Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve

[Fiction]

The target's name was Sune Jakusho, a low-level samurai who was connected to a local yakuza-style gang involved in extorting "protection fees" from businesses, duping elderly people with no relatives into signing over their wealth, and running a predatory loan shark business with absurd interests and a violent collection process.

Jakusho was a mid-level member involved with the "protection fees" side of the business and went around his allocated region to extort money from businesses and shop owners. It allowed him to act like a tyrant, and the behaviour was bolstered by the fact that the local gang had connections to some samurai higher-ups, which allowed the gang to operate without the fear of law obstructing their activities.

The other person of interest in the mission was a geisha named Yuri. Like many geisha, her parents had sold her to a geisha house at a young age, where she was trained in the standard geisha arts—flower arrangement, the tea ceremony, calligraphy, music, dance, and historical and contemporary knowledge for conversational acumen.

Then, she was introduced into society under a new name, Yuri.

Yuri, being a beautiful young woman, was a sought-after geisha and commanded large sums of money from her wealthy patrons. She had long since repaid her parents' debts and past upkeep and had even paid the sum for her freedom from the geisha house, but she continued to work as a geisha because it was all she knew.

That, and being a geisha paid well. She, however, didn't maintain a sexual relationship with her clients and patrons, and her services solely revolved around keeping them company. So, when Jakusho began to push her in that direction, Yuki inevitably felt cornered enough by his behaviour to request an assassination.

"Didn't you hear the informant? The target will meet the geisha tomorrow; we should eliminate him before he causes a problem," said Takuma with a furrow between his brows.

"You see a problem, I see an opportunity," said Three, relaxed and confident.

The duo was arguing about how they would execute the mission based on the scrolls the informant had given them.

"I see a problem because there is a problem. We should keep the target far away from the geisha. If we kill him today, he won't reach her tomorrow," said Takuma. "And if we deal with him when he's visiting her, it will cast suspicion on her, which will get her into trouble—and yes, our mission is assassination and not caring about her well-being, but I'm sure it's perfectly understandable why we should keep the geisha at a safe distance."

"I don't deny any of that," said Three, raising her hands, "and I'm not saying that we strike when he's in her company."

Yuri's geisha house served nobles and samurai. Attacking Jakusho there would mean having at least a couple of samurai in the vicinity who could either serve as obstacles to killing him or, the more likely option, obstacles to them escaping after killing him. They hadn't scouted the geisha house, it was sure to have several people present inside, which would make killing Jakusho in stealth infeasible without extensive planning or help from an insider.

They had neither, which was why Takuma asked, "Then when do we do it?"

"We hit him en route to the geisha house," Three replied.

"How's that any different from killing him today?"

"Listen, I'm just taking your advice," she said, surprising him.

"Pardon; my advice?"

"Yeah, your advice from back at the teashop. You said stealing from the samurai's house was straightforward because it only involved one location. I'm just applying the same concept here; the informant gave us the target's frequent locations and rough timings, but we haven't followed him day-in-and-day-out to know his schedule or where he will be exactly one hour from now, and even if we did, it's not enough time to know what kind of secondary obstacles might be present at those locations—but we do know where he's going to be tomorrow evening."

To meet Yuri, her clients had to reserve time slots, and Jakusho had kept the same day and time slot for the past two months. His meeting with her was one part of the routine that was proven to be set in stone.

Three continued, "Hitting the target en route to his appointment simplifies the problem by removing the moving parts. His appointment in the evening gives us the whole day to plan. Let's say we choose a road or intersection close to the geisha house—scout every corner of the place, create a plan—and hit him with precision and surety. One target, one location, straightforward—and thus reliable... What do you think?" she asked.

Takuma was silent momentarily as he thought about a logical fallacy in her words, but after considering her words from a couple of different angles, he didn't see any apparent problems. The more he considered it, the more it made sense to follow Three's plan.

"My advice makes sense, doesn't it?" he said.

She took the clue and smiled, "It absolutely does."

"It's decided then. We kill the target tomorrow."

———
.

With the informant task locked in for the second day, the duo decided to handle the heist task on the first day. Unlike Jakusho, the samurai who owned the historical twin daggers was a high-ranking samurai. His house was in an affluent part of the city where the roads were broad; the properties were bigger because of large yards and gardens, and each residence had ample space between them—making the entire residential area emptier as opposed to a denser part of the city where adjacent buildings touched with only narrow alleyways between them if any.

It was easier to blend in with busy crowds, which the affluent residential area lacked, thus making wandering around a property, at the very least, suspicious.

Most houses in the area were single-storey structures with an attic level serving as additional storage, but each property had high walls that made viewing from the surface level impossible. Nearly all properties had trees near the property line or walls, which partially blocked the view from both sides, but the foliage wasn't thick enough for the duo to hide inside and spy.

"Any ideas?" asked Three as they stood under a tree's shade three houses away from the samurai's house.

"We go in from the back, ask politely, pick up the daggers, and leave," Takuma said with a shrug.

"Should we also have tea if they offer it?"

"I don't think the samurai is at home."

"I didn't see him, but that doesn't mean he isn't in there."

She had peeked into the house he stood as a lookout, but they hadn't enough time to ensure the samurai wasn't home.

"There weren't any horses in the stable," he said, thinking back to a brief look he had gotten himself. "You are a shinobi, so it's not a part of your culture, but you must've noticed samurai on horseback today. Unlike us, samurai use horses; seeing that the house had a stable and it was empty, there's a high chance that the samurai is out."

"You're also a shinobi."

"I'm a cultured individual."

She rolled her eyes. "What about the other samurai in the house?"

The information scroll for the heist task was brief at best. They were given a description of the historical twin daggers, their addresses, and some information about the samurai. They didn't want to face the samurai because he was classified as a jonin-level combatant in shinobi terms.

Neither of them could survive against that, even if they fought with perfect teamwork.

"He's much weaker, I think we can deal with him," said Takuma.

