Hayate had a phone.
"My number is the only contact on your list," Akaboshi had explained, after showing what some of the wiggling tiles did. The green one had a strange, banana-like shape on it, but it opened to only one person's name. More importantly, it had a picture of a snub-nosed handgun for clandestine recognition. "Call me if there's an emergency."
Akaboshi's face had been as stern as he could make it, but Hayate could read the hesitation there. He had the look of a man who was fully aware a decision could backfire, but the potential consequences of inaction were so much worse that he had to try anyway. Given Akaboshi's life choices so far, Hayate got the impression that happened a lot. Inaction was still an option in most situations. And it was one Akaboshi apparently refused to make because of a long, storied history.
Hayate still hadn't gotten him to share it. Instead, talking about the night of the invasion spiraled instead into a discussion about jinchūriki and bijū and his sister, which cost Hayate the chance to learn something about his roommate in favor of that warning. Akaboshi hadn't really slept well since.
He hadn't before, either, but it was a new flavor of bad.
For pride reasons, Hayate couldn't ask about Akaboshi's nightmares without baring his own soul again. And he didn't really feel like putting more pressure on his self-proclaimed guardian. If the guy spread himself any thinner, he'd be paper. And he still refused to let Hayate help at all.
Instead of being able to move any of that forward, Hayate gained access to the "internet."
It was an infinite wellspring of nonsense, even once Akaboshi changed it to a language he could read. Hayate wasn't sure he liked it. Akaboshi's main language contained only a handful of characters, and he was clearly practiced at maneuvering within the limitations of it and getting the phone to work for him. Hayate had to hunt for every kana and eventually decided to just draw them, which was incredibly slow. Staying on long pages reduced the time he had to spend typing and allowed him to just click blue text for elaboration on topics he didn't understand, but there was so much.
Hayate had seen computers before. Not many, and all of them were confined to Konoha's central administration and medical purposes. Just looking at the phone and comparing the memory of heart rate and respiration monitors made his head hurt the first time he thought about it. Nobody in Konoha had personal devices like this. And even if they did, Akaboshi made it clear a lot of the supportive technologies in this place ran a thousand—ten thousand—times faster than the strongest processor Hayate had seen before arrival.
No wonder Akaboshi could run a criminal empire from a laptop and a phone. The fact that he still used file folders at all felt like bait. Only…hm. Akaboshi had set "search filters" on the phone and said something about "location data," so maybe it was more complicated than that. Akaboshi ran out of patience for explaining things sometime past the first hour, even after coffee.
Hayate didn't think anyone could learn all of it. Nevertheless, he did try. Aside from "stay out of trouble" and "maybe use less vinegar," Akaboshi didn't ask that much of him. He put more emphasis on the first one since discovering Hayate occasionally followed him to work, but that wasn't important.
It's not like I can't take care of myself.
Inevitably, around an hour after Akaboshi left, Hayate finally had enough of sitting idle and staring at a screen until his eyes crossed. So, Hayate took his phone with him as he explored Akaboshi's territory. He was still following instructions. Akaboshi had already given up on being able to contain him. At least, that was probably what the despair-oh-god-why feeling meant. The best Akaboshi could do was his work with the gang, which meant Hayate needed to fill his time some other way.
Hayate figured staying above ground level helped with his end of the deal. People didn't actually like climbing the rusty fire escapes. He didn't bother with them; usually, he just scaled the drainpipes as a gray squirrel or a rat.
Spending time on rooftops was so much nicer than the couch. No offense to Akaboshi's furniture choices, but if Hayate wanted to stay indoors for large stretches of time, he'd have joined the bureaucratic corps. Sorting paperwork for the Hokage all day was important work, but nobody Hayate's age exactly relished the D-rank mission that introduced most of them to the process. As it was, he hadn't been able to run away from that posting fast enough. Yūgao said going back would make her cry.
This was a lot more engrossing.
The only restrictions here are "no getting into trouble" and "don't let Akaboshi spot me." Easy. Akaboshi was supposed to be in some kind of meeting tonight, so he'd be stuck in one location.
After a couple of minutes to be sure no one had followed him or taken much notice, Hayate used the Transformation ninjutsu again to make any onlooker see an ordinary gray tabby with a bright red collar. Finding a cat anywhere was very rarely suspicious, and even the local children knew to appreciate animals from afar. The fifth time some weird mutant sewer rat gave someone a disease, everyone learned.
