Ayane gingerly ended the call, slipping the cell phone into a small pouch at her hip. The call she had just finished disconcerted her. Hayate, her half-brother and leader of the Mugen Tenshin clan, had assured her that the backup teams were still on Japanese soil, and she was the only one who had made the trip to America as of yet. He was just as concerned about the claim of other hunter nin in the area as she was, and had given her his word that he would be looking into it.
A sigh escaped from her lips in slight frustration. While Kasumi was in the care of the sailor, there would be no action taken against her as of yet. Hayate was concerned with bringing the foreign military force into clan politics. As of yet, the Ninja clans had been the only military type forces that had not had restrictions placed on them, due to their secrecy and ability to work out of the shadows. The American Government had actually hired a few of the minor clans on occasion.
The problem now was that the US Military had a ninja on a morgue table, and another in the care of one of its sailors. They may not know of the second yet, but due to her own carelessness, at least one person did know. And that was her caretaker.
Hayate did not want to add more blood to the clan's hands by killing the sailor as well, nor did he want to risk the incident with the military. The US had never been exactly well known for restraint in military operations, and no matter how good a ninja might be, you can't kick a cruise missile out of the air.
A giggle escaped from her mouth.
'Well, maybe Ryu' she thought. The Dragon Ninja seemed to be full of inhuman surprises.
The purple-haired kunoichi pulled the stocking cap farther down the back of her neck, hiding her trademark hair, and tucking a determined strand of said hair back into place behind the cap. She took her time to observe from her spot, crouched in the crook of an old tree, looking across the property within the fence line, and in the distance the building that contained her target.
The Naval Hospital was not nearly as heavily guarded as the base had been, but then again this was a hospital, and the other was the largest single military port in the world.
She was sure enough of schedules now to make her move, and under the cloak of night she silently leapt from the tree, landing gracefully beyond the fence. Her steps were quick as lightning, and quiet as a cat.
A flick of her fingers sent one of her kunai sailing through the air, catching perfectly just as the door swung closed, and barely propping it open.
She ghosted through the door, before slipping into a dark corner, and pulling a tightly rolled bundle of cloth from the pack at her waist. There was no hesitation, or even any wasted movement as she unrolled the object, and slipped into the one-piece jumpsuit it unrolled into. With a deliberate zip, her tight fitting, dark purple outfit vanished inside the nondescript dark blue of the jumpsuit, the back of it displaying the contracted cleaning company.
Maps of the hospital had been easy to find, publicly available to those who knew where to look, and she had memorized every hallways. She nervously pulled at her cap again, ensuring that unruly strand of hair was still tucked away, yet nobody even seemed to bother to give her a second glance as she passed by.
A stairway and a long, empty hallway later, she stood outside the basement room labeled as the morgue. She met no resistance as she slipped through the door; a single tech in his office to the side, fast asleep.
It must have been her lucky day.
Only one body was present, laid out on a steel table with a white sheet pulled over it. Silent fingers moved the sheet down, revealing an Asian complexion with a neat bullet hole just above his right eye. Ayane flinched in respect for the marksman. This man had felt no pain when this bullet had killed him, the round turning his brain into mush before the neurons could even register. Her phone was once again in her hand as she snapped pictures of the face. It wasn't anyone she recognized, which both relieved her, and concerned her.
She pulled the sheet down further. No wonder this man could still stand for the seconds after he had been shot. Both bullet holes on his chest were within an inch of one another, both rupturing his heart. He was a dead man, but it would have allowed him scant seconds of life before the lack of blood to his body would have doomed him. Her phone clicked softly twice more as she documented the body, until something caught her eye. Her gloved hand carefully pulled his arm to the side, and the phone clicked once more of a tiny tattoo on his rib cage, and opaque arachnid that she knew all to well the meaning of.
The phone was quickly shoved back into her pocket a she returned the body to its original rest, and lay the sheet carefully over it. Her exit was equally as flawless, as none of the residents and workers at the hospital seemed to notice a single janitor walking the halls.
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It took her an hour to make her way back to where she had set up a small camp, just behind the apartments that the sailor and Kasumi were currently residing in. She had carefully disposed of the uniform in a laundry chute, once washed by those who could care less who had worn it last, all traces of her being in the facility would be neatly cleansed away.
