Part Eleven:

Problem

That night, inside the tiny house reserved for her just beyond her late husband's property, Hisakawa Hitomi was entertaining her own guest. She hadn't put on her finest kimono, but rather the one she looked the best in. It was made of thin black silk that cuddled close to the curves of her figure – being just barely into her fifties, her body hadn't lost all its graces just yet. The fine wrinkles around her eyes and mouth (more likely shout-lines than laugh-lines) had been slathered with creams to smooth them and she had fixed her hairdo into place with black wax to hide the silver strands.

Now her company, a portly man around the same age with a sad little goatee, sat in her tea room with her, impatient for some answers. He barely paid attention to her plainly displayed cleavage.

"Would you like more tea, Magistrate?" asked Hitomi, pouring the steaming liquid into the hefty man's cup before he could answer.

He made a little harrumph noise, but thanked her nonetheless. "Why is it you insisted I come here tonight, Hitomi?" he demanded. "I told you we shouldn't be seen together until after this ninja business is settled. I don't want rumors flying about and getting us stuck with legal charges."

"Pfft! Legal charges," the widow gracelessly scoffed, waving away his worries with a dainty hand. "It's perfectly legal to pay a ninja to assassinate someone. That's why I didn't want to involve any other samurai – living next door to Bushido-boy is enough for me to deal with as it is."

"Yes, it's legal to hire ninjas for many purposes," conceded the Magistrate, "but I had to hire someone from a certain clan – one that handles, er… delicate situations like ours. If things go sour in the mission, they'll terminate the contract and I'll have to take the fall. The clan is too closely related to the police to get mixed up in maters of the law."

"I told you to go with the Uchiha clan, but you wouldn't listen –"

"What's gone wrong, Hitomi?" he interrupted, desperate to get to the point and leave her house. "Your message said there was a problem."

The attractive woman sighed and hardly attempted to hide her annoyance with the Magistrate before answering. "The man you hired came today – actually a man and two women came."

The Magistrate's eyes widened and he suddenly leaned toward her. "And?"

"Well, the man started fighting with that awful Jin, so I thought: 'Finally, I can have my house back and my dear Magistrate won't have to worry about being opposed by this upstart!' Naturally, I was thrilled at the sight – it was very intense watching them trying to kill one another in broad daylight. Then…" she broke the sentence with another frustrated sigh and locked eyes with the Magistrate. "Then one of the visiting women stopped the fight."

"St-stopped it?" sputtered the Magistrate nervously, sweating slightly under Hitomi's glare.

"Yes!" snapped the widow. "She told the hired man off and the lot of them stormed back into the house. I sent my servant over there to spy on them and he told me they were simply talking – Jin didn't have a scratch on him!" At this point she stood and loomed over her guest like a harpy positioning itself for an attack. "And do you know what my servant said they were talking about?"

His demanding nature now thoroughly quelled, the pudgy Magistrate's eyes where wide as they watched Hitomi warily. "Gomashio?"

"NO! Not gomashio!" she crowed furiously. "They were talking about us and the mission! The mission you said would be a secret! Why would a group of ninjas sit down and have a chat with their TARGETS?"

"I have no idea, Hitomi!"

"Fix it!"

"Yes, yes! Of course!" The Magistrate suddenly hopped to his feet and started backing toward the door.

"I don't care if you have to walk to the nearest ninja clan and threaten to burn their village down, just get someone who will kill Jin!"

"There's no one who wants that more than I do, Hitomi –"

"I DO! I want it more! Now go fix it!"

With that, the fat man bustled out of the room and from the widow's house, wondering what he had gotten himself into over some slight political differences with a wealthy samurai.

Still within, Hitomi deflated and plopped down onto some floor cushions. A glint of silver flashed in the lamplight as she whipped a tiny mirror from her obi in much the same fashion as a warrior with a concealed knife. She frowned during the scrutiny of her face when she noticed the little lines around her mouth looked deeper and longer than ever despite all her age-defying creams. This samurai business was aging her faster than any trials her dead husband had put her through.