Tanzaku town was not an overly sizable township. It was not too difficult to locate a district cluttered by a large concentration of rusty metal warehouses and concrete paved streets yet still residing around charming enough scenery to be considered as an on-location movie shooting paradise.
The whole town was a good thirty-minute trek long, to begin with. After talking with one or two locals and using the incredibly useful skill of using one's eyes, Mana managed to locate the district that looked as ugly as it was insecure about its repulsiveness. Using movie posters and even pictures of finer looking folk to distract from its rough essence.
"Aliens… It had to be darned aliens." Mana sighed, letting her sickened head to sink down and the light yet chilly winter drizzle soak her raven hair. Somewhere in an open warehouse covered with cheap cardboard and squinting and otherwise uncomfortably grimacing crew, a story of a forbidden love between a green-skin tentacle monster with one eye to perceive the beauty of its lover and a thirty-year-old woman in a schoolgirl uniform was being conceived.
It was not that Mana was afraid of aliens. The phobia that made her chill up from the core moving to the surface was always reserved to ghosts. Ghosts were much more final, ghosts did not sleep or eat, they could not have been reasoned with and they were absolutely brain-dead dumb. They did think that the best way of spending their eternity post-mortem was to mess around with their mortal victims by moving objects across their homes, after all. How would you reason with that? How would you try explaining to such a being that they were being ridiculous? To someone who considered turning your tap on in the middle of the night a good way of exacting revenge?
You simply cannot, because it could not be done. Ghosts were the epitome of horror and the whole alien trend was just a natural progression towards something different. Something more physical and armed with more tentacles. Mana was never about having any of their shit. Whereas ghosts were scary because they were incoherent in terms of their motivation and course of action, aliens were just moronic.
What was she even thinking to achieve by just waltzing into this warehouse? Hiding from the drizzle that was beginning to soak the magician from inside out, for one. Why would the people in charge ever talk to her, leave alone expose their dastardly deeds, if there were any to be exposed? Mana usually enjoyed the rain but this drizzle was not much to her fancy, it was baring everything cold and wet about the rain but it had none of the rain's natural Mother Nature kind of charm.
Movie making business looked to be quite loud, for something that started out as a silent slideshow of pictures that beat a local gallery by offering the luxury of changing the pictures for the beholder's static, couch-potato kind of needs, it involved plenty of people yelling at each other.
It was also so… Hectic, reeking of cheap. These cardboard cutouts of characters, these lazy yet shallow, attractive yet rotten personalities attempting to portray the intimacy of one's own mortality or having one's sexual freedom controlled by a one-eyed cardboard cutout with more tentacles than the script of this movie appeared to have pages.
This was pathetic, aliens were just basis for the first impression, the production was deplorable enough for Mana to just twirl around the scurrying staff and ask the director whatever questions she had. If she asked the man about being in the movie and the man wasted as much as a second on this foolhardy request, it would be the most forethought this production had seen before being decided to be given birth in the first place.
"Excuse me, who are you? We are shooting a picture here, young lady, please leave these premises."
Someone asked Mana nicely, but not before placing their hand on her shoulder. This entire place was bustling with so many microscopic chakra signatures that the magician had not even noticed that she was being noticed. In a town of few to none ninja, this may have been a problem. Sensing people in such a busy hotbed was similar to trying to count atoms with a naked eye.
"I need to talk to the person in charge about being in this movie." Mana tried her best, granted, her best was quite absurd when judging from an objective point of view, but the objective scale of the quality standard was not the norm when this tentaclicious disaster was involved.
"Very funny, girl! Hey, I need help with this!" The whoever of whichever movie yelled out at his coworkers as their attempts to move the magician out of place by yanking at her elbow had proven themselves to be verily laughable.
"Why is this minor in this facility? We have nude scenes shooting in five minutes!" The second of the movie shooting crew that was impressive for its size, if only for the reason that so many people could have been so deluded as to consider this picture a good idea, yelled out, trying to move Mana as well.
"Can you at least tell me the name of the director?" Mana asked as her eyes wandered on each chair of the more important crewmembers having a name in sticker form placed on them, yet lacking their respective position in the production. Just another testament to how mismanaged this whole deal was.
