"Whoa, whoa… Did you, Nara Skaven, the guy we've been trying to recruit to our crew, just busted into our room and declared that we should throw out the artificial chest model that we've been building for our friend and fellow Star?" Damisan pointed his metal finger at the Nara clad in an eggplant-colored jacket with his hands in his pockets like he had just asked them to take out their own trash or something.

"Yeah, though it doesn't help it when you break it down like that. I'm gonna explain myself in a moment so I'll just have to ask you to trust me and not install that robo-heart into your friend," Skaven pointed his finger at the precious prosthetic that Damisan held in his artificial hand.

"Why should we trust you?" Tomi beamed her suspicion through her childish and spiteful stare. "No matter how many times Shige-H asked you to join the Stars, you've declined every single time. You're a stranger and I barely trust even people I've met, let alone shady guys like you!"

"Tomi…" Shige-H raised her hand up to pacify the situation by requesting that the young lady keeps quiet and doesn't aggravate whatever this budding relationship of the Stars and Skaven ends up being.

"No, the urchin raises a fine point," Endo frowned with his eyes closed, rejecting even humoring his guest with a look let alone trusting his proposition. "If you make sure to further yourself as far as possible from a group, you don't get to make important calls such as these for that group. As far as the Stars are concerned, this man is nothing."

"Look, it's true that I haven't been the most approachable guy with that membership business and I don't do well with gangs so I'd still rather not have anything to do with your operation but… I do care about Mana and I want her to be fine again. I think what you're doing is a grave mistake that will ruin her life, which nobody who has become a target of criminals and assassins deserves. Mana deserves nothing less than a full recovery," Skaven explained himself, and the group's scorns laying with this man had softened once the truthfulness of his words and intentions became crystal clear from his body language and tone.

"You care about Mana?" Shige-H wondered.

"Yeah, lately, she's been sort of staying away from you guys and I found that odd, so I've been observing her whenever our paths crossed," Skaven shrugged. The young man looked not at all proud of what he had admitted. As was becoming a trend with him, there was a total package yet to unveil with the truth behind what he had just said and it began vexing Skaven more and more that this stacked up with something that was to be his first bilateral impression with the Stars.

"Whoa, did you follow Mana-nee, you creep!?" Tomi jumped up on her bed, her thumb slipped to her mouth while she reared her pearly whites ready to dig into her own thumb and call for some help to pummel this Nara weirdo on the spot.

"I didn't follow her per se. I just… If our paths crossed, if we walked by each other in the hallway or if we ended up reading in the library at the same time or trained in the Training Grounds with a matching schedule, I… I paid attention to her, as opposed to my usual disinterest with people in general," Skaven shrugged and looked away. While he looked a tad embarrassed to have to explain this, there was a glimpse of irritation in his eyes that brought up the impression that the young man was getting sick of this stand of his and was considering giving up on this complete stranger he intended to help in his mind.

"You saw Mana's loneliness. She piqued your interest because she looked to you like someone you could help." Shige-H put it down in plain and simple terms. It didn't hurt that she had thoroughly researched the personalities and histories of each Stars member she planned to recruit beforehand, so she knew just the kind of person Skaven was for real. Out of all the people in the room, except for the Nara himself, Shige-H needed his justifications the least.

"Yeah, I guess there was some of that…" Skaven mumbled in response.

"You're a lot like me, you know," Shige-H stood up. "You want to reach out to people and help them. Unlike me, however, you do it because that's just your nature. Unlike the people you've grown up around, you're a pleasant person and want to help everyone in-need. That's why you've chosen Endo's side during our sparring match without asking too many questions. He just looked like the person in-need of your help so you didn't hesitate to jump in and do what you felt was the right thing."

"I guess…" Skaven rolled his eyes. This whole psycho-analysis act and the true nature of the whole thing as yet another attempt to drag him over to the Stars' side didn't elude Skaven, however. His body language said as much. He was still lingering on the thought of walking away and never speaking to this gang again.

"Okay, what is your proposition then, Mr. Nice Guy?" Endo stated boldly, thrusting his verbal blade at Skaven's hesitant and lagging defenses without a care in the world about if his thrust penetrates his mark and how grievous the wounds would be. His tone was the dripping poison on the blade.

"Look… It's going to sound absolutely ludicrous so before I make this plight, I must explain where I come from." Skaven replied.

"Humph… You can spare us your life story. Just tell us what you advise us to do and leave us. If we like your advice–we'll take it, if not–we'll act as if you were never here." Endo pushed Skaven away without twitching a muscle. His voice and rude social skills had that effect on people.

