The glares of Mana and Yushijin were pushing against each other, firing off an amount of mental and emotional sparks not too different from the number of physical ones they had let out when their weapons clashed not too long ago.
"Lord Sixth approves of my actions, he's told me as much when I messaged him before. He has no reason not to. The Diamond Hand, in other words, the organization I am fighting against here is draining Shukuba of its last drops of blood. They operate in the Fire Country. The Fire Lord would be quite happy if the Diamond Hand stopped leeching his own resources and slowly turned his domain into a desolate crime den." Mana began hesitantly explaining her train of thought to her colleague. Something she did not entirely wish to spend time doing but it appeared that Yushijin would not back off unless she let him know exactly what his role in this all was.
"But if the Feudal Lord himself would be content with the completion of your objective here, why would the Hokage call you back? He is the one who has everything to gain, the Feudal Lord does not even know your name, to him you're just a tool, the only one to gain his praise would be Sixth himself." Yushijin flexed his weary shoulder after sheathing his sword back and putting his cloak back on to protect him from the pelting snow.
"Exactly, Sixth is a Black Ops man, he knows the ins and outs of what he has to gain but also of what he has to lose if I fail here. All he will have to talk about with the Fire Lord, in that case, is a dead kunoichi in Fire Lord's backyard doing hell knows what and dissolving the political state of one of the pleasure towns with nothing to show for it. It would be a sign of his weakness and that he is unfit to remain in the big seat for too long. He is a man of strength, he continuously flaunted that against Hokage-sensei when the two met, his competence is a matter of great pride to him." Mana elaborated, hoping that Yushijin would catch on to what she was saying.
Even if the eyes of the handsome Konoha ninja were confused, clearly seeing the contradiction of his mission objective and presence here to the Lord Sixth's better interest, he still was not perceptive enough to put the picture together. This was typical of boys in Mana's eyes, too fixed on figuring out who was stronger than whom and planning complex schemes to face their preferred opponents in the field of battle instead of figuring out why the fights needed to be fought in the first place. So lazy and hesitant to look one pace up from where their eyes were at just because they enjoyed the view.
"You are Lord Sixth's way out of an apology to the Fire Lord, Yushijin. By sending you here he can show something that denies his inaction, he ensures that whether I win or fail here, whether my reputation is mixed with dirt or elevated, he has nothing to lose because he can always reasonably deny his involvement in the matter. If I topple the Diamond Hand – Lord Sixth will take all the credit the Fire Lord has to dish out, if I die in the process – he'll just point out how he tried to retrieve me by sending you here and that'll be that." Mana pointed it out.
"I can't believe I was played like that. The Hokage doesn't even need me to complete my mission in that case…" Yushijin looked down, looking a tad bit disappointed.
"That's who Lord Sixth is. These are the games that shaped him as a man behind the curtains where he once lurked. He is a politician, maybe because of that he is the best man for the seat he is in right now." Mana shrugged. "Repair your sword and meet me tomorrow at midday in the museum. I'll give you your fight and you can go home, with me or without me."
Yushijin looked Mana in the eyes, something was in the process of being snowballed down the hill in his mind but he looked hesitant to word those thoughts. Perhaps he was still hesitant to let Mana out of his sight, maybe he wanted to suggest his own aid in apprehending the Diamond Hand before they settled things. Whatever the case was, the young man decided against speaking up and simply nodded before walking off.
"It's cute, you know…" Thumb teased Mana by poking her with her elbow.
"What is?" the magician wondered, following her peer as he walked away and faded in the falling snow.
"How much time he spent thinking about you. He caught you unprepared with that illusionary thing when he kicked you, right? He did not just see you, he felt you, he knew what you were thinking at that moment and that was why he caught you." Thumb sighed dreamily, Mana blushed, not liking the woman's tone one bit.
"He saw me fight once. He noticed a pattern of how I moved after dissolving my illusionary body, that is all." Mana dismissed it. Thumb had a point. While using specific illusions, the user's real body became concealed, often emulated and recreated in an illusionary shape, such was the case with Flower Petal Sanctuary too. Mana's illusionary body got injured and dissolved into another illusion of a shower of flower petals while the real body remained hidden to all who were under her illusion. And yet Yushijin knew exactly where to attack not once but twice without any chakra sensory abilities and with his very brain being fooled, not just his chakra network as was the case with normal genjutsu.
Either Mana's movements were too predictable, or the young man really did get into her head at that moment.
"So what now? You still storm the museum, all alone or will you actually enlist this boy's help tomorrow?" Thumb grinned.
"I begin to wonder if sieging the entire establishment is the right idea. I have no doubt that Yokotomo Donyoku surrounds himself with the other Rings, both for the security those orientated into combat provide and the convenience of administrating them all in one place. It is quite likely I will find them all there." Mana sighed, closing her eyes and trying to will her weary mind into thinking straight.
