Shades of Greed [Custom Mission]

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

Spoiler:

A small bird swooped dangerously close to the ground, troubling people that were traveling the Roiyaru road or advertising their services. It wasn’t something recent that the service providers started just standing on the road, shouting out their services. To Nakotsumi Mana both the incredibly daring birds diving startlingly close to her head and the servicemen promoting their snacks, carriage services or advertising a shop that wasn’t even there seemed incredibly annoying. It reminded to the very idealistic girl just how much materialistic the world around her was. Even her business in Shukuba town was very much driven by money related problems, the objective of her mission had everything to do with money and economy, something the girl didn’t appreciate at all. Being a teenager Mana did have a grasp on what the economy was and somewhat how it worked but she never thought of money as something important, to the stage magician money had the same meaning like the kitchen towel, it was just something people used but nothing Mana treasured much. Which was partially why her current mission annoyed her, she’d have to do the job of an inspector: see where the village money goes, why the funding doesn’t work and so on. For the first time ever Mana felt bored by her mission objective and considered it easily her least important mission to date. It almost felt like she was doing a chore…

Mana has been in Shukuba town before on a mission with her team. Ironically it was once again about money, it seemed that the little pleasure town had a habit of mistreating its finances and ticking Mana off. It was a rich and pretty little town for sure but it seemed to place quite a lot of importance on money, something Mana considered tiresome. Still judging from the town’s mission request the officials sounded quite worried about the criminal situation, maybe Mana could help them with that and keep her dignity and the feeling like she’s doing something useful after all… The town had a strange habit of just appearing out of the blue with the first structures being quite mixed into the trees. One moment you’re feeling like you’re in a middle of nowhere and the next one you’re surrounded by hotels, shops and vendors. “That’s strange… No one’s here to greet me…” Mana thought as she entered the central part of the town. Having been here before she had a basic understanding of the town’s geography but she had no idea who she had to report to or what to begin from, she did not know where the village’s administration was or who even ordered the mission. It’s like coming to the office just to know that your boss is seeing you for the first time in his life…

Mana sat down on the bench in a park in the central area, a park which consisted of four or five trees placed ten metres away from each other. It’s only natural quality was that it had no shop or hotel built on top of it. “As if I need any more reasons to think I’m wasting my time here…” Mana thought to herself slapping her face with her palm. She had no idea where to start her inspection from, after sitting on the bench for a while the girl decided that the administration building would be the best bet, all she needed to do was to find it. Luckily an ice cream vendor owner directed her to it after being asked, he seemed rather insisting that she bought some ice cream though. Almost as if he had a quota to fill… With a slow and lazy step Mana walked up to the administration building and entered it, a lady tried to ask her out nicely. “Are you even serious with this?” Mana thought to herself, it seemed as if no one remembered the letter that came from the village several days ago informing that they’d be sending a ninja inspector to check how the funding was implemented…

With a little trouble Mana managed to convince the lady that she’s here with business and that she needs to see whoever is in charge of the village’s administration. “Fine, but you’ll have to wait for a while, Shima-san is busy, he’s in a meeting now…” the lady said. For the second time that day Mana had to sit on a bench and do nothing but wait, it was a good thing that patience was something Mana had plenty of. “Shima-san will see you know, inspector…” the lady informed Mana, the girl had no idea how was the secretary informed that the meeting was over, the magician didn’t deny a possibility that the meeting was just in her head, something to keep Mana sitting still. “No one likes finance inspectors… What was I expecting, honestly…” the girl thought to herself as she ascended to the fourth floor by stairs and entered an office with “GOVERNOR” written on it. “Governor? I don’t remember Shukuba having a governor…” Mana thought though her contact with Shukuba administration was almost non-existing prior to that day.