And so, Hayate wandered.
The city was quiet in a way that reminded him mostly of Training Ground Forty-Four. In the Forest of Death, the apex predators were things like giant centipedes and bull-sized tigers, and every other living thing went silent in the hopes of avoiding their attention. If humans moved through the area with any less grace, every bird would be in the air and long gone before the screaming started.
Anticipation. That was the word.
Hayate avoided the power lines as he traversed the roofs. While some older shinobi were comfortable with testing their chakra control and standing on wires, Hayate had decided against putting much faith in local infrastructure right around the time he realized that Crime Alley was neglected. Even if his chakra nature was Lightning Release, Hayate wasn't interested in putting that to work in a self-inflicted problem.
As Hayate trotted past a rooftop light, noting the lost moths swirling around it. A mostly-full moon could be theoretically bring them home, but the midnight cloud cover made it dimmer than the lights within reach. They bonked against the glass and plastic, well above the heads of the people below.
Hayate noted which working women were out tonight, recognizing them mainly by the arrangement of their red tokens from three stories up. The same went for the street kids he could see from the roofs. In autumn, a lot of people wore head coverings of some kind, and Hayate hadn't memorized their hats and coats just yet. The weather was turning only slightly slower than the leaves. Someone would have to ready shelters.
And Hayate didn't exactly have any money to give people, even if he didn't need it. Being able to fight off muggers and take their stuff when they bothered him wasn't enough.
Before his next urban expedition, Hayate would have to bother Akaboshi about check-ins. About logistics of keeping people alive, in or out of a dedicated building. Blankets, food, heaters—that kind of thing. It'd been a chaotic few days in their apartment, but the world spun onward. They shouldn't forget anyone along the way.
Akaboshi didn't do as much community work directly, not since their conversation. His business kept ramping up, even if he didn't admit any of it to Hayate. His men did were a constant presence, but Hayate didn't have to be a bureaucrat to notice that violence was lower on evenings when Akaboshi went out personally to deal out discipline. Most of the gunshots besides his died down very quickly. But instead of hunkering down and consolidating the unbelievable progress he'd made so far, Akaboshi was getting more aggressive.
Like he didn't have enough time.
It felt like that change was Hayate's fault. In talking to Akaboshi about his problems, ploy or not, Hayate gave him another ball to juggle. Stress pulsed alongside Akaboshi's other emotions, making the negative feelings linger and the rest dim by comparison.
That hadn't been what Hayate intended; truthfully, Hayate needed to take initiative. Sitting in Akaboshi's apartment had been pretty useless of him so far. If Akaboshi needed a little breathing room and refused to ask for it, then logically it was Hayate's turn to take control of the mission.
A little winged shape fluttered past Hayate's face, ignoring all light sources. The wings flashed by, white and black in sharp contrast instead of the dull, dusty colors of the rest of the moths.
He twisted his head in that direction, curious. He watched it bob past him indecisively, as though briefly torn, before flying over the edge of the roof and into the dark.
Wait. That's not a moth.
Speaking of self-inflicted problems.
An ordinary cat would have swiped at a fluttering thing across its path, just out of reflex. Hayate bounded after it because he knew the pattern on those wings. He dropped his transformation to dart across the roof that much faster, checking the shadow's position for an instant before he leapt across the gap between the cramped brick buildings. The air from his route disturbed the insect's path just long enough for Hayate to snatch at it.
The instant his fingers cupped the butterfly, Hayate felt the telltale drain of touching a live chakra-eater. He fought the urge to smash it flat. Pulling his hands close with almost exaggerated care, Hayate sat on the rough rooftop and examined his prize.
The butterfly turned around in his palm, wings opening a couple of times as it settled. It extended its proboscis to poke at his hand even as it walked up and down his lifelines.
"Where in the world did you come from?" Hayate asked the little thief.
His heart pounded in a mix of wariness and excitement. Had—maybe an Aburame had found them? Anyone from home would do, but an Aburame like Shimika would be ideal. Someone who was totally unflappable and could maybe keep from throttling Akaboshi for not sending Hayate home immediately. It wasn't his fault that Hayate hadn't been able to find his way back. Hayate could think of way better targets.
The butterfly, ignoring him, took off with another flicker of wings.
"Hey!" Hayate snapped his hands out to grab it and missed. Slippery little bastards.
