Prologue

The Bar

Max Louscher

"We have a big mission tomorrow, Kaito. Don't get carried away again."

"Don't Lecture me Akimoto."Besides, it's just a bit of sake." I sighed.

That's what he said, every night. And if tonight was like any other, and I'm sure it will be, I'll have to drag him back to his apartment. Again.

Kawazoe Kaito is my team "leader", but it seems like I do most of the leading. He's your average Never-give-up Brawler. He's also an alcoholic. He comes

to the same bar almost every night, drinks an enormous amount of sake, hits on all

of the girls, and finally tries to fight every guy in the bar at once. This is the

point of the show which I suddenly become a hero. I get up from my table in the

back, walk up behind him, and poke him in the neck with a senbon. Okay, so I don't

do anything heroic, but at least nobody gets hurt.

I'm always worried how Kaito-san would react one night if he came to his

favorite bar, only to realize he was banned due to something he can't even

remember. Fortunately, this has yet to happen. In fact, the bartender finds us

hilarious and even gave me a discount for Kaito-san's tab, and I even get free tea. Sweet.

"Hey, you there?"

"eh?" I blinked. "oh. We're here. Let the carnage begin."

"why? Is there some tough guy here lookin' for trouble?"

I smile. "You could say that." I think I'll have some fun for once.

He sits down In the front of the bar in his chair. It practically has his name on it. I sit in my also-almost-designated table in the back. I order a pot of tea. By general experience, it'll take Kaito about twenty minutes to get drunk enough to start hitting on the ladies. Maybe I'll talk to some of them for once. I look around. Everyone here tonight are veterans to the bar, and all know Kaito.

There were some pretty girls gossiping in the corner. They reminded me somewhat of birds, flocking together and--

"Hey, you're Akimoto, right?" I snap around so fast I almost spilled the

tea I was holding. Well THIS is a shocker. I was going to prepare some kind of

conversation so I wouldn't mess up everything.

"uhh...Can I help you?" I managed to say.

"Sure! You can talk with me!" She pours herself a cup of tea. She was grinning like a schoolgirl. It was really unnerving.

"So! I see you come in here almost every night with Red-shirt, and you just

sit here in the back. Why is that?"

"I don't like bars, but Kaito is too dangerous as a drunk to be left alone."

She tilted her head. "what do you mean by that?"

"He's an alcoholic and a mild suiken-user."

"Oh. That kinda sucks."

"Yeah."

There was an awkward silence. I quickly examined my opponent. She looked

pretty nice, Shoulder-length brown hair, happy face, a bit too skinny, no real

figure to speak of. Kaito most likely would have considered her ugly for her lack of breasts.

"So, what do you do?"

I tilted my head slightly. "I'm a chuunin. is that what you mean?"

"No, silly, I mean what do you specialize in. It's not like you're a

shinobi prodigy that's great at everything, right?"

I couldn't help but smile at her forwardness. "No, I'm not. I'm an average marksman

and can hardly be called a fighter. So I mainly focus on genjutsu and the medical arts."

"Wow. I guess you have to be pretty mentally strong to be able to do both of those at once."

"I've only had to do both at once a few times, and it's really draining.

What about you?"

"I'm a tracker and a bowman, and I don't really like direct fighting either.

What about him?" She nodded her head toward Kaito.

Right now he was hitting on one of the pretty girls from the corner.

Chances are he just used some "sexy pick-up line", because the girl slapped him almost immediately after he finished talking.

"He's a swordsman, a brawler, and a smartass. He thinks he's so hot with

his big swords, but he'd be dead without me. You know what this is?" I held up a large needle.

"well, that's a senbon, but there's probably more to that."

"There always is. This is soaked in a sedative that I use with almost all of my weapons. Get even scratched by this stuff, and you'll fall asleep until I

wake them up with my chakra signal. Great for capturing enemies. Much more

efficient than his dual katanas."

"Cool. Since you're showing this to me, I imagine you'll do a

demonstration?"

"Not yet, but soon." I smile. "You seem like a regular here, so how long

would you say we have until Kaito starts fighting?"

Suddenly, The girl whipped her head back, tipped over her chair quickly. Just as

she did this, a table quickly rolled past where she was sitting. Just how long have

we been talking?

"I'd say about now." The girl was standing behind me. She's fast, I

thought.

I felt like doing something special for a closer tonight. I flicked the

long needle not towards Kaito, but above him by the light. It ricochet off the

light, Shattering the bulb, and sunk into Kaito's hand, which was currently searching for a bottle to throw. He turned around quickly, as though to find the

one who did that, but the sedative was already overpowering his nerve system. He

sat down on a chair behind him, and passed out. There was applause, and I bowed.

"Nice shot", She said behind me.

"Thanks. Now if you'll excuse me..." I walked over to Kaito, lifted him up

over my shoulder, and walked off.

--

A few minutes later, I thought: Oh shit. I finally meet a girl that I like,

and I forgot to ask her name. That was stupid... Well, she's a regular there, so

next time Kaito-san wants to go to the bar, I can see her!

I sighed. Kaito would most likely make fun of me for her. But at the same

time, I wouldn't care. I looked up. The sky was beautifully clear, with a

crescent moon. As I looked back down, A shooting star shot over my head.

"Things are looking up." I said out loud with a smile.

--End of prologue