Killing Time
Chapter Nineteen: Up All Night Again
By Kaori

Sasuke decided that he was ill suited for these types of missions. He was quite aware that being a ninja wasn't all about grand battles against strong opponents but he was discovering more and more that he had little patience for glorified police work. The irony of this had not escaped him either. His father had been very proud of his position as Chief of the Konoha Police Force, charged with the protection of the village from civilian and shinobi alike. Sasuke had no taste for it.

Still, he was here to do a job and he was going to do it. Naruto would never let him hear the end of it if he somehow managed to fail such an easy mission. He smirked. If the blonde loudmouth were here he'd be complaining about how bored he was or picking a fight with him. If nothing else it would be more interesting than following behind Kakashi listening to gossip. Although, that story about a circular patch of grass outside of town that nothing grows on did catch his attention. He'd probably ask Kotorra what she knew about it when they went back to the hotel.

Kakashi noticed Sasuke's irritation and inwardly sighed. While it was true that the boy was dutifully eavesdropping on the gossipers he wasn't truly listening. If asked Sasuke could probably recall and summarize each conversation. Still, there was no doubt in the jounin's mind that had he brought Sakura with him (and gotten her focused on the task at hand) she'd do a much better job of picking up the subtleties of what wasn't being said; who had a deep-seated dislike for Morimoto-san and might be responsible for the recent trouble he's been having.

So far he'd learned a few interesting things. A group of suspicious individuals had entered the town, one of which fit the description of the man he had seen watching Kotorra in the casino. There were six of them in total and they were staying at the Tokuro Hotel. Said hotel also houses Casino Midoriko and is owned by one of the men who would greatly profit from his client's troubles. It looked like their first stop tonight would be Casino Midoriko.

"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked, as he and Kakashi entered the room only to find both girls sitting on the floor in the full lotus position with their eyes closed.

"Meditating on the profound mysteries of the universe." Kotorra intoned. "Opening our minds to the cosmic influences that bind everyday life and allowing them to provide us with wisdom. All things become clear, and all questions can be answered. One truth becomes two. Two truths become four. Truths upon truths, layers unto layers. At this very moment I am being filled with the chi of the cosmos."

"Bullshit."

"You doubt me?" Kotorra challenged, opening one eye to regard him. She made a sharp motion with her hand and the next thing Sasuke knew he was surrounded in white. "Behold! The universe has given you sheet!"

"Get this thing off of me!" apparently the girls had gone the extra mile as the offending item of linen was securely pinned to the floor with kunai.

Once they'd extracted the Uchiha from his cotton prison, Kakashi filled them in on what they had learned and where they'd be going tonight. Following that, Kotorra shared what she and Sakura had been up to that afternoon.

"And why is that significant?" Sasuke asked, confused.

"I've been trying to get her to explain that myself." groused Sakura.

"All right, I think I've kept Sakura in suspense long enough." Kotorra said. "Pay attention because I'm only going through this once. Morimoto-san's casinos are Suzaku, Byakko, Genbu, and Seiryu. Genbu and Byakko casinos weren't attacked and both of those buildings were just upgraded from their previous functions so we can ignore them. However, the buildings that were where the Seiryu and Suzaku are had been demolished so why bother attacking them unless..." Silence. She gave an exasperated huff."Unless whatever used to be there wasn't completely gone!"

"That's quite a leap in logic there." Kakashi pointed out. "What makes you think that?"

"The fact that this town used to have a castle built on top of a large, siege-warfare friendly hill. I find it very difficult to believe that anyone would do such a tactically ridiculous thing unless they were certain that the enemy could not starve them to death by surrounding the castle."

"You think there was another way into it from underneath one of Morimoto's casinos."

"But the castle is in ruins now. Why would they still want to find a secret way in?" Sakura asked.

"The main structure of the castle is gone, but not the basement." Sasuke mused. "What if whatever it is that was in there was kept in the basement level? They can't just waltz into the place and start poking around, and they definitely wouldn't be able to take anything out unless there was a way they could do so without being seen."

"Exactly! Very good Asshat!" beamed Kotorra. Sasuke threw a cushion at her and it smacked her in the face. The older girl picked it up and whapped Sakura with it started an impromptu pillow fight.

"I still feel it's a stretch." hummed Kakashi, watching the teenagers go at it in amusement. "The theory does hold some merit though. We'll have to see if there are any rumours about secret tunnels into the castle. Anyway, if you three are done playing around we should go get some dinner before we head to the casino."

Ten o' clock pm found Team Kakashi and Kotorra strolling into Casino Midoriko like they owned the place. Kakashi and Sasuke looked especially handsome in dark red suits with black ties and highly polished shoes. Sakura was decked out in a red and white, short-sleeved cheongsam and black matching red ankle boots; a gold cuff bracelet with an embedded ruby adorned her left hand and her hair was kept back with a red headband. Kotorra herself was wearing a black tunic with long kimono sleeves and purple trimming, matching wide-legged flowing pants and sandals; silver hoop earrings and a matching necklace completed the ensemble, while her hair was pulled back into a bun. There were quite a few appraising looks tossed in their direction but they paid them little attention, striding purposefully towards the high rollers' area. Predictably they were stopped at the door.