Luckily, it wasn't the only out-of-place bug—another three butterflies flew past him in the same direction as the first, ignoring the amber street lamps and every other obvious distraction as they went. The summoned butterfly swarm was blessed and cursed with a voracious appetite while on the move. Or maintaining illusions. Or existing. Once enough of them gathered, they were capable of devouring all the chakra out of an area and leaving every living thing…not.
They were capable of laying traps or at least lying in wait for food, so Hayate's pursuit was a roundabout, cautious process. The absolutely last thing Hayate wanted to do was get eaten by an allied summon contract's smallest spawn. His eulogy would be an embarrassing farce. It was like getting pecked to death by pigeons.
The butterflies led Hayate on a meandering path out of the center of Akaboshi's territory, headed more toward water. Gotham itself was located on three big islands and a bunch of smaller ones, so Hayate wasn't too worried about getting lost. Getting back mostly meant just searching for the red scarves and sometimes the sound of distant screams.
What surprised him a little was that the little bugs weren't heading toward real water, like the over-built dockyards. Instead, they followed a trash-filled culvert Hayate only identified when he tripped over it.
And they weren't the only ones. Hayate stopped short in an alleyway when he spotted someone crouched over a body, barely backlit by a flickering street lamp some six meters away.
It was definitely not Hayate's first time seeing a corpse. Certainly not the first in this city, either. He'd lived with Akaboshi for more than three weeks, so that was a given. What was odd was the general shape and demeanor of the person still standing. It looked a little like they were…checking the body for vital signs? Most people would've just started looting.
Wait. That was a cape.
And this was still Akaboshi's turf. That didn't seem right.
Hayate made the hand seals for Raidō's camouflage genjutsu—which he'd never even named—and crept closer. He'd tested it a few times back home, while training, and noted that the chakra cost was higher than he usually liked. But in exchange, it fooled anybody who wasn't using assisted by some unusual sensory power, like the Sharingan or an Inuzuka's nose. And he could use it while running at top speed, which was the best part.
For now, though, Hayate moved closer with every millimeter of stealth training ever drilled into him.
Purple Cape was saying something in Akaboshi's language, a little below conversational volume. Dragging the still shape out of the culvert and onto solid ground, it all looked like a standard first aid check in progress, but nobody else was talking. Not a great sign.
Still, Hayate didn't break cover.
The butterflies darted past him and toward the two figures, unbothered by his caution. Purple Cape swatted at them, which served as a nice distraction.
A spike of Isobu's chakra twanged Hayate's nerves like a shamisen pick when something entered his range. Hayate went completely still in his crouched position, watching the deeper shadows warily. His night vision was perfectly passable among shinobi, even without ninjutsu or a specialized bloodline, and this felt wrong.
It took him a second to pinpoint the problem.
He'd never felt the Three-Tails without his sister's chakra signature layered over it. And neither of the figures in his (admittedly) short sensing range were Kei. For one thing, the downed shape was too big and too ragged, without nearly her reserves or the deep-dark-drawing-in of her and Isobu's combined strength. And while Purple Cape seemed like a girl close to Hayate's age, going by the voice, she similarly lacked Kei's presence. Concern-wariness-need-to-help felt like Robin, without any touch of elemental power.
But Isobu's chakra signature was still right there.
Hayate watched, silently, until something plinked out of a pocket and the signature moved. Squinting in the gloom, he eventually managed to pinpoint a piece of material the size of someone's thumb. In his mind, it had more power than both of the other humans in the area, and it was a thrumming pulse of find-me-right-now.
Only it was a lie. There was no Kei around to have made that coral.
Being trained for stealth also taught Hayate to spot others attempting the same thing, right at the moment they gave themselves away. It was about reading intentionality in movements, in energy, and Hayate kept himself still and silent a little longer. He could use the time.
Okay. Reason this out. So, the person in the ditch found the fake Kei signature first. Then Purple Cape found the person, who didn't seem to be moving, and—
Three shapes in the darkness. Hayate tensed.
Purple Cape was still busy with the downed guy.
Two people burst from hiding to surround Purple Cape, and that was the exact moment Hayate Body Flickered to the third and pounced on him like a tiger.
Only instead of opening the guy's guts with claws or teeth, Hayate punched him in the throat.
His opponent collapsed, choking, and Hayate grabbed him by the collar and bounced his head off the side of the nearest dumpster. A tooth plinked on metal and flew to the ground.
