Chapter 3:

"This is terrible, Sarada. Everyone thinks Mitsuki's a bad guy and we know he's not. It was stupid for us to let them lock him up like that. Now everyone thinks he's guilty."

"They thought he was before he was locked up."

"Yeah, and having him locked up pretty much confirms it. That's how I'd see things."

"But you know things aren't always what they seem," Sarada argued.

"Like those guys will believe that! You saw them, Sarada. They thought they had it all figured out. Locking him up just makes them think they're right. Why did we do that?"

"I already explained it to you, Boruto. If we had prevented it, the mob would have dealt out vigilante justice which always makes things worse. An angry mob would level the town and dozens of innocent people would get hurt because they're blinded by rage. Mitsuki in a cell might make him look bad, but at least he's safe from them. As long as they think justice was served, they'll leave him alone. At the very least, if they do try, the guards will stop them because they're not allowed to do that."

Boruto sighed. "I still think it was stupid for us to give in and let them think Mitsuki's guilty."

"Which they won't think any more when the thief strikes again. With Mitsuki safely behind bars, there's no way he'd be guilty and they'll have no choice but to let him go free."

"Unless they think he's got a partner," Boruto pointed out.

Sarada cringed, realizing Boruto was right. There was a flaw in her plan.

To make matters worse, the thefts had all ceased once Mitsuki was put in a cell. With no items being stolen, everyone believed they had caught the right person. Now they couldn't prove Mitsuki's innocence because this made him look even more guilty.

"Don't these people use their brains?" Sarada asked. "The thefts were occurring before we got here. How could Mitsuki have done this? It doesn't make sense."

"I think they're willing to overlook that little detail." Boruto leaned against the wall, hoping another theft would strike but none took place. Instigating one would have been wrong and if he did something and got caught, he would have been guilty of theft. Besides, planting evidence would have made it even harder to find the real thief.

"I still don't get it," said Sarada. "Why did Mitsuki have his hand in that woman's bag? This isn't like him. He must have had a good reason."

"I don't know… He looked surprised when he saw it in his hand. Like he didn't understand why it was there."

"We should ask him," said Sarada.

"You think they'd let us in to see him?"

"If we tell them that we're interrogating him in order to find out where he has all the stolen loot." Sarada winked.

They went to Mitsuki's cell to speak to him. The guard stayed at the door in case they were thinking of running but didn't go in with them.

Boruto was nervous, fearing Mitsuki would see the cell as a betrayal of their friendship. Boruto knew he should have fought harder to defend his friend but he honestly didn't know what to say. Everything was so incriminating. The wallet was in Mitsuki's hand and so many people witnessed it, including Boruto himself. What else could he say? What could he have done? He knew how it looked but, given that they had no other explanation at the time, there was nothing else he could have said to the crowd to convince them otherwise.

Mitsuki sat calmly in his cell, standing and walking over to the bars as soon as he saw their faces. He didn't look upset, but Boruto apologized anyway for allowing him to be in such an awful place.

"We only did it because we were worried the angry crowd would have torn you apart if you weren't in a cell," explained Sarada. "We were trying to protect you from them."

"I understand," he said. "A cage works both ways. Keeping things in and out."

"I don't believe you're the thief," said Boruto. "Sarada and I both know you're not. You've been with us the whole time. They were going on before we even came to the town. The thief is still out there and we will catch them and make sure they trade places with you in this cell."

"But we need to understand why," said Sarada, resting her hand on the bars of Mitsuki's cage. "It doesn't look good, Mitsuki. Your hand was in that woman's bag and you were holding her wallet and so many people saw you. So please, help us understand why. Can you tell us what happened?"

Mitsuki looked at the cell floor. "I can't."

"Why not?"

He didn't answer.

"Please, Mitsuki. Tell us what happened."

Mitsuki didn't lift his head. "I did it. I took that wallet from her bag."

Sarada's heart sank. This wasn't what she wanted to hear and knew anyone listening would take this as a confession.

"But why?" asked Boruto, demanding an answer. "Why did you take her wallet? Why was your hand in her bag?"

Mitsuki frowned. "That's just it. I know I did it. I just… don't know why."

"You don't?" Boruto was confused. "I don't get it. What's that mean?"

Mitsuki didn't answer. He seemed just as confused as they were.

"You know you did but don't know why you did?" Sarada needed clarification.

Mitsuki tried to explain but he didn't fully understand himself. "It's strange and hard to explain. I just… It was like my body was on autopilot. I never made a conscious decision to move."

"Like… Like someone was controlling you?" Sarada now worried there was an enemy shinobi in the crowd, puppeting Mitsuki.

"No, not like that." Mitsuki was having a difficult time putting it into words. "I wasn't thinking. Yet… something was telling me I had to do it. I just… acted. And I don't understand why. Like scratching an itch. Sometimes your hand just goes to that spot without you knowing."

"You took her wallet absentmindedly? Or..? Wait, what's this about feeling like you had to?"