The governor looked very surprised to see Mana and even more surprised to hear why she was there. The governor was a short plump half bald man, to be honest it was the first thing that came to people's mind when imagining a boring bureaucrat “An inspector and assisting security officer? Oh, right… The man who was supposed to meet you died yesterday in a mugging, unfortunately. I’m sorry, we were so touched by this loss that I forgot completely to appoint another assistant for your stay. I’m afraid we have no free spots though, you’ll have to somehow figure things out by yourself. I can supply all of the papers about the implementation of the funding from Konoha into the security force but as far as assisting Shukuba with crime-busting for the duration of your stay you’ll have to speak with the chief of security. The security headquarters is several blocks north in the northern part of the town, it has a shuriken insignia on it so you shouldn’t miss it.” The governor informed. “Even though I can’t help but say that your visit is a vain one, there are absolutely no holes in the papers or with our security forces, I think the outcry about the crime spree is just a public bubble by my haters…” the man added just as Mana was leaving his office. “Then you have nothing to worry about.” Mana replied as she slammed the door, this entire visit had a nasty habit of pissing her off by making her feel like her time was wasted more and more…

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

“I’m sorry, Musashi-san is in a meeting, would you mind to wait a little?” a security officer sung with a sweet voice after Mana finally found the security force headquarters. “Is it just me or does this town hate me?” the girl thought as she sat down on a waiting bench for the third time that day. Mana saw the security officers working on some documents, some even got criminals in but far less than Mana had imagined. Over the two hours that she sat there waiting only five young men got dragged to the offices, three of them were released immediately after a brief exchange of words between the security officers and the supposed bandits. “Does this town have a password-release system or something?” the girl wondered. There was far too little time between leading the men into the office and seeing them walk out triumphant to imply that a questioning took place, it happened in literally less than a minute of time. “Smells like someone may be slipping something golden and round into someone’s pocket here…” Mana thought to herself. The idea of corruption being so rampant that it happened in the middle of day in the office of the security headquarters was mind boggling, almost impossible really.

Finally the same officer who told Mana to wait came up to Mana and informed her that the chief of security was waiting for her. The chief said pretty much the same thing about the situation that the governor did – that Mana was wasting her time here and that she would see nothing unusual. Even more when Mana insisted that she would accompany a patrol of security the man got quite angry and commented that he would not allow a little girl be responsible for a security patrol and boss his forces around. “That’s odd, almost like he doesn’t appreciate the funding from Konoha…” Mana thought. “If I was you, chief of security, I would be more careful with my words. Right now this little girl is the only one who stands between Konoha pulling your funding.” The magician replied, trying to remind the man what she was doing there, after those words the man lost it completely “Fine, pull the stupid funding, see if we care, just get the hell out of my office, I've got better things to do than to account to you!!!” the man shouted. Something seemed very odd to Mana, neither the governor nor the chief of security seemed to be overly nice to her, seeing how she’s the inspector Konoha’s funding for the village depends on, she expected having her ass kissed during her entire visit…

And just like that Mana wasted her entire first day in Shukuba town, the ridiculous “meetings” made her waste her entire time and get nothing done at all. Even more Mana had no place to go now that the sun went down, she was supposed to get a pre-paid hotel room but seemingly that went six feet under together with her guide. The hotel owner seemed rather ignorant for Mana’s inquiry if she had any price reductions coming as Konoha funding inspector, none of the hotels seemed to really care about her status as a guest of the town’s only source of income beyond what it makes from its service sector. And that was how Mana managed to spend almost half of the money she had on her for a night at the hotel, this entire visit was very odd. The girl decided not to sleep seeing how she could afford one, maybe two more nights if she found some dirtier hotels around, it was best to spend all the time she could on this peculiar case of colossal indifference that the town seemed to have.