Gai taught him strike-heavy taijutsu well enough to not kill people. It was half the benefit of training in such a specialized way—it helped develop a nigh-surgical ability to pick targets and do precise damage. But during their spars, Gai didn't care as much if Hayate electrified his fists. Encouraged it, even. It was about the only way Hayate could keep up with his sister's most excitable friend, even a little bit.
Talking to Robin made it pretty clear that killing people—even enemies—was frowned upon by the cape-wearing hero people. Bothering Akaboshi while he was working added a layer of nuance, because his problem was specifically Hayate's proximity to violence.
Hayate didn't see the point of it. Being young hadn't ever made him immune to the world's misery; really, it just limited his ability to fight off the true threats. And Hayate wasn't naïve enough to think any random person stalking through the night would show him any mercy just because his voice kept cracking. He'd gotten lucky with Akaboshi. Plenty of other people didn't.
Hayate couldn't even that score on his own, but he could deal out a little justice on the side. And besides, it was fun to turn the tables on jerks like this.
The guy was still writhing a little. And Purple Cape still needed help.
After a moment's consideration, Hayate latched onto the man's neck with both hands and channeled enough Lightning Release through his fingers to bring down someone Akaboshi's size. He kept going until the struggling stopped, then checked his target's vitals.
There was still a heartbeat and decent respiration. Hayate dropped the man in the alleyway like a bag of trash and went to help Purple Cape.
Purple Cape had managed to stay fighting even when outnumbered, but it looked like Robin's and Akaboshi's styles of combat training wasn't universal. Purple Cape used the cape and dark mask and hood to obfuscate her movements, punching whenever she thought she could get one over on them, but neither of the enemy fighters were down yet. And the cape was getting a little ragged, given the occasional bladed near-misses.
Seemed like a good point to intervene.
Hayate couldn't understand any of the shouting, but he did know there was no amount of training that would let someone walk on two sets of broken lower leg bones. So, he went for that option on the guy at Purple Cape's back, and then zapped that guy unconscious to make the pained howling stop.
Purple Cape kicked her newly-distracted and newly-lonesome opponent in the crotch, then whipped out a telescoping baton and whacked him over the head. When this didn't immediately bring the guy down, Purple Cape hit him again. And again.
Hayate zapped the third guy, too, because it seemed like the baton just wasn't quite heavy enough to do the job.
From start to finish, the fight took about twenty seconds.
Purple Cape didn't relax. Behind her blackout mask, she looked around the immediate area, clearly surprised by the invisible assistance. She didn't put the baton away, instead toeing around her downed opponents and leading with the weapon like a dowsing rod. She'd probably smack the first thing that set off her jangled nerves.
Hayate stepped back a little so she couldn't immediately hit him, layering a Transformation over his appearance so she couldn't see his face if she tried—instead, all she'd see would be a half-mask that was a mix of Akaboshi's and Kakashi's, with red-tinted goggles blocking out his eyes. Then he let Raidō's genjutsu drop, hands in the air in as docile, sheepish a way that he could.
Purple Cape made a hilarious yelp of surprise.
Staring down the length of the weapon pointed in his face, Hayate belatedly realized she must have been seeing empty air dismantle her attackers before this, and suddenly it was less funny.
"Whoops" was difficult to convey through their language barrier.
Purple Cape straightened her back, which meant she was about twelve centimeters taller than Hayate between her stance and her shoes. After a couple of seconds to think, she lowered the weapon and clicked something so it was hand-sized again.
And while she did that, Hayate yanked his phone out of a pocket and unlocked it with a fingertip, then located the translation program Akaboshi made sure to show him. By the dimmest possible light setting of his phone—which wasn't that dark, honestly—Hayate spoke softly into the microphone. What little Akaboshi had taught him about English suddenly seemed deeply inadequate in the face of the mounting tension.
Purple Cape tensed when Hayate pulled out his phone, but still looked at his screen when he held it out.
He'd written, Hello. Who are you? And from there, he relied on the technology to get through the language barrier.
Purple Cape briefly reached for Hayate's phone with a gloved hand, then had second thoughts. Instead, she ended up taking her own phone out of her cape and saying something to its receiver. Then she turned her screen around and showed him the result.
The translation program looked like it got confused. On one hand, there was the word "netabare," which was probably the direct translation of what she'd said. Some secret that ruined a story by knowing it. The other option was a lot like how Akaboshi had explained the name "Robin," where the language barrier meant a thing could have two entirely incompatible names. And, based on the kana, it was close to what she'd actually said.