That included a few guardsmen they had seen stationed around the house.

They could stake out the house and wait for someone to come out, abduct them, and get some information, but they had no idea when someone would step out or when the samurai might return home. Time was of the essence, and they currently had a window of opportunity before them.

They could abduct someone, keep them overnight and then go in the next day—but what if the person they abducted was expected back within the hour, and their missing presence created uncontrollable complications?

"So, I say we pop in, get the daggers, and then disappear," he said.

Thieves got caught for various reasons. They could get caught during the act, get implicated from some evidence they left behind, get the authorities alerted when they try to sell their stolen goods, even simply blabbing or bragging to someone about the job could come back to bite them.

However, they weren't trying to sell the daggers; they hadn't talked about the heist with anyone—so as long as they didn't get caught during the act, they could get away without a hitch. Even if they left some evidence behind, they weren't from the city, making it difficult and time-consuming for the authorities to tie it back to two complete ghosts with no local presence.

"Alright, let's go see how special these daggers are," said Three.

———
.

The people in the samurai's house were having a calm day. Regardless of whether they were staff or family, it was a privilege and boon to be connected to a high-ranking samurai, especially one who had a position in the Ember Imperial City.

Aifumi was an elegant woman in her mid-forties. She was the wife of a samurai, making her the mistress of the house. While her husband performed his duties to the Daimyo as a samurai, upholding their family name, she was responsible and trusted to maintain the household and social affairs of being a samurai with influence in the Daimyo's court.

She was having a slow day, having just finished hosting a gathering at their house for a handful of her husband's peers last weekend. Of course, starting tomorrow, she was going to review the household budgeting, which would take her a few days to get all sorted as their estate employed quite a handful of people and provided a few services to manage their home.

When she was done with that, she was planning to guide her daughter-in-law so she could take over the responsibilities in a few years when her elder son was expected to follow his father and officially enter the Daimyo's court.

It was all part of her responsibilities as the mistress of the house and her duty to support her husband, but today, she was going to take it easy.

Her attendant served her tea, and she gazed out the room and into the garden outside. She closed her eyes as she listened to the water dribbling from the pond fountain and the tunes from the wind chime and found the hectic pace of her life slowing down.

As she had her eyes closed, Aifumi heard some footsteps. They were uniform, light yet stable, and yet had a heavy feel to them. She thought herself familiar with everyone in the estate to recognise them by their footsteps, or at least recognise if they were a guard or attendant. But the sound of these footsteps were different than anything she heard.

She opened her eyes just in time to see a masked man enter her view outside the door.

As the wife of a high-ranking samurai, she had both seen and hosted shinobi a handful of times at their house, so she recognised the man as a shinobi from his gear. The style differed from what she had seen on the Hidden Leaf shinobi, and the green-and-grey colour scheme was foreign to her—but the man was undoubtedly a shinobi.

A couple of seconds passed as the man looked at her and the attendant in the room. The light from outside cast a shadow over the man, making him seem darker.

Her sense of danger flared. She knew this man could not have come with good intentions and went to shout to alert the guards, but her body suddenly seized. She could no longer speak or even move her pinky. It felt like she had turned into a statue and could only stare at the man because that's where her gaze was when she lost control of her body.

She couldn't see her attendant, but hearing no words from her meant she was also similarly frozen. Her heart thumped, and fear crept in when she couldn't move or scream, no matter how much she tried. She had never felt anything like this before but knew it could only be shinobi's ninjutsu.

The man stepped aside, and a similarly dressed woman stepped out from behind the door. Unlike the man, who wore a green mask with a leaf design, the woman wore a teal mask with a blue splash design.

"Breath through your nose," said the woman in a soothing voice.

Aifumi was confused, and the panic in her heart only rose when she realised the man wasn't alone. How many people had invaded their homes?

"Listen to my voice, " the woman continued to speak. "Focus on your breathing. In and out. In and out. Follow my words. Breathe in and breathe out. Just like that. Repeat with me."

The woman asked them to breathe, and Aifumi followed the calm voice. Even though her heart was still hammering away, her breathing was in control.

"Excellent," said the masked woman. "We do not wish you harm in any way. I understand it might be hard to believe, but it's the truth. As long as you follow our requests, we will be out of your sight, out of your home, never to return." She turned to look at Aifumi. "I'm assuming you're the lady of the house, madam. Please respond through a simple nod or shake of your head."

Aifumi wanted to complain that she couldn't move her body, and this was just a ploy for them to harm them when she suddenly felt that she could move her neck. In fact, everything above her shoulders except her voice was free. She could open her mouth, move her tongue, but couldn't produce any sound.

She glanced at her attendant, who sat a few steps away from her near the wall and looked uncomfortable as her body was frozen into a statue-like state. She then looked back at the pair of invaders and nodded.

"Thank you for cooperating. Our goal is simple. We require a set of old twin daggers that we know to be in this house."

Aifumi didn't have to think; she knew what they were talking about. There was a set of old shinobi daggers framed and hanging in her husband's office. He had acquired them three years ago, beating a shinobi in an auction.

"...I see you recognise what I'm talking about."

Aifumi scolded herself for showing her recognition on her face. It had been frozen just a moment ago..

"Lead us to the daggers. We will leave afterwards. Please nod if you understand."

She nodded.

"Nod if you agree to cooperate."

She nodded again. If the cost of getting these intruders out of her house were a set of old daggers, then she would gladly pay it.

"Very good. Thank you for cooperating. Please stand up."

Just as the words ended, Aifumi realised she could move her entire body again. Her voice was still not in her control. She stood up and glanced at her attendant before looking at the woman, who understood her intention and said,

"She will be freed as soon as we leave. No one will be harmed."

Aifumi hesitated for a moment before nodding. As she led them through the house, the woman spoke in a whisper, which sent shivers down her back. "We know there are guards in the house. Understand that if you are leading us to them, I will not keep my promise of not harming anyone. The easier you make it for us, the easier it will get for you. Do you understand?"