Mitsuki shook his head, puzzled as well. "I don't understand it. Something was telling me to do it but I never decided to do it. It wasn't that my body was moving on its own. I was doing it absentmindedly, but… I'm sorry. I can't explain this any better."

"It's ok, Mitsuki…"

He shook his head. "I saw the wallet but it never registered to my brain that I had it in my hand until I heard someone yelling."

"That man?"

Mitsuki nodded.

"What about me?" asked Boruto. "I asked you what you were doing and you looked at me. You remember that, right?"

Mitsuki tried to recall. "I remember hearing your voice… But it sounded different. Like you were far away or mumbling softly. I was dazed when you asked me that question. I didn't fully understand. Almost like… like…"

"Like you just woke up?"

Mitsuki's eyes lit up with clarity. "Yes. That's a lot like it."

Boruto glared into the cell, envisioning the real person who should have been in there. "I know who the thief is."

The hypnotist was just finishing up a performance and decided to take a break before the next show. He went away from the crowd to count his tips, generous bills lining the bottom of his hat. Behind all the makeshift stages and tents and cargo boxes, the noises of the crowd were muffled and he had some privacy. Hardly anyone came back here during this time, taking advantage of the townspeople doing their shopping and breaking for lunch.

A girl's voice distracted him. "Excuse me, sir?"

He turned around, stuffing the bills into his jacket. "Yes, how may I help you?" he asked, putting the hat on his head.

Sarada approached shyly. "Um, I don't know if you heard, but the thief was caught and put in a cell. He's my friend."

"Aw, that's a shame, girl. I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, but the thing is… It's not like him. But no one will believe us. And you're a hypnotist. You can make people believe whatever you want, right?"

He gave her a sad smile. "Oh, you want me to convince everyone that he's not the thief? That it?"

"Well, you could, couldn't you?" She looked at him, dropping the innocent girl act. "Like how you convinced Mitsuki to take that wallet in front of everyone?"

The hypnotist's face dropped. He scoffed and said, "I have no idea what you're taking about."

"Come on. My friend's a ninja. He knows how to be stealthy. If he had decided to steal something, he wouldn't have gotten caught like that." Sarada put a hand on her hip. "But you wanted him to, didn't you?"

"How do you figure?" he asked. "What would be the point?"

"Because you needed a scapegoat," Sarada explained. "Mitsuki was perfect for the part, wasn't he? You knew anyone in the town would be under scrutiny and Mitsuki just got here. People would believe he was the thief before believing it to be a friend and neighbor. Plus, it was very opportunistic. He came to you in private to see if he could be hypnotized and that was when you gave him a post-hypnotic suggestion. You probably told him to take something from someone and make it obvious so he'd get caught. That way, everyone would think he did it and you'd get away."

"Oh, honestly now…"

"No, I'm serious. You even made sure to stop stealing after you knew he had been imprisoned to further prove your supposed innocence."

"Or maybe your friend's actually guilty."

Sarada shook her head. "No. Because the thefts were going on before we got the mission request. Before we even got here. Without a map, we wouldn't have known about this place. Plus, Mitsuki's been with us the whole time. There was never a chance for him to go here and back home without anyone noticing. He has no reason to anyway."

The man frowned in an unconvinced manner but Sarada knew it was because he understood that she knew the truth.

"I'm going to tell you how you did this," Sarada said with a smirk. "You've been doing everything in plain sight. Just like a magician. Only your sleight of hand is different. You see, you never actually had to pickpocket anyone because they gave everything to you of their own choosing."

"Then I'm not a thief," said the man.

"Ah, but you are," she went on. "You see, any hypnotist would know how to hypnotize a volunteer and a crowd. During your performance, everyone's paying close attention to you. Everything you say gets absorbed. You hypnotized the crowd into giving you their valuables."

The man scoffed. "Since you know so much about my craft, you should also be aware that hypnosis can't make someone do something they don't want to do. It's all the power of suggestion."

"But you can make people think something," Sarada pointed out. "More specifically, make them see something you want them to see. Such as numbers on a bill. It would be easy for a hypnotist to trick someone into miscounting. You see it all the time in acts. You hypnotized either the people on stage or the crowd or both into mistaking one bill for another so they'd overpay. They thought they only gave you a small bill when in actuality it was a large bill. This explains why the people never noticed until after the performance when they were off doing other things. By then, the spell had worn off and they were able to properly recognize their money again. They thought they had been pickpocketed but actually they gave you the money during or after the performance. They just didn't realize."

The man folded his arms defiantly. "That's a cute story but that's all it is. Besides, if any of it were true, the fact of the matter is that they gave me the money. I didn't tell them to hand it over. Any tips they gave me were their own decision."

"But tricking people into thinking one bill is another is stealing because you deliberately fooled them into believing that in order to get more money. You knew they'd give you a tip because they felt obligated but you also knew that the tips they gave would be small. Going off that, you told them to mistake big bills for small ones so you'd get more money. You tricked them into giving you more money than they were willing."

The man frowned. "You really believe that?"