"Spoiraa?" Hayate tried. No, that wasn't right.
"Spoiler," was the firm correction. She repeated it a few times so Hayate could try to get his brain and tongue around the word, and it felt like she appreciated the effort despite his failure.
In the end, the sound was just strange. Languages were weird and Hayate suddenly hoped that his sister didn't have to deal with this nonsense. Spoiler was already writing something else, though, so Hayate considered other things while he waited.
Hm. How many of the Isobu-signals were there?
I spoil crimes, said Spoiler through her phone, so I just went with that. You know, by leaving clues to ruin the perfect scheme.
"Akaboshi" was still easier. No strange sound combinations.
Nonetheless, Hayate held up his phone once he was done dictating. Then you can call me Suzaku. Because I'm a red bird.
Spoiler snorted when she read that. Then she said, "Suzaku" out loud, just to be sure she had the pronunciation right, and sat through her own round of corrections. She typed something else for a little while, then let him read, Did you see what happened to this guy?
Hayate looked down at the body Spoiler had been checking. His chakra sense had already dismissed the person there as a corpse. No, I got here after you did.
Spoiler's face-concealing mask didn't let Hayate see her face, but he still read sorry-compassion-frustration from her body language. Maybe there was some ongoing trouble that Spoiler was already fighting, but they were within Akaboshi's territory, and she sounded a little like some of the people there. While people died of neglect all the time, Hayate didn't think this man's death was that quiet when it happened. Spoiler wouldn't be here if it was.
Hayate made a sweeping gesture to encompass all the assassins. But I think I can find out why these guys showed up.
Spoiler made a startled noise as Hayate moved to start looting the enemy. It wasn't like they were dead, and they'd given up the right to complain after attacking first and losing. Spoiler didn't have to perform the same kind of investigating Hayate did.
After a bit of rummaging—which Spoiler declined in favor of making clicky noises with her phone—Hayate found what he was looking for.
Four little shards of Isobu's chakra, made solid as coral beacons. Each one was rounded as far as the pitted stone look allowed, which made them less suspicious, and they all pulsed with a completely identical catch-me-if-you-can aura. The fifth piece of bait was in the culvert, so Hayate fished it out despite the gross water and set all of them on dry land in a neat row.
Spoiler waved her phone in front of his face until he looked up. The screen read, What are these things?
"Bait for assassins" was the first answer that came to mind, but it struck Hayate as a bad idea to say out loud. Akaboshi said Kei was being chased, so this was just a matter of confirming the method behind it.
In the time it took for Hayate to fail to come up with an answer, Spoiler typed a new sentence. Why'd they come after me?
Hayate frowned behind his fake mask. He didn't remember "Spoiler" being listed as one of the caped crowd that Akaboshi hated to talk about. He'd only really explained Batman and Robin, and sort of the one named Nightwing, and all in a really vague and resentful way.
I don't think they were after you at all, Hayate said through his phone, at least. This guy had one of these rocks, and I think the people who attacked you were really after the rest of them.
As evidenced by the small collection of beacons.
But none of the assassins felt like shinobi, so how were they longer-range sensor types than Hayate was? It wasn't even a matter of precision; Kei's fake Isobu signals put out more energy than some people had in their whole bodies, once Hayate was close enough to feel them. It was just that sensors almost always needed their own chakra to serve as a medium. Aside from Kei and maybe some specialists, everyone required at least a little training.
Well, unless bijū were involved. Real ones, not just dummies like this.
Speaking of things that got fooled, the butterflies were back. They swirled happily before landing on the shards like they were…orange slices or something. Hayate didn't really pay attention to what butterflies ate.
If not for the order of operations here, Hayate could almost see the assassins following the butterflies. Except for the part where that also made absolutely no sense. Hayate followed them because he knew what they were. How would a bunch of random jerks who thought they could take on his sister know what real threats and clues were?
You shouldn't take these with you, Hayate told Spoiler through his phone, when it looked like Spoiler was going to take a sample. According to Akaboshi, the clan of caped people here did that kind of thing and tried to solve mysteries. Only Akaboshi's explanation was a lot more bitter.
Spoiler wrote, Why?
