[Stranger Danger Should Always Be Taken Seriously!]
The night was bustling. Kagura's long sleeves billowed in the warm breeze as she walked along the busiest street of Yoshiwara with her precious inugami in tow. Luckily, other pedestrians, enamored by the bright lights and tempting flesh at the storefronts, paid little heed to the red-headed girl and her giant dog. The suspects she followed were somewhere close by, but difficult to locate in the throng of other patrons.
"-agura-chan." A buzz from her hand held radio came in. It was Shinpachi guiding her from his vantage point up above. "Kagura-chan, head straight for the dango shop with the bright green and yellow sign. The men are about to pass by from the opposite direction. Try to get a good look at their faces. Copy?"
"Rouger," she replied, and dipped behind a corner to tie her canine companion's leash to a phone pole.
"Wait here, Sadaharu, I'll be back. Promise!" And with that Kagura rubbed her dog's head affectionately and turned back onto the main road. She posed in attempted nonchalance against the targeted shop's entrance, grabbing a few display sticks of dango and stuffing them in her mouth. The teen soon acknowledged the wrinkly store owner glaring at her from inside.
"Don't worry, granny. I'm just trying to keep you guys safe. Uhh… the justice justifies the mean… or something," Kagura replied with a full mouth. Immediately she spotted the suspected group stepping in unison, all wearing wide-brimmed straw hats. Their faces, she noted, were all partially obscured with either scarves pulled up to their noses, an eyepatch, or what looked like a fake beard.
"That's not weird at all." She thought sardonically, and stepped forward to get a better look at their mugs. The herd of men finally paraded by her, but as the last bodyguard to the rear passed by, he glanced to his left and caught her attention. His eyes were a flash of mahogany, deep and dark, unlike the fluorescent light around them. They widened momentarily and the unnamed soldier briefly stepped out of rhythm, but he quickly focused back on his surroundings. And in a second, the men were gone, traveling farther down the road, but Kagura was left standing by the dango shop in a mixture of curiosity, anxiety and fear.
"Shit. He totally saw me! And his eyes, did he recognize me?!" After what felt like aeons, the static from her radio jolted her back to reality.
"Kagura! What are you doing?! I thought you were going to tail them. Over!" This time it was Gintoki yelling at her to catch up.
"S-sorry, Gin-chan. I got a little spooked. The dude at the back creeped me out, I think he saw me. Over."
"Nevermind that, he probably thought you were just another working girl. All the faces in this town start to blur together at some point. Did you get a good look them?... Over."
"Kind of," she answered. "I wasn't able to get a look at the guy in the center, but it looks like they all have some kind of disguise on. And they all looked more or less human… except for one. The one leading them kind of looked like a gorilla with an eye patch. Over." There was a stillness from what Kagura assumed was her partners absorbing the new intel from the other side.
"Alright, Kagura. Just keep tailing them, but keep your distance this time. They're heading towards the bathhouse at the end of the street. Copy?"
"Copy."
The still nervous Yato began jogging back to the rendezvous point where she had left Sadaharu. She tossed him a couple dango that she had pocketed on her way out of the shop and reassured him of her prompt return. After steadying her resolve to nail this suspicious group, she picked up where she had left off, trying to find the pack of strange men in a swarm of people.
Kagura soon closed in on them, where they turned in front of the largest bathhouse in Yoshiwara. She crouched behind the large sign of a lingerie shop and watched patiently from the shadows. Studying their movements a second time, she was able to make out something significant about their behavior.
"Oii, oii! Gin-chan, do you roger?"
"It's 'do you read'. Copy." The permed samurai buzzed in from the other side.
"Yeah, Mami taught me to read when I was 5. Why do you ask? Anyways, about these guys, they all look uncomfortable, like a boy about to start at a new high school because his mom changed jobs in order to support them after a messy divorce. A bunch of cherry boys," Kagura prattled. "They don't look like they've been to Yoshiwara before, and they definitely don't look like they're about to start a raid. Over."
She continued to follow them around a bend and onto the newest street lined with massage parlors. Still about twenty yards away from her targets, she noticed how the man in the back stopped and whispered something to the center figure. Suddenly the group changed course and took a hard right down a covered alleyway onto a completely different avenue. The Yato counted to thirty before making her way after them, and the moment she peaked around the corner to the new road she saw the four men continuing to walk along the path.
"Wait… four?" She recollected, and silently brought her radio up to her mouth. "I could've sworn there were five. What happened to the guy in the ba-"
Crack.
Kagura's radio set rattled on the ground as a forceful arm grabbed her wrist and another covered her mouth with a steady hand. She let out muffled protests as she was dragged back into the alleyway, out of sight from the Yorozuya's hovering eyes.
A/N: Hey all :) I just want to thank you all for the continued support and reviews! (Probably because I'm actually updating this fic semi-regularly.) Unfortunately, because of finals, there will be a short break in the updates as I try not to fail my classes! Woo! See you all soon. :*