She shrugged. "Or you cut out the middle man and simply hypnotized the crowd into giving you the money and once the trance wore off, they gave you tips in addition to what they already gave you while under hypnosis. Either way works. It would also explain why nobody has a very clear memory of the event in question. Just like Mitsuki. He said he wasn't fully aware of what he was doing and that's because you hypnotized him into do that. And it really is a clever plan. Your tracks are covered and you simply repeat the scam in another town when you need to."

The hypnotist laughed. "That's a clever plan, alright. But perhaps too clever for a humble hypnotist to pull off. I think you're overthinking it."

"No, I think I'm right on the mark," said Sarada, putting both hands on her hips. "The timing all plans out perfectly. It also exonerates my friend. The thefts took place before he got here and a ninja wouldn't be that clumsy and it explains why he doesn't fully remember what happened. Boruto was also there to witness you hypnotize him. He volunteered and you took advantage of that by giving him a post-hypnotic suggestion. It also explains why no one's wallet was missing until after Mitsuki saw you."

The hypnotist raised his brow.

"Money was missing from their wallets or pockets but not the wallets themselves. How could someone be so skilled as to remove the wallet, take the money and put it back in the person's pocket or bag without anyone noticing? It's because they gave you the money during the performance and didn't realize. Wallets only started going missing after you met with Mitsuki. I think it's because you told him to target the wallets deliberately. Again, interesting timing."

He snorted and shook his head. "While those things might all match up, you don't have any real proof."

"Actually, I think I do." Sarada pointed at him. "You see, those wallets were never recovered and Mitsuki didn't have them on his person. I think you told him to leave them somewhere for you to pick up later. Couldn't help your greed, could you?"

"Now that would be foolish," said the man. "Then I'd have the evidence on my person."

"Mm, unless you originally intended to plant them on someone else in case Mitsuki didn't work out."

"That's ridiculous. I used the brat so I wouldn't have to."

Sarada smirked.

The hypnotist hastily corrected himself. "According to your theory, anyway."

"Face it," said Sarada. "Using Mitsuki was just opportunistic. You just wanted to see what you could get away with using this method and didn't think you needed a scapegoat but were happy to find one when you did during a private session. You didn't have a plan beyond that because it was very clever."

The hypnotist gritted his teeth in anger. Then his scowl turned into a smirk. "It doesn't matter. It's your word against mine. And as you said, it was a clever plan. I covered my tracks perfectly and the town believes the thief is behind bars because I stopped pulling my scam after he was locked up. Who's going to believe you? And that's the thing about using hypnosis to trick people. You don't really have any evidence. None of the people even remember the commands I gave them."

Sarada grinned smugly. "Don't be so sure about that."

The hypnotist raised his brow, thinking it was a bluff. Then he noticed it was unusually quiet, even with the structures muffling the noisy street. He looked around. They were alone back here among the props and crates.

A crate rattled and opened, revealing the contortionist. She was holding something under her arm that looked like a megaphone. A long tube was sticking out behind the crate and around the corner. When he moved to see where it led, the sun hit his eyes, reflected off a mirror.

"What the hell?"

The contortionist dropped the megaphone in the grass. "I said I wouldn't work with the magician again unless he agreed on fifty-fifty."

The magician moved the mirror aside, stepping into view. "Rule of magic is nothing is as it seems and I must say, you are a master of illusion yourself. Never thought you'd stoop so low, sir. Now everyone knows."

The hypnotist looked back and forth in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"As you know, our traveling show is too cheap to have real cameras, but, set up enough mirrors positioned just so and a makeshift megaphone, and you can get by just fine. This is one trick I don't mind revealing." The magician pointed. "All these mirrors are angled towards the street. Everyone could see you from different angles and the megaphone just amped up your voice towards the crowd, but you couldn't hear it back here, could you? If we had real microphones and amps, you could pick it up more easily, so in that sense, I'm glad we work cheap."

The hypnotist backed away, realizing everyone had heard their conversation. He turned to run but found Boruto and the man running the dog show blocking his path.

"Found these in a trashcan," said Boruto, dumping a handful of wallets on the ground. "The cash was emptied out of them, but you already knew that, didn't you?"

"Uh…"

"Couldn't resist taking the money out of them before dumping them, could you? And I'm going to bet the scent of these wallets' contents are going to be traced back to you. Don't take my theory on that. Take it up with these guys." Boruto gestured to the dogs.

The dog show man shook his head in disappointment. "Honestly, using your talents to take money from your audience and pin it on a kid who came to help. I'm sort of glad my dogs' barking kept you up at night on the road."

The hypnotist looked all around and no matter where he turned, his path was blocked by angry faces. A fist came flying at his face and knocked him to the ground. His jacket flew open and all the large bills he had collected went flying.

"That's for pinning it on Mitsuki, you jerk," said Sarada, standing under the fluttering bills.

Boruto huffed. "Seriously, Sarada, I was just about to do that."

"You can kick him if you like."

"There's no sport in kicking a guy on the ground, no matter how horrible he is."

She sighed. "Whatever. You can throw him in the cell, though."

Boruto shrugged with a smirk. "I'll take it."

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