As the full moon reached it’s peak Mana was still examining the documents that the governor gave her with the reports of all the town’s income and expenditure by the candlelight. Mana understood pretty much nothing written there, the reports looked rather tidy and well done but very complicated for someone without any knowledge in economy. It didn’t help that Mana had zero interest in investigating economy reports as she didn’t care about money at all. Only as the night moved on did Mana manage to somewhat make sense of all those numbers and words in the report. “Magic, what did I do to upset you?” Mana asked the imagined omnipotent embodiment of life that Mana believed in. Then as the sun appeared in the horizon Mana realized that something looked really fishy, the report was pretty much perfect – literally every single ryo was spent somewhere, the balance was an absolute zero. Even more the funding from Konoha was more than half of all Shukuba town income, it simply made no sense for the administration to be so indifferent when they risked more than half of their income… “Do they have an alternate source of funds or am I just really bad at this?” Mana thought, she looked at the clock on the wall, it was about 4 AM.

Suddenly something slammed into Mana’s hotel door, the girl quickly jumped off the chair and hid behind a wall, taking small peeks into the hallway with a corner of her eye. Another bang happened, then another, after four or five more the door burst open, loud voices echoed throughout the entire room “Idiot, why did you take so long to take the door down, she’s probably awake now!” “Even better, we’ll get to play a little, hey inspector, welcome to Shukuba town!!!” the second voice yelled. Mana waited for a chance to attack the intruders but as time went by the girl realized that nothing was happening, the intruders weren’t actually intruding. Mana took a small peek through the corner – the door was wide open but no one was standing in the hallway. The girl took her kunai out and inspected the entire room – no one was there. “Okay, now I’m really sure that I’m not wanted here…” Mana thought to herself. It seemed that whatever windmill Mana was fighting against resorted to psychological pressure, any reasonably minded ninja would simply take their reports and bring them back home saying that nothing was wrong, Mana obviously had no official reason to be here and it was obvious that everyone in the town wanted her out. “There’s something interesting happening here, something possibly dangerous for people’s lives. I need to get to the bottom of it. It looks like the whole cream of the village is dirty and lying straight to my face...” The girl thought, her head was buzzing, she didn’t know if it was okay to catch some sleep now or if the attackers would come back. She set a simple good old bucket trap by her door, “If my dad ever saw me being this bad at traps he’d be really disappointed.” Mana thought as she dropped down into her bed and closed her eyes.

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

The young trickster spent her entire morning wandering around Shukuba town. It was odd that the hotel owner didn’t seem to mind the kicked out door or the noise at night, he just seemed to ignore it entirely. Mana found that rather odd, still her small purse only held enough money for one more night, the girl was not one of those people who took too much money to her missions, especially when she was supposed to be given a room for free. It was then when Mana actually understood, that despite the intricacies of economy keeping to evade her, the darned thing can actually suck quite a lot. The girl did not understand why was her ryo shortage that much of a problem for her, especially since she had what her mission objective asked – a proof that everything with the Shukuba funding was done perfectly fine and that all of it was implemented. On paper these documents were quite enough for Mana to return and claim that everything was alright with the town and that the time it took for her to conduct her investigation was so short that she didn’t manage to encounter a single crime. But that was not Mana’s way.

There was this nagging thought that something was wrong with this town and Mana knew it. For some reason it just didn’t want Mana to stick around too long, it showed that in many ways: by giving her this psychological pressure of showing disrespect and bullying her and by giving her what she wanted from the town originally quite fast. The girl knew that there had to be a reason for all of this oddness in this town, for all the shady ways that that the officials acted in. “Hey, you’re the inspector from Konoha, aren’t you?” a man asked Mana as she was passing by the park in the central area of the town. “Why? Are you going to ask me to leave too? I thought Shukuba was a pleasure town…” Mana asked in a quite irritated tone, she had all the reasons for it. So far this town and it’s officials treated her like dirt and the criminals actually showed more interest in her than the people that she was supposed to help. “To be honest, I’m surprised you’re still here… Weren’t you… Given what you want yet?” the man asked in a shady manner, the last part of his question sounded particularly strange. As if he was implying something and hiding that implication from a curious ear that may have been listening at the same time.