Aifumi hurriedly nodded repeatedly. She thought of her granddaughter, who had just started walking; her daughter-in-law, who was supposed to succeed her; the people who worked at their house—while her husband was out, it was her duty to protect them all.

"Very good. Thank you for your cooperation."

She did her best to follow a route that wouldn't be visible to the guards and prayed no one would come across them. Unfortunately, her prayers weren't answered. They heard footsteps from across the corner, and Aifumi recognised them as a guard from their heaviness.

The man walking ahead of them raised his hand in a fist. The woman grabbed Aifumi's shoulder and pulled her to a stop. The man stepped ahead to the edge of the corner before rushing across. Aifumi squinted her eyes closed when she heard the guard struggle, muffling out half a syllable before silence punctuated the sound of a body sliding against a wall down to the ground.

The woman gently pushed her, and Aifumi walked around the corner in fear to see the guard slumped against the wall. She couldn't see any blood, but it didn't relieve her fears.

"He's unconscious, please keep moving," said the woman while pushing her.

Aifumi bowed her head as she moved along. She had not led them to a guard, but now it could only seem like she had done so. The fear for her family's safety spiked in her heart, and she silently prayed for her husband to return home and save them.

They finally arrived at her husband's office, and the woman asked her to go inside and retrieve the daggers.

She came out with the daggers encased in a frame, and the man took it off her hands.

"I know that you didn't lead us to the guard. Rest assured, we will keep the promise and leave without harming anyone. Head inside the office and sit there for ten minutes before coming out. Your voice will return soon," said the woman.

Aifumi nodded, and the next moment, the masked duo disappeared with a gust of wind that blew the loose strands of her hair back.

She followed the instructions and sat inside her husband's office. Her voice returned in three minutes, but she remained in her office. She heard a commotion, and within a minute, another guard entered the office with an attendant and began checking on her injuries.

When the ten minutes ended, she immediately went to her granddaughter and daughter-in-law's side to ensure their safety and didn't leave them until her husband and sons returned home.




Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link here and in signature.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.

 

[Golden Eyed King]

This is the cool heist mission in an RPG where I slaughter my way through the entire manor and my quest giver gets shitty at me for painting the house red when he gave me the quest full well knowing my only skill is kill.

 

[The Radiance]

TFTC. All the quests look too easy, I wonder if the other contestants got overlapping quests and the first to complete some of them will qualify and disqualify the others.

This is the cool heist mission in an RPG where I slaughter my way through the entire manor and my quest giver gets shitty at me for painting the house red when he gave me the quest full well knowing my only skill is kill.

Click to shrink...

Relatable murder hobo story. I too do this occasionally. Well, only to go full stealth after reloading the save file.

 

[Fiction]

The Zakahira estate was abuzz with commotion. The house of a high-ranking samurai was robbed in broad daylight. For that to happen in the Ember Imperial City was astounding, and the news was bound to spread throughout the city by the following day.

A man with long salt-and-pepper hair dressed in a black montsuki stood in the study and stared at the empty spot where the framed daggers hung before they were robbed. He was Zakahira Mahachi, the family's patriarch and a high-ranking samurai whose wife had been held hostage in his own home. He held his sheathed sword in his left hand and flicked the hilt guard with his thumb—with each flick, the sword would jump an inch out of the scabbard before sliding back down.

A pair of nervous and fearful guards with their clothes drenched in sweat walked behind him. The robbery had happened under their nose. They recognised the flicking habit. It only appeared when he was displeased enough to want to use his sword on something or someone.

He left the office where the guard who had been knocked out during the robbery was waiting. The guard immediately knelt and pressed his head to the floor.

"What did you see?" Mahachi asked. He didn't ask the guard to raise his head.

"I... Not much, my liege. The masked man knocked me out before I could do anything." The guard pursed his lips. "I didn't... I didn't even see the mistress or the other woman. If I hadn't been taken by surprise, I would've—!"

"There are no ifs or buts, only your failure. Reflect on it until I declare your punishment," said Mahachi.

After tracing the robber's path, he returned to the room where his family was gathered. His wife was sitting on a floor chair in the corner with a blanket over his legs as she talked with the inspector about the robbers.

"Is there anything else you can remember about them?" the inspector asked.

"Unfortunately, that's all I can remember at the moment," said Aifumi apologetically.

The inspector pursed his lips. It was only for a moment, but he had a look of dissatisfaction and disappointment, which he hid quickly—but not fast enough for it to slip past the eyes of the young man standing beside her.

"She told you everything she knows; it's your damn job to make do with it!"

The young man had the same strong jaw and square face as Mahachi and resembled him during his youth, only with softer features, which he had inherited from his mother. He was Zakahira Nozan, Mahachi's eldest son, a samurai. He was fully dressed in his red samurai armour with his sword prominently hanging by his side.

The inspector looked uncomfortable. Even Aifumi sighed as her hand went to her temple.

"There's no need to raise your voice, Nozan. You are scaring your child," said Mahachi without hiding his disapproval.

Nozan looked guilty when he saw his daughter's face on the verge of tears and his wife's disapproving look while she soothed the little infant.

Mahachi went to his wife and knelt by her side. "Does your head hurt, my dear?" he asked.

Aifumi shook her head. "Nothing to be concerned about."

Mahachi knew she had the tendency to reduce her suffering, especially when she was in the presence of their family. He gently held her wrist and injected a minute sliver of chakra into her system to regulate the natural flow of chakra that an external force had disrupted.

A shinobi's genjutsu, he thought with a bitter taste in his mouth.

She was a civilian without an ounce of chakra training, and being faced with a foreign chakra in her system had some effect on her. When they married, he tried to convince her to train her chakra to gain a tool of protection no matter how small, but she refused, saying that she didn't need it because she had him to protect her.

It was flattering—but he was regretting not pushing more. If there was any silver lining, it was that he had drilled basic chakra training into their daughter so she could protect herself when she left home.