"Tokuse Bonda, please leave now!" one of the people that had noticed Mana enter their glorified tin den insisted before noticing that neither of them had the magician in their grasp, to begin with, and that Mana had simply disappeared from their sights as if she was never there at all.
"Bonda-san, I want to talk to you about your motion picture." Mana boldly declared as she had approached the director's chair fast enough to just instantaneously appear to the limited perception of the director's mind. Something that made the man flip out and almost fumble out of his chair.
The appearance of Tokuse Bonda really did not remind the magician of how she had always imagined artists she thought were responsible for making movies to look. She was not sure if this was ground for suspicion of merely a false projection she had failed to justify, her mind leaned more for towards the former. He was a slim and quite boringly dressed bald-headed and sickly, moderately aged man.
"W-What the hell are you talking about, unless you have governor's permit I won't show you anything!" the man fixed his shaky position in his overly comfortable and expensive for his merit and artistic integrity chair.
"Yeah, I don't think that will happen. I am Nakotsumi Mana from Konoha, you may know me better by my stage name – Konoha's Sorceress and I want to get involved in the whole start-up business." Mana wondered if the man identified her right as he was treating her as some sort of Shukuba Security Force officer in charge of investigating his picture. Not that his production was not a crime against humanity and art in general…
"Oh… I mean… Just go to his office and mention the magic word - "start-up" to his receptionist. He obviously won't waste his time with any appointments otherwise." Bonda breathed out easier, Mana wondered if the man was an imbecile or if her attire legitimately gave him grounds to suspect her being a Shukuba Security official. Either way, his jumpy reaction to the possible danger of Security Force attention suggested Mana was looking the right direction to say the least.
So "start-up" really was a trigger word of the sort. Mana now realized why someone who looked so excited about the magician performing in his town was as excited as he was and yet refused to see her. Apparently, the word served not only as an alleged description of everything that was wrong with this town but also was the only way of ever being welcomed into Sho's office without kicking its door down and leaving a trail of unconscious bodies behind, not quite Mana's way.
"If you told me more about your picture and the whole start-up gig in general, maybe I'd agree to show up in your movie. You could use some star-power, right?" Mana grinned, she was just barely managing to restrain her childish embarrassment when in presence of artistic liberties of that specific variety, seeing the ladies in the warehouse shedding an alarming amount of clothes and being rubbed with coal and dirt as if they had survived a point-blank explosion in a comic book strip world.
"We have plenty of star power!" Bonda pouted his lips like a capricious heir to fortune who was being told that their piano skills could use some work before meeting Mana's mocking gaze and folding like a sweaty cheater in a game of poker when gangsters joined the table.
"Yeah, who?" Mana gambled by trying to look like she knew some names in the movie industry, she did not. Despite her lack of convincing lying skills, she guessed right, when she deduced that this bum was a poor judge of acting quality and a director by name only. This whole production set reeked of fund laundering of the most pathetic lack of skill in disguising it variety. The picture of the answer to the questions Lord Sixth raised was beginning to take shape in Mana's mind.
"Fair point…" Bonda wheezed out.
Just as the magician had thought she had Tokuse Bonda playing her game, just when he was about to spill everything about the start-ups, a formally dressed and official looking duo approached the director's chair. For a moment the duo confused Mana, they seemed to evade the hectic and hostile reception newcomers were granted upon entry into the loosely secured territory but when the magician noticed the dark flak jackets zipped up under their suits, she realized what was going on.
She may have sensed a buzzing swarm of low-signatures incoming. By all means, she could have, had it not been for how low their signatures were, had it not been by how invested Mana was in pursuit of her leak and how deep in thought she was trying to say the right words at the right time and analyze her conversant. Even if she was a sensor, sensing a handful of people rushing into such an already crowded place was the same as counting fruit flies from a kilometer away.
The wolves of justice of the Shukuba town had beaten her to the punch. The situation had escalated even more as she could not afford either option – engaging the Shukuba Security would have complicated her stay immensely as she would have found herself complicating the relationship between Konohagakure and the pleasure town that served as almost a legal person vassal to the great ninja village.