The kind of people who use things like this, Hayate explained, showing off one of the wiggly knives he kept finding on these people, tend to be mean. Then he tossed the knife into the ditch because he didn't care to collect them. The dead guy could keep it.
Spoiler stared at him blankly for his word choice, and for his actions. At least, he thought she was. Her body language read mostly as defiance-disbelief-curiosity. It reminded Hayate of his sole encounter with Robin, only seen at an angle. Then she wrote, What about you?
I'm not taking them either.
Hayate didn't need to report to Akaboshi, strictly speaking. His roommate and inconsistent self-appointed guardian lacked the necessary command certification. If Hayate carried or could create a corpse storage seal, he'd just need to shoo Spoiler away to hide all evidence of this encounter. But she was here and felt like the stubborn type, and Hayate's fūinjutsu was limited to his remaining stock of explosives.
Decisions, decisions.
Do you call police for this? Hayate wouldn't. Even in Konoha, his first instinct wouldn't be MPs. It just seemed excessive when he'd lived in the Hokage's actual house for eight months. Here, when Hayate lived with what the wiki pages called a "supercriminal," it seemed like an even worse idea.
She wiggled a hand and tapped where her ear was hidden under her hood, so Hayate left her to it. She probably knew her business.
Hayate took the time to lay out every single hidden weapon he found on the assassins, using one of their shirts like a tarp.
Aside from the wiggly knives and the thin, broad blade about the length of Hayate's forearm, he found a dart launcher and a stock of liquid-filled metal needles, enough knives for two households, some shuriken (which he pocketed), smoke pellets, a tiny vial of poison per man, and a tool kit for general burglary work. Between all that stuff and the communication devices—zapped into oblivion on sight—these guys should have invested in equipment belt technology. Spoiler knew the secret, since she even had an extra one in gray cinched around one thigh.
It was probably about a minute later that Hayate sat back and just had to sigh.
All this ninja equipment loadout was pretty incriminating. Luckily, Hayate didn't care what happened to these people. Akaboshi wouldn't either.
Spoiler…sort of did. Not in a personal way, but in a generalized, abstract sense. Besides the language problem, it was a good reason to have her be the one talking to someone who could cart these people away. It was easiest to read on her when she stood over their downed opponents and brooded about things.
A contributing factor there was that Spoiler didn't seem too happy that, in order to get all the hidden weapons and tools for sure, he'd had to strip the assassins of at least two layers of clothing. Including pants and shoes.
It was really the only practical option.
Still, when Hayate started tying up all the bad guys, Spoiler helped. She carried this woven gray tape and used it to bind hands, ankles, knees and elbows. Hayate splinted Broken Leg Guy's injuries before Spoiler had to make up a moral qualm about it first, with the two of them pantomiming their different levels of alarm while their hands were occupied. Hayate's previous ninja opponents hadn't gotten this much work put into them. Maybe they would be grateful about it when they woke up.
Spoiler said some words Hayate didn't know, so he looked up. Her screen said, Police will be here soon. We'll both have to leave, but we can meet up later.
Hayate doubted that, but mostly because he'd tried sitting around and timing how long it took for the bright lights to appear after someone in Akaboshi's territory tried calling. The answer was a little depressing. Hayate shook his head and said through his phone, I'm expected somewhere else.
Spoiler gave him a look that Hayate could feel even through her mask.
Well, he was. Just not where Spoiler wanted him to be. Even if Hayate didn't need to, telling Akaboshi about the problems in his territory was only polite.
Spoiler picked up one of the pieces of coral and her phone made another clicking noise. While Hayate watched, she did something with it that let her—oh. She took a photo.
Since when were phones also cameras? That felt like cheating somehow.
It was the kind of cheating Hayate could make us of. Can I have that picture?
Spoiler paused, confused by the question. Hang on one second.
It took a little less than a minute for Spoiler to take Hayate's phone, flip through its functions, and explain the camera trick to him. Her translation app kept working long enough that Hayate swore her phone was starting to get warmer.
And in celebration of his new skill, Hayate took a couple pictures of the chakra-heavy coral, because there was no way in hell that he would bring one of them back to Akaboshi's apartment if they attracted creeps. Spoiler clicked her tongue over his technique and tried to show him a better way, and and by the time she succeeded the butterflies were back again. Even in his hand.
Spoiler shooed it away for him. It then started orbiting her head like a flower.
Ah, novel problems.
Hayate had his own. If Hayate listened too closely, he thought he heard sirens. Definitely didn't need to be here for that.