"Although it would not make sense to keep the nerdy types around there, right?" Thumb teased Mana. The magician opened her eyes and fired her ocular arrows at her companion who was giving off these same annoying smartass glares back. She knew something, the "nerdy type" of Rings apparently was not residing in the museum for whatever reason.
"We go back to the Shukuba Security, we'll find out where Yokotomo keeps his newly stolen money and we'll hit that. I suppose we'll be catching the weasel who did this to Itemi-san after all." Mana smiled faintly.
The Shukuba Security was already in turmoil. Civilians buzzing about where they were being heard and even more buzz generated by those waiting in queues to still be heard by someone with a free set of hands and ears. The institution was pathetically understaffed and all because of a call Mana made. Confronting this only made nausea that was wrestling with the rabid hunger in Mana's gut slowly gain the upper hand by bodyslamming its competition down under.
"Shira, when you're done with this, please come to the chief's office." Mana murmured to the ear of the gentle and scarred giant.
"You mean your office, ma'am?" he let out rhetorically. Despite his utter devotion to the cause of beating the Diamond Hand and complete trust in Mana and her abilities, he was probably the one getting under Mana's skin the most.
"Gonna try and work this out with a yes-man?" Thumb teased Mana as well when her input was the least appreciated. Then again, that was how teasing usually worked. Had it come when Mana was in her best moods it would not have served its purpose.
"Can you please not? I am this close to snapping…" Mana rubbed her tired eyes after collapsing into chief Chontai's chair. Her voice betrayed her weariness and a difficult state of perpetual questioning of her every action. At this point the magician cared too little about what would happen to her and if Thumb would stab her in the back eventually to even try and change how she appeared to those around her.
"Hey, my life literally hangs on your ability to catch all of them. You're close to doing it too. Just get yourself together and pull it through!" Thumb objected.
"Yeah but… I have no idea how to find the stolen money or how to catch… Whichever Ring is in charge of financial crimes in the Diamond Hand." Mana slammed her head on the table, covering it up with her hands and pushing it down further.
"There is a reason why The Middle Ring built the Diamond Hand this way, you know. Each Ring knows one area of criminal activity better than anyone else the Middle Ring had access to. Only by pooling their collective knowledge can the Diamond Hand operate. You have a bunch of rookies eager to prove themselves, how about you get all of them together and find something out?" Thumb replied, her tone was not soft because soft would not have cut it. Her tongue was like a whip, sharp, cold and iron, wearing a hook at the end that dug deep under Mana's flesh and exposed all the nerves as it peeled the skin and the muscle off on its way out.
"Yeah… Let's do that." Mana calmly composed herself and got herself together, preparing for the next attack on the Diamond Hand.
A good fifteen minutes ago, Thumb had left Mana to put herself back onto her emotional saddle and prepare to do the work she decided to accomplish here. Something that was too important for Mana to just collapse under the pressure and to the immense fatigue now. While the burglar had returned with the information that she has informed every member of the reformed Shukuba Security, only Shira had shown up in the Mana's office as requested.
Mana knew what this meant. It was a sign of defiance. A sign of lack of trust. Also, a sign of the rookies finally realizing what it was Mana asked them to do. One thing was to declare that one was ready to topple a cabal of criminals, a whole thing entirely was to do the work of an entire Security Force with just four people. They were pissed, scorned by the fact that Mana left doing hells knew what while they were busy with a bunch of documents and busywork.
"I think that the others are too busy, ma'am. Maybe we should start already…" Shira spoke up with a firm and thunderously low-pitched voice. Despite his great respect for Mana, his voice or tone did not shake or question his actions or words for a moment. Mana could only dream of having this much confidence in what she was doing. It seemed as of late that everything around her was just falling apart not only on her own head but on heads of everyone in the same room.
He was right – the youngbloods may have agreed to work together to beat the Diamond Hand but they defied Mana. They did not trust her just like Itemi didn't when he ran off to fight them alone. Why was it that the criminals rarely ever had trouble working together? It was only due to Thumb's ambition and her own defiance that Mana even came to capturing one of the Five Rings.
"Yeah, I guess it's only fair enough. The Shukuba vault was hit hard, the town's funds are all but drained and in the Diamond Hand's possession. That is our first priority. The Diamond Hand believes that money is power, it appears that both the village and the Security shares that belief so we need to get it back." Mana raised the issue she decided to focus on.
"That will be difficult, ma'am. Officer Itemi appeared to have acted in brutally lethal force, there was not a single survivor we could interrogate or detain in the incident. All that was left was bodies. I would not advise asking Burgoniya about what those bodies could tell, she is on the verge of going postal right now. She's self-appointed herself as the head of forensics again." Shira reported.
