper colours yet, given that if they have the slightest bit of sense they'll be on the lookout for that, but..."

Hana nodded emphatically, apparently also of the school of 'be prepared for anything,' and Jun shrugged.

"Fair enough," he said. "Although you were down here recently, right? I don't think you had better be on any infiltration team. They have more eyes than you know."

"I'm not exactly an infiltration expert, so that seems fine," Makoto said after a second, apparently weighing the value of arguing he could do something Kanashimi was well aware he didn't want to do anyway.

"No offense Fukuzawa, but you're rather conspicuous," Mitsuko added. "So one of the other two would be my first choice."

"Preferably me," Kanashimi said evenly. "Just in case there's trouble. Jun, your file indicated neither a preference or aptitude for combat; is that still true?"

"It is." Still unoffended. "I think splitting up the two intelligence operatives might be a better idea anyway. Better than the three of you being an emergency bail-out team. Just in case."

"We're less likely to run into problems if it's the two intelligence agents," Mitsuko argued. "Not that I think you can't act of course Shiruko-san, but..."

He waved it off. "A valid concern. And I might be thought of as conspicuous. But I assure you I can pass for a street thug if I need to."

He was the only one of his siblings who could manage the trick, in fact; Makoto, for all his vocal talent, couldn't effectively rough up his voice, and Saito had difficulty acting intimidating.

She cast him, and then Makoto, assessing glances. "Hm. If you say so." Clearly remembering what exactly their surname meant. It didn't surprise him that she'd know that.

"So our first step will be to shake down some informants, with as much subtlety aswe can managed. And we may or may not follow that with infiltration," he summarized. "What are our other options?"

Hana made a cut-throat motion, then jerked her thumb up.

"Violent escalation," Makoto said. He sounded as if he preferred this option. "Namely, instigating a fight between the two factions if there seems to be one already brewing. What about the civilians?"

"Citizen reaction to these groups varies," Jun said. "Second Sphere doesn't do direct harm to people who don't cut in on them, so the people in their claimed territory aren't liable to be prepared for all-out gang war. But those in the more inner areas of Red Hat's territory who haven't already been run out to the more remote or outskirt areas--and we're talking pieces of small towns here, not full towns--are likely to be in bed with them. The first set will at least know enough to flee if the fighting starts."

"Gangs don't always fight in the streets though," Kanashimi felt moved to point out. "Even non-powered gang members can firebomb and throw bricks."

"That is rather an issue," Jun admitted. "If we are going to go the route of forced escalation, we'll have to be sure there's no other less destructuve option available. But you might be surprised by how many gang wars have been dealt with that way in the past effectively."

'Dealt with' being the Shrine euphemism for 'enough of them died that we could swoop in and arrest or kill the pieces.' But it was hard to feel sorry for most of the third factions that had that done to them, being that they were, after all, violent criminals. The Shrine wasn't wrong about everything.

Hana jerked her thumb over her shoulder. Apparently Mitsuko was a quick study, as she answered that one.

"Evacuating them would tip our hand to our involvement in the area. They aren't stupid, after all--or at least, Second Sphere isn't. They know we've done this in the past. They could work out we were at fault." She paused, and added, "it's possible they'll work it out if we do it regardless of if we tip our hand, being as there was known Warden involvement in Red Hat operations very recently."

"If there hadn't been, we wouldn't be here," Makoto pointed out, clearly slightly miffed. "And we'd not hear about the brewing trouble in the area until our agents reported in about half a village going up in flames."

"Our agents as in ours? Or your family's?" Mitsuko asked, a bite to her tone. "Because I do wonder a bit at how you found out about that whole mess."

"He unraveled it," Kanashimi said, interceding. "Personally, I can attest that Makoto, while brilliant, would not be a particularly good choice for a spy. He isn't a very good actor."

With a very slight apologetic shrug at his brother, who didn't refute the point. Hana, who had pulled one of her knives out, was tapping it idly against the outer wall of the cabin she was leaning against and nodding. She made a gesture with her free hand that looked like a way to say, 'yeah, basically.'

"Hmm." Mitsuko looked less than pleased by that, which told him that she didn't like the idea of maybe not being the smartest person on the team. "Well. Our last potentially viable broad plan is psychological warfare."

Hana mimed something that looked like turning a key, but then flicked her fingers up at the end and looked at Mitsuko questioningly. Kanashimi was still trying the answer the puzzled look on the latter's face when Makoto did it for them.

"You want us to gaslight them?" Oh, gaslight--gas lamp. Of course. The flick was a flame coming on. Hana was nodding, so that must have been it. "As in, spreading false information and setting up Red Hat to take on a target they probably can't handle, making them jump at shadows and react badly and in general making it easier for us to openly side against them when they do something a step too far?"

"Yes," Mitsuko said. Only a shade of annoyance passed over her face that he was better at interpreting than her, apparently not factoring in (or possibly not knowing) this wasn't their first mission together. "I would even call that the ideal plan A--as long as they aren't already in preparation mode, in which case it won't be likely to make them jump sooner."

"Red Hat is aggressive, so it might," Jun countered. "However, I can't say without us getting more information on their current state. Their leadership tends to shift through lieutenants rapidly. It depends which ones they're listening to right now."

"They aren't being particularly stupid right now," Makoto said thoughtfully. "It could have been luck, of course, but the fact is that they are toeing the line of what we consider unforgivable without crossing it to the point that most normal people would. After all, only one person died in that village. We know it might well have turned out to be more, but no one can say for sure how many--and there weren't, regardless. And they disposed of two powered fighters whose personalities and talents seem to make them somewhat of a liability in the event of a serious fight. At the moment, it looks like one person died, some people were sick but ultimately were cured, and the two who did it were arrested. That's normally where it would stop."

"If you ignore the undertones," Kanashimi pointed out. "Or aren't aware of them."

His brother acknowledged this with a nod. "Of course. But most people don't have the information we do. On how dangerous the whole thing actually could have become, or that this is assuredly part of something bigger. In a way, it's quite clever. We don't have the ability to act openly against what they appear to have done."

"You're suggesting they've deliberately disposed of two of their own people?" Jun asked incredulously. "Two of their chakra-trained people?" When Makoto merely nodded his expression turned into a frown, the first one Kanashimi had seen on him. "But that's..."

"Brilliant," he heard himself say. He was starting to see the pieces Makoto had. "If they want to make a move on territory, you'd expect them to need fighters--but if they have the numbers, viciousness, or tactics on their rivals, then what they really need is to begin subtle undermining operations. Which those two weren't really suited for--but being chakra-trained, they were highly placed, so they couldn't easily be disposed of. And they wouldn't want to do so permanently."

Mitsuko seemed to be connecting the dots. "Get them arrested, so they can potentially be retrieved later. Maybe you don't have the resources to do it if you lose, or even if you win. It's a gamble. So you dispose of them in one of those operations maybe, and ensure that they probably won't be executed so you can make the attempts in any case...get some of your muscle back to hold your new or old territory..."

"Ruthless, of course," Makoto said blandly. "But it also means they've already gotten further in their plans than we thought, if they're at the 'dispose of dangerous minions' phase. And also that they're far more vicious than we already thought."

"That means we need a new range of plans," Jun said after the horrified revelation had sunk into everyone's minds. "And to send a note back."

Kanashimi was already accepting the writing implements Makoto had produced to write a letter. "When we get to the southern docks, I'll leave this with the skipper to take back to the other Wardens. Warning them of our best guesses. For now, let's get back to it."

This was starting to look like the Trouble he'd expected. Thankfully, it wasn't internal. Although that previously unpalatable 'force an open gang war' option was looking like the more and more likely best one every moment.

He still couldn't shake the funny feeling even as he wrote the note that they hadn't yet begun to see Trouble.

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

The rest of the trip was not quite as uneasy as it otherwise might have been, as they were all competent Wardens and settled down during the remainder of the discussions. It helped somewhat that no more disturbing and highly plausible theories came up over the course of them, but Kanashimi still wondered if anyone else felt as unprepared as he did. He had expected to defuse a gang war, not get in the middle of one that may have already started.

Still, it was something they had to do, otherwise that entire region could end up written off no matter which faction won. It wasn't guaranteed, but if either faction won without them muscling in...well. They might think they had the run of the place. Which was unacceptable.

(Second Sphere might not be so bad for his family--but he and probably the rest of the team were starting to get the creeping feeling that the upstart Red Hat faction might actually have the advantage. So they couldn't count on that.)

The skipper accepted the note to return to Warden headquarters without question. Likely it wasn't even anywhere near the strangest thing he'd ever had to bring back there. That accomplished, he felt a little better when they disembarked.

Jun immediately called for a halt before their leaving the beach by the dock they came in at. "I just wanted to reiterate that we need to be inconspicuous," he said apologetically. "So everyone will have to make sure their weapons are properly concealed."

This wasn't a problem for Kanashimi (whose weapon folded up easily and could be tucked into his belt or jacket in its smaller form, looking like nothing more conspicuous than a knife) or Makoto (whose main weapon didn't even look like a weapon), but it was a little more of a difficulty for Hana, who seemed to subscribe to a 'carry a knife wherever on me I can fit one' philiosophy. Mitsuko had to adjust a few of her weapons as well, and ended up slipping a short sword down the back of her shirt and partway into her pants. "I'm not used to having to conceal anything," she grumbled.

"It'll do," Jun said. The only weapons he had were small, easily concealed projectiles with a few poisons thrown in. "Aside from that, we look innocent enough. A few small knives aren't a big deal," he added to Hana, who still looked a bit sour at having had to slide some of her excess knives up two spare empty sheathes in her sleeves. "Most people down here carry at least one small weapon. It's just the more obvious, numerous, or larger ones that could be a problem."

"And not the fact we're showing up without having walked down the coast from a clearly secret boat trip or path somewhere?" Makoto asked skeptically. He was the only one other than Jun to have passed muster from the start, his secondary combat knives being unremarkable enough to go without comment.

"Black market traders do that all the time," Jun said with a shrug. "These gangs don't care about those. Some even hire or work with them. I know Second Sphere does."

That was part of their initial plan. Under the fairly likely assumption that Second Sphere was aware Red Hat was making a move on them, they would attempt to safely contact that gang. They would try to find out what, if anything, the leaders there knew that they didn't yet. Then, if the gang wasn't aware of their rival's potential plan, to inform them of what they thought it was.

There were a lot of 'maybes' and 'if thens' in even the working outline, which Kanashimi didn't like at all, but that was par for the course in an uncertain situation and an intelligence mission both. He would just have to live with it.

"You do have an idea of how to contact this person in Second Sphere, right?" Mitsuko asked Jun for at least the fourth time since they had discussed it.

"Yes," he said, much like the other times. "As long as we aren't obviously Wardens, they'll talk to us." He glanced between Kanashimi and Makoto uncertainly, like he thought they were particularly recognizable. "Or..."

"Yes," Kanashimi said, "we've established already that under no circumstances are any of us to start handing out last names, especially ours." He kept the irritation out of his voice, opting instead for his usual even tone. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Makoto's mouth snap shut. "I have to admit, I really did expect us to have someone in there."

Jun shook his head. "Not at the moment. They're low priority, since they're not especially violent. We don't have anyone in Red Hat, either. It isn't that easy to get spies into some of these gangs, since they're always on the lookout for them. Not from us, but ours could get caught in the checks they do to find infiltrators from other third factions."

Hana gave him a look as if to ask if they wouldn't. Makoto mirrored it.

"They have less stringent checks for people who aren't actually trying to join them," Jun said. To his credit, he was being quite patient considering that they'd already gone over all of this. Maybe he understood that it was a way the rest of them were averting pre-mission jitters.

Maybe it helped him do that too.

After a bit more fussing, they were all deemed good enough to pass for black market dealers. (Hana and Makoto had traded amused looks at this for some reason Kanashimi wasn't quite sure of.) Jun had tied a ragged-looking black headband around his forehead and directed them to a town known to be in Second Sphere territory. For a team on Wardens all of whom had some degree of Taijutsu training, it was neither a difficult nor lengthy trek, but they did have to slow down to 'civilian with bare levels of training' speed when they got nearer.

Like most of the other gangs, Second Sphere had a number of ways and codes for traders to contact one of their people. The Wardens stayed on top of these codes, and both Mitsuko and Jun knew them. Since it would look strange for a black market trade captain to have someone else to make contact for them without being present, Kanashimi had to be one of the team members, along with one of the intelligence officers, and preferably a third person for safety. Taking various factors into account, he decided on bringing Mitsuko and Hana with him. Makoto looked too similar to him for the relation not to be questioned and had been in the region recently besides. Additionally, Hana could pull off 'casually menacing' a lot more easily.

"So the two of us will hang around back here until something goes wrong and we need to start swinging," Makoto finished. "Right, okay. Do you want us to stay somewhere in particular or patrol the outer boundaries?"

He was gratified for the lack of complaining. "Whatever works to keep your eye on the flow of the town best," he said. "Use your best judgment. We can wear our headsets since that's fairly standard for traders as well, so alert me if something seems unusual."

His brother gave a quick two-fingered salute. "Will do. We'll try and stay visually stealth."

Kanashimi glanced at Makoto and Jun only long enough to note them applying the Active Camo jutsu, rippling into the deep green of the rainforest, before turning back to lead Mitsuko and Hana into town.

If only his family had had contacts with the southern gangs, they wouldn't have had to bother with most of this. But it couldn't be helped now.