“Yeah, I’ve got documents that would convince my superiors that everything is OK here… But I just don’t feel like going back now is the right thing to do…” Mana replied, so far this man looked like the first person in this town not affected by whatever was plaguing it. “Oh, they gave you the “cookbooks”… If I told you that those were fake as hell, what’d you think, kunoichi of Konoha?” the man laughed from Mana’s reply, it looked like he was still testing the girl. Mana was worried about this man more and more as they spoke, he knew something about the town, something Mana didn’t but his intentions still seemed shrouded in mystery. “I’d probably believe you… I had my own reasons to doubt their validity…” Mana replied, still trying not to reveal her own hand just like the man. “I’m Hanada Katsuru from Shukuba security force.” The man lifted his hand up for a handshake, apparently Mana passed whatever test the man had for her. “You look like a clean ninja, which makes a total of two of clean people in this town… Follow me, I’ll explain you everything and then you can choose what to believe…” the man mumbled as he started walking towards the shadier parts of the town. Granted the town was not nearly large enough to host different districts, it was just that the part of the town the man was going for was filled with quite different kind of pleasure houses, ones that are closed at this early time of day.

As the duo wandered into the eastern parts of Shukuba Mana stopped, “We’ve walked far enough. Tell me what you need to or stop wasting my time. It’s not a luxury I can afford right now.” The girl said, she didn’t really want to wander too deep into the eastern Shukuba. From what she’s heard crime was rampant in this city, for all she knew this man may have been a crook pretending to be a security force officer. The man stopped and sighed, he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lighted it up, “Alright, I guess it’s fair enough… I just really wanted to go a little bit further before talking.” The man looked like he was about to say something that might get him into a lot of trouble, the cigarette and the cold face that he smoked it in just added to the man’s indifferent approach to things. “The thing is that this town has a demon stuck on its ass. The damned thing got a solid grip and won’t let go until he takes over everything, no one seems to care about it but when I see what this town turned to… I just want to do something about it. It’s not the same town I ate momma’s pie in…” the man kept grunting in his husk smoker voice, even if his words sounded like they were coming from his heart, his face remained indifferent towards them. “A demon…?” Mana asked, the man opened his mouth to explain but their conversation was cut short by a small group of figures coming from an alleyway behind them.

“Hey, whachya talking about over there?” one of them shouted out. They seemed troubled by the subject that the man was speaking of, if Mana was ever to get any answers these men were standing in her way. “And that’s why I wanted to find a more remote spot…” the Hanada grunted. “So nosey trash found another nosey brat, which would be troublesome if you two were actually dangerous…” the other added, this one seemed a lot more down to the subject. “I like you.” Mana replied to the second guy, “Out of all of your friends, I think I’ll interrogate you.” She added, this entire situation and this whole town in general went out of its way to piss Mana off, the girl was ready to take someone down for it. Still the situation shouldn’t have been taken too lightly, there were four assailants and Mana wasn’t really a close range fighter, if she let one of them get close it could get messy. “Do you know how to fight?” Hanada asked the girl as he cracked his knuckles preparing for a fight as well, “This town seen enough good kids die, if ya want I can still hold them off while you leave this town for good… Maybe if I go down, then this town would be messed up enough to be blown to Hell whole...”, Mana stretched her hands out preparing them for hand seals, the man didn’t need to be told anything more clearly than that.

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

One of the four charged forward towards Mana, the girl moved sideways to avoid his simple punch. A loud crack suggested that the man got knocked out by a powerful punch from Hanada, from the way the punch sounded Mana could’ve speculated that the man was quite strong. The other three didn’t took that long to follow, unfortunately they all attacked together, Mana and Hanada both moved backwards to take the assault on together. “The smart thing would’ve been luring them into the alleyway and making them only able to attack one at a time…” Mana thought as the three bombarded them with punches, while Mana just barely managed to evade some of them she mostly did it by increasing the distance between her and the attackers which meant a counterattack was impossible. Hanada didn’t even try to evade the blows, he blocked his share and countered with swift blows. The man was pretty strong and a decent fighter, Mana however wasn’t that good at close distance street fights. Just as the girl thought she was doing pretty good one of the men grabbed her and kicked her into the stomach and then shoved her away. Had Mana been an ordinary girl of her age, that would’ve been enough for her.