"What's the matter? Is your background a touchy subject to you or something? Trust me, I can understand that thing if you find it difficult to talk about…" Damisan tried connecting with the enigmatic Nara loner but Skaven cut the cord before they could bond with a distant facial expression and a turn of his side.

"That's not it, it's just that in order for Mana to come back to us the way she was we must talk to the Supreme Leader too and I must recount that same story again and again. That's just such a bother, so I'd rather talk about it just once. Take my offer of seeing the Supreme Leader tomorrow after class or just stuff that rusty thing into your friend and watch her wilt in despair and hopelessness as her life's purpose floats away from her forever." Skaven replied with a cold drag of a razor's blade against sensitive, exposed nerves before leaving.

"I don't like that character. I can't believe you want him to join the Stars, he's just utterly unlikable..." Endo made a stone-cold expression of dismissal of the young man before Tomi flung a wooden boomerang at his head playfully only for it to bounce off and fall to the carpet in between their beds.

"You're the one to talk!" the girl hissed.

"Skaven," Shige-H nodded in acknowledgment of the fact that, true to his word, Skaven agreed to show up to the Supreme Commander's office door and plead his case before the frightening Supreme Leader herself.

"I take it you haven't stuffed the heart in just yet? 'Cause if you did, this entire job's sort of pointless so we may as well split," Skaven showed a skill in asking of something with no passion or curiosity behind the question peeking through the stone corner in his voice.

"Yes. We've gone a full day without Mana's help in our studies so this job of yours better be worth it!" Endo raised his fist and bumped it into his own chest as a taunt for the backlash that the Nara would face if his proposition doesn't pan out as something useful.

"Has it occurred to you that Mana might not be very helpful to your studies once she wakes up?" Skaven wondered. "She's skipped entire weeks of the prep courses. You may just have a better grasp of the subjects compared to her now and you may need to help her catch up. Are you willing to do that for her?"

"This is preposterous…" Endo crossed his arms. He stonewalled Skaven's question, so it wasn't entirely clear if at any deep-down layer of his heart he realized that Skaven might have had a point there.

"Of course!" Shige-H proclaimed. "We Stars stick together and help each other. Mana would do so much for any of us so it's only fair we stick up for her too. That's why we're here. We'd not have bothered if we felt any different way."

"Yeah, Mana helped me out when I blew up my prosthetics and she even offered to help me rebuild them too. Had it not been for the nasty affair with Ion… Well… I'm willing to provide whatever help Mana needs to make sure she doesn't feel alone and hopeless again." Damisan joined in.

"I don't trust or like that many people. People are mean, they hurt animals and destroy their homes. People downright suck! Mana-nee is different, she treats her ninja rabbits like her own family and she doesn't consider herself above ninja animals just because she's human. I'm gonna fight for Mana-nee because of that!" Tomi clenched her little fists and pumped them.

"Well… I suppose that's what Mana would do for us. If I didn't return the favor, I'd be worse than a lowly criminal and that I cannot allow. In what Mana does, I must do better!" Endo declared with passionate eyes devoid of hatred of any sort which was a rare sight to behold in this youth.

"Good, because you might just need nothing less than what you've promised to do right now. You might need to risk your lives and, possibly, even die for your friend. I just wanted to know that you were ready for that because few usually are." Skaven explained before opening the door and walking into the Supreme Leader's office.

"What the holy fuck is this shit!?" the Supreme Leader spat out her coffee in a chocolate-colored spray and pointed her arms at the entering party behind her door. "I thought I made it real fucking clear to you twerps that I don't wanna see ya unless you're starting out your preps, finishing them and you're expecting a fucking medal for it, or you're debriefing about a job and that job better be pristine as fuck because I'm gonna bite your fucking ears off and spit them out into your face if it ain't!"

Despite the Stars and Skaven alike being acquaintanced with the peculiarities about their Supreme Commander, the woman's untruthful rude behavior never failed to throw them off the loop. Despite the lousy first attempt at the siege of the woman's office, Skaven weathered the storm the best and approached her desk.

"There's a matter related to a job I want to discuss with you, Supreme Commander. It is not something to I can bring up before the Regimental Commanders as we haven't finished out prep courses so we don't have a regiment we can call our own yet." Skaven explained himself.

"Seeing how it's you fuckers, I bet it's about that stage magician bitch ain't it?" the Supreme Commander turned to a somber mood once she examined her soaked with coffee documents and spread them on the windowsill before resuming her slimy, chocolatey afternoon treat.

"It absolutely is. It concerns both Mana and the rest of the Stars." Skaven confirmed it.

"Really? So, you've signed yourself up with those goons too, huh?" the Supreme Commander wondered.