On the other hand, she needed to hear what Bonda had to tell her before it was spilled to the Shukuba Security, or even at the same time, the point was – Mana needed that information.
"Shukuba Security, Mr. Bonda, please come with us." A blond haired woman informed the uneasy director who looked just as confused as Mana was inside.
Why would the Security come for this guy, was this not a town-wide scheme? More so, why now? Surely, there have been countless other directors laundering Fire Lord's funding to make a shameful excuse of movies and flush the rest of the funds down their own pockets and the pockets of anyone involved in this scheme.
"I-I don't understand, have I broken any laws? I am shooting a movie here, the governor knows about this and approved of this production himself!" Bonda writhed like a slug who has found himself dropped out of the bucket into a field of salt.
"The perp rolled around the butter of corruption and everlasting decay that has come to envelop this town. Ironically enough, someone who would normally denounce any ties to their schemes and filthy little plots, now wrapped around them with all of their long and scaly hides." The second security officer, a relatively aged man wearing a somewhat loose and untidy shirt with messily tied tie began spouting what appeared to be strictly inner monologue out loud.
Witnessing Mana's confused look at the rambling security officer, the female officer shook her head.
"Don't mind my colleague. We're taking you in for an up to seventy-two hour period, even if you are not officially a suspect yet, as is within our competence as Shukuba Security officers." The woman reached out and broke the director's arms behind his back, making the man wriggle uncomfortably as he was forced to turn on his chair. As the magician's eyes wandered through the crowd, she saw a handful of better-armed and geared officers making similar arrests across the warehouse.
She had to come out, there was simply no other way. The situation was slipping from her hands and if she was to get any answers she had to get them here. Whether it was from Bonda or these two clowns.
"This is bullshit, I tell you, Okasune-san, I thought you were a woman of justice, a hero of the town. Making unlawful arrests like this, Sorceress, make sure to tell the Hokage when you return just what madness is transpiring here!" Bonda squealed and looked adamant about not stopping to do so.
For some reason, Mana's status, once it was revealed to the so called "woman of justice" and "hero of the town", looked quite troubling as she quickly transferred the locked up director to the care of other, better-geared officers before approaching Mana.
"Just what is your involvement with this picture, Konoha's Sorceress?" Officer Okasune attempted to intimidate Mana by using a strict and accusatory tone. Frankly, by all means, this psychological pressure should have worked. This Okasune woman had an aura of confidence and strength about her and the magician would have had no trouble believing that she had made plenty arrests and achieved great success in this town just by Bonda's word alone.
The question was, why was she pursuing a money launderer with such ferocity? Was this truly the right type of procedure for such an arrest? Mana did not know the Konohagakure penal procedures nor ones of Shukuba well enough to confidently doubt Okasune's use of discretion. Right or wrong was a fifty-fifty call in Mana's mind.
The magician crossed her arms under her chest. "I'm a Konohagakure kunoichi investigating a leak of Fire Lord's funding by Hokage's orders."
"That is an odd place to be investigating it." Okasune backed off a little, "May I see some proof?"
"I am not at liberty to show you my mission file, it contains confidential information, all I can show you is my ID." Mana parried Okasune's ocular thrusts aimed at her side.
"The brat claimed to be a Konohagakure ninja investigating the leak herself. If this thing attracted the attention of the big cheese in the big chair, that would have explained why a slayer of the dragon named organized crime and exorcist of the demon named serial murders – Kita Okasune herself decided to investigate a financial crime for once and switch her usual routine as the woman of action for a cup of coffee and a pile of paperwork. That is if the kid truly was who she declared herself to be. The call was Okasune's, as usual…" The oddball male officer kept rambling to himself.
"I think your partner misses the point of the inner part in inner monologue," Mana noted just to ease the tension as Okasune was staring at her ID in a manner that attempted to incinerate the document with her eyes. Even if she did try such a thing, Mana could tell that Okasune's chakra signature was lightyears behind the level needed to accomplish such a thing.
"We get that a lot, Nakotsumi Mana. Itemi does write very detailed and impeccable reports making him an invaluable officer." Kita Okasune sighed as she handed Mana her ID back. The Security officer was really displeased by Mana's presence her for whatever reason. That was when Mana noticed something suspicious, she had spent enough time around a monster of Killing Intent such as Uzumaki Tanshu, she was too well tuned to detect it or avoid its petrifying grasp upon one's throat and heart to miss out on it rearing its ugly head.