With Mana out of the formation Hanada was starting to get pummeled as well. Mana quickly rose up her feet and flashed her handseals with her incredible hand speed. A barrage of balls of lightning shot out, Mana particularly tried not to aim at Hanada and the one thug she decided to interrogate but as Hanada fell on the ground after taking a beating the jutsu still hit thug she wanted to question. The thugs fell down like autumnal leaves, Mana didn’t really have much field practice for a jutsu but she remembered it breaking rocks and leaving dents in steel, a combined barrage of the lightning blasts was more than these punks needed to reconsider their life choices. Mana approached Hanada and helped him up, her stomach area was still aching a little after getting the knee but the man clearly got the worse part of the beating. “After all the worrying about me you went down pretty easy, Hanada-san.” Mana smiled, while the man did look exactly like a man looks after taking a beating, his face before suggested that he took far more and worse beatings in his life before. “Well excuse me for not being able to spit fire out of my mouth, kid…”

Mana was anxious to ask the security officer to finish his story but something told her that maybe Hanada has had enough and that he may have reconsidered it. “So where was I?” Hanada asked after spitting out a bunch of blood, while the amount may have looked scary to Mana, the officer didn’t seem to be too worried about it. “Oh, right! So some time ago, we noticed that all the criminals in the town started uniting under one flag. Initially we got scared, our little town doesn’t have the manpower to deal with organized crime but then bunch of old crime leaders started just giving in out of the blue. So I thought “Hey, maybe good old Shukuba will get some peace?”, then it started happening: officers being pulled from cases, official reports started looking perfect like pink ribbons and crooks simply started walking out of the security arrest just like that… I think that someone has the whole town in their pocket, I call him “the diamond hand” because to own every goddamn officer in this town he has to be rich enough to have a lot of diamond rings on his fingers…” Hanada finished talking as he lit up a cigarette.

“You just signed a death sentence ya idiot!!!” Mana heard a loud voice behind her, the man who Hanada knocked out first got up holding a knife, in an instant Mana worked out some hand seals and fired a lightning jutsu at him. The jutsu was made to disable people as painfully as possible, as the lightning got into his armed hand the man started shouting like a madman, the pain must’ve been something else as the lightning didn’t just walk out all over his body but instead imploded in a pulse crushing his bones and muscles. The affected limb was completely disabled as the man dropped on the ground again. Mana approached him and stepped on his other hand, she had no problem maiming this bandit as much as possible, her morals only kicked in when his life was at threat and her entire arsenal was built to avoid that. Mana placed her heel on the man’s wrist, “I can make it very painful for you with no danger to kill you, I can make you talk in a number of ways I don’t even think you can count to. I’d recommend you tell me all about this “diamond hand”.” The man was writhing on the ground, his disabled arm must’ve caused him a lot of pain, “Shit, if I was you, ya little bitch, I’d cover my tail and run back home… But that stupid rat security asshole is fucking dead!!! AAARGH!!!” the man shouted as Mana drove her heel deeper into the man’s wrist, she could’ve sworn that she heard something snap. “All this cursing you’re doing is making me violent for no reason. I’m not a violent person but I just can’t help it…” she said, the man cursed again, Hanada knocked him out cold with a single punch.