"I… I guess so. For now, at least…" Skaven admitted it with hesitation and his fair share of head scratching. "In any case, the Stars planned on putting their prosthetics into Mana and using Senju cells to fill up the missing chunks of connective tissue. Effectively, it would cover up her gaping wound while providing her with a working heart and core circulation system. Mana would be back on her feet albeit, most likely, her chakra circulation would be all messed up. Odds are–she'd remain incapable of molding chakra ever again, the best she can hope for is some impractical method of chakra control that dooms her for being a below average ninja for the rest of her life."

"Those are the risks we've discussed, yes. Frankly, while I'd rather see Mana as a useful and powerful asset to the Allied Ninja, I'm fine using her as a herald for the organization without actual combat ability too." The Supreme Leader replied with an annoyed growl as this was not what she had intended to be discussing at this point of the day nor were the Stars whom she intended to discuss it with.

"We've got the artificial heart built already, Supreme Leader," Damisan butt in with his metal index finger raised as if he spouted some fun trivia.

"Look, Mana has nothing to do with what happened to her. She barely even had the chance to defend herself. Some cowardly assassins started targeting her for a bounty she's accumulated by doing what she thought was right throughout her life and I think that's wrong. She deserves better than that. She deserves to have a shot at bouncing back from this, however slim and… However little she would like it if she was awake and had the choice in the matter." Skaven explained while running his arm over his messy, dark hair.

"So, you've got a better idea then, wise guy?" the Supreme Leader leaned back in her office chair and placed her high-heels with kunai for heels onto the table she was so itching to keep clean just a few moments earlier.

Skaven bit his lip, he didn't like how he was being addressed far more than the obscenities that the Supreme Leader spouted normally took him aback. The rest of the Stars noticed Skaven's hesitation. While they would have been glad to pitch in for their impromptu comrade, they didn't quite know Skaven's plan themselves either so they had to hear it first from him.

"Yes. I'm not sure how much of my upbringing you are aware of, I believe that only Shige-H amongst the Stars knows a thing or two about it but… I grew up and learned the ropes in the Hellhounds. A ruthless criminal gang operating in the far-off sections of the Fire Country, sometimes stepping out into the Land of Grass or some other smaller territory to shave off major heat but…"

"I knew it, you're just a no-good criminal yourself!" Endo yelled out, shoving Shige-H and Damisan away to each side as he forced Skaven to turn around and face him with a rude shove and yank.

"I'm not like the Hellhounds!" Skaven yelled out with vitriol matching Endo's own. "That's why I defected the first chance I got! I never knew my actual parents or where I was truly from, I took the first chance I had to jump ship and asked Kusagakure for sanctuary when I could."

"So that makes what? Only most of your entire life until a handful of years ago that you've spent thieving and offing people just like that assassin bitch blew Mana away?" Endo pressed his forehead up to Skaven's while the two beamed spite at each other, looking ready to throw down at any second now.

"I can't say that this ain't just fucking fantastic. Two dickwads about to throw down in my fucking office…" the Supreme Leader groaned, taking her hat off and running her hand through her hair before putting it back on and slamming her arms on the table as she split the two apart solely by standing up and leaning over her desk. "If you wanna go at each other and get yourselves kicked the fuck out of my organization, you're free to do it anywhere else where you're not being a fucking nuisance!"

"I apologize, it's just that… Skaven didn't tell us anything about his background yesterday nor did I, mostly because I felt worried that this job of Skaven's wouldn't come together if my group knew this. More than a few of them are still very touchy about criminals." Shige-H stepped in between the two.

"Me, for example," Damisan leaned in to the left, raising his artificial hand until his large, cloaked and covered up frame could be better seen from around the others. "Fennec and his gang quartered me and roasted me up like a regular barbecue in front of my entire village and left me to die."

Despite the severity of his declaration, Damisan sounded almost gleeful to be talking about it, as if the joy of being included into the Stars and this brewing affair with reviving Mana just the way she was before her big sleep overpowered the dread he felt lingering since the fateful day when a self-proclaimed revolutionary disfigured and brutally mauled the young man.

"That's all good and just fucking peachy, but I'd rather like to see the part where I'm supposed to get involved in this…" the Supreme Leader sat back down and leaned back in her chair while weaving her fingers over her belly.

"Well, the thing is that Endo was a bit off about his presumptions as to how recently I was still working with the Hellhounds. In fact, it hasn't been a full month since I've defected to Kusagakure before I asked to be assigned here." Skaven pointed out. "That means that some knowledge of the Hellhounds' inner workings and their bigger jobs remain with me."