Instead, Hayate reached into his pockets and pulled out the lowest-rated explosive seal he currently carried. He'd let Akaboshi take some of the mid-range ones on jobs, but this one he'd swiped from Kei during her mission prep work four months ago before she could notice. He didn't need to level a building; he needed just a bit of assistance.
Gesturing for Spoiler to wait, Hayate picked up the bits of coral and started laying out explosive tags. While he hadn't been assigned to the teams that repaired the training ground after his sister and the Hokage held their big exhibition match, policy did come out of it. And some experiments. They proved—over months of trials—that the coral produced by the battle could be destroyed through careful application of explosives. It was probably the only reason the field was ever used again, even after Kei's efforts to clean up.
"Controlled detonation" was not exactly what Hayate was doing. But it was pretty close. He folded each of the paper bombs around the coral bits like wrapping paper. He even twisted the ends together as though he was making candy, trying to shake the butterflies away before they could get caught up in the mess or get ideas.
Spoiler got a little irritable at the sudden silence. Maybe the voice in her ear was still chirping at her.
Hayate flipped the lid to the nearest dumpster open, tossed all the cursed packages inside, then pinned the bin shut by jamming some of the wiggly knives into the joints. The butterflies were just quick enough to dart in after the bait, and Hayate figured that counted as their vote. Then he made the proper hand seal to activate the tags, having already primed through with a touch of his chakra.
BANG! The whole dumpster rocked with the blast.
Spoiler jumped when the explosives did their job, and hovered impatiently while Hayate paused to search for the tiniest trace of Isobu's chakra.
With the entire dumpster inside of his range, Hayate felt nothing. He then opened the dumpster, just to check, and was greeted by a wall of smoke that smelled like trash, melting plastic, and the tiniest burst of low tide. Still, that was a job well done. Nobody else would get hurt because Kei was being pushed to this strategy.
At least, for now.
Spoiler-san, Hayate dictated to his phone, you need to avoid those things as much as possible. Unless you want to be tracked and hunted down by people who think you're my sister.
Akaboshi hadn't explained the dart he brought back after his run-in with Kei, but it wasn't exactly Hayate's first encounter with ranged poison attacks. Shizune kept a whole rack of spring-launched needles up her sleeve and trained with Yamato and Hayate's whole team sometimes. Even if medics tended to build poison resistances as a precaution and, yes, Yamato wasn't actually going to let anyone stay poisoned for that long, nobody forgot the first time training was canceled on account of rapid-onset nausea. Whatever was in the needles was probably tailored to bring down a shinobi, to the best of the assassins' judgment.
Hayate didn't think very highly of their information so far, but better safe than sorry.
Apparently, all Spoiler got from that was, You have a sister?
Hayate nodded. She's a little taller than you, with a white mask and a black outfit. She could probably beat all these guys in two seconds if she tried, but that's not true of everyone. Try not to fight these guys again without backup, by the way! That could have been been bad.
It was kind of weird that there were still any of these assassins left, actually. They had to run out of men eventually, right?
Spoiler stared at him for a long moment. Then, I think you're breaking like five of the rules of masked vigilante-ing just by admitting that you have a family at all. That's why we have masks.
Hayate eyed her. He was pretty sure Akaboshi's helmet had a bunch of functions and settings he hadn't explained to anyone. Spoiler's cowl and mask didn't seem to have the bulk for a lot of tech stuff, even if she did call someone on an earpiece. If the whole goal was to hide their identities and the technology they used was just a bonus, then Hayate had his understanding backwards.
Spoiler winced suddenly, as though getting another call that was a little too loud. She said something to the person she was talking to. That prevented Hayate from asking his immediate follow-up questions.
And Hayate, for his part, noted the sight strobing lights reflecting off the Gotham smog and snapped his fingers a couple of times to draw Spoiler's attention to it. When he was sure Spoiler understood that the police-people were here, he went through the hand seals for his camouflage genjutsu again.
Spoiler shouted something Hayate was pretty sure was a curse as he disappeared.
Rather than immediately fleeing, Hayate hopped up to roof level to sit and observe. Spoiler actually left before him, with the assassin goons still tied up on the ground and the dead body still there. Hayate didn't fake crimes as a rule—that was what ANBU was for—but it felt a bit counterintuitive not to frame one of the bad guys for the corpse down there. It made the investigators' job a little less complicated if they didn't look around for additional suspects.