"From the looks of it all, I believe it's safe to say it was a shinobi," said the inspector as he flipped through his notes.

"Or someone trained in shinobi's jutsu." Mahachi stood up. "Do not limit your search radius to known shinobi in the city. You must look into everyone who might be trained in shinobi arts."

"Yes, sir," the inspector nodded.

Mahachi didn't expect much from the inspector. He was planning to have the case transferred under the samurai's authority so they could be handled by someone better equipped to handle those trained in chakra. It was clear that the duo who had invaded his house were trained. They had come into his house for one thing and took only that; if it was an amateur's work, he expected them to get greedy for other valuables in his study. His wife's hairpin itself would have earned the thieves a small fortune.

"Use your informants to look into fences in the city and see whether they have requests for shinobi artefacts. The stolen daggers are bound to appear on the market."

Even though Mahachi had no authority, the inspector took his words as orders. It was foolish to defy a samurai of Mahachi's calibre and influence.

"Green and grey gear with painted masks. Do you recognise any group or individual who wears that specific configuration?" Mahachi turned to his son.

"...Not anyone I can pinpoint off the top of my head," said Nozan with a sour look.

"Maybe they're from outside the city," Mahachi commented as he pulled his sword halfway through and stared at his eyes in the blade's reflection. "Whoever it is, they will die by my blade for thinking about soiling a thread on my wife's clothes."

———
.

Seven and Fourteen stood on the roof of a doll assembly workshop, looking across the street at a large carpet factory holding one of their targets. They had to retrieve a ledger keeping record of transactions tied to the illegal trade of chakra metal stolen from official sources.

According to the information in the scroll, the ledger was inside the factor's owner's office. It was a nondescript black leather hardback..

Fourteen, Azugimoto Etomi, observed the view before her, mapping the entry and exits points along with possible chokepoints and obstacles in case of a hot exit. Seven knelt beside her on one knee, watching something she couldn't imagine. The flared veins around his temple were the only evidence that he was using his Byakugan.

The Hyuuga's Byukugan made Etomi just as fascinated as it did uncomfortable. They had scouted the place for two hours. Not nearly enough time, in Etomi's opinion, but it was made possible through the Byakugan. Seven's findings had allowed Etomi to create a terrifyingly accurate map of the entire building.

"Eight of them are not civilians," said Seven.

The carpet factory was an authentic front with real workers that worked on real carpets, but there were others there who did no work and just sat around.

"Mark them with numbers," said Etomi, handing the factory's three-level map. "Hey, how sure are you that they're not civilians?"

"One hundred per cent," said Seven as he marked the map with the combatants. "No civilian carries as many weapons on their body as these people."

"...Makes sense." Etomi was thankful that she was a Leaf shinobi and that Seven was on her team.

"Are you ready?" Seven asked as he got up, his eyes still trained on the factory.

Etomi gave the map one last look. "Yeah, I think I've got it."

The duo shared specialities; they both had prior experience with infiltration, but Etomi was formulating the optimal route based on Seven's information. He was going to lead because of his vision, but she was the one who set the overall route.

"Do you understand everything?" she asked after explaining the route and the contingencies in case they were spotted.

"Yes, I'm ready. Let's go," Seven said, the veins around his eyes becoming more pronounced.

She nodded, and both of them put on their masks. A minute later, they were standing before the doll assembly workshop and started walking towards the factory with Seven in the lead and Etomi following his exact steps. They were walking right towards the factory's front entrance, something she would never have done, but Seven had said the entrance gave them the most access—and that they could enter without getting seen.

He gestured as they neared the welded chain link gate.. Etomi overtook him and opened the smaller gate within the larger gate soundlessly, using a niche D-rank jutsu that covered the door's hinges, bolts, knobs, locks—any moving part, really—in chakra, acting as a temporary lubricant.

Etomi entered first and immediately walked up the wall on the left. There was an office window above them on the wall, but it was locked from the inside. She weaved a quick sequence of hand seals, and a needle of wind chakra appeared from her fingertip. The wind needle cut through a section of glass, removing a uniform square using chakra adhesion to access the window latch.

The office was covered in shadow, giving them cover from the people in the building. Seven looked through the building with his Byakugan and updated the location of the people on the first floor for Etomi's benefit.

"Six has moved to the other end of the hallway. Two and Three left the room and are now on the ground floor," he said.

"Noted," she replied as she updated her mental map. "Proceed without change."

Seven retook the lead. He opened the door to the office but didn't exit. The corridor before them was open and visible from the ground floor to all workers. Their location was a door across the corridor, leading to the back section of the factory.There was also another office on the other side with a huge window and a wide view of the factory floor used by the factory manager, who was currently down on the factory floor.

Seven took a large bolt he had picked out from outside and chucked it down at a set of iron pipes leaning against the wall on the factory floor. As intended, the iron pipes fell to the ground, catching absolutely everyone's attention.

While everyone was looking at the pipes, two shinobi walked through the corridor and entered the back section.

"One is currently at the water cooler; he has two large bottles."

"Got it."

They proceed through the floor silently. Etomi had done her fair share of infiltrations, and they usually involved a lot of hiding, waiting around, slow movement, and looking around each corner—but what they were doing was unlike anything she had ever experienced. They were all but strolling through a building she usually would only break into at night when no one was around because of the sheer number of people in a comparatively small space.

But the ledger would mov to an inaccessible location past the evening time, so they had to do it during work hours. But because of Seven, they could just walk because he knew where everyone was and where they were looking.

The water cooler was around the corner, where one of the guards was filling water bottles. With Seven in the lead, they casually entered the janitor's closet in the hallway and closed the door. Five seconds later, the guard walked past the closet; five seconds after that, the duo exited and continued their walk through the building. Etomi was almost terrified because her experience told her they needed to slow down and be more careful, but her partner's all-seeing eyes guaranteed they wouldn't be seen—it was a fresh experience.