Mana looked at the man questioningly, while being so violent towards him was starting to bother her a little, she was sure that she could’ve worked out some more information from him. “Don’t bother, he either doesn’t know a thing or won’t tell a thing. This “diamond hand” doesn’t get called a demon by some people for nothing, even talking about him between the thugs can make someone lose a tongue… I can help you find him if you can help me take him down. If your mission is to crush crime in our town – he’s pretty much all of our crime incarnated…” Hanada explained “I know some places we can get to him, I have a guess about his identity. He’s dug up so deep into corruption that he has nothing to fear from anyone, he simply owns everyone. His demon nickname is well justified – he owns souls of every single one of the town folk. If someone tells anyone about him, he simply tells the authorities about their part of the deal and those guys get in prison, then disappear… His arrogance could be his downfall if we can get to him on one of those public appearances…” Hanada finished his cigarette and stepped on it. “I’m the only security officer in this town he doesn’t own, the only person who never asked him any favors… The only one still alive, at least. Some tried to take him down before – ended up having to let him go, they disappeared shortly after, if we want to take him out, we have to do it in one try…” he concluded. "Well then, let's not keep his future cellmates waiting..." Mana replied, working this situation out in one swoop was just the way she wanted it with this town.

Stuff:

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

“So, what is this public place we are going to?” Mana asked, it may have been great to question her partner and get as many details as possible before she commits herself to busting a town wide criminal empire. So far she only knew that the man they were after was rather secretive about his hidden activities yet chose to lead a rather pompous life filled with philanthropic activities. The odds were that everyone knew who the man was but no one knew that he was this “diamond hand” persona that he created. The magician also knew that his cunningness and influence made the icon of greed and corruption to earn the reputation of a demon in a human body. Being a magician herself Mana was a believer in an omnipotent magical presence that chose who to gift with the gift of controlling chakra and whom to grant the gift of life to. Yet the girl had this feeling that this man was no demon, just a very evil person. “It’s a museum.” The officer replied, “It’s meant to keep the memories of all great people that ever visited the Shukuba town: great politicians, influential people, ninja who helped the town in a remarkable way… If you think to be granted a place in there, know that no one will appreciate what you’re doing here. All you’ll do is end a life of a person who is paying people money they have never seen, they’ll probably remember you as a menace… Both of us…” the man grunted in his usual husky voice.

Mana was a little worried about her partner – he was spitting quite worrisome amounts of blood, the fight previously may have left him more hurt than the girl thought and it didn’t look like Hanada really cared about it. The man just didn’t let it phase him, Mana couldn’t help but admire that even if she was worried about his well-being. “Hanada-san, perhaps we should see a doctor, you’re spitting up a lot of blood…” she asked quietly as if she was ashamed about her question. “No! If we stop for a second the news of us crossing Diamond hand’s path will spread, he will hunt us down eventually. He has powerful men working for him, if he would want us dead even your fancy lightning balls wouldn’t save us… We need to hit him when he doesn’t expect to be hit, when he thinks he is admired as a philanthropist and not criminal mastermind…” Hanada spit some more blood out. Mana understood his point – there was no other option now but to take the man down since they didn’t kill the thugs who heard them speak of him. “You told me you were in this, well being in this includes not giving a shit about a life of some beat down lowlife security guy and worrying about taking down Diamond hand.” Hanada replied as his step slowed the pace, Mana realized that the museum must’ve been nearby.

“We’ve got to be stealthy until we find the bastard, if he gets alerted about things going down he’ll just bolt out of here. Considering his fat ass he can disappear in rather impressive speed, he’s got pretty devoted carriage-slaves I guess…” Hanada explained as he pointed at two fellows standing around near the entrance. They probably knew what Hanada looked like and that he was a security officer, even more now the man’s face looked just like after a beating that he took – it would’ve just screamed suspicious for them. Mana moved towards the guards signaling Hanada to stay, “Hey, kid, we only got one shot at this.” He reminded Mana with a whisper. Mana’s hands flashed through the handsigns, the blurring movement attracted the attention of the guards but it was too late the guards charged towards the location of the girl but as they ran up closer to her they started crawling on the ground, one even looked as if he was doing heart massage on someone invisible. “Haddena no Torikku no Jutsu * Fancy Trick Jutsu“ Mana said with a triumphant voice, while most of the time she never said the names of her jutsu out loud, sometimes she just wanted to show off so much or felt so badass that she just couldn’t help it.