A mission with an end. Even if it was nothing more than a simple infiltration into a site that was not even remotely expecting her, nothing more than taking pictures of a body that couldn't escape if it wanted to, it was always gratifying to finish a mission.
Her hands flew to her phone, where she tapped at it. Instead of sending the pictures across the cell signal, she had found a spot where someone had yet to secure their home's wireless router. It would be harder to trace her through there, and while she was sure nothing was currently tracking her, it never hurt to be safe.
She watched as the pictures uploaded, one little blue line at a time, and were sent off to her home in Japan. After the last one was sent, she tapped out a simple, two word message that she sent as well.
Black Spider.
With a sigh that gave away how much the discovery had taken out of her, even more than the mission itself, the kunoichi pulled a dark blanket over herself. It would be a cold night, but nothing that her training had not already prepared her for.
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Mike was sitting on the small balcony of his apartment, his feet kicked up and his chair balance precariously on two legs. He held a newspaper in his hands, his eyes lazily followed the words across the page, until the creak of wood brought his attention back to the world around him.
His mind raced as he mentally took note of everything around him. He was between the stairs and the door, Kasumi was inside cooking up breakfast.
"Ayane," he stated softly. Not a question, just a statement.
The girl stopped with her head barely above the bottom of the landing, just able to make eye contact. She hesitated for a moment, but knew it didn't take many of her distinctive features to be able to put a name to her. If he had mentioned his encounter to Kasumi, which he obviously had, it wouldn't have been hard for the runaway to identify her.
The glint of black steel at his ankle was also giving her pause.
"Are you here to tell me that you got permission from you clan to bring me into the hunt?"
Purple hair shook loose from under the ballcap as she denied what he was asking.
"No, quite the opposite in fact," she intoned just above a whisper. "I have actually been denied from involving you, as your government could take it as involving the military, but I'm here for a different reason. I wanted to warn you."
Mike motioned for her to continue up to the top of the stairs, where she settled into the other chair present.
"There's another clan that we have been at odds with for a long time. I'm sure they are the other ninja you had confronted before."
Ayane sighed, and buried her head in her hands, crumpling over.
"They are not as," she paused as she searched for the right word, "discerning as we are. I would not put it past them to continue with their attacks."
Mike nodded silently, his mind grinding to a halt. How had he been lucky enough to be stuck harboring a fugitive that is now wanted by not only one, but two separate ninja clans, who have obviously gone through great expense to track her not only across her own country, but halfway around the world.
"I will do what I can to throw them off of her trail. As much as I need to bring her back to the clan, I also cannot let the secrets her body harbors fall to another clan."
"Still sounds odd," Mike retorted. "Putting your life on the line for someone you are going to have to kill?"
Ayane looked over at the Master at Arms.
"Heck, I'm not even family, and I still know it's better to protect someone than to kill them for not wanting to follow in something they don't believe. I should know, I've seen it enough."
He had the rapt attention of the purple-haired ninja.
"You have to understand, I've seen several tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. I've done convoy patrol, I've done guard duty, and I've done prison duty. I have rounded up prisoners to take them in, and I've seen some that willingly surrender to get out of the situation that they have no other options.
I had this one individual come to me, he was quite high within the cell he operated out of, but his only reason for staying with the terrorists was because they had threatened his wife and children. He begged us to save them, offered us any information he could provide as collateral. You know what happened to him?"
Ayane shook her head, her jaw slightly agape.
"He stepped away from our Humvee, and was shot in the back four times. We returned fire, but we don't know if we got his killer or not. We never did find his wife and kids.
Was it so wrong for him to want to quit that life? A life of death, killing, threats and blackmail?"
"Of course not!" Ayane exclaimed. "He put his life at risks for innocents and…"
"And what," Mike's quiet voice insisted. "Wanted a better life for himself? He was one of the cell's chief bomb makers, or so he said. His mind held as many of their secrets as Kasumi holds yours. How are they so different?"
"But… it's…" Ayane's eyes were harsh, trying to figure out how to defend her clan against this moral assault.
"It's what, different? She wants to leave, so the only option is to die? You're no better than the terrorist cells I fought against in the sand."
"We uphold a code of honor!"