The signals to get in touch with a gang member contact were relatively obscure and, in his mind, a little silly. They proceeded to an open-air market where Mitsuko turned on the charm expected of a woman with her appearance serving an illegal trader and dropped the code phrases into conversation with a particular merchant. Hana hung back looking casually menacing; she'd taken out one of her sleeve knives and started spinning it on one finger. Kanashimi just leaned against the side of the man's stall, arms folded and a completely flat expression on his face while he pretended not to be paying attention to Mitsuko.

Somehow that was as menacing as Hana. Oh well.

After a seemingly natural end to the conversation, Mitsuko winked at the merchant and sauntered off, the way she was walking undoubtedly making people focus on other things than the slip of paper she'd been handed and slid into one pocket.

He waited until they were somewhere inconspicuous before tapping her. They ducked down an alley, Hana keeping an eye out for anyone sneaking up, and Mitsuko pulled the paper out.</COLOR>

Alley on Hokori Lane between 8th and 9th.

<COLOR color="#828292">

"Trap?" he asked, but he didn't think so. Mitsuko shook her head, blonde hair bobbing with the motion. She brushed it out of her face absently.

"No, I'm sure he thought I was legit," she said. "The two of you pulled off 'vaguely disreputable' quite well, I think. Easier for some than others."

The last bit was said quietly, but obviously directed at Hana, who caught it and made a rude gesture in Mitsuko's direction. Kanashimi gave the both of them quelling looks.

It didn't take long to find their way to Hokori Lane and 8th, and they ducked into the next alley from there. Kanashimi spotted the poorly-camouflaged ganger hanging around waiting, but it was only a bad attempt to hide if you had been explicitly trained to do so. Mitsuko scowled and tapped her foot, adopting a pout. Hana caught them not saying anything and glanced around the alley as if she were also fooled, an angry look on her face.

"They said they'd be here," Mitsuko said in a petulant whine that was nothing at all like her usual tone.

He snorted and snagged the paper from her hand where it was crumpled up. "Sometimes I wonder if you can read. But yeah, it says here. Maybe we beat them here." It didn't take much effort for him to roughen his accent either.

"You didn't," said a third, unfamiliar voice. The three of them credibly faked spinning around to stare at the 'newcomer,' who had dropped her poor concealment.

As he'd expected, it was a woman wearing Second Sphere's traditional black with a splash of blue after dropping the camouflage jutsu. Her hair was long and black, tied back in a ponytail. Her voice was scratchy, with a bit of a drawl.

"Had to make sure you were legit," she explained. "Sorry, Red Hat's been making rude gestures at us for a while now. It'd be like them to come up with a bomb into the midlde of our turf or something."

"No bombs," he said, with the disingenuous smile of a consumate low-life merchant. It felt strange on his face, but Mitsuko had assured him it was up to snuff. "I've been hearing rumours of them though and I don't exactly want them to come out ahead, if you catch my drift."

The gang member snorted. "Arsonists and shit-stirrers are pretty crappy for business, yeah. I take it you want to meet with the Chief?"

"That'd be most helpful, yes," he agreed. "Take it they're not around here, no?"

"Course not." She side-eyed him, but not in a suspicious way--more in a way that looked like she approved of him somehow. He flashed her a grin instead of ignoring it like usual and she smirked back. "Come on, this way."

She led them through a maze of back alleys and narrow streets that he was a little amazed existed in a town that wasn't a major city. Yes, this was the larger of the towns in this particular 'clump' of them, but he hadn't realized how sprawling some of these places could get.

They came out not in a building but in an open area, where the easygoing expression on their guide's face flickered into annoyance, and then something akin to fear. He only had to glance up to see why.

Standing directly across from them, facing in their direction, was another member of Second Sphere. She was tall, almost as tall as Kanashimi was, with stark white hair cropped short, tan skin, and amber eyes. Her outfit was a one-piece lightly armored bodysuit that was almost entirely black, with blue patches on her sides, shoulders, and arms. In one of her hands was a massive tsurugi.

But she wasn't looking at them, and in fact might have not even noticed them. No, she was staring in contempt at a pair of people standing just to one side of the alley they were in, clad in bright red and grey, both sporting identical triangular red hats that tilted low enough to cover the owners' faces.

We're too late.

The thought was instant and reflexive, since it looked like open warfare had already happened. But no one was moving, and after a second he realized the woman was speaking.

"...our territory. We've been lenient as it is in not simply crushing you."

"You think you can?" one of the Red Hat members asked in a high voice, following by a smug giggle. "Your time here is over, Miss Perfect. You can't hold all the territory we can."

"Enough words," the other one said sharply. The beads hanging off his hat bobbed as he lifted his head. "We are hardly the only of our kind in your city. This isn't exactly the heart of your territory, but it's deep enough in that once we cause enough chaos here, it's ours for the taking."

"Not the only..." The Chief of Second Sphere pursed her lips, then leveled her sword. "Very well. Then I have no choice."

The first of the Red Hats gave a laugh again, this one sounding like some strange creature. "Awww, she thinks we're going to attack head on! Nah. Look out behind you!"

The Chief jerked, spinning to one side. At the last second she blocked something out of his line of sight, but a moment later he saw an arrow protruding from her stomach. Both the Red Hat members giggled and their guide surged forward, fists glowing. Maybe intending to go after them, maybe to go after the sniper.

Kanashimi beat her to the former, Hana hot on his heels. The time for discretion was over; an assassination attempt and potential bombing was enough over the line they no longer had to worry about appearances. He had his Fuuma Shuriken out and snapped into full size in an instant. Before either Red Hat member had time to do more that twitch in their direction, one of the blades of his weapon was embedded in the first one's chest and Hana's knives had slashed the other's throat.

"Right, well, that clears that up," he said in a clipped tone as he pulled his Fuuma Shuriken out, letting the body fall to the ground with the other. "I suppose we're authorized to act in the open now."

Their guide had whirled to stare at them, then take in the unusual weapons and his now more upright and serious posture. "Wardens?" she asked uncertainly.

"Yes," he said, since they were past that point. "Hana, can you see the sniper?"

She shook her head, clearly frustrated; the shooter was probably on one of the thatched rooftops and might not have even been there anymore. The Chief, for her part, was on her feet still, ignoring the arrow to take notice of them.

There was a blur behind her and their guide shouted a warning. The Chief turned, sword raised, but checked herself a second later.

"Sorry we're late," Makoto said, dropping a body carrying a bow and quiver in front of her. "Since our cover is well and truly blown, I thought I might want to pick off the man trying to assassinate our new ally and a few of his friends first."

Kanashimi relaxed. "We'd best get somewhere safer," he told the Chief. "Unless you have objections?"

"I need to get my people to sweep for their devices," she said sharply. "They could be--"

He made a gesture and Jun materialized, dropping the Active Camo he had barely seen through. In his hands were several dismantled pieces of what looked like some type of fertilizer-based bomb.

"I think that's covered," he said, allowing her to take a look at his team. Mitsuko had gone to calm down the guide, and apparently done so successfully as she sauntered back up to him. "But we do need to discuss strategy now."

She looked him straight in the eye. "No more tricks or hiding, Warden. Is this your full team?"

"Yes," he said truthfully.

She narrowed her eyes, but nodded after a moment. "Three," she called, jerking her head at the guide, who snapped to attention. "Go alert our people to be on the lookout for those filthy terrorists."

"Yes, Chief!" the black-haired girl said, snapping off a salute and running off.

"Now," said the Chief, "why don't you lot come with me? Presuming we're all willing to put our cards on the table, I feel like this will work out for the better."

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

The Chief led them on a dizzying path of back alleys, clandestine streets, and narrow byways that was almost definitely deliberately designed to to throw them off where they were going. Kanashimi relied on his intelligence operatives to keep track of the route they took, since he certainly couldn't.

One thing he did notice for sure, however, was the fact that there were a number of people in Second Sphere colours, both in the open and hidden. The hidden ones weren't quite subtle enough to avoid detection by Wardens--but then, he couldn't be sure that they didn't have anyone who was. All of which explained neatly why the Chief wasn't at all bothered by the idea of five Wardens at her back.

While they were moving, he turned to his team for a rapid, quiet debriefing. They couldn't speak freely, but he wouldn't say anything incriminating anyway.

"Why didn't you radio?" he asked Makoto quietly while they kept an eye out for trouble.

"There wasn't time," was his brother's terse reply. "I'll explain when we get to wherever it is we're going."

He bit back the urge to tell Makoto off for that. Maybe there was a good reason. But if there wasn't, now wasn't the time to have it out; they could do that a little later. "Along with what else happened while you two were shadowing the town?"

"Naturally." His brother seemed to miss his barely-veiled irritation. Then, much more quietly, to the point he could barely hear even while they were a foot away from each other, Makoto asked under his breath, "Are we still keeping our surname under wraps?"

He considered the merits of secrecy versus openness on that one. For one, he doubted they were going to get the Chief's full name or surname. A first name, at the very most. Possibly another codename. However, with some factions, the Shiruko surname would be thought of as more friendly and trustworthy than the Shrine and therefore the Wardens. He didn't know if this was one of those.

Moreover, he didn't know if Red Hat would escalate harder if they somehow heard. Some factions would...

What a mess.

"Our intelligence operatives repeatedly warned us not to," he said back just as quietly. "So no."

Makoto nodded, looking somewhat troubled. If he'd been pegged before, or in the previous mission...but no, he wouldn't have missed mentioning something like that.

They reached the apparent destination after not much longer, as the Chief veered into an unobtrusive door, leading them into what looked like the back warehouse of a shop front. The five of them hesitated, exchanging glances, and all of them looked to him. He shrugged to himself and moved in. Of them all, he could take the most damage, and his reflexes were good enough that he could likely block to begin with.

Which proved to be a good move, as a polearm immediately came down on him hard. With what would seem only a twitch to someone watching, Kanashimi drew his fuuma shuriken and snapped it out to full extension in time to block the blow.

"One. Stop," the Chief's voice rang out. "They are my guests."

The man in dark blue lifted his spear from where it had struck Kanashimi's weapon. However, he did not sheath it immediately, first bowing to his leader. "My apologies, Himeno-sama. I only saw Moon ninja."

"Yes, and they appear to be here to help us deal with those fools in their ridiculous hats," the Chief said evenly. Upon hearing this, 'One' sheathed his spear across his back and turned back to them, sketching a light bow.

"My apologies. We are on high alert, and I prefer to be on guard at all times."

"That's fine," Kanashimi said. He had barely felt anything from the blow, although it was a job forcing down his combat instincts. Attacking the second-in-command of their new temporary ally would not be the best of ideas. "Everyone stand down."

Without even looking back, he knew they only did so on his order, hearing the slight shuffling noises of weapons being sheathed. Then, without looking back, he strode forward toward the dimly-lit meeting table the Chief (Himeno?) stood at, a map spread in front of her.

"I had not expected Warden intervention in this area for some time yet," she said, after a brief exchange of first-names-only. "It would seem the rumours of your people being the ones to defuse the situation in Sunset Village were accurate."

Kanashimi nudged a slightly-startled Makoto forward and nodded to him.

"That was me, actually," he said. Himeno's amber eyes locked onto him. "That is to say, I was on the team. The locals didn't appear to expect outside faction involvement--or at least, if they did, were remarkably quiet about it and did not appear to be hiding anything. I expect this is because they chose operative who lived in the area, and could be written off as having their own motives."

"I expect no such motive presented itself," Himeno said rather than asked. "Regardless of how you were tipped off, we are glad the situation has escalated to the point where official help arrived. I would prefer my people not be caught in a Shrine slash and burn operation."

Kanashimi did not twitch, and neither did most of his team, but that was apparently telling enough. Himeno nodded and looked back down at her map.

"We have been fending them off in border skirmishes for some time. This is difficult without using up my chakra-trained people--who, as you have just now seen, are not a match for yours at all. Their aggressive, destructive tactics are difficult to deal with without casualties." The expression on her face was severe. "That was not the first assassination attempt on me, but it was the first when in our territory proper."

"Speaking of which," he gestured to his team, "healing jutsu might deal with that faster. Hana?"

Hana threw a salute and moved around the table. Himeno blinked and then looked down at her side, as if just remembering the arrow sticking out of it still. Hana drew one of her many knives out to carefully cut the arrow out and apply a healing jutsu, and Himeno seemed to decide to ignore her for the moment as she worked. Kanashimi was mildly impressed at her pain resistance.

"Do you know how they entered your territory without being caught?" he asked.

"We aren't yet sure," she said. "My suspicion is that they disguised themselves--most likely with a Transformation, due to those hats making mundane disguises difficult. Thank you," she added to Hana as she finished healing the injury and moved away, who nodded in return. "It does show more forethought than we'd grown to expect from them; previously they had simply been pecking at us with all the effectiveness of a duck."

"That may have been a ruse," Makoto said. He glanced at Kanashimi; he seemed to be asking if he could relay his theory. When Kanashimi nodded, he continued. "The information we have points to them being in an expansionist phase, and having been planning this for some time. The attack on Sunset Village served a secondary purpose--namely, to not only deal damage on the border of your territory, but to temporarily dispose of dangerous minions with chakra control by having them do something arrest-worthy. I expect they've been planning this for some time and they believe they have some kind of edge over you."

"Whether they do or not remains to be seen, of course," Kanashimi felt the need to add. He did not like the slight worried crease of Himeno's forehead. "And we have reason to believe that they were banking on not drawing our attention yet."