Of course, she'd be the worst she's ever been. From the very beginning, Burgoniya distrusted Mana if not hated her guts. It was not tough to see why Mana was not even a Security officer with proper training. In the woman's eyes, she was just an entertainer, a pompous stage magician with delusions of grandeur and the illusion of power to stop all crime in the town. The woman had spent her entire life growing and training to leave forensics and become something more and once she had gathered that experience – Mana just flipped the table and Burgoniya had to do all of her despised work all by herself. Had Mana not known better, she would be expecting the colleague to try and murder her for how much of her misfortune and stress was directly brought up by Mana.
"I see, is there any way to find that money without interrogating anyone involved in taking it? Any public way of tracking it?" Mana asked, knowing full well what the answer would be like. It was not like the Diamond Hand lacked brainpower needed to not just shake a bag of money the size of two-thirds of the entire budget of a pleasure town to buy something.
"Highly unlikely." Shira shook his head adamantly without breaking the stance.
"Not entirely true…" Thumb scratched her elbow uneasily, knowing she'd tread some suffocating grounds and possibly risk getting strangled by the seals her ex-employers left for a while. "Most public money is marked with a pheromone that Aburame insects are capable of tracing. In cases such as this, that means they could be traced."
"If your accomplices are as smart as an average thug they'll know to remove those pheromones." Shira voiced his doubts.
"True, but a lot of pheromones means a need for a lot of removal substance, right? Could we not track the substance that is meant to remove the traces of the pheromone?" Thumb suggested. The woman was giving off vital information, vital enough that Mana suddenly started to doubt that Thumb was out to betray her and it definitely started to appear like she was being genuinely interested in bringing the Diamond Hand down.
"It will be difficult. We do not know if the Diamond Hand will buy it from a black market dealer or a local one." Shira replied.
"I don't think they will be using local dealers. As alluring and ironic as paying the town with their own money sounds, it would be a dead giveaway for anyone smart enough to look. They'll use black market dealers for sure." Mana massaged her temples.
"Then you are in luck that I know them all, sister." Thumb grinned. "I usually bought gadgets from black market dealers in contact with the Diamond Hand."
"I don't know about that." Mana sighed. "It's been almost twenty-four hours since you have not reported back. Probably double that since you started working against the Diamond Hand's interests by failing to steal the necklace on purpose. By now they know you are compromised if they know to not use local dealers, they'll know enough to avoid anything we can retrieve from you." Mana pointed out.
"They would most likely assume that you have been tortured and all information has been extracted from you. Ninja are unmatched in knowing when to use torture and when to use more psychological interrogation methods for maximum effectiveness and the Diamond Hand will know that." Shira voiced his thoughts.
"True, but Mana-chan is such a sweetie, she wouldn't hurt a fly…" Thumb teased Mana again by sending her an air kiss.
"Well, the Diamond Hand does not know that." Mana stone-walled the yet another attempt by the burglar to get under her skin. By this moment the magician was almost certain that the woman was not looking to betray her, a traitor, the way Mana was taught, would do everything in their power to stay under the radar, not try and poke the person they're about to betray with every chance they get. "They would be smart to assume I am just about as ruthless and effective as any ninja of my rank."
"That means we require to locate a black-market dealer who is not a casual acquaintance of Ms. Thumb. It will be a difficult task, it is likely that such a transaction would have already taken place or will take place shortly. It is highly unlikely that we will catch the Diamond Hand red-handed." Shira pondered.
Mana sighed and stood up, taking her coat and slipping into it. "Very well then, you two see what you can work out."
It was evident in Thumb's face that she hated the idea of staying in the Security with the rookies who already had too much on their hands to babysit her from would-be assassins. Especially now that Mana affirmed her fears that her status as a captured agent was already a given in the eyes of her ex-employers.
"Where are you heading to?" Shira wondered.
"First I'll need to enter the den of the dragon and talk to Burgoniya, after I am inevitably rejected by her and feeling as trashed mentally as I have ever felt, I'll be off to the Aviary with my plan B. I'll message some of the Aburame clansmen I may know from my Academy days, maybe they'll know ways of tracing the chemical used to delete the trace of their pheromone. They're pretty impressive and crafty and nature is a handy mistress, I'm sure they'll have a bug for that." Mana sighed before approaching Thumb and leaning up to her while standing up on her toes to reach the woman's ear.
"I had expected more of a fight from you about this. You sure you are OK staying here and helping Shira?" Mana wondered quietly.
"I saw what a wreck you were before. I figured you needed more of my shit the least right now. I was mistaken before when I thought all of this could go comfortably, it seems that it will get worse for us before it gets better for people we don't know…" the burglar closed her eyes submissively.
"Guess that is why you're the adult here…" Mana tried to work up a smile before the trio parted ways after entering the chaotic soup of the Security offices in the peak of their activity, approaching the end of the workday.