"Humph… Of course, you did," Endo remarked. "With how much baggage you had with Kusagakure as a lowly criminal, murderer and a thief, just how could you have ever worked for that village? You turned tail and ran away as fast as you could, because that's what you lot always do. Abandoned your scumbag pals, then bit the hand that fed you and saved you and ran again. Say what you will, this still sounds like a proper hellhound to me."

"Recruit Endo, fucking seriously, shut the fuck up!" the Supreme Commander made a zipping gesture before turning back to Skaven. "You, shaved-sides-ponytail, keep going. I have a feeling I might like to hear something that you have to say."

"Well, it just so happens that we have involved the Hellhounds in a scheme that most gangs and anyone that's anybody around the Fire Country has dabbled in. Konoha has this shrewd fellow called Hanada Katsuo. They take him as a legitimate business person but he's got his claws deep into private healthcare facilities, he's been investing so much dough into the public Konoha hospital that he pretty much owns the damned thing by now. Not officially, not on paper, but he owns every gadget, every scalpel and every lab coat in that building because he supplied it to the facility himself. Donation after generous donation." Skaven started.

"And you guys look surprised when I say I don't trust people…" Tomi pouted her lips. The young lady looked like she wasn't much of a fan of this Hanada Katsuo fellow at all.

"Well, after his injuries, Guru Ayushi was hospitalized, and he's been laying in a coma he has no hope of waking up from ever since. Since Mana beat him to a pulp near her own home village, nobody batted an eye when they hospitalized him in Konoha and kept him there." Skaven explained.

"I think I already see where you're going, I've heard a peep or two about this…" the Supreme Leader leaned forward, looking very into this yarn of guts that Skaven was spilling.

"That's right, Hanada Katsuo is making a fortune off of using Guru Ayushi's cells, his very flesh for black market implants pretty much since week two of his hospitalization. Despite Guru being down and out, likely for good, his flesh still has some of his magic left in it. It's more regenerative than your usual lump of Senju cells for sure!" Skaven concluded his pitch. "If we get a pound of that black-market flesh–Mana would be up and walking as if nothing had happened a few hours later–I've seen shit like that with my own two eyes."

"You rotten bastards. Since Guru Ayushi regenerates himself, nobody would even notice a nip here or a tuck there," Endo's face turned sour despite the absolute criminal genius necessary to stand atop of a scheme such as the one underneath Hanada Katsuo's heels.

"He's not what he used to be, just a pale husk of the instantaneous, near-immortal regeneration but it's powerful and it's goddamn consistent," Skaven crossed his arms, looking at what the Supreme Leader has to say.

"You want me to send my Allied Ninja to get that pound of flesh for you, don't you, you wicked fuck?" the Supreme Leader leaned back in her chair, resting her head in her hands while her eyes blew out in the surprising amount of gall it took to put a plan such as this one together. "To send my people into the Konoha territory, to operate in the shadows and interact against the interests of this Hanada Katsuo dickwad that's got enough money to have his face carved right up that fancy-ass mountain of theirs or finance actual dicks being put into the mouths of the rest of those dead, old-ass pricks?"

"It would be quite a risk for you, Supreme Leader. That's why you need to send us–the Stars. If we get caught, you'll have plausible deniability. I'm a known associate of the Hellhounds and those haven't even graduated yet. This is the only way that this job would work for us," Skaven put his seal on the scroll with the pitch.

"You've thought this through, you sly fucking fox…" the Supreme Leader smirked. While the woman still appeared to have reservations, the confidence on Skaven's face suggested that he intended to talk the Supreme Leader through them one by one. There was too much spark in the militaristic woman's eyes for her to dismiss this as some nut job's wet dream to pull a heist of the century. "It sounds fucking stupid, honestly. None of you dweebs have even graduated yet and you'll end up skipping even more of your prep courses…"

"We'll catch up. If we succeed, however, we'll have Nakotsumi Mana back on her feet at full-power, if not better, while you have that ace hidden up your sleeve that you can whip out in your next meeting with the Hokage. You can look at him and show him how you can handle the shit brewing in his own village way better than he can. You have nothing but a handful of men and women to lose."

"Human resources are important, you guys are some of the most perspective recruits I've got now…" the Supreme Leader still resisted approving their job request on the spot but she's been halfway convinced already, the smell of it lingered in the air and the predators looking for a bite of it caught the whiff.

"Didn't you say many people have been flowing since Mana signed up, Supreme Leader?" Shige-H wondered. "You've got the labour force to spare, while none of them will be quite Stars material, you can bounce back from this several times over."

"Shitaka comes with you lot. No way am I letting a bunch of recruits prancing off like a couple of babies that know fuck all about the world outside the HQ without supervision of someone who knows what the fuck they're doing," the Supreme Leader relented while still altering the deal a little.

Though it was an alteration that the Stars could work with.