"Woah there young lady, you can't just walk in here." said the security guard. Kotorra fixed him with a blank stare.

"This is the high rollers' room, right?" she inquired shortly.

"Yes, but I can't just let you in there. I don't know what you were told, but there's a hundred thousand ryo minimum on the tables in here."

"So little? How boring..." drawled the wild card, garnering a surprised look from the security guard. Apparently that wasn't the reaction he had been expecting. "Maybe it's better if I took my business elsewhere..."she made as if to security guard seemed to panic, and he jumped when a hand was suddenly placed on his shoulder. Standing behind him was a very well-dressed man.

"Umishiro-san!" apparently this man was someone important.

" Saito, let them in." Umishiro ordered. "I apologize for the trouble miss. Saito-san here will show you and your entourage in." Kotorra allowed a triumphant smirk to slide across her features as the security guard tripped over himself to escort them to the cash cage to get chips. Just to make the man sweat some more, she got three hundred thousand ryo in chips then asked to be shown to a good table.

"You!" a demanding voice barked from her left. Kotorra knew she should just ignore it but looked anyway. Inwardly she groaned; as she thought, it was Lady Ise.

Unfortunately for the black-clad young woman, Lady Ise's table was the only one with a seat available and thus she was pit against the abrasive woman. The only good thing about this was that there were four other players at the table who weren't determined to pick a fight.

Kakashi was taken aback that one of the players at Kotorra's table was the same young man who had been observing her the previous night. He was somewhat baffled by the rather rude woman who had all but demanded Kotorra play at her table; not that there was any other choice. Then it all made sense when one of the other players addressed her as "Lady Ise". Ah, this was the woman Kotorra had mentioned. This ought to be interesting.

A few hands were played and through conversation the identities of the other players were revealed. The only one Kakashi was interested in was the young man from the previous night, Hijikata Rouen. The three others, Tsukishima Jiro, Watanabe En, and Doro Iori were only in his periphery at the moment.

Feh, this is a chronic hand. Kotorra thought to herself, impassively eyeing her pair of twos. Best to fold this time. I've won the last two rounds so I can afford to take a loss right now. "I'll fold."

"Oh, luck running out so soon?" Lady Ise mocked. Kotorra was expecting this and dutifully ignored her. "I guess you're not such a gambling prodigy when it comes to your betters."

"I hardly think you're in a position to talk Lady Ise." Rouen said blandly. "You are a nobility by circumstance, not birth."

"Bite your tongue! Who are you to talk about me that way?" the noble woman snapped.

"Lady Ise, please calm down!" cajoled Tsukishima, who was sitting at her left. "I'm sure he didn't mean anything by it!"

"Hmph. Whatever, I'll raise."

As the game wore on Kakashi was starting to notice little oddities about Rouen. During the bouts of conversation he never once mentioned anything about himself, but when the topic turned to others he was very quick to ask more questions or make factual comments. It was almost as if he was looking for something but didn't want anyone else to know. Kotorra seemed to have picked up on this as well...

"So, Hijikata-san, do you live here in town?" she asked, only sparing him a quick glance over her cards as if she only asked to keep up the idle conversation.

"No, I...came here for Morimoto-san's card tournament." Rouen replied haltingly.

I see. Wonder if he's going to be in it. He plays okay even though he sucks at small talk. "I'll take another card please...Hmm. I raise." she glanced at Rouen again. "Are you competing as well?"

"No, I came to observe." Sasuke and Sakura both frowned. Why did this guy seem uncomfortable? "If you're competing I wish you luck."

"Thank you." Kotorra smiled disarmingly.

"Is that why you have all these bodyguards?" Rouen ventured, less nervous now that he wasn't the subject of conversation. "Because you're in the tournament?"

"My friend insisted." More or less. I'm just a distraction for the real mission after all. "These days it's dangerous for a young woman to travel without protection. I am fortunate that I can afford to hire escorts."

"Escorts indeed. Aren't you a little young for that sort of thing?" Lady Ise's voice was mocking, her eyes flicked over to each member of Team Kakashi in turn. "And you have such...varied tastes." (1)

"Lady Ise, please don't project your personal preferences onto other people." Kotorra replied placidly, not even bothering to look at her. Lady Ise's indignant squawk could barely be heard over the roar of laughter from the rest of the table.

This chapter was hard to write because I actually didn't have any real idea why Morimoto's casinos would be attacked. However, a conversation about the mythical secret passages in the caves in the area I live in that supposedly connect to Government House (to date no one has tried to find out if this is true as far as I'm aware), and it sort of wrote itself. After all, it seems no matter what country it is castles in stories have treasures hidden in them. Looking at a picture of Tanzaku-Gai's castle and I noticed that it is situated in a manner that, if the town below was overrun, made it ripe for a battle of attrition.

Truthfully I'm not fully sold on this idea and I could re-write this part of the arc as I also got the idea for a backup story. If you guys like it as is I'll stick with it and use the back-up plot later on, it's up to you.

Also, you may have noticed that I've switched to using and with italicized text in between to donate internal speech. This is only to make it clear that the character is only talking to themselves and not silently communicating with someone.

1) Just in case you didn't get it, Lady Ise is not so subtly implying that Kotorra hired Kakashi and company as hookers and is only calling them bodyguards as a euphemism.