"And so do they. Matter of fact, they follow a whole holy book. Kinda like your scrolls and codes, right?"
Ayane was flabbergasted. She couldn't believe an outsider would so easily compare her noble order to that of the terrorists who attacked military and civilians alike to prove their point. It made her…
"Furious, right?" Mike said, almost as if reading her mind. "They reacted the exact same way when we would speak with their fanatics, luckily for me you seem to be much more subdued about it than they were. They would yell, swing, spit, kick and anything else they could do to physically beat it out of us that we were the ones in the wrong, not them. And we are not much better than they are. We do not abide by their ideals, so we are no better than they are to us in our eyes."
"So what makes you think you are right?" Ayane huffs, glaring out across the road at the apartment across from them.
"Honestly? I don't know if we are right."
That shocked the kunoichi. Someone who fought for the ideals of his country, but didn't know if he supported them or not.
"But even if I don't agree with all of my country's ideals, them allowing me to serve on their behalf lets me uphold my own. I am able to protect those who cannot protect themselves. I can be a piece of our projection of power into places where I've seen it save lives, not take them."
His thumb jabs over his shoulder towards the apartment.
"This is one of those ideals. It's not something my country demands I do, it is something I do for myself. She has been put in a very, very difficult situation. She gave up her family, and knowingly placed a death sentence on her own head by following her own ideals. Ideals that weren't exactly the most misplaced. I have yet to learn all the reasons of why she left your clan, but I do know that it was to save her brother.
Trust me, if something happened to my family, there would be no end of the earth I would not crawl through to save or protect them. I can understand why she did what she did, even if I do not know all the circumstances. I also don't know what to make of you as her sister. Do you truly hate your family that much, or has your unwavering allegiance to your clan blinded you that much?"
Ayane's face was flushed in anger, her jaw set. This man questioned their ways, questioned their morals, and questioned her very reason for being there. Her whole life couldn't be wrong up till this point, it just couldn't. The ideals that she had thrown her whole life into protecting and upholding, it just…he was wrong!
"Still," he said, breaking her from her thoughts. "I do thank you for warning me of the other clan. At least now I will know to be ready for them. As a thank you, would you like to join us for breakfast? Kasumi should be…"
There was the rattle of metal and wood as the door opened, drawing both heads towards door, brunette hair draped behind her neck as Kasumi stuck her head out.
"Breakfast's done!" she said cheerily.
Mike turned his head back to the chair opposite of him, a chair now resting empty. He simply shook his head, and followed the kunoichi back into the apartment.
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Ayane sat on top the roof of the apartment, the multiple peaks of the roof hiding her from sight. Her mind was racing as she went back over the conversation she had finished. How could he so easily draw the line between her honorable clan and the fanatical terrorists of the middle east.
But he had drawn the comparison so easily. It wasn't something he attempted to make work together, it just had. That scared her more than anything.
Her phone was in her hand, Hayate's number half dialed before she stopped herself. She wouldn't subject him to her half-believed concerns. He would likely end up admonishing her for her lack of commitment to duty, and tell her to get back to work.
She also knew he wasn't half as bad as she made him out to be. She knew he loved his sister, and appreciated everything that Kasumi had done to bring him back to the clan. Still, the laws of the clan were the laws of the clan.
Her breath hitched at that thought. Flickers of doubt sparked and started growing to a tiny flame in the back of her mind.
Were they really the ones that were in the wrong?
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Mike pulled the chair away from the table before sinking into it. Kasumi was wondering why these western style tables and chairs hadn't been more readily accepted back in her home country. It was certainly much more comfortable than kneeling around a table.
Mike waited for Kasumi to join him to what he was assuming was a traditional Japanese breakfast. There was a helping of fish, a bowl of rice with eggs mixed in, and a small side of vegetables.
"Tomorrow, I'm making breakfast," he announced. "I'll show you how we do this here in the States."
Kasumi smiled sweetly. She knew he appreciated her cooking, even if the fare wasn't something he was used too. She snapped apart another cheap pair of chopsticks, and started into her food. Her host had an unusually concerned look on his face as he ate, but had made a sizeable dent in his meal before he revealed any of it to her.
"So your sister stopped by while I was out front."
Kasumi visibly tensed. "Was it to say that she had permission to bring you into this?"