If it hadn't been for both of my little brothers, they wouldn't have. We wouldn't have had enough to move, and this town would have been severely damaged by whatever devices Jun disarmed.

"No one wants to draw your attention," she said flatly. "Meaning no disrespect. Little good comes for any of the southern factions when the Wardens move in. Usually." Making it clear she knew it was not an unusual circumstance.

"We prefer not to intervene when we don't have to," Jun said. Mitsuko didn't say anything in a very deliberate way.

"That is at least true on the surface," Himeno agreed. "I will admit most of the rest of us make our own trouble, such as the firebombing outbreak in the northern farming cluster last year." Makoto made a funny noise. "Oh, you cleaned that up as well? You do get around, don't you."

"Speaking of which--I'd like to know now about what I was asking you earlier," Kanashimi said pointedly, leveling a look at his brother, who nearly-visibly squirmed.

"Jun and I were patrolling, as you asked us to, for Red Hat members," Makoto said finally. "It didn't take long for us to see suspicious people moving around in the southern quarter. A bit of investigation saw that they were moving packages around. We took one out immediately after he set one out, and Jun confirmed they were homemade explosives. He went to disarm the rest, and I mapped out where they all were for him. I spotted the archer in Red Hat colours shooting downward when I went rooftop, so I took him out and there you all were."

He shrugged expansively. Certainly it sounded as if there hadn't been time to radio in, but since he hadn't actually said there hadn't been, there probably had.

"Next time, I'd like to note that finding explosives counts on the list of things to radio in about," Kanashimi said mildly enough that only Makoto seemed to catch it as a rebuke right away. "Were you spotted?"

"No," Jun said, "but we didn't have time to hide any of the bodies very well. If there is anyone in Red Hat left that we missed, or their informants, they'll know."

"There probably are," Makoto added. "We were originally going to sweep for them after the explosives, but the archer changed things a bit. As I said, I'm fairly certain our cover was blown."

"Not a problem worth worrying about right now," he said.

"What are the odds of getting a firepower team into Red Hat's territory?" Mitsuko asked Himeno suddenly, as if she had been considering it for a while. "Could your people get civilians into safe areas for a bit, if there are any?"

Himeno gave her a considering look. "Depends on the firepower we're talking about. Taijutsu or Ninjutsu?"

"Both," Kanashimi said. "Three of us rate as 'firepower,' of varying kinds."

"Taijutsu isn't so hard to get people around the combat zone," Himeno said. She beckoned over One, who was hovering just out of hearing range. "One. Do we have enough active, stable people to guide civilians and potential hostages out of a Ninjutsu combat zone with heavy firepower ongoing?"

"We've got a lot of injuries," One said after a second of consideration. "If they could do for medical like they did for you? Maybe."

"Hostages?" Jun asked, after a nudge from Hana. "Are there kidnappings going on in the southern tip right now? We hadn't heard of it."

Himeno and One exchanged a look layered with meaning.

"Call them...disappearances," Himeno said finally, but the worry creasing her dark tan skin was even more apparent than earlier. "Many suspect kidnappings, but we aren't sure if they are, or why. There are also rumours that the new top lieutenant is some kind of madman, but we don't know anything about him other than that they call him The Rat and he doesn't leave the heart of their territory."

"I heard the name 'Lab Rat' once or twice," One said. "Don't know if it's the same guy. Maybe yes, maybe no."

That was...worrisome. "As in, they're kidnapping people for him to experiment on?" One shrugged.

"It's a good thing most of us have medical training then," Mitsuko said. "It sounds like we'll need it. Did you want Jun and I with their side of the infiltration team to clear out hostages?"

"Probably," Kanashimi said. "Though I recommend everyone wear breathers. If they do have someone named Lab Rat, that might indicate they're making airborne pathogens, which they might release upon being attacked."

"At the least, they're probably the one who came up with the plan for Sunset," Makoto said thoughtfully. "Which makes them aggressive and dangerous. Though we should probably try to take them alive if we can, in case of a literal dead man's switch."

"With a biology expert, that could be dangerous," Mitsuko noted. "Of course, we don't know for sure any of that."

"Reasonable supposition," Makoto countered. "At the very least, they have someone who knew what to use to worsen some symptoms of radiation poisoning but abate enough others that most medics would misdiagnose. It's possible these are separate people, but the disappearances connected to them and the name Lab Rat could well indicate otherwise."

"If they're doing human experimentation--even on a supposition of it--that's more than enough reason to go in hot," Kanashimi said, ending the incipient argument. "I agree it's a bit of a stretch, but we can't take the chance. Himeno, can your people be equipped wtith breathers?"

She glanced at One, who nodded. "Enough to make a team to evacuate hostages, at any rate," she said. "My only stipulation is that the land not be too badly damage to become unusable after you're done. Civilians who aren't hostages in that area will be alongside the fools with hats anyway."

"Agreed," he said, with a glance at Makoto, the only real concern there, who nodded. "No high powered fire element."

She nodded, then looked back down at her map of the southern island. "Then we have the beginnings of a plan. Can we expect reinforcements from your side?"

"We sent a note, but doubtful it will get there in time for people to get here, presuming you want to move quickly," Kanashimi said. "It's possible they'll be able to send people for tomorrow, but unlikely. For now, we'll have to bank on the five of us being the only Wardens--and I don't expect you to tell us how many people you are planning to use."

"I wasn't planning on it," she said with a slight smile. "But for now, you all will do. We can go over the plan today, and you may stay in town for the night. You were right--I would prefer to move tomorrow, if at all possible."

He glanced back and around at his team, who were all nodding as he had expected. "So would we."

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

Like all small towns in a country that had a friendly reputation toward tourists, the one they were in had several inns to choose from. Himeno pointed them toward one in particular that was nicer than the others, with the caveat that her people did get a significant cut of the profits from it. It wasn't verly expensive, so Kanashimi mentally shrugged and led his team to that one anyway. Second Sphere wanted them as allies for the moment, and wouldn't be likely to backstab them--Jun's assessment, which matched with his own.

The rest of his team, tired from the rush of the day followed by an extended time in a room sitting (or standing) and making plans, had no objections. Kanashimi opted for three rooms, and let the team decide who would get the spare. Unsurprisingly, it was Mitsuko, whom Hana clearly did not want to room with. Mitsuko frowned at that particular reveal, but appeared unsurprised, and agreed with little more than a toss of her blonde head.

"First impressions do count for a lot, then," she said. "For what it's worth, I was only having a bit of fun."

Hana's lips pressed together and she shook her head once. That's not why, he interpreted that to be.

"You don't mind rooming with Jun, who is also an intelligence operative--and a man, at that," Mitsuko looked similarly displeased.

Jun emitted a small laugh. "Well, we've met before--Hana just doesn't trust easily, is all." He looked uneasy, though.

Mitsuko said nothing, but picked up her bag and hefted it over her shoulder. With a glance back at the four of them, she raised an eyebrow; then, with no one stopping her, went into the single room on her own and shut the door.

"I don't much like her either," Makoto said after a second, in a low voice, "but, well..."

"She wants us to feel guilty," Jun said with a shrug. "Besides, it's not like I could try anything. Hana could outfight me ten times out of ten."

Hana tilted her head in acknowledgement, giving a lazy smile.

Kanashimi sighed; he'd sort it out in the morning. "Still, she is part of the team. Try not to hold her earlier teasing against her until we're done with all of this, okay? Good night, everyone."

Hana and Jun looked unconvinced and ducked into one of the double rooms; he and Makoto entered the other. They were simple rooms, but clean; two beds, two nightstands, an alarm clock on each one, and a bathroom. He slung his bag down next to the bed by the window and started disarming himself to prepare for bed.

"For everything that could have made today go that much worse, I suppose we aren't doing badly," Makoto said easily. "The escalation in force is unfortunate, but we did make allies and prevent a town from blowing up, and/or burning down."

"True," he said. "Although I can't seem to shake the instinct I'm missing something."

He turned to his little brother, who was also disarming of the customary amount of projectiles and small knives their clan typically tucked into their clothes. He was frowning.

"I thought that was just me," he said finally, setting the sheaths for his two heavy knives on the small round table with a soft thud each. "Or perhaps it's simple paranoia. I'm hoping it is, but I don't think we can at all assume any of our plans will go off properly tomorrow--even the contingencies."

"I wouldn't assume that, no." Not ever, and especially not now. Long-range tactical was delicate work. "...By the way. I want to thank you for not antagonizing anyone today. I know it must have taken you effort, and I appreciate it."

Makoto paused in his disarmament, varied emotions flickering across his face. "Everyone we dealt with was competent," he said cautiously.

"But you've been on edge all day the same as I have," Kanashimi said evenly. "As I said, I appreciate it."

Take a compliment on something that isn't you intelligence or skill, for once in your life.

"...Thank you," his brother said finally, a waver in his voice. "I am trying."

"I know." And he was immensely glad that Makoto was not the source of the possibly-paranoia-induced inevitable Trouble he was sure was coming. "It shows. Keep up the good work."

A jerky nod; Makoto looked a bit unsteady on his feet. Did people really never thank him for being polite, when he managed the feat? Or were they too busy thinking 'finally' to mention it?

"Why don't you grab the shower first?" he said finally. "It's been a long day and I can wait for a bit."

"Right." His brother's expression seemed to still be fluctuating. He seemed to have something to say, so Kanashimi waited. "...Do you trust Mitsuko at the moment, on her own?"

Oh. Makoto thought he should have forced the issue and insisted someone room with her, to keep an eye on her.

And come to think, hadn't 'keeping an eye on her' been his subconscious motive for picking her instead of Jun when they went into town earlier? It must certainly look like he thought that way too.

"I don't know," he said. "I certainly feel like if there's any trouble from within the team, it'll come from her. But we can't be sure there'll be any at all. And it might just have been first impressions. She hasn't actually done anything suspicious at all, other than being an intelligence operative."

"I suppose," Makoto said, looking more relaxed now. "And it really could just be paranoia talking...all the same, I think I'll feel better once this is all over with."

That, he could unreservedly agree with.

~

Difficulty sleeping was not an unusual problem for Kanashimi. While his brother lay in the next bed, out like a light until morning, he kept running over the day's events to see if he could figure out what was bothering him. But it was true what he'd said earlier--Mitsuko hadn't done anything suspicious, merely chosen a poor icebreaker for the people she was working with.

Professionally, there had been no problems. The only people who had been out of his sight for any length of time had been Makoto and Jun, for those few hours when they'd been wandering around town to arrange the meeting, and the only thing that had come of that had been Makoto not radioing in when he found trouble. Makoto had kept Jun in his sight all of that time, from what they'd said earlier, or he would have mentioned it.

So it seemed like paranoia more than something he'd missed. Logic would tell him it was. But while logic would soothe both of his brothers in this case, it only made him more anxious. He'd always had good instincts--it was why he could give himself over to them in battle--and they were insisting something was wrong.

While he was still gnawing on that problem at some time that must have been near midnight, he heard a soft knock on the door. Sitting bolt upright instantly, he reached for a kunai he'd left on the nightstand and padded over to the door. He only heard one person outside, from the sounds of the breathing.

"Who is it?" he asked, as quietly as he could and them still hear him.

"Mitsuko," said the object of his worries, just as quietly so it was hard to pick up the speaker's voice.

"Prove it."

There was a touch of hesitancy, and then a response so quiet even he had to strain to hear it. "You met me on the beach in a red bikini. Can you come to my room? We need to talk."

He weighed his options, but it wasn't as if they were intending to sleep in shifts. Makoto would be fine on his own asleep for a while. "All right."

When he threw a shirt on and padded into the hall, knife in hand, Mitsuko had slipped back to her own room but left the door open. He closed and locked his and made his way quietly over there.

Her room was smaller than his, with only a single bed and nightstand. She was sitting at the round table, papers in front of her, dressed in a modest blue nightgown. Her daylong superior and constantly shifting facade was down, and she instead looked serious and concerned. She only looked up when he closed the door behind him and frowned at the sight of his knife.

"You didn't have to come armed," she said quietly. "I'm not a threat to you."

That would be true of any of the others, even unarmed. "I don't go anywhere unarmed," he said truthfully. "Although I guess you picked up on everyone's attitudes."

"It was hard to miss, even if I wasn't an expert in body language," she said, looking tired. "But I'm used to it--hardly anyone in the Wardens trusts me. I'd hoped, dealing with an entirely fresh team--but I messed that up, didn't I?"

He did feel a little silly, now, for thinking she was Trouble and not just his paranoia. He sheathed his knife and stepped over, sliding into the chair across from her.

"Not your fault," he said simply, and she looked at him. "You were trying to be playful this morning, weren't you? But none of the rest of the team really is that."

She gave him a slight smile. "Well no, I knew that about you. But I also knew you'd put up with it--everyone knows you put up with nearly anything, to get the job done. I like that. Kitamura I've seen around, and I know he's very easygoing. But offending Fukuzawa-chan seems to have put me on ill terms with your brother as well."

"He doesn't like people playing head games," Kanashimi felt moved to point out. "He might have perceived you as doing that."

She sighed. "Well, either way. I should tell you that, on a mission like this, I take it on myself to make sure that all of my teammates are actually...on the same side, for it."

He raised an eyebrow. "You were evaluating all of us for potential double-agent status?"