Mana's body blurred and disappeared as far as the perception of Okasune Kita and her oddball partner was concerned. The kunoichi appeared right in front of a well-equipped and armored for war Security officer, grabbing the barrel of his massive kunai dispenser and lifting it up fast enough so that the stream of forty kunai fired at the blinding speed of three thousand meters per second did not instantly fill Bonda's body with steel.
Mana was sure that murdering suspects immediately after arresting them for a seventy-two hour period was not textbook Security procedure. Of that much, she was fully certain. Finally, something provided clarity, the man tried fighting back but Mana had disassembled his skewer automaton before he as much as reached for its trigger again. She had seen its like wielded by the Syndicate during her brief run-in with the gang and the weaponry trigger a whole bunch of bad memories.
With a light push of her palm, slamming into the officer's helmet and gas mask, the magician brought the officer down with enough force to shake up his very murderous and misbehaving brain enough so that he would be unable to stand back up for a while.
"Shit, get on him, now!" Okasune commanded with authority in her voice, upon being "encouraged" by their superior, the other officers scurried around Mana and the downed officer and assaulted their murderous colleague, locking him up just like Bonda was locked up previously.
Both arrested people were lead up to two separate caravans with a bunch of masked, geared up and armed Security officers joining them in their trip.
"In a blink of an eye, rather at the speed of cracking atoms, the kid who liked cosplaying as a waitress in spare time revealed herself to be everything she told us she was, and more, if the manner in which she took one of Shukuba's finest was to be paid attention to. I would have liked to commend the beauty and grace inside her movements, I would have liked to commend her great grasp of martial arts, restraint in using her inhuman force and speed, the unimaginable ability to realize that a person whom most would have entrusted their security to was now ready to fill someone's body with kunai knives with such speed that it would have shredded it to fleshy, unrecognizable bits." The male officer kept on rambling as Okasune and he approached Mana.
"Damn, what the hell was that all about…" Kita Okasune scratched her chin in confusion as she appeared to have been caught unprepared by the measures that her own men were prepared to take in this scenario.
Was she trustworthy? It was still not completely outside the realm of possibility that Okasune specifically instructed her men to shred her perp on sight, it was still very much possible that her arrest was unlawful in the first place and Mana, for the first time ever, came up with a unique regret of not carrying a local lawbook in her neat magician hat.
Then again, Okasune could have just been an innocent town hero who decided to cash in an easy arrest and caught unprepared by conspiracies beyond her comprehension. What made matters even more complicated was the fact that Mana knew specifically why a Security officer would attempt to silence the "start-upper". Just as the "start-uppers" exploited financial leaks of Fire Lord's attempt at commendable welfare supporting local artists, the dirty officer was worried that the leakster was about to leak something else entirely, something Mana very much desired and needed to make a return home.
"I'm going with you two to the Security HQ." Mana calmly stated. "There are things I still need to find out before I call it mission complete."
"Young lady, after what I've just seen, we may need you there…" Okasune admitted, relenting to Mana's demands.
While the road to exposing the leak was a bumpy one, Mana appeared to have revealed herself just in the right time and to the right people to possibly maximize the utility of her status for her case. The day was still at its peak, but at least that part of her mission was a massive victory…
Author's Note: Hey, so I recently found out via a Private Message that my fanfiction was ripped apart on Fanfiction Contempt Theater. It was actually done a long time ago but I would have never found out at all had I not been told. You can find it on Too Idiots & Suthner Youtube, I'm pretty sure they do streaming too. They critique fanfiction, from what I've seen, since these guys technically exposed my story to the bigger webs, it's only good sportsmanship to return the favor. Check them out, maybe you'll like their thing. If you only want to see them rip my story apart, I think it's in episode 12. Check those guys out, if you have time to spare and it sounds interesting.
On another note, I'll probably be leaving one or two notes because someone asked for a little more author interaction. I don't know, maybe I'll just leave one or two Easter eggs and/or sources of inspiration or something like that. I'll see how it goes.