They reached the owner's locked office, but Etomi's lock-picking skills made short work of the door.

"Switch the lights on," said Etomi as she bee-lined to the vault-safe behind a painting. They didn't know if the correct ledger was in there because there were at least a dozen leather registers all over the office, but they assumed that with the owner away, they would lock it up.

Seven drew the blinds and turned on the lights.

Etomi laid down her picking tools and went to work on the lock mechanism.

"Six to seven minutes," she said. Seven couldn't describe the type of vault in the office, so she wasn't able to give him a specific time.

"Noted."

A minute and a half into her attempt to pick the vault, Seven said, "I'm turning the lights off."

Etomi stopped and held still as the room went dark, and someone walked past the hallway outside the office. Ten seconds later, the lights were back on, and Etomi returned to work. It happened once more at the four-minute mark.

"Are you done?" asked Seven as he checked the registers around the office.

Etomi frowned, "I told you not to ask me that."

"... I think the owner is back," he said as he looked through the building, "and he has three more non-civilians with him. We must leave now, or we must fight our way out." Neither of them wanted that; it would cause too much commotion and have people on their tail.

"I'm done!" Etomi said as the vault opened with a click.

There were three identical black registers in the safe. Etomi hastily flipped to the specified page and checked the last three entries.

"Found it! Let's go!" said Etomi as she quickly put things back where they were and closed the vault.

The moment they left the office, Seven stopped outside,

"Exit routes A and B are now both blocked... We either hide until they're open or fight our way out."

After she had opened the vault, Etomi's mind was racing at full speed. She recalled the map she had drawn and the people in the building.

"Tell me where the eight guards are right now," she said.

———
.

Hyuuga Kojuro was doubtful if he should waste time telling Fourteen where everyone was when they could choose a hiding spot, especially when the owner had just finished addressing the workers and was heading up to his office.

"There's no time," he said.

"Has Three moved from his spot?" she asked.

"No, he has not. Let's go hide."

Fourteen ignored him and asked, "Is Eight still near the staircase?"

"No, he's now on the corridor above the factory floor," he grabbed her hand and pulled her along.

"What about Two? Is he still sitting with the view of the corner? Can we take the window out in the room next to his?"

Kojuro wasn't going to answer, but his vision instinctively went to the route she described and was surprised to find that it was a viable exit route if not for Two, who would see them. That route was previously closed because Eight directly blocked it, but it had become open when he moved.

"No, he will see us." He still pulled her to a hiding spot but gave her a reply.

"Where's Six?" asked Fourteen.

"He's back to his original position."

"Check this. We take the back staircase, sprint past Six—he won't be able to see us from his position—and then take the back emergency exit on the factory floor. It's not visible, right?"

Kojuro mapped the right and stopped from the hiding spot because he found Fourteen's route open. They could leave the building without anyone seeing them.

"It's open. We must hurry," he said while pushing her in the opposite direction.

The two hastily followed the route, barely slipped the guard numbered 'Six', and reached the emergency exit at the back. Only half a wall separated them from a group of workers, who could move toward them at any time, as the back was also used as storage.

The emergency exit was locked from the inside with a heavy-duty lock. He stepped aside, thinking Fourteen would pick it up with her tools, but she hit the lock with the back of a kunai, and it unlocked. It was loud, but the machinery was louder.

He looked at her in surprise,

"Not a very good lock, this specific model," she whispered as she slipped out of the partially opened door.

They sprinted and used the Body Flicker Jutsu to cover distance until the factory was no longer in sight.

On a rooftop, Kojuro gazed at his partner sitting on the floor, reading the ledger without a hint of emotion on her face, as though all that had happened was a normal day. Because of his eyes, he knew the building and people's location better than her, but having more information was not the same as being able to use it. He was sure if he had looked, he would've been able to find the escape route, but he didn't think he would've been as fast as her.

Not only that, but she continued to look, even though he didn't think it was worth the risk. When they found that they had an asset retrieval task, he thought he would do all the work because that would be the best use of their resources. He had allowed Fourteen to do the planning to foster teamwork but was ready to reject her ideas if they were terrible.

But he had to admit... Fourteen had made equal contributions on an infiltration task with a Hyuuga teammate, something that almost never happened.

"Absolutely splendid work, Fourteen," he said, a rare impressed smile on his face.

"Huh? Thank you," she said, closing the ledger and standing up. "Let's see if we can complete another task before sunset."




Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link here and in signature.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.

 

[Fiction]

Sune Jakusho had been looking forward to the evening for the entire week. He had been making progress with the geisha, Yuri, and thought it would be another week before her futile resistance would crumble. He didn't mind her reluctance and defiance—in fact, he appreciated it—the prize was so much more enjoyable when the hunt was a real challenge.

He had visited her every week without fail, showered her with gifts, and done everything a geisha would expect from a patron. The more she refused to sleep with him, the more he wanted her. It wouldn't have been different if she had simply been playing hard to get more benefits from him, but she did not go beyond keeping company and making conversation with the men she saw, and that's what made her so enticing.

Her allure only got stronger when she remained unbudging in the face of increasingly lavish gifts. When wealth and riches didn't sway her, he tried something else. He made two of her patrons stop seeing her through simple 'persuasion' and let the news reach her ears that he was behind it. He had been quite charitable to the geisha house itself, granting him some influence, which he used to put pressure on Yuri through her own people.

He put pressure on her from all sides, slowly isolating her.

Jakusho chuckled. He couldn't wait to see what kind of face she would make today.

"Hey, go faster," he said, kicking the driver's seat back.

"Y-Yes, sire," said the Jakusho's civilian driver of two years.

"Bloody useless," Jakusho said to his two lackeys from the gang coming along with him. They would spend some time with some cheap girls because they had no money to spare for finer entertainment, and they enjoyed themselves every week on his dime.

"Are you going to bed the geisha today, big brother?" asked one of his lackeys.