"In a word, yes," Mitsuko said unrepentantly. "Is that a problem?"

He drummed his fingers on the table. "Not as such, no. I take it you called me here to tell me the results?"

"I did." She brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. "Although in your case and your brother's, Shiruko-san, I should tell you it was more whether your family had any reason to back any of the third factions."

"We don't," he said reflexively. "I know it's a common accusation, but we would have nothing to gain in directly supporting any of them."

"As I thought," she agreed. "But that also corresponds with what I observed. I eliminated you two from suspicion fairly quickly. Fukuzawa-chan was a possibility, but she is not the sort for subterfuge. I know her by reputation, and what I've seen bears it out--besides, a spy who can't actually talk would be far too noticeable. In any case, I'm quite certain she's clean."

"That's good to know." He leaned over her notes, but they were all in some form of obscure notation that he couldn't make heads or tails of. "So..."

So we're good, right? There is no spy, and it's just paranoia.

...Why would she come to get him at midnight if there were no problems?

"Kitamura..." She hesitated, as if choosing her words. "That is to say, I've met Kitamura Jun before. So I didn't initially feel the need to observe him in detail."

"You didn't seem to know each other this morning," Kanashimi said, recalling their gathering. "Or was it just in passing you'd previously met?" But the hairs on the back of his neck were standing up.

"I have never met that man before, I'm quite sure of it now." Mitsuko looked a bit...uneasy. "I had thought, this morning, that he didn't respond normally to the usual greeting I give the other intelligence operatives because we were in a group of other Wardens. But on the boat some of my suspicions grew. And earlier tonight, when he didn't defend me, as if he really hadn't ever met me..."

"He said he'd met Hana before," Kanashimi said, as if trying to convince them both.

"Kitamura Jun has been on two missions with Fukuzawa Hana-chan. It's in the files." Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the table. "We have never been on a mission together. Any interactions we have had were not written down anywhere. They would not have been significant enough."

"I ran into him in Warden headquarters," he said quietly.

"Anyone who could access those files could be found there," she pointed out. "Shiruko-san...I am quite certain that is not Kitamura Jun who climbed onto that boat with us. Whether you enlisted the real version and a spy took over and incapacitated when noting the files or you did not encounter the real one; I don't know. And I do not know how none of us detected the deception, either; obviously it is more than a simple Transformation."

Kanashimi stood abruptly, gripping his kunai, and headed for the door. Mitsuko was after him in a second.

"Shiruko-san...?"

"Hana," he said simply, not turning back. He caught her gasp and then the low cursing that followed it as he exited the room and proceeded across the hall to the room next to his. The lock was simple, but he didn't have his picks with him. Muttering to himself, he raised his hand to knock, but Mitsuko caught it and shook her head.

"Don't have my picks," he said, very quietly. She pressed her lips together and nodded, letting go of his wrist.

After two knocks the door flew open. Hana stood there, eyes a bit wild, holding up a heavy knife. He pink hair, normally in a ponytail, was loose and flyaway. Save for her, the room was empty. Still, she seemed unharmed, and he thanked his lucky stars.

"It's just us," he said, and noted her peer over his shoulder to see Mitsuko. A raised eyebrow from her told him how it looked, and he was abruptly slightly embarrassed--but only slightly, since that was completely the wrong idea. "Is Jun in?"

A head shake, followed by Hana lifting her free hand up and making 'walking' motions with her fingers.

"He went for a walk?" Mitsuko translated, sounding tense. "Oh no."

Hana tilted her head as if to ask, what's her problem?

"Hana," Kanashimi said, trying to keep his voice level and controlled, "we're fairly certain that isn't Kitamura Jun."

She stilled, and lowered the knife. The expression on her face was starkly shocked, so he continued.

"If he was working for Second Sphere, Himeno would have revealed that already. If he was working for another faction, he'd still be here." He was aware he sounded grim. "So that must mean..."

Hana was shaking her head. She made a gesture with her hand that looked like a flower opening, then closed it into a tight fist abruptly.

"He disarmed the explosives earlier," Mitsuko said from his left side. "Wait. All of them...? I had thought Makoto-kun grabbed most of them..."

She sounded worried, which he felt as well. If 'Jun' was Red Hat, then why would...

An explosion echoed in the not-too-far distance, shaking the ground. Shortly thereafter, the sound of running footsteps fom the floor below them; Himeno's people waking and heading out to do something no doubt. In a town with so many wooden buildings, a fire would spread rapidly.

Hana's expression was stricken. Her hands started moving in the air, all of it directed at Mitsuko, but he didn't wait around to see the apologies, instead going to wake Makoto. They had to move out.

It seemed Trouble had arrived after all.

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

Makoto only grumbled for about five seconds once Kanashimi told him exactly why he was hauling him out of bed at twelve thirty in the morning. That was a new record low, but the circumstances probably explained it.

"Keeping track of him would have been difficult even had I any special reason to do so, given that we both had to have Active Camo up," Makoto said as they were both rapidly putting on their proper clothes, weapons of course included. "I would have been unlikely to be able to if I'd tried."

"I'm not blaming you, just letting you know what happened," Kanashimi said shortly. "I didn't ask you to keep an eye on him because we weren't expecting this. Mitsuko didn't exactly have the ability to clue you in with the imposter around. She could have let me know, but under the circumstances I understand why she didn't until just now."

"Did anyone not screw up?" his brother asked, a trace of bitterness in his tone. "I'm drawing a blank here."

That was true. Makoto hadn't radioed in when told to or stayed with his partner. Mitsuko hadn't informed them of her suspicions. Hana hadn't noticed someone she had worked with several times wasn't himself. And Kanashimi himself had focused his suspicions on the wrong person, for no reason other than that she had slightly irked the team.

"Your failure was probably the least mission-critical," he said finally as he finished strapping on his backup weapons. "And the least preventable. I don't know how well Hana knew Jun, but if it was well enough to room with him..."

"Mm. I suppose." Makoto looked unconvinced. "If it's all the same, I don't think I'll be absolving myself. Let's just go we 'we all fucked up this time."

He quirked his eyebrow at the unusual use of colourful language from his brother, but nodded. "I can do that. But now it's time to go fix that."

~

They met up with the girls in the lobby and said not a word as they sped off to the source of the explosion. It was a few blocks north, not all too far from the alley where they'd met 'Three'. A nearby building was on fire, though for now it was contained to the single building. However, those present weren't able to do much more than that; people with elemental ninjutsu capable of doing anything were thin on the ground this far south.

Water was not an especially common element in Moon anyway; earth even less so. He glanced at Makoto.

"Can you put it out without incurring too much damage?"

His brother grimaced, eyeing the flames leaping several meters into the air. "I'd like a fire user here for better containment, but yes, I should be able to. Shouldn't be too difficult, but it'll get a bit wet around here."

Hana made a face and a small splashing motion. That wasn't too difficult to translate.

"I don't think that low level a ninjutsu would be much help for anything more than small flames," Mitsuko said. She had had followed Hana's clothing example, and put on something that held light armor now. Though considering she was a lot taller, that couldn't have been a loan; she must have packed it from the beginning.

Kanashimi spotted Himeno leading a few people out of the fire an frowned. Ideally he would have liked to ask her for her permission to help with this first, but they were already temporarily allied, so...

"Go ahead, then," he said with a sigh to Makoto. "I doubt they'll mind the assist."

Makoto nodded, lifted a single hand and, in his unusual one-handed seals way, made a few quick gestures. Clouds quickly gathered over the burning building, starting a downpour a few seconds later. Kanashimi raised an eyebrow and turned to his brother, who shrugged.

"Well, I was expecting something a little more dramatic, but I agree that's not particularly damaging," he said after a moment. Himeno was making her way over to them now, having spotted them, and he wanted to talk to her. "Keep it up until the fire's out."

It was already more smoke than fire, but that still bore saying. His team exchanged looks and all headed for the building and surrounding area to help the people on cleanup and repair while their leader talked with Second Sphere's.

Himeno looked tired, although hiding it. There was soot in her snow-white hair and another smear of it across the brown skin of her cheek. Her clothes were rumpled as if she, like them, had thrown them on in a hurry. She was also armed much like they were.

"Where's your fourth man?" she asked bluntly, clearly having no time for pleasantries.

He winced. "It...may have turned out he wasn't really ours."

He'd expected anger in response to that, but she just heaved a sigh and rubbed her head. "We had one of those too. I'm not sure how they did it."

"I'm becoming more worried about this Lab Rat character, if he can craft disguises for Red Hat that can't be seen through," Kanashimi said. "Do you have any way to root them out, or did you only find out just tonight like we did?"

"The second one." Now she scowled, but it definitely wasn't at him. "Don't suppose you have a lie detector with you."

"Not as such, no. But Mitsuko actually managed to figure out our fake before he outed himself with..." He gestured to the smoking building. "Though she did know him beforehand. Also, we're not sure if he went out and placed one of the explosives he gathered earlier or simply neglected to disarm it and detonated it just now."

"I'd gamble on the second. Easier to hide." Himeno's hand had dropped to her sword, seemingly unconsciously. "I sent my people to scour the area for ours, and they might find yours. But I doubt it. They'll be long gone. We might have to regroup and push back our raid."

He opened his mouth to agree, but was tapped on the arm before he could say anything. He glanced over at Hana, who shook her head rapidly, then made flailing motions with her hands.

"She means we should do something unexpected," Makoto translated as he was still puzzling it out. "And I agree. We shouldn't push it back. But Mitsuko and I had an idea of how to alter things, since we'll need to do so now. We have to expect the false Jun and Second Sphere impersonator will have leaked the plan. So we can't do exactly the crash and bang, thunder and lightning style of maneuvers we were originally planning on."

He exchanged a look with Himeno, who shrugged as if to say 'they're your people,' but also added:

"If you can trust that your people are who you think they are right now, you're ahead of me. I wanted to push it back because I'm not sure who I can trust at the moment--other than One."

Kanashimi said, as dryly as he could manage, "if I can't trust to know who my brother is, then we have some more significant problems. But yes, I'm sure. Go ahead, Makoto."

"Right, well. It's a pretty simple modification--and of your people, it doesn't involve anyone other than you knowing what's going on." He nodded to Himeno, who seemed assuaged by that. "Specifically...how good are you at acting angrily?"

"Currently, I won't need to act very much," she said. "I am angry at them. Extremely so. Does this plan involve me getting to kill some of their people, possibly the architect of this little scheme?"

Makoto's expression only twitched slightly, but it still looked like a smirk in the low torchlight. "Yes."

"Good." Himeno took her hand off her sword and exhaled harshly. "I'm in. Tell me more."

~

They did not have a boat to get to the southern tip, but it wouldn't have been a good idea to do so anyway. Approaching on the open water was suicide.

Walking through the dense forests, with their uncertain ground and thick foliage, in the area of the island where 'jungle' might be a more appropriate word than 'forest' was not much less so. But they were ninja, they were determined, and Himeno had a very large sword.

"I will not waste my anger on trees," she said. "I think everyone here is capable of crossing this area. It's not that hard."

For a local, maybe. But I can't believe we only budgeted a day to this.

Of all of them, Hana seemed the least-effected; according to Makoto not long after they'd set out, Hana rarely had terrain-related concerns. One of their missions together had gone quite deep into one of the cavern passages inside the mountains after trailing through deep forest, and Hana had never so much as twitched in irritation. Apparently, it was only people that could easily vex her.

Himeno was proving, however, to have a disturbing bloody streak in her dialogue with them that she hadn't the previous day. He supposed he should have expected it from a gang leader, and he wasn't the squeamish type, but even he had to give her an aside glance when she casually mentioned disemboweling whoever had made the bomb that had gone off in her main town.

He killed sometimes, but only when needed, and then he made it quick. He knew some Warden interrogators favoured torture (and got away with it, despite their nominal 'good guy' status; it wasn't like civilians knew what Wardens did anyway), but he had never been an interrogator. Nor did he see the point in making someone suffer. To his mind, there just wasn't any point.

All Mitsuko said, when Himeno finished her little speech, was, "They must have made you angrier than I thought." But even she looked slightly disturbed, for all her smooth, professional mask that was back in place would allow it.

"Yes," was all Himeno said.

Makoto had an abstract look on his face, and Kanashimi hoped his brother wasn't visualizing anything and disturbed by it. He sidled up and tapped Makoto on the shoulder lightly, making him jump just slightly.

"Don't space out," he said. "Just in case."

"Yes, sorry," Makoto said. "I would've reacted if anything happened, I promise. I was just going over the finer details in my head."

"And you're sure we can do this?" he asked, for at least the third time since hearing the plan. "But that's good, I was worried you were disturbed from what Himeno was saying."

"Quite sure," Makoto said, sounding miffed. "There is some risk to her, and you, but both of you accepted it and I know you at least can handle it. And no, it didn't bother me that much. It would to see it, but it's not as if she just disemboweled someone in front of us, so I'm fine."

"That's good to hear," Kanashimi said, secretly relieved his brother wasn't so cold that it wouldn't bother him at all to hear such talk. "As for your part of it...?"

"Don't worry about it."

Easier said than done. But then. Makoto didn't realize how much Kanashimi worried. Not just about him, but everyone here now. He didn't want to lose a teammember. (Or another. Albeit, Jun hadn't even actually come on the mission with them, so there was room for interpretation there.) And Himeno dying could potentially destabilize the entire region, as gang leaders dying often did.

His own death ranked fairly low, both in the list of possible outcomes and, accordingly, his worries. It wasn't a non-factor, though; in fact, he knew that if he got careless and went full berserker mode, as he did sometimes in serious fights where he was boiling under the surface more than he let anyone see normally, he could get badly hurt. But while he was very effective when he did it, it hurt coming out of it, as he tended to take a lot of hits and...

And he didn't want his brother to worry about him. Well, no, that wasn't all of it. If he was honest with himself, he was also thinking of what they would say to his family at home. Not to mention what no one would bother saying to Sheimi since no one knew to. That was unacceptable.

So I've decided, then. Nothing can happen to me on this mission; I still have things left to say and do.

All that was left now was to get there.

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

The town was eerily quiet, and depressingly ramshackle.

It was...not what Kanashimi had expected. By the look on Himeno's face, it wasn't what she'd expected either.

"Where are all the people?" he asked in a hushed tone. "Shouldn't this be a proper town, not just Red Hat headquarters? What on earth is going on?"

"Last my people knew, it should be," she responded in an equally low voice, hand gripping the hilt of her sword tightly. "This...whatever this is, it's very recent. Within the last couple of weeks, at least."

That was not encouraging. And it might make the job somewhat more difficult. But well, at least they wouldn't have to worry about civilian casualties as long as they were out in the open like that.

Still, he hadn't gotten where he was by doing anything other than continually pressing forward, no matter what any sensible person might have said or done in his position. So he snapped out his weapon to full size and carried it in his left hand, just in case. Almost immediately after, Himeno seemed to consider that a cue and drew her own massive sword, carrying it in her right hand. Her left held the scabbard reverse-grip along her arm.

Neithe of them made a sound save the dim echoes of their footsteps as they walked down the cobblestone main road of one of Moon's furthest south towns. Past burnt-out storefronts and collapsed roofs they walked, senses alert and hackles up. Through the cracked and broken windows of some of the buildings, shattered glasses and rotting food were visible, left there by whoever had abandoned them--or been forced to do so abruptly.

'Depressing' didn't actually even begin to cover it. But that wasn't helpful to dwell on, so he didn't.

I don't see anyone. That's not good. We need them to know we're here.

He didn't think either of them were about to give up, though.

About fifteen minutes into their walk, a crunching sound came from ahead of them--a person walking on the sand and gravel that made up part of the remains of a particularly badly damaged stone building. Kanashimi did not twitch, and from beside him he heard only a sharp exhale as he kept focused on the area the sounds were coming from.

A person exited the area that could charitably be called an alleyway, and Kanashimi felt his hackles go up. It was 'Jun.'

"Hey, boss," the man himself said. "I guess I'm not surprised to see you here. I was trying to get a head start."

Kanashimi was not a person to emote much, so his tone was extremely flat and quite dry when he got past the sheer gall of the man. "You cannot possibly believe I'm that stupid."

The imposter's expression turned into a twisted smirk. "It was worth a shot. Where's everyone else? Didn't want to let little brother get into even more trouble?"

They knew now--somehow some part of him had forgotten, after the revelation, that the fake Jun would know that Makoto was the one who had short-circuited them and figured them out before.

What's more, he knew his brother wouldn't have forgotten a detail like that. He just hadn't thought he should bring it up.

Well then. This did have to end here.

"Sent them back to the city for reinforcements," he said bluntly. Because he didn't exactly broadcast his tells, and because the imposter had to know they'd changed plans, he wouldn't be able to tell if it was a lie or not. "Call the two of us the advanced guard."

"We have unfinished business with you," Himeno added, bringing her sword up. "Where is the fake Seven? I want her head on a platter."

"The explosion was all me," the fake Jun said, unruffled. "Your own little false lead didn't even have to provide a diversion. Her intel was far more important. And I'm interested to see that neither of you have asked about the real people either of us replaced. I would expect that of the Southern Ice Queen, but not of a Warden."

"Tactically that was unwise of you," Kanashimi pointed out, still coiled like a spring to react if anything happened. Where was the rest of the gang...? There should at least be an advance guard. "If you had continued to infiltrate us, you could have prevented the entire attack."

"Your intelligence operative was too suspicious of me," 'Jun' said dismissively. "I don't know how or why, but it was only a matter of time until she made me, and then she would immediately have gone to you. I was never exactly equipped to fight you on enemy territory. Besides..." the smirk widened to a grin--and then kept widening until it became a touch unnerving, "where would be the fun in that?"

Himeno suddenly charged forward, swiping her sword at the imposter. She should have been too far away for even a blade of that size to connect, but even though he dodged to one side, the tip scraped his cheek. No, not just scraped--cut.

Through.

But there was no blood.

"How annoying," the fake said. "Do you know how long it takes to create these? No matter. This one has served its purpose."

He lifted his hand and dug his fingers underneath the cut skin, pulling it up. Himeno hadn't made to attack again, although her blade was still poised to dart out in a second.

"I was aiming for his neck," she said, annoyed. "There's no point in talking."

We want him to summon more people. Saying that out loud would be unwise, so he didn't.

The face 'Jun' had on was realistic, with no uncanny valley tendencies--until he started to remove it. His initial thought that there was no blood in it was proven false; the sword simply hadn't hit any of the blood pockets. Peeling it back did, the blotchy red seeping out and sticking to the imposter's fingers, even more splattering a dark red onto the dusty cobblestones. There was a soft burbling sound as the fake lips came away, followed by the nose. By this point both he and Himeno must have been frozen in horrified fascination; it was the only explanation.

The eyes were worse.

When asked later and pressed by his medically-minded twin, Kanashimi would admit that in order for the imposter to see, then either there had to have been eyeholes, or the false eyes would have had to have been connected to either his real eyes or his brain somehow. And there were no eye holes. Of course there weren't; the fake's real eyes were nothing like the real Kitamura Jun's.

In the moment, that did not prepare him for the horrifying squelching sound, the splattering of yet more blood and some sort of thick, greenish goop coming out of the tubes that connected the mask's eyes to the imposter's brain, tubes that seemed to wrap around his real eyeballs.

Himeno, who not five hours earlier had been ranting about disemboweling those responsible for attacking her people in graphic detail, turned and threw up into the street. Kanashimi didn't blame her in the slightest. It was one of the worst things he'd ever seen a person do to themselves, and he'd been on prisoner suicide watch before.

The imposter finished pulling off his mask, turned his bloodshot eyes on the still-retching Himeno, and grinned with his real mouth before glancing back at the quickly-degrading pile of (probably, hopefully, lab-grown) skin, clotted blood, and greenish gel in one hand and discarding it, peeling off a previously invisible patch on his throat and tossing it away as an afterthought.

(Kanashimi only barely didn't have to vomit himself; the man had squished one of the mask's eyeballs deliberately before doing so, pinching them carelessly and sadistically between his thumb and forefinger until vitreous fluid ran down his arm.)

"Oh well," the man said. "I'll be able to make more soon enough."

No doubt Jun had been chosen for his general non-descript status as a person, but the man standing before them was assuredly not that. While his hair was still the same colour and vague style it had been in before--albeit somewhat messier--his eyes were a bright and hard pink, accented by the bloodshot status no doubt brought on by the tubes. With no mask on, these seemed to be rapidly drying out and, after a few blinks, dropped out, leaving only the spark of madness and the unusual pupil colour.

Rather similar to a rodent's eyes, in fact.

"So you're the actual Lab Rat himself," Kanashimi heard himself say. Himeno, recovering herself, shot him a startled glance, then glared at the man. "I had wondered. Wasn't infiltrating the Wardens risky?"

"If you want something done right, do it yourself," Lab Rat said with a casual shrug. "None of my lieutenants were up to it, and throwing someone without chakra or the usual chakra-capable blunt force applicators into the role would have gone poorly."

"You're the leader?" Himeno demanded, drawing herself back up to her full and impressive height. "Not just some scientist tinkering around in the background?"

A flicker of annoyance, but it was quickly replaced by the mad grin again. "Well, I am now...might makes right around here, after all, and very few people are in a state to fight after I'm done with them. Unless I want them to be."

The shift in tactics suddenly made sense, then. If they obtained a leader with a specific goal that wasn't just 'money and doing whatever I want,' then things would obviously change.

"You mentioned you couldn't take me in a fight," Kanashimi said, almost casually. "And yet here we are. You alone, myself with an ally. That wasn't very smart."

"On my home turf?" Lab Rat said, though his grin had slid off his face. "No, I don't think so."

"We'll see."

To the outside eye, Kanashimi wouldn't have seemed to so much as twitch. One second he was there and the next, he was swinging one side of his four-bladed weapon at Lab Rat's face. Behead the rat king, and the rest are no threat.

Lab Rat casually lifted up one arm, clearly intending to block. Perhaps against someone else he might have managed. Instead, Kanashimi's fuuma shuriken crashed into the wrist and smashed right through it, forcing Lab Rat to jump backwards.

There was no blood again, but rather than from creepy reasons, the man's arm appeared to be a puppet prosthesis. Extremely realistic, on the outside, but on the inside all mechanics and shifting gears.

"Well," Lab Rat said after a moment. "That was...annoying. I didn't actually expect you to be that strong."

Most people didn't.

"Not that that's a problem. Just requires an adjustment." He lifted his prosthetic arm into the air, puppet wrist flopping down. The hand hung limply, but it still seemed able to do basically what he wanted. "I don't actually need to fight for myself, after all."

A jet of flame shot out of the wrist into the air, though it sputtered after a moment; he must have damaged something other than just the mechanisms and attachment of the hand. Still, it seemed enough, Lab Rat shrugged.

"That'll do." He didn't turn to walk away, but instead kept his eye out to either side of them. "Should be very shortly."

Kanashimi revised his opinion from earlier: tactically, the man was not just unsavvy; he was a disaster. Clearly he was a better strategist than tactician by far.

Himeno was smirking now though, and leveled her sword again. "And you think we're just going to let you walk while your minions swarm us?" With a strong undercurrent of 'yeah right.'

"Only if you care about the hostages." Lab Rat paused, and added, "well, maybe you don't. But unless I'm very wrong, he does. Or is at least paid to pretend to, though I suppose I could expect a Shiruko to not do so genuinely."

He did care, that was the thing. If there hadn't probably been hostages/potential research experiments to rescue, there wouldn't have been such an urgent need to head there so quickly.

"Himeno, we can deal with him later," he said simply. He wasn't happy that Lab Rat had a read on him to an extent, but it wasn't important. "The possibility of him having a dead man's switch that would do something to any collected innocents is too high. We discussed that on the way down."

She scowled. "And let him hole up and do what he wants until we manage to root him out? We could take this fucker apart now!"

"Out of time."

Another voice, this one seemingly familiar to Himeno, sounded off to their right. Standing there was someone he assumed was the fake Seven. Himeno didn't even say anything, just blurring after the woman there and swinging at her.

Not that she was alone. There were a number of other people coming out of the woodwork now--followers, by the seems of it, possibly some of them also prosthetically or otherwise augmented.

"You'll be quite busy as it is," Lab Rat said cheerily. "Don't worry, I think we'll be seeing each other again soon. One way or another."

Then he turned tail and ran, but Kanashimi was already getting busy with the number of gangers who had started to flood the streets.

Several blocks over, there was a rumble and a crashing sound. Something like a massive earth element jutsu suddenly making an appearance, in fact.

Ah. Phase two. So Mitsuko had managed enough stealth to report to the other team once the two of them had encountered Lab Rat, then.

One of the lovely things about employing 'human artillery' like Makoto was their sheer ability to wreck up a place when it was called for. It was called for.

"I'm radioing in this time, as requested," came his brother's voice in his ear. "Even if I think radio silence would have been smarter. We did encounter some minor difficulties in extracting the non-local kidnappees, but that's been handled. Violently."

He only needed one hand on his weapon to take off limbs, so he keyed in his own headset. "Glad to hear it. And radio silence was only needed temporarily. Do you have Mitsuko with you now?"

"Yes, she's back here now. Phase three?"

"Phase three," he confirmed, taking off an arm at the elbow of a gang member who thought it was a good idea to bring a knive to a whirling blade of death fight. Or at least he'd been told that was what he looked like externally like this. "Incidentally, you were right--Lab Rat did take over all of Red Hat."

"Mm. Not surprising." He didn't sound smug, at least. "The shift in tactics had to be precipitated by something." In the background of that side of the link, and in the distance to his normal hearing, there was the loud 'bang' of someone firing off a specific lightning jutsu. "Incidentally, the hostages are for the most part able to move under their own power, so we'll be back in once they're out of town."

"Good. Phase three starts then. Radio again when you get back into town." Only waiting for the affirmative before shutting off his headset, Kanashimi turned his attention back to the battle. Off to one side, Himeno was laughing her head off, heavy blade less rapid than his but just as devastating when it connected.

So far, so good.

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

When making plans in the Wardens, they typically had three unofficial different levels of plan-making.

The first was everyone's favourite. Level One was simply, 'we have pretty much all of the intel we need, and this plan is as routine as our jobs allow. Let's go.' Needless to say, Level One plan situations were about as common as winning the jackpot at one of the casinos--it could theoretically happen, but you'd be an idiot to gamble on it.

The second was the most common. Level Two situations were basically, 'we have all of the intel we think we're going to get, but there are probably at least a couple of things that are going to change once we get in there; keep your eyes open.' Upon original assumptions, this had been a Level Two. Not great, but they could manage; loose, adaptable plans were best for Level Two. He didn't worry about Level Twos much anymore.

The third was the dreaded Level Three. These were, fortunately, only slightly more common than Level Ones unless you were quite unlucky, though frequently masqueraded as the lower levels. A Level Three was, 'we have no idea what's going on, but it's clearly something that needs dealt with and is probably a huge clusterfuck.'

Kanashimi did not feel that Level Three was quite sufficient to describe this particular mission as it had gone so far. As he surveyed the bodies of gang members that lay around them on the streets, some of them minus limbs, he almost felt like he could downgrade it to a Level Three, which was saying something.

Because he hadn't killed many of them. Neither had Himeno, actually, after eviscerating the 'Seven' impostor. A lot of lost limbs, yes, and potentially some bleeding-out cases, but most of the injuries on these people were not fatal.

But they were all dead anyway.

"Poison?" Himeno asked, nudging one body onto its back with her foot.

He shook his head, thoughts distant. "It's possible, but I don't think so. I'm wondering if they were alive to begin with."

A slight pause, and then, "you mean we just fought off zombies?"

"It's possible." His brow was furrowed, he knew. "Although not in the traditional sense of dealing with a necromancer--I don't believe that kind can subsist away from their controller for long. Almost as if someone had taken corpses and reanimated them a different way that left them susceptible to falling again when inflicted with significant enough pain."

When he looked over at her, she was studying the blood splatters on the ground with a frown. "Okay. But why?"

"Presumably because Lab Rat isn't a necromancer in the traditional sense," he said easily. "Not that we have time to check the bodies, but I expect they have some sort of seal on them--"

"Like so?"

Himeno had taken the tip of her sword and slit the shirt down on one of the corpses before he could even tell her not to. Sure enough, there was a strange seal over the heart that he didn't recognize. It certainly wasn't in any of the old Moon languages or clan ones he knew, at any rate.

"Yes," he said, suppressing a sigh. "Once this is over we'll have to get a medical research team down here."

She snorted and flipped her sword back to a ready position. "We already guessed that going in. "

He acknowledged this with a tilt of his head. Makoto hadn't said what shape the hostages or civilians were in, come to think, other than 'for the most part able to move under their own power,' which hadn't been concerning at the time, but was starting to be now that he was dropping out of his battle frenzy properly.

He tapped his headset, forcing down the budding alarm so he could sound calm on it, and spoke to his brother. "Makoto. This may seem like a strange question, but do any of the hostages you're rescuing have seals on them? Don't stop anyone to check or give away that you're doing so." His brother could definitely check for chakra seals without alerting anyone, just by sensing it. If he knew to.

A slight delay, in which he held his breath, and then, "You're right. That does sound strange, but I'm detecting three odd seals, all of them from some of the hostages having trouble moving...should I be alarmed of them or for them?"

"Of," he said sharply, then corrected himself. "Both, I suppose. Is there any way for you to remove the seals?"

"Discreetly, and without knowing what they are, plus without contact? No." The line was left open, and though they were already speaking quietly, Makoto's voice went even softer, as if he was being extremely careful to not be overheard at all. "I could potentially try something else, but it would help to know what sort of reaction I should be expecting."

"We were attacked by a number of gang members here in order to cover for Lab Rat, but a number of them died when they shouldn't have, and we were thinking they weer actually reanimated corpses--"

"Ah! Those." Makoto went silent for a moment, then started speaking again in a rapid, textbook-like manner, still quietly but less so. "We're fairly sure that he didn't originate those, though it is of course possible. They've cropped up recently; they're called suicide seals. Uncommon, since most groups don't have the sheer resources to throw away troops like that and don't mind the risk of intel leak. Those that do use them akin to cyanide pills, to avoid capture, although it certainly isn't standard anywhere. It's highly unlikely they were zombies."

"Well, that's reassuring." He had the urge to make a face, but kept his expression blank. "Shock troopers, then. Is it also possible that the scriber could trigger the deaths remotely?"

"Not if these were the ones we usually see," Makoto said seriously. "I could have a look, but we're at no risk over here. I don't personally know how to remove a suicide seal, but we have people that do and I can recognize them. We're almost out of town, so I'll take a look at one to make sure. But the odds of us being set upon by berserkers or zombies are practically non-existent."

"Just let me know." He signed off again and rubbed his head.

"...Do you people actually have procedures for dealing with reanimated corpses?" Himeno asked flatly as they headed toward the rendezvous point.

"It comes up."

~

Shortly after they reached the meeting place, which had been designated on a map the previous day, Kanashimi's radio crackled and Makoto reported in that all three seals had turned out to be suicide seals and no, he didn't know why the hostages had them unless it was to provide an out for them on some sort of planned bizarre mind game, and the squad from Second Sphere led by One had arrived to take temporary responsibility for the kidnap-pees until the Warden backup team arrived and the three of them were heading back in to meet up.

It didn't take long after that for the entire team to be reassembled, which was actually what the start of the new phase three was.

Seals aside, things were going disturbingly well. It was putting him on edge.

"Bad news," Mitsuko said crisply. "Apparently that wasn't all of the hostages."

"Apparently, some of them were taken further into town." Makoto had his parasol out, balanced over one shoulder, which created a rather odd picture in contrast to the surroundings. "Most likely as experiment fodder."

"To what end, exactly?" Kanashimi directed this one at any of the three who could answer. What he got was a lot of shrugging. "So he can make extremely realistic and disgusting face masks, and may or may not have been the origin of suicide seals. All right. But none of that seems conducive to his apparent goal of taking over the south end of the island. So what is he doing?"

It was very rare he raised his voice at anyone, but the frustration couldn't help but boil over. Makoto grimaced, and the two women on his team exchanged looks.

"We really don't know," his brother said apologetically. "None of the civilians did, and we didn't find that many guards around to interrogate."

"I nearly wish I had left the fake Seven alive," Himeno said. "I doubt she had one of those seals. She may have known something."

"The real one was there," Mitsuko said, eying Himeno, who relaxed marginally. "Or at least, One recognized her and she recognized him, and called to each other."

"You said over the radio that most of the hostages were able to move on their own, mostly." Kanashimi directed this at his brother, making sure to stay neutral this time. "What exactly does that mean? Were any of them harmed?"

"Normally I'd ask why you asked that, but given what you mentioned earlier, I can see why you'd be worried about something else," Makoto said, settling down as well. "Just that they were malnourished and tired. Some of them had been having trouble sleeping."

Hana snorted, and made a hand gesture that probably would have best translated into a very sarcastic, 'no, really?'

His paranoid instincts ratcheted down a few notches. So far, they hadn't run into anything intensely unholy yet. "Right. Well, no more splitting up from this point on unless we need to take more hostages back outside the town. Stay as a group."

Himeno twitched a bit, presumably at his giving orders to her as well, but did not argue and proceeded along with them.

After about three blocks, Makoto halted, making the rest of them do so with him.

"What's wrong?" Kanashimi, who had learned by this point that as difficult as he could be, his brother did not just randomly stop to complain about things.

"We are almost certainly walking into a trap right now," was the blunt reply. "I've been feeling it for a little bit now, so I decided we ought to stop and work this out before we go charging blindly ahead."

He felt a touch of ice in his veins. Since when were Makoto's instincts for that better than his...? But there was no point in not at least checking. "What kind of a trap?"

"An ambush? Some kind of toxin?" He shrugged. "Who knows? I only know we're entering the deep territory of a mad gang leader tinkerer with a nightmare fetish, so perhaps we should be just a touch more careful."

"Point taken," he conceded. "But it also isn't helpful for us to stand around talking about what horrible things he could be capable of, either."

"We could always use an alternate approach," Mitsuko said, and then gestured to Hana, who was making some sort of odd hand gesture that looked a bit like a snake wriggling.

"Well, I suppose no one said our scouts had to be living," Makoto agreed, hanging his parasol off one shoulder to form a rapid set of handseals. In his hand, a blue-green crystal 'eye' formed, looking much less eye-like than normal interpretations of the jutsu and far more crystalline, being only vaguely eye shaped and possessing none of the normal characteristics of one. "I'll get a good look around, at least. And I suppose we could also send clones forward, though I'm afraid I lack decent creations."

Due to his 'chakra difficulties,' he didn't say, but they weren't exactly a secret in the Wardens. "Send the eye first. If we need to, clones will be the second wave. We'll probably need to, so..."

Makoto didn't say anything, just pursed his lips and nodded. A second later, with nary a twitch from him, the eye lifted itself up and zoomed off forward.

"Oddest looking Crystal Eye I've ever seen," Mitsuko said. "What do we do now? Wait?"

"For the moment, let's play it safe," Kanashimi agreed. "Everyone keep your guard up. We're already pretty deep into enemy territory, and we shouldn't let ourselves get complacent."

The look on his brother's face when seen out the corner of his eye seemed to say 'now he remembers,' but when he looked over properly, Makoto was simply standing there, parasol once again held in one hand, and gazing forward with attention undoubtedly on his construct.

Wonder what the hell is waiting for us out there.

He wasn't looking forward to it.

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

It was difficult to tell how long they all stood around waiting for the Crystal Eye to return; Kanashimi didn't have a watch and he wasn't about to ask if anyone else did either. Neither did any of them want to speak anyway. There was an air of tension gripping them that worsened as time passed, as the realization of exactly what they were doing sunk in.

He ought to have said something to calm everyone down, but he wasn't entirely sure what to say that would work. Besides, he doubted anyone there would thank him for drawing attention to their apprehension.

Just as Kanashimi was about to resolve to find the words anyway, Makoto made a small sound. Everyone turned to him as the Crystal Eye rounded a corner a block away and came zipping back to his hand, shattering when he grasped it.

His brother didn't need encouragement to begin speaking. Very possibly he was completely unaware of the tension. "No obvious traps that I could see, and I checked quite thoroughly as well as possible through this medium. There were guards, but they didn't spot the eye. They were also acting oddly, but I'm not sure I can quantify how."

"Seals?" he asked immediately, but Makoto shook his head.

"No way to tell through one of those. I only get sight, not other senses." He indicated the way the eye had gone with his parasol. "We'd have to go check for ourselves."

"So no wave of clones then," Mitsuko said, but in a tone that said she was already aware they wouldn't be doing so.

"I don't think so," Kanashimi said. "If there were indications of traps, sending them to set those off would be the best call. As it is, when we think there probably aren't any, it would just be giving our presence away. We'll just attempt to stealth to where the other hostages are being kept."

"I think 'victims' is likely a better word in this circumstance," Makoto said, not at all quietly. Hana pursed her lips, and made a few obscure hand signs. "Yes, I agree. We do need to be ready to retaliate."

He was fairly sure from some of the motions that hadn't been the full of the meaning behind Hana's gestures, but let it slide. He could fill in the blanks well enough.

"All right," he said. "Stealth, then. You lead until we get there. Himeno, can you manage stealth?"

"If I have to," she said. "Not as well as your lot, probably. But passably enough for this rat's goons."

"Then let's move."

~

They ended up having to subdue several sets of patrols on the way over to the area where the other hostages were being kept, which according to Makoto looked as if it were adjacent to some kind of lab. That did not give any of them a positive or hopeful outlook, especially due to the heightened level of activity as they drew nearer.

"It seems likely they're taking people over to be experimented on--if not now, then very soon," Mitsuko said quietly as they crouched in the shade of an alley half a block away from the building the victims were being kept in. It appeared to be a dilapidated former hotel or similar building, if he was any proper judge of it.

"Not that we know what they're up to yet," Makoto muttered, one hand clutching one of his knives. He had put the parasol away several blocks ago, due to how eye-catching it was.

"We're bound to figure that out regrettably soon," Mitsuko said, her expression set. "Hopefully whatever it is, it's reversible."

Kanashimi tuned them out, focusing instead on the guard patterns so they could figure out the best way to break in. Two feet to his left, Hana was doing the same. Something was bothering him about how they moved, though. In retrospect, it was similarly to how the gang members he and Himeno had previously fought off had moved, with the exception of the fake Seven.

The motions were slightly jerky, and they all were moving in patterns. Not in the way of a group of people who have been trained extensively, but in the manner you sometimes saw people with brain damage...

Hana tapped his arm and he turned to her. She held out one palm and then mimed a person walking on it with two fingers from her other hand, then tripping. Then she repeated the action in a nearly identical way two more times, before stopping and jerking her thumb at the guards.

"They're doing the same thing over and over," he murmured, drawing the others' attention as Hana nodded. "Even down to making the same mistakes. Like a preset routine they're incapable of changing."

There was a slight pause and then, "That's a rather more extensive form of mind control than genjutsu is typically capable of."

"It might not be genjutsu," Mitsuko said thoughtfully. "Perhaps some regimen of drugs to cause suggestibility, which would allow him to drill patterns and response into them ."

"Does such a drug exist?" Himeno asked skeptically, saving him from having to do so.

Mitsuko flashed them all a somewhat-unnerving smile. "It's possible."

"Right then. We already do know how they'll react to our presence." He turned to survey the patrols again. "Let's go in. Quickly, efficiently. Try to maintain stealth if you can."

~

"Since the definition of stealth is 'no one noticed we were here,' then technically the fact that all of the guards are dead now means we succeeded," Makoto said about five minutes later. "I would just like that noted."

"Can't even blame this one on the seals," Mitsuko said. "Maybe some of them, but..."