Mike's head shook. "No, actually she's not allowed to bring me into this. Apparently your clan is afraid of an international incident including our military."
The tension in Kasumi's shoulders slackened ever so slightly.
"What she did want to let me know is that the Black Spider Clan was who attacked you the other day. She doesn't know if they will show the same restraint that your clan is right now. She also said she would be protecting us, something about not letting you fall into the wrong hands."
"That sounds like her," Kasumi mused. "Isn't allowed to kill me yet, so until she gets the option herself, she'll make sure nobody else gets the chance. At least I know my remains will be somewhere near my home."
Mike decided to keep the rest of his conversation with Ayane to himself for now. It wouldn't do either of them any good for him to get her more worked up with the threat of a second ninja clan now looming over their heads.
"You know, maybe we should talk to your national representative up in Washington. It's only a few hours drive, or a train ride up there."
"Why would we do that?" Kasumi asked, curious.
"Political asylum," he explained. "If we can prove that you can be valuable to either your country or ours, we can petition for political asylum, which grants you protection here in America. Who knows, maybe you can even get them to assign me to be your bodyguard."
There was a twinkle of mirth in his eyes as he finished the sentence, before lifting another bite to his mouth.
"Would be good for my career," he intoned in a decidedly fake bored tone. "Be the personal military honor guard to some overseas big wig. I mean, it'd be a hassle to have to cater to all her high-falutin' desires and demands, be stuck on a plane for days at a time to spend an afternoon at some beach, and be stuck right back on the plane to fly to who knows where else."
A chopstick nailed him in the forehead, causing him to crack up laughing.
"See!" he exclaimed. "There's those famous international person of power temper tantrums!"
At this point, Kasumi lost it as well. It had been ages since she just had a good laugh, and this one tore from her mouth with unrelenting joy.
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Later on that afternoon found Mike and Kasumi climbing out of his old truck at one of the several malls in the area. They had both decided that it would work to their advantage if they continued on like they were unaware of the second clan tracking her. It would allow them to get relaxed, comfortable, and hopefully sloppy.
Once inside though, it was hard to remember that Kasumi was a runaway ninja. She floated from store to store, dragging Mike along behind her. After grumbling his way through several, he jabbed a finger at the book store, and for once dragging her with him as he saw a new book from one of his favorite authors.
As they left the store, one shop in particular caught Kasumi's eye, one she had not noticed as Mike had drug her by it and to the bookstore. They crossed the veritable sea of people, and into a small shop with a decidedly Asian flare. Large statues of golden cats waved at them as they walked in, while incense invaded their sense of smell.
Kasumi walked along, her hands gently gracing over nearly everything she could touch, as if to try to burn it into her memory, while Mike just followed along smiling. A smile crossed her face as she ran her hand over a table with an oriental flare to it, before picking up a short sword similar to her own.
"Wow," she complimented, "Usually you see decorative swords in places like this. It is not the greatest of makes, but this is a functional blade."
"Why thank you, young lady," an older voice came from next to her. The kunoichi nearly dropped the blade, surprised by the utter silence the old man had come up on her in. She had not even felt or heard the slightest notion of his presence before he spoke. Her mind turned to wonder…
"It's not often someone can pick out the difference between a true blade and our decorative ones," he continued. "Takes quite the accomplished eye."
Kasumi read through the blatant flattery that was him trying to make the sale, and continued on through the store.
Mike just laughed, and motioned out the front door. He let Kasumi know he would be waiting out in front of the store.
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The old shopkeeper watched the young lady walk out the front of his store, looking at the hand-written note in his hand. A very specific blend of tea, one that he had assured her that he could get for her, but one that gave more away than most would know. He shuffled over to the phone on the counter, stopped to think for a minute, then slowly let his fingers find the numbers.
The phone at the other end rang only once before it was retrieved, only silence coming from the other end.
"Master Ryu," the shopkeep spoke into the receiver, "I have some news you may find… interesting."
A/N: So I don't plan on this being a slow, easy-style story forever. I might need another chapter or two to really light things up, but I'm really thinking the next one will be more than just two people chasing one another around.
I dunno, we'll see what happens. Sorry for the long pause in getting the next chapter up, I got myself a beta reader, so hopefully there should be a better flow going into things now.