"The longer you cook a stew, the more flavourful it becomes. This one is going to be ready any day now. If not today, next week might be the day I feast," Jakusho said with a haughty smile when he saw the envy in his other lackey's eyes.

Jakusho craned his neck back and looked up at the sky. His smile went away. He enjoyed playing with his prey as part of the hunt, but there was a limit to his patience. He preferred to be a strategic hunter, but if intricate finesse wasn't enough, he didn't mind becoming a butcher and going in for a straightforward kill.

If the woman didn't understand her role as the whore she was supposed to be, then he didn't mind showing her the light of reality.

The horse pulling the carriage suddenly neighed loudly, immediately following the carriage screeching to a violent halt and drifting to the side, almost sending the three men flying out of their seats.

"You imbecile! What are you doing!?" Jakusho screamed at the driver and slapped him in the back.

"S-Sire, it's not my fault," the driver winced in pain, "the carriage in front of us suddenly lost its wheel."

Jakusho didn't need to be told, as he saw the carriage collapse in the middle of the street.

The back right wheel shattered on the ground when he got up to punish the driver. The people on the street were agitated because of the sudden accident and had moved away from the collapsed carriage while also gathering around the accident because of curiosity.

"Drive around it and be quick. I will cut your pay if I'm late," Jakusho said, shooting a nasty glare at the driver. He clicked his tongue as he returned to his seat. "Fuckers, why do they own carriages when they can't take care of them."

As the driver tried to get them out of the mess, Jakusho gazed around and saw a beautiful young woman with striking amber eyes. She was looking at him and smiled when their eyes met. He smiled back while giving her a look over. She was wearing a grey cloak covering her entire body, but something in her expression caught her attention.

It was confidence.

The woman was beautiful, and she knew it. More importantly, she didn't mind using it to her advantage. Jakusho desired to see that kind of confidence shattered and gaze at its broken remains—just the thought of it brought him pleasure. So when her arm slipped out of her cloak, and she beckoned him with a finger, he went to her while the driver got them out around the accident.

He decided that if the young woman was interesting, she would be his next hunt after he was done with the geisha.

"Brother?"

"Keep still, I'll be back," he said as he stepped down from the carriage.

As he walked toward the woman, who stepped out of the crowd of onlookers, a fog-like mist came rolling in on the road, very quickly reaching above the ankle. It was a little too early and warm for the fog season, surprising the people gathered around the intersection as it filled the area. Jakusho, who was pleased with the woman's straightforwardness and eagerness, paused when she disappeared from his vision, obscured by the fog.

His hand immediately went to his sword as his sense of danger rang.

He had a faint, almost imperceptible sound and looked up just in time to see a figure descending from the sky. The thick mist that reduced visibility gave him no time to react, and thus, he could only swing his sword at his assailant.

The sword hit metal, and the lights from the sparks illuminated a kunai.

A shinobi! Jakusho thought as he also caught a glimpse of the masked figure.

The clash knocked the kunai out of the shinobi's hand. Jakusho took that as an opportunity and opening to attack, but before he could move, four kunai were thrust toward him. Once again, the mist made it so that he could only see them at the last second.

He held his breath as he parried them all before they could draw blood. The sparks created a second of light, and he made out his assailant's leaf-patterned mask. He also noticed that he didn't hear the deflected kunai hit the ground. But before he could decide if he wanted to fall back or attack to reverse the momentum, a kunai flew for his heart at a lightning-fast speed, which he barely avoided by shifting his body so that it would hit his arm.

Jakusho groaned in pain, but it only served to sharpen his sense of danger. By now, he was fully cognisant that someone was trying to kill him. He suspected that the broken carriage before them was part of the plan to trap him in the place.

He ignored the kunai stuck in his arm. His breathing turned deeper as he assumed the correct stance.

In the face of a barrage of kunai, his sword moved with the principle of water's fluidity, every subsequent strike seamlessly flowing from its predecessor. What he initially thought were kunai thrown at him, he now recognised as being held by something obscured from his vision by the mist.

"You made a mistake coming after me, shinobi!"

A glowing translucent layer of chakra flooded around his sword, assuming the shape of a longer and broader blade. The samurai's kenjutsu allowed them to flow chakra through their blades to grant them increased cutting and destructive potential, along with the ability to mould chakra around the sword into any shape they desired.

As Jakusho swung his sword around, any mist that came into contact with the sword's chakra.

It was one of the samurai kenjutsu's core properties. The ability to cut through anything it touched, treating wood and steel as though they were the same. It could even cut through shinobi's ninjutsu. Anything that came in contact with it was destroyed.

A crescent of chakra shot out of the sword as he swung, spreading as it moved out, destroying any and all mist it touched. It was the second core property. The ability to blast out the special kenjutsu chakra into the distance, granting them range.

The mist redistributed itself into the empty spaces, but it was lighter than before, allowing him to see slightly better. He could vaguely make out the wriggling appendages around his assailant.

"Big brother!"

"Stay away if you don't want to be killed by ac—"

The shinobi struck while Jakusho spoke, catching him on the back foot. He parried and blocked the floating kunai held up by appendages. Two more appendages suddenly grabbed his arm and yanked hard, forcing him to shuffle to maintain his balance.

"You fucker!" he cursed as he swung his sword to cut through the appendages, and when they hit the ground, he realised it was water because it splashed him.

He flowed into his next attack and raised his sword up to swing it down as the shinobi threw a punch which was never going to reach him because of the distance, but a force hit Jakusho on his face, startling him and throwing him off before he could swing his sword.

He didn't know what hit him. Another shinobi ninjutsu? But he recovered quickly and raised his guard as the shinobi moved in close. His eyes tracked the water appendages and the kunai—but the shinobi punched him. Jakusho raised his arm to block it as he readied the sword in his other hand for the counterattack—he was going to cut his head off.

The plan to counterattack didn't come to fruition when he felt his arm crack as a ruinous force assaulted his arm.