"Well, none of us could possibly have known they had a command in them to swarm at any attempt of a break-in," Kanashimi said with a sigh. "Maybe we got a bit enthusiastic, but it matches standing policy to prioritize teammates and allies over enemies, so I don't think any of us should lose any sleep over this."

"Never lose sleep over killing enemies," Himeno said, entirely unruffled. "The question is whether we go into this building or the lab."

"The hostages in the hotel here will hold, I think," Kanashimi said after a second. Not a choice he liked making, but... "I'm not splitting the team up this deep into enemy territory. Makoto, the experiments were definitely in a different building, yes?"

"That one over there, yes," Makoto said, indicating the one directly across the dirty and bloodstained (now) street from the hostage hotel. "Not that I'm quite sure how to get in."

'That one over there' appeared to be a rather large warehouse, and there indeed did not seem to be an obvious way in. It seemed likely it was hidden, or possibly underground. And he really didn't want them to have to search for an entrance when it was likely there were innocent people in there being experimented on.

"Well, we've already basically given up on stealth," he said finally. Not that he'd exactly assembled a crack team as far as stealth was concerned in the first place; half of them didn't even know anything to augment it and the rest couldn't be properly effective attacking from it. "So I suppose there is one way."

Makoto made to do handseals, but he waved an arm dismissively, already approaching the front wall.

"I should be in front; I can take hits the easiest if it should come to that."

"And if they do have some sort of berserker poison?" Makoto countered. "Better no one is standing there."

"Well, if they do, I'm fairly certain I can handle it considering how I usually am in a fight," he said quite neutrally, but in such a way his brother immediately shut up. "Conserve your chakra. We might need it."

He halted a few feet in front of the wall. He had been scanning for a door on the way over, but there wasn't even the slightest impression of one, reinforcing the idea the entrance was underground through one of the other buildings. Unfortunately, with all the aboveground guards dead, they couldn't exactly interrogate anyone or watch prisoners being led to the right place to track the movements, so this would have to do.

Most people used weapons to add strength to their attacks. It was true that leveraging a weapon would, when wielded properly, typically add some strength to someone, due to simple physics--or so it had been explained to him with a properly balanced weapon, anyway.

Kanashimi's own weapon, on the other hand, had been designed so that less strength went into it than he put in. It let him make people bleed, and gave him more reach, which was ultimately what it was supposed to do. All of it, in fact. If he used his physical strength normally, with fists, he might do serious damage when he wasn't trying to that wasn't readily obvious.

Lab Rat had said that he hadn't expected Kanashimi to be that strong. But he had been using a weapon at the time. Truthfully, he wasn't that strong. He was stronger.

He took a deep breath, pulled his fist back, and swung. His fist hit the wall, and the concrete shattered.

Several exclamations came from behind him, from between Himeno and Mitsuko. Makoto, who had already seen said demonstrations, said nothing, and Hana of course never spoke (though her could imagine her simply standing there impatiently, tapping her foot).

It only took two more hits lower down to make the hole large enough for them to get through. He stepped through first, discreetly brushing dust off of his clothes. That was the annoying part about door busting. Fortunately he was wearing gloves so his hands didn't get all chalky.

"Your file doesn't say anything about that," Mitsuko said after they were all inside and it didn't appear anyone was coming after them, so it was safe to look for inner doors and/or stairs.

"No, I expect it doesn't," he said evenly. "Makoto?"

"If the passages are underground, the labs won't be. And this did seem to have been a storage facility at one point." His tone was also even; the display of strength hadn't bothered him. It was just...normal. Kanashimi could understand how the others might be bothered, but he'd have checked his brother to make sure it was him if he had been. "I assume that if there are underground entries, they were hastily dug out. Most likely, we should be heading for the center of the building."

"These inner walls are a lot less sturdy. Like they were thrown up later," Mitsuko said.

Hana rapped lightly on the inner on in several places, then shrugged. It appeared to be barely better than drywall.

"Meaning the maze in here and current purpose are likely fairly recent developments," Kanashimi concluded. "And these probably aren't load-bearing walls. Yes?"

Hana's expression was amused. She made a motion in the air with one hand like a person running fast and speeding up. Makoto opened his mouth to interpret, but Mitsuko beat him to it this time.

"It does sound like our team leader is getting impatient," she agreed. "But I think he's right. We don't know what could be happening in there."

"I will tell you what will happen," Himeno said darkly. "What will happen when we get there is I will gut Lab Rat and his minions like fish for taking people from my territory."

"I didn't hear anyone refuting the idea these weren't load-bearing walls," Kanashimi said, reverting to his usual focus. "So. Back up a bit, and avoid the splinters."

Makoto wordlessly swapped his knives for his parasol and opened it, waving everyone behind him and holding it out as a shield. Suppressing and uncharacteristic smirk, Kanashimi faced the inner wall, took another deep breath, and moved forward.

For him, in this state, splinters were an inconvenience at worst. He could brush them off and out later. The important thing was going through, getting there, and then pulling out before he sunk into the red haze too far. He needed his conscious thoughts to deal with this madman, not his berserker rage.

He came out of it when his boots hit concrete floor as opposed to linoleum, a darkened larger room with individual lighting arrays over tables instead of lamp-lined hallways, and a familiar-ish figure standing at the other end of the room, scalpel in hand, staring in astonishment at the vaguely person-shaped hole behind Kanashimi through which the rest of his team was no doubt climbing.

"Well," said Lab Rat after a lengthy pause. "I admit I didn't expect you so soon, or in such a fashion. But welcome to my workshop, Wardens, and esteemed Southern Ice Queen! I can't say it's a pleasure to see you again."

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

"It's impressive how much you even sound like a supervillain, Makoto said mildly as the rest of the team fanned out around Kanashimi. "Is it a deliberate affectation, or is it just something that happens when you go that far around the bend?"

Mentally, Kanashimi had his face in his hands. Oh well, couldn't expect flawless good behaviour out of his little brother forever; 'a day and a half' was actually pretty good, considering.

Predictably, Lab Rat's expression had darkened; these types of criminals rarely took well to being called crazy. His immediate focus on Makoto was something Kanashimi would have moved instinctively to divert if he hadn't noticed Hana slip off out of the corner of his eye.

Right...taijutsu and infiltration specialist.

So as to not appear suspicious, he ignored her--though this took a bit of effort--and instead went with his instincts, snapping out his weapon again.

"Don't taunt the mad scientist," he told Makoto firmly. "Especially not while in what I assume to be his lab."

"If we don't taunt him, then he won't get angry and attack us so we can end this more quickly," Makoto pointed out in what he probably thought was a reasonable tone.

"We could stop playing games," Himeno said loudly, lifting her sword and proceeding forward, only halting about five feet from their enemy. She leveled the massive blade at Lab Rat, who quirked an eyebrow at her, seemingly amused at the point of a gigantic tsurugi hovering less than a foot away from his throat. "You are behind the kidnappings, explosions, and everything else. Yes?"

"Oh, I don't deny it," he said easily. "Me and almost no one else. A few flunkies, here and there. But do they really count? You should know yourself that they don't."

Himeno twitched slightly, and all three of the Wardens who were able yelled out instinctively as she lunged.

True to their expectations, Lab Rat didn't flinch. Neither did he lift up his prosthetic arm, either, instead carelessly waving his other hand. A large figure lunged out of the shadows and tackled Himeno's arm, knocking her sword away from even grazing Lab Rat. Her grip barely held true, just enough for her to backswing, but the whatever-it-was was latched onto her arm and so she couldn't hit it with such a large sword.

Himeno snarled and brought her other elbow down on its head and it crumpled to the floor, at least dazed and now stationary enough to note it had been a person at one point, but there was more to worry about than that. It was hardly the only figure rising up from the shadowed places outside the pinpoint lighting.

Lab Rat probably wasn't intended to make his escape from his laboratory. No, he probably wanted to do something with them. Or Himeno, at least; it was likely they were more of a bonus.

Most ninja could manage some kind of night fighting, but it was rather more difficult when there were bright lights in random-ish spots all over the place to potentially ruin your night vision if you glanced at them. It would be a lot easier if--

There was a loud 'clang!' followed by a muffled 'whumpf' and the overhead lights came on.

Bless you, Hana.

"How--" Lab Rat sputtered. "How did you--where--wait, there were supposed to be five of you here!"

Hana darted back toward them from around a corner, pausing to knife two of the now significantly less creepy gang members, and skidded to a halt next to Makoto, with whom she traded a brief high-five. Then she fished a notebook out of her jacket pocket and tossed it to Mitsuko, who, being slightly less combat-capable than the rest of the team as an intelligence operative, was in the middle of all of them. Mitsuko immediately flipped open the book and started speed-reading it.

"Put that down!" Lab Rat yelled ineffectually. In the bright overhead lights of the warehouse, he seemed much less threatening himself, a fact which was underlined by the fact he had to dodge around a table to avoid one of Himeno's swipes at a gang member from hitting him on the backslash.

With the lights on, the area was much more clearly visible; Hana in her skulking around must have found the fuse box and flipped a breaker, which explained that sound from when the lights had just come on. The battery-powered lamps over the tables looked pathetic next to the overhead lights now. The lab tables themselves were nothing particularly special; they looked like appropriated bed frames someone had thrown a sheet of metal siding onto.

The blank looks on the gang members attempting to surround them, though...

Mitsuko swore under her breath as she tucked the book away into her own jacket. "Right, well...that drug that maybe exists--he's using a worse version for full brainwashing. It seems to me overkill, since he could likely get them to all work for him simply from taking over the gang."

"It's possibly even these lunatics wouldn't listen to that madman," Himeno snapped. "Don't lump all of us together just because we're not one of yours."

"That wasn't..." Mitsuko visibly reeled herself in. "I didn't mean that. Just, well. If he took over, wouldn't they listen to him?"

"Not if the drug is how he took over," Makoto said. "Or at least, with anyone who objected. I imagine a few did at first, so he silenced them by drugging them, brainwashing them, and then tagging the seals to them. Since he had control of them, he could still kill them whenever he wanted, or at least whenever they failed in carrying out the tasks he programmed into them. The rest likely would have gone along not knowing."

A piece of the puzzle slotted into place. "And that's also why he assigned some people to affairs outside their territory," Kanashimi said. "Or got them deliberately arrested. To keep assets he wanted to potentially use later or were simply too troublesome and likely to notice things out of the heart of his territory."

Hana made a face as she stabbed another brainwashed gang member, then flung a kunai out at one trying to sneak up on Himeno across the room.

The area was difficult to navigate due to all the crude tables around,but Lab Rat seemed to be trying to sneak off in the direction Hana had come from. Possibly to flip the breaker back, or possibly to head down that hallway. While the entire thing looked more like w warehouse floor than the rest of the building did, the 'walls' were even cheaper and flimsier looking than the drywall he'd broken through on the way in, in such a way that it barely went a foot above Kanashimi's head, if he had to guess, and looked as if any of them could have knocked it over.

Clearly, properly turning this place into multiple rooms was not something Red Hat was able or willing to invest in.

Makoto, nearly the shortest one there, was the one who apparently got sick of the farce that going around would be necessary, and sprang up onto one of the poorly-made 'tables.' He crossed the room in several leaps across the others, narrowly avoiding the lamps in some cases, and from one of the tables nearest the 'wall' sprang over the top of it.

A bright light filled that half of the warehouse, a searing blue-green, and Lab Rat flew out from behind the partition and smacked into the back wall of the warehouse.

"And this is why we bring ninjutsu support," Kanashimi said to a bemused Himeno. "Given the way we frequently have to rely on other things in the field, people tend to be caught off guard by it."

"I would not want to fight a ninjutsu user," she agreed. "Especially one as impulsive and quick-tempered as your brother."

Quick-tempered? Maybe it appeared that way, but he had always thought of it as 'quick-thinking' more than 'quick-tempered.' The two weren't mutually exclusive, but...

Hana had drawn yet more kunai from her seemingly infinite stash of them and was covering Mitsuko by whirling one around on the end of a length of ninja wire with an absurd degree of precision. Mitsuko, like many intelligence specialists, was not much of a direct fighter and seemed to be focusing on genjutsu support with what she could.

Kanashimi, for his part, felt he could leave that part of things to those three; Himeno seemed content to carve up the gang members for the moment. He simply mowed through those that were swarming him toward where Makoto was tying up Lab Rat, who had a singed hole in the shoulder of his non-prosthetic arm barely not severing an artery.

"Chakra Blast," Makoto explained at Kanashimi's raised eyebrow, unperturbed. "Started casting before my feet even left the ground."

He nodded absently; something his brother had flawless control of, then.

"Well then," he said to Lab Rat. "You might as well tell us what you were hoping to achieve. It's the closest you'll get to it happening."

Instead of looking defeated, however, when their enemy looked up he had a madman's glint in his eyes. "You think you've won? Sure, maybe you'll take out all of the still-human test subjects here. But they aren't even the beginning of what I managed to create! No one here is going to get away from it alive, and my creation will dominate the southern island even if you kill me now."

"Completely mental," Makoto said. "Also, the only reason you're alive right now is so we can hand you to the interrogators later. If I wanted you dead, you'd be a pile of ash on the floor, and the same most likely goes for any abomination you could create."

He probably wouldn't have put it so bluntly, but the essentials of it were true.

"What creation?" he asked instead of bothering to soften anything his brother had said. "I thought you were just brainwashing an army?"