“What the hell was that?” Hanada asked as the duo entered the museum watching out for any more guards. “It’s an illusion that made them see me getting killed by you, naturally when one sees a pretty young girl getting assaulted and begging for her life and is dumb enough to work as henchmen he runs to help her out…” Mana replied. The two were lucky – there were no more guards throughout the entire museum, the even must’ve really been so peaceful and public that for the Diamond hand to carry around too many of his bandit thugs would’ve just been too suspicious. Hanada’s plan was pretty smart after all. “How do we tell we’ve found him? Have you seen him before?” “Trust me, you’ll know him when you see him, he’ll pretty much hit your eye wherever you look when you’re in the same room…” Something still didn’t make sense for the girl “So if he’s so secretive, how did you manage to pin him down, how do you know his identity?” Hanada grunted some strange noises, the topic seemed to be rather painful for him “One woman I was dating… She asked the Diamond hand to get us together in exchange for managing her business… When her part of the deal caught up to her and the bastard started pushing her around, threatening my life if she disobeyed. The poor thing told me everything, do I need to tell you what happened next?” Mana had several ideas of what may have happened, something told her that she didn’t need to know the details…

Hanada pushed large white doors and they cracked open. The two entered a large hall, Mana realized what her partner meant about her knowing when she’s found the man they’ve been looking for – he was sitting on a huge throne-like chair in the front of the hall giving a speech to hundreds of people who gathered there, people were so into the speech that no one really saw Mana and Hanada walk in. The man called the Diamond hand was a grotesque embodiment of greed – even if her life depended on it Mana couldn’t have told how much he weighed. It looked like this icon of greed has been indulging into his sophisticated life style quite often as he was easily the most obese man Mana had ever seen, on par even with that leader of the freak clan that clashed with Yoroi and Mana several months back. His clothes and his chair looked like they were crafted for him specifically from only the most expensive materials and still the buttons of his jacket were so tense that it looked like it would be torn to shreds by the man wearing it at any second. “Okay…” Mana whispered to herself, she just didn’t see how a man of these proportions could slip from their attention. It looked quite puzzling how did he even enter that room in the first place. “We need to get the people out of here, they may all be corrupt but they’re just hostages of the greed of this man.” Mana said to Hanada, the man looked annoyed by this decision – it was almost like he didn’t care about anything else but getting back at the Diamond hand who was currently laughing from his own speech.

Mana tossed an explosive kunai into the air trying to detonate it before it reached the ceiling so that no rubble fell onto the crowd, a deafening explosion caused mass panic in the hall, everyone ran towards the exit. The girl quickly ran up the wall just to see what the Diamond hand would do. At least sixteen people ran up to the man trying to lift his chair off the ground, Hanada leaped onto the platform and knocked four or five out – it was questionable at best if the remaining ones could lift the giant man and carry him out. The security officer was smart, he knew that he would stand no chance against the entire security force of the Diamond hand so right after foiling his escape he jumped down on the ground level. Mana kept sticking to the ceiling observing the man – it looked like he wasn’t worried the slightest, just angry at his own men “WHAT DO I PAY YOU SHITHEADS FOR!!!” he kept spitting up slime out of his mouth as he yelled. “Diamond hand, huh?!” Mana shouted from the ceiling she was sticking on alerting the crew of her existence, for a second both the fat man and his security just froze and looked at her in amazement and fear.”And here it comes… The moment they see that I’m a fourteen year old girl and stop thinking how cool this entrance was… That moment always comes, I hate that moment…” Mana thought to herself. “Konoha’s ninja inspector!” Diamond hand yelled out in a slimy tone, “Why don’t we talk business after my men get you down from there and kill that rat Hanada?”