"Argh!" he screamed as he felt his arm grow heavy as it failed due to his broken arm.

He gritted his teeth and haphazardly struck out a kick that somehow connected, pushing the shinobi one step away, which wasn't enough. He slashed with his sword to launch a chakra crescent, which the shinobi couldn't ignore easily and ducked while rolling sideways.

I need to escape. He no longer wanted to confront the shinobi with a broken arm. He knew that if he engaged the shinobi for another minute, other samurai would arrive at the scene, and he would have a backup, but he didn't like the risk that came with the plan. It was better to escape and cause as much commotion as possible in hopes that it would scare the shinobi away.

Jakusho turned in the opposite direction as the shinobi rolled away and dug into his pocket for a smoke bomb when he felt cold metal dig through his back before the sharp pain made him stop. He turned back to see the cloaked woman he had met at the roadside step away from him with his blood on her hands.

"Y-You—"

Anger overrode pain as he raised his sword to strike her down. Four more kunai hit him in his side— one slipped between his ribs, two tore into his thighs, one ripped his oblique apart, but the one that did him in went through his neck. The woman had stepped away but charged him the moment he was hit, stabbed him in the heart with a kunai, and pushed him to the ground.

He had already lost strength in his body and collapsed like a sack. As his body went cold and his blood pooled on the road, the last thing Jakusho heard was a conversation between his assassins.

"Let's leave before trouble arrives," said the woman to the masked man who walked closer.

"Yeah, just one moment," said the man before he knelt beside him and took out the first kunai that had hit him in the arm.

Jakusho mustered all of his strength to grab the man's arm while he cried, which only came out as blood gurgles because of the kunai in his neck. The man didn't even need to put any strength to shrug off his hand.

"Rest. Everything's over now," said the man softly.

Those were Jakusho's last words before the man ended his life with one last stab.





Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link here and in signature.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.

 

[Fiction]

When the local newspaper hit the streets in the early morning, the article about the robbery at the high-ranking samurai's house became the topic of discussion and chatter among the city populace. It wasn't something they hadn't seen before, but it was rare enough to be a once-a-year sighting.

It was expected to be talked about for a couple more days as more details about the case and comments from the investigators came up—but by the time evening rolled around, another incident had captured the city's attention.

One of the local radio stations had been broadcasting a developing news story throughout the day,

"Those who are just tuning in for the first time today, let me recap the situation we at 101FM have been following from its first sighting... Around eight in the morning today, a bathhouse in the Middle Candle district suddenly went up in flames. The fire spread fast and hot, and the firefighters couldn't stop it before it had already completely covered the beloved community relaxation spot... Fortunately, the bathhouse hadn't opened for business, and the staff had escaped before the fire consumed the building.

"According to our sources, the fire started in the boiler room, and the cause seemed to be a fault in the machinery... While tragic for the owners and a loss for the community, the story would've ended there"— the jockey paused and let the silence linger to build just the right amount of silence —"but we wouldn't be talking about if it did— because roughly half an hour later, a fire exploded in a restaurant across the district, decimating the popular eatery; once again, no lives were lost as the staff managed to escape... The cause was seemingly identified as a leak in the gas line. An unfortunate coincidence? It sure seemed like that way. But at that time, we didn't know that there was so much brewing in the shadows and that the Ember Imperial City had a huge problem on its hands...

"Three hours later, once again, in the Middle Candle district, a small worker's dorm went down in yet another bizarre fire... Now, you don't need me to tell you that something is wrong when three separate buildings around the district burn down in the span of three hours... These fires were set deliberately. There's a shady arsonist who's going around setting buildings around the Middle Candle district on fire. You don't need to take my word for it because samurai began investigating the incidents after the third fire—but as though the arsonist was saying that he was not scared of them, he claimed a warehouse in the district as his fourth target around noon.

"After four fires in a single day, the Middle Court district is now under a lockdown, and samurai roam the streets to deter the arsonist from continuing his spree while they try to catch him—and it seems to work as three hours have passed with no activity." The jockey paused and sighed as the soft music behind him filled the silence. "Unfortunately, half an hour ago, we received news about a fifth fire in the Middle Candle district. It took us time to gather and confirm the facts from our sources, which was difficult because the samurai were turning everyone away...

"The fires till now have been at places of business; however, this fire was at a residential neighbourhood where a house was burned. It was the home of one Mister Higurashi, who actually owned the worker's dorm targeted by the arsonist... It seems these fires are not random, and the arsonist has a reason to target the ones he did. We don't know what those reasons are right now, but we do have a new piece of information—

"Until now, the arsonist had gone unseen, but this time, one of the neighbours caught a glance of the criminal, and they described him to be a man wearing green and grey shinobi-styled combat gear and a mask—and he saw them skipping roofs... It seems our arsonist is not a normal bloke but someone who might be versed in the shinobi arts. So, now the question is..."

The voice of the jockey faded as the volume of the radio was turned down by Zakahira Nozan, the son of Zakahira Mahachi, whose house had been robbed the day before.

"Did you catch that, father?" Nozan asked as he turned the volume knob. "The arsonist wore green-and-grey clothes with a mask... Do you think he's the same man?"

"Perhaps he is," said Mahachi from behind the desk in his study. He glanced at the empty spot on the wall where the twin daggers sat.

"But what about the woman?" Nozan wondered aloud.

"The man getting spotted doesn't mean he's alone—it can also mean that the woman went undetected. Five fires in a day is a lot; the risk of mistake, capture, or getting spotted increases with each subsequent fire—especially with the lockdown. It's a reasonable assumption that he didn't do it alone," said Mahachi before going silent

Nozan gazed at his, who looked deep in thought.

"What is it? Did you notice something?" he asked.

"It's uncommon for a team to take on tasks so different, and that too, in such a short period of time off. They stole from our home yesterday and then set fires to buildings today? No, something feels wrong here... I think these might be two different teams tackling their own jobs. However, I think they're related to each other," said Mahachi as he stood up from his chair, "and if we catch the arsonists, we might be able to get the thieves..."

Nozan stood up, "Let's go help them catch these bastards."

———
.

A cautious Sixteen stood inside a tiny bar run by a single man as a hobby, who only opened it on days when his friends wanted to drink and catch up, which, with different friend groups, came up to three times a week. It was such a hobby that he only opened it for friends, associates, and acquaintances and took no actual customers.

The bar made no money because the price of drinks was kept at a level that allowed it to stay afloat without making a loss. The owner had a different source of income. And because he owned the land on which the bar stood, he didn't even have to pay rent.

That unfortunate owner, who had only opened the bar for a few hours, was sprawled on the floor, knocked out by Sixteen, who was currently pouring down kerosene and liquor bottles all over the building. Some liquors were far too valuable to waste, so he stored away a few very expensive bottles he planned to gift to the ANBU-nin conducting the recruitment. Anything to increase his chances of getting the job.

He had already set a bathhouse and warehouse on fire, and they were very difficult to burn without attracting attention, which was why he had left the tiny bar with a single man as an obstacle as his last target.

"Alright, up you go," he grunted as he stowed the bar owner over his shoulder and left out from the back exit, where he settled the man against the wall over the adjacent building.

He weaved hand seals for a D-rank Fire Release jutsu and three spinners of fire into the bar to set the kerosene and alcohol on fire. The accelerants started burning immediately, and the fire spread almost too fast—but he had done it twice already and wasn't surprised by the speed.

Sixteen closed the door and picked up the owner before dumping him at a safe distance.

Setting the bar on fire was easy; the hard part was leaving the Middle Candle district unseen, which had only gotten more difficult as the samurai's presence had grown stronger. If it were just samurai, he wouldn't have worried as much because there weren't enough numbers to lock the area down—but when you added civilian patrolmen, moving around became a real challenge.

With his work finally done, he decided to take zero risk as he exited the district and spent an entire hour covering the distance, which would've only taken him fifteen to twenty minutes.

"Why are you so late? I've been worrying that they got you," said Five, his partner for the missions in the Ember Imperial City.

"I had to change targets," sighed Sixteen as he stepped on the roof of an apartment building.

His initial target was a teashop, but he had to abandon it because there was a heavy samurai and patrolman presence in the area, so he switched to his backup, the bar, which he found doable.

"You let them see you," Sixteen said pointedly to Five, who looked sheepish for a moment before shrugging.

"It doesn't matter. Three and Thirteen already leaked our 'appearance' yesterday," he said with air quotes. They had read the news about the robbery at the samurai's house in the newspaper, which accurately described the candidate's gear. The reason they knew it was Three and Thirteen was because the robbers were a man and a woman—and between the two teams with a woman, they weren't going to think the Seven-Fourteen team with a Hyuga would let anyone see them.

Sixteen couldn't argue against that. He stepped next to a rusty table they found on the roof, which had a city map sitting flat on it. An area of the map was outlined, and multiple locations were marked in pen inside it. The marked locations ranged from restaurants, workshops, and warehouses to residential houses, worker dorms, and bathhouses.

All those properties were owned by people associated with a territory-based group who controlled the outlined area by owning and operating properties and businesses, allowing them to impose their own local rules and influence how things were done in the area.

Their informant task involved arson. The group that controlled the outlined area had grown too strong an influence over it to the point where they had begun to sway how the government funding allocated for the area's development and maintenance was used—and had begun using it not for the overall area's improvement but for their personal gain.

Their objective was to destroy key locations and bring scrutiny to them to weaken the group's influence and stop their illegal practices.

"You could have just returned without doing the third location," said Five as he also gazed at the map.

The mission only asked them to target any four locations, but the two decided to split up, and target three locations each to be safe in case one of them couldn't fulfil all the targets, the other would make up for the deficit.

"I didn't feel good about not pulling my weight," said Sixteen.

"Get changed quickly. I'm hungry, and you lost the bet," said Five.

They had made a bet about who could complete their three targets first; the loser would pay for dinner.

"First, we go alert the informant," said Sixteen as he began undressing to change into his civilian clothes.

"Of course... Just one more task remaining," Five said with a long sigh.

They had been away from their houses for over a week. It wasn't a particularly long time for a mission, but other missions had highs and lows. The test had been a constant high gear because they didn't know when the ANBU would throw something at them. Even during their free time at the camp, they had been occupied by evaluating and being cautious of their competition being in such close proximity.

Fatigue was natural in the circumstances, and they had no idea if things would end in the Ember Imperial City.

———
.

"Oh, you're done?" said the informant when Takuma and Three sat in front of him while he was drinking at a roadside bar. He munched on a plate of fried chicken and other drinking food spread on the table. "Do you want to drink? I'm not paying though."

"We just came to inform you because you asked us," said Three.

"Can you make it quick? We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow," said Takuma as he rotated his tired shoulder. He was hungry because he hadn't eaten since early morning, and they still had to discuss the bounty hunt they were going to tackle tomorrow before they could sleep and rest for the day. He wanted to wrap things quickly so he could sleep even a minute more.

"Right, you do have a busy day tomorrow," said the informant with a chuckle before breaking into laughter while slapping his thighs. "Man, those guys can be so amusing sometimes!"

"I don't feel very good about this," Three leaned in to whisper, furrowing her brows in worry.

"Neither do I," said Takuma before speaking to the drunk man. "What do you mean?"

The informant rested his chubby chin on his thick palm and stared at them with half-lidded eyes, his face red from drinking. There was a few seconds of silence on the table before the informant pulled out a set of four scrolls strapped together.

"Here's your second, surprise task... I hope you weren't thinking about sleeping tonight."





Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over to Patreón [fictiononlyreader]. Link here and in signature.
Note: All the chapters will eventually be posted on public forums.

 

[Jaron]

I feel a sympathetic bone dead ache from the sleep deprivation Takuma is going through.