The flashing lights were a little blinding, but they'd turned their loudspeakers off in an attempt to…probably make person-to-person chatter a little easier. More vehicles arrived in the minutes Hayate sat there under camouflage, watching the drama. The assassins were scooped up like trussed deer and loaded into armor-heavy vans, to be carted off to wherever failed murderers went, and still Hayate watched.
A butterfly landed on his right shoulder. It started draining his chakra immediately.
Hayate scooped it up in careful fingers and stood, making his way a few roofs over in moments.
"Hello," he said, as the evil little thing walked around and tasted his chakra. "So, is it Shimika-san or someone else behind you?"
The butterfly flapped its wings once. Hayate wasn't sure it was a good thing or not that there weren't enough of them around to talk.
He'd felt its fellows poof out of the dumpster once the explosions went off, and he hadn't seen any little wing fragments when he checked earlier. If they weren't dead, they were at least out of the city, and that was probably good for the population's health. Mission classification aside, Hayate did know the story of the town overrun by these tiny nightmares. Nobody survived until Kei's team went and retrieved the summoning scroll. The Aburame only tamed them afterward.
Experimentally, Hayate dropped the camouflage genjutsu and the Transformation and leaned back against the roof's cheap shingles. Suppressing his chakra down to nothing, as he usually did when running through the streets, he waited for the butterfly's reaction.
It turned around in his hand a few times in confusion, then fluttered away.
He could follow it. Chase down more coral fragments, if there were any, and try to see if he could work out where Kei hid herself after such a reckless choice. If he was lucky, any other coral beacons would be tracked by the same class of thugs he'd been seeing so far, and they'd be easy to take out.
It might've been a responsible choice.
But… Hayate sighed.
Following the butterflies meant chasing after lies his sister had deliberately made tempting, because her enemies could follow that signal somehow. She hadn't been careful with them at all. And cleaning up after that mess would ruin her distraction plan, even if it did reduce the chance Gotham's civilians got caught up in everything. If she'd resorted to this level of complete callousness, she'd been backed into a corner. Hayate didn't want to know what pushed her that far.
There was also the possibility that, if Hayate did choose to go after the shards, he'd eventually end up in a fight he couldn't handle alone. Team Inoichi's official designation was reconnaissance, not assault. Hayate was one of his team's close combat backup plans. He still wasn't supposed to run solo missions.
…Dammit, now he actually needed to talk to Akaboshi about this. Maybe he'd have some ideas or some bodies to throw at the problem if Hayate explained better the second time around.
"I don't know that I would fully call that making contact, Shimika-chan," Jiraiya said into the held-breath silence, "but damn if you didn't accomplish something today."
Shimika nodded. She was too conscious of the burgeoning signs of chakra exhaustion to raise her arm into any kind of salute. Sitting in lotus position in the middle of a massive fūinjutsu array wasn't inherently tiring, but the amount of energy she needed for an attempt to redirect her summons—who had few to no qualms about just rushing toward death—was something else entirely. At her side, two medic-nin monitored her vitals in shifts.
No one asked about the butterflies, which was fine. Her summons had died in a good cause, and the ones that survived would fade out within minutes of the connection breaking.
"The only shortfall was in the communication part, but the kids are smart. We'll get there once you can send a kikai-clone through." With that, Jiraiya deactivated the crystal ball and started to clear his workspace of notes, writing materials, and snack wrappers.
Shimika sighed in relief as the space-time fūinjutsu array deactivated with it.
"I think we might be able to try again in a few days," said Kushina, peering down at a second set of readouts for the room-spanning seal's function. She drew a careful line through one of the chakra-flooded lines of text amid her work, frowning. "Just to confirm, you found Hayate, but not Kei?"
Shimika nodded again.
"Then that's where we'll start next time. Well done, Shimika-san."
"Thank you," Shimika managed, and let her shoulders slump.
One step closer to bringing them home.
Notes:
1. If Kei wanted her kid brother to be less capable of freelance chaos choices, she should have warned Genma not to leave his boyfriend unprepared for whining baby ninjas. Raidō folded like a bad hand.
2. Spoiler is a good kid, but at this point is usually the last priority in the Batclan's "people who need to be informed of ongoing events" contacts list. I gave her a collapsible baton because it feels like she should have some equipment upgrades.
3. One of Jason's helmet functions is "bomb."