Lab Rat laughed a bit, and probably would have gone on laughing until Kanashimi ran out of patience if Makoto hadn't much sooner and booted him in the head. "Augh! Thug. No, those are just the foot soldiers. The test subjects. Proof of concept on the seals and drugs, if you will. There's far more to it than that."

Kanashimi felt himself tense up. "What did you do?"

"He summoned something," Mitsuko said from behind them. He turned to note the bodies strewn across the floor; the girls had apparently finished dealing with those. Mitsuko's expression was tight, and the book, which seemed to be some kind of journal filled with research notes by the sounds of it, was back in her hand. "A demon, I think. One of the lower intelligence kinds. And he blended it with a person. The later pages go into this. I think the person was so the seals and drugs would take."

"A demon?" he asked, astonished. A muffled thud and 'ow' from behind him alerted him to the fact Makoto had kicked Lab Rat again, but he didn't bother checking where. "He tried to chimera up a mind-controllable pet demon hybrid?"

Demons were generally the priests' and priestesses' line of work. Wardens were there to deal with other people. None of them exactly fielded any of the standard preferred power sets for dealing with one.

Not that it mattered; they'd still have to.

"Well, at least we know what he was up to," Makoto said after a second, with a sort of false brightness that made Kanashimi want to kick him. "Mainly, something we don't exactly have the training or skillset to deal with easily. Unless Himeno happens to be hiding a holy weapon up her sleeve?"

"I wouldn't ever need one," she said dismissively, which plainly meant 'no.'

"If it's still cooped up somewhere, we could just wait for the follow-up team," Mitsuko suggested. Hana emitted a soundless sigh and facepalmed. Sure enough, not five seconds later there was a loud crash in the distance followed by a series of thuds and bangs outside.

"Two thousand yen on that being the demon hybrid knocking over some buildings," Makoto said after another pause, this one a kind of resigned horror.

"I don't think any of us is dumb enough to take that one," Mitsuko said with a grimace. "I really shouldn't have said anything."

"Definitely not taking it, no," Kanashimi said, already heading for the outer wall in the direction the noises had come from. "Someone knock out the prisoner and let's get a move on."

"Wh--" Cut off by a loud snore. He raised an eyebrow at Mitsuko, who shrugged unconcernedly.

"Time to go then," he said, and punched a hole in the side of the wall much like he'd done on the way in.

When the rubble and dust cleared, this left them all standing staring at the demon-hybrid.

"...I'm really not looking forward to this now."

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

Kanashimi didn't exactly have a normal capacity for fear, so he wasn't functioning on the same level as the rest of them were at the sight of the demon hybrid. Instead, he was doing a re-check of his gear and drawing his weapon; bleeding might be useful.

He could give them a couple seconds, though. When he'd heard the phrase demon-human hybrid he'd expected something a lot more...human sized. And shaped.

The...thing...was around nine feet tall, barely of a size that could be contained and only with difficulty. It had long, skeletal arms with two curved talons on the end of each instead of hands, and an impossibly muscled torso. The head was vaguely misshapen, hairless and somewhat reptilian barring the lack of scales. The lower body resembled that of a horse somewhat, except for that instead of four legs and a tail, there was an impossible to count number of spindly legs that bore resemblence to a scaled-up centipede along with a barb-like stinger. The creature's flesh was the off-grey of a slightly rotted corpse, and wherever its many legs touched the ground, a pool of ichor formed. The pools grew larger the longer it stood still, but it did not do that much.

"That thing...was a person?" Mitsuko said in a sick tone. "It just looks like a demon..."

"Probably the person is only providing the mind," Makoto said, somewhat unevenly. "Maybe a bit of the body. But I'd bet he mostly just did something to the brain--"

"Stop it!" Mitsuko snapped. "Just...please don't theorize about what might have happened to that poor person. Please. Not so coldly."

Makoto blinked and turned to her, clearly taken aback. Kanashimi didn't feel much different. Mitsuko had been trying not to step on anyone's toes to that point, as if to make up for her original blunder, but it seemed as though her tolerance for some things would not be pushed that far.

"I was only--" he began, but Kanashimi cut him off, not wanting an argument to start now of all times.

"Not now. Tell your theories to the medics later." He glanced down the line of fighters. Not the team anyone would have picked for dealing with a demonic hybrid. Unfortunately, he didn't have much of a choice. "I don't suppose anyone here has experience in fighting demons."

Himeno chuckled lowly. "We get many less of them here than you do up north. No."

The rest all shrugged or shook their heads variably. Makoto was avoiding looking at anyone else as he did the former, instead gazing out at the creature that was rampaging through buildings in the distance.

"We're going to have to engage it soon, and further off, since there are more victims near here," he said abruptly. "So it doesn't matter if we're actually prepared to deal with the mad scientist's--creation." The last word was clearly substituted in at the last second. "We're going to have to anyway."

"You do have tactics for this too, yes?" Himeno asked, her tone expectant. "As you do everything else?"

"Our tactic for demons is 'call the priests and priestesses in to handle it,'" he said humourlessly. "But we'll make do, tactics or no."

Hana waved to get his attention, then mimed turning on a headset. Call it.

"Standard thunder and lightning maneuvers," he said after a second. "No point in finesse here. We simply have to stop it." The way to do that was overwhelming force, of course.

"And you expect me to hang back?" Himeno asked acidly. "I don't know your maneuvers."

"I expect to make sure that we don't get too close to the building we know is harboring the last potential victims," he said tersely. "You can do that however you like, including joining the fight. But I can't give you orders, so do what you will."

Not wanting to hear her response--already, her headstrong behaviour had caused more problems than it had solved for them--he darted forward. He thought he could hear Himeno cursing behind him, but that was secondary to the rest of his team catching up with him.

Some people thought that the reason trained ninja could outfight people with only the rudiments of chakra control was in fact that chakra control and the advantage of ninjutsu training. That was untrue; the majority of Wardens--who were the main force that deployed against human criminals in Moon--were taijutsu users. There were some who focused on other things, but all Wardens recieved at least a basic level of taijutsu training beyond any other branch.

There was a reason for this, of course. The Wardens recognized a ninja's main advantage against non-ninja was actually speed.

Speed was the factor you learned to leverage better and better as you grew more skilled, and it was truly the most important thing you could have. This was strongly emphasized in their training, and it was one of the reasons why the Shrine (and, for that matter, the Shiruko clan) held the strong advantage over the third factions. These factions tended to be obsessed with power and strength--Second Sphere clearly being no exception, judging by Himeno's massive sword--but there was no point in swinging even the heaviest blow that would miss.

But Himeno, Lab Rat, and all the rest were simply not fast enough to deal with properly trained ninja. There was chakra control throughout the island's population, plenty of practitioners around--but that wasn't what gave you the edge. You had to work at it.

Kanashimi knew the four of them would have looked like blurs moving at full speed. Even Mitsuko, slightly slower than the others due to being a Genjutsu user primarily, was faster than Himeno.

And most importantly, faster than the not-slow-at-all creature.

Mitsuko whistled when they were a half block from it, several loud and piercing notes, and it halted in its tracks. The noise that came from its open maw--sickeningly human teeth visible--was half-screech, half-hiss. Ethereal flames ringed it now.

"That was me," she said. "Don't worry."

Music core? That felt like something he ought to have known about his intelligence officer already, but it didn't matter.

Makoto was next, and his action was soundless. Blurring to one side, parasol drawn and in position to potentially act as a barrier, his free hand went through a rapid series of handseals. Translucent blue-green shuriken rained down on the creature, making it fully turn to them.

"All yours," he said shortly. Leaving it to the taijutsu primary users.

Hana grinned wildly, and went vertical, using chakra to run up the side of a nearby undestroyed building as though she were on level ground. As she did so, she flung handfuls of kunai at the creature, turning its chest into a pincushion.

Kanashimi himself simply charged, blade leveled ahead. The creature had reacted to the attacks, meaning they were actually hurting it. That meant that sheer damage was definitely a viable strategy. All he had to do when in close was trust that his team would not hit him.

The red haze took over his vision again, but deeper. Track friend and foe, and nothing else.

He slammed into the demon hybrid with the force of a tidal wave. He could dimly register other things going on around him, the bangs and general loud noises of ninjutsu, the storm of projectiles never hitting him but always finding their mark, the soft singing in the background, but all of it was irrelevant to simple movement.

No time for thought. Move.

No time for worry. Move.

There was a tremendous roar and a crash and his next jump, instead of sending him back at the creature's head (where else to aim for maximum damage?) flung him over its prone body. He landed on the ground and skidded a good five meters before halting and turning around.

The creature bled red, which was surprising and unsurprising both. He stared at it for a moment as the red cleared from his eyes to confirm; yes, it was still red even when the berserker haze had faded.

He took a deep breath, and turned to face the others, all of whom had expressions ranging from satisfaction (Hana) to assessment (Mitsuko) to cool apathy (Makoto, of course).

"Someone go make sure the kidnap victims are fine," he said after gathering himself. "And then secure the prisoner. I want this place completely secured when our nominal backup gets here."

Two 'yes, sirs' and a salute left him standing facing an approaching Himeno over the corpse of what had once been a person. Two people, if the demon had been sentient pre-experimentation, though that seemed unlikely.

Apparently the battle hadn't taken much longer than thirty seconds.

"I would not like to fight you," she said after a moment. "Even the intelligence girl, your weakest member. I don't believe I'd like to fight her either."

"No," he said, back to his normal blank tone, "you certainly wouldn't."

~

It took the rest of the day to make absolutely sure there were no more nasty surprises waiting in the rest of the town. All of the gang members who hadn't been converted to automatons by Lab Rat were quite willing to roll on him and the remaining leadership when they heard how the old leader had been killed, and so by the time the backup team complete with medics arrived the next afternoon, the situation was mostly cleared up.

Kanashimi had warned Himeno, in the spirit of their temporary alliance, that her group should not consider Red Hat's old territory theirs now that the latter had folded. Due to her newfound understanding of their capabilities, she didn't press the issue, instead electing to take charge of and escort home those who had been taken from her territory.

It was also somewhat satisfying to hear Makoto verbally tearing a strip out of the backup Warden team for their slowness and 'excellent ability to show up long after anyone could possibly have still needed you in nearly any comprehensible situation.' It was particularly fun to listen to him point out that the Wardens and ninja in general typically didn't really do sieges except under extraordinary circumstances that neither a gang war nor the note they had sent back would have hinted at, and thus late-arriving help wouldn't shore up anything or be actual help at all.

The real Jun was with the team, and appeared nonplussed at the description of an imposter.

"Huh," he said. "I guess I was poisoned then, not sick? The message I was going to send to you must have been intercepted by the poisoner. Oh well, I was sure you could do it with just Mitsuko anyway, but I am sorry you had to deal with him."

Which answered the question of when the switch had occurred. Mitsuko seemed rather relieved to see him all right, as did Hana--though the two of them were standing rather closer together than simple camaraderie from this one mission might have warranted.

...Well. He had something in that vein to attend to as well.

"All packed up," Makoto reported. "Which means tonight we'll be sleeping in proper beds, right? At home?"

"There's no reason for the four of us to hang around now that the cleanup crew is here," he agreed. "We'll take their boat back, send out a larger one and a proper cleaning team down, and head home."

'Thank god,' Makoto didn't have to say. He himself didn't point out what a colossal mess they had narrowly averted due to quick thinking on the mission that had led to this one. There would be time enough for that later, after the endless debriefings.

He had a date of sorts to keep.

~

"Do you know," Sheimi said conversationally, "until we got that message from you guys hinting at the level of clusterfuck you were getting into, I actually wanted to be on that mission?"

"I did ask you," he pointed out. "And, well. You weren't able."

"Mm. Nice stable, boring garrison duty or fighting a giant bug chimera monster," she said thoughtfully, twirling her straw around in her glass of lemonade. "...Nope, still would prefer the bug monster. Sounds way more fun."

They were at one of the many diners lining the boardwalk, sitting on the patio. Sheimi was on local duty after all, and after the long-range mission Kanashimi had been granted (pushed out on) several days leave. Time to catch their breath, really.

"It certainly wasn't boring," he agreed. "I'll probably be stuck here for a while too. But there are. Possible advantages, I think."

"Oh?" She very deliberately wasn't looking directly at him, he felt. "Such as?"

"Some of the people can be pretty great," he said, also being deliberately vague. "Including some of the ones not related to me, I mean."

Sheimi made a thoughtful noise. "Mm. I guess. By the sounds of it you did hang around with a few girls down there."

He made a dismissive noise. "None of them were my type."

Now she looked directly at him. "...and your type is...?"

"Sitting with me here, I'm pretty sure," he said. "Assuming that's okay?"

Sheimi was visibly fighting a flirtatious smile, probably to keep from damaging her punk attitude. "Yeah, it's okay. Maybe more than okay."

"There's a nice grill near the pier," he said, striving for casual more than he ever had in his life, keeping his voice calm with a level of effort he'd never had to use to keep it from wavering or cracking. "Do you want to get dinner there tonight?"

She drained the rest of the lemonade down to the ice and deliberately drew out the 'glass is empty but I'm still trying to drink' sound before letting go of her straw and answering. "You paying?"

He fought his own grin and could feel himself losing. "I could be persuaded."

"Great," she said as she stood up. He stood as well. "I could use a good meal."

She extended her elbow, and he slipped his arm around hers. They headed down the boardwalk, not talking about anything in particular.

It was a pretty good day.