The boring part:

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

The security force of the criminal mastermind started moving, four of them stayed at their master’s side, the remaining seven moved in to kill Hanada armed with sticks, spears and small swords. “This is bad… If I attack I’ll open up for a counter attack, I’d rather be defending in this position” Mana thought. It was true. Her sensei in the Academy kept telling his students in taijutsu class that the attacking side is always the weaker one. A battle is a clash of two sides, each of them is armed with different martial arts, different moves and techniques. As long as they just stand around in a deadlock they are equal but just when one of them decide to attack, the tie breaks - the attacking side is always the weaker one. The attacker always reveals one’s movements, opens up for a counter. If the defending side is of equal skill or above then the battle is already over. Defending side always has more options, they can always counter as there are hundreds of ways to fend off any attack for a taijutsu user. Mana wasn’t even that. If she went in for Hanada’s rescue she’d place herself in a no way out situation and let herself get surrounded and overwhelmed. This would be a death sentence for her…

“Am I stupid? What choice do I have? If I don’t dive in there Hanada-san is going to die… I’d never let that happen.” Mana thought as she released the chakra that held her on the ceiling immediately as the chakra in her feet was released the girl started falling down to the first ground ten metres below. Right before she landed near her partner Mana activated her Magical Twist jutsu blowing enough wind force below that she could land properly and immediately as she landed the magician flashed through her handseals and started spinning. Her Rebellious Twist jutsu allowed her to deflect the first wave of attacks that targeted Hanada in just a nick of time. Again Mana’s quick hands weaved the handsigns in speed barely distinguishable for unexpected human eye. The girl initiated her Magic Bullet barrage for the second time that day shooting lightning attacks at each thug daring and stupid enough to continue their assault until each and every one of those attacking were on the ground grunting about their shattered bones. Mana was huffing heavily at that point, she’s used a large portion of her chakra and there were four more henchmen left.

“You know I’m a little disappointed, these guys are your chair carriage aren’t they? Are you that desperate that you need to send them to fight?” Mana asked with a tired voice. She needed to buy some time, maybe get the fat bastard talking until she caught her breath. Hanada was injured in the previous encounter just enough to be a burden in this one. “They weren’t supposed to fight you, just kick the shit out of that ungrateful security scum.” The obese man replied. “Do not worry though, I have countless loyal rogue ninja rushing here to fight you, you will have your heroic death… That is, if that’s what you wish…” the man called the Diamond hand left his implication in the air. It seemed he was also interested to buy some time, it was obvious that the four remaining bodyguards he had wouldn’t be much of a challenge so he was as interested in letting this drag on just as Mana initially was. “He wants his death squad to rush here… I can’t let him drag this.” Mana thought as the big man took a deep breath implying he would be giving a big speech.

“You see, kunoichi of Konoha, I am not interested in killing you, it would be a pity really to let such a young soul be wasted. After all, all that I am doing is giving people what they want. I am kind of like a fairy godmother in that regard – people tell me what I want and I give it to them. That is all that I’ve given this village – what they all wanted. But there are people like this security officer behind you, scum who don’t think that people deserve to get what they want, people who think that people must suffer seeing their goals right in front of them yet being unable to reach them. Yes, it is true that some people feel grateful for getting their deepest desires brought to life and they feel in debt to me, they offer me services and things that only they can do, in addition to their dreams I also let them feel useful. If you try to fight that – you fight on the side of evil, girl, and evil cannot be allowed to prevail. Your friend behind you is evil – he opposes me, he opposes people’s wishes and dreams but you can still choose. Your young mind was poisoned by his filth, I’m sure you have things that you want and I am more than willing to let you have those things. Every day people, young and old, come to me telling me their deepest desires and I give it to them. There must be something you want: money, power, fame and respect, sick friend getting better, someone you love spending their days with you… I can give it all, just say it.” The fat man kept talking, his voice sounded so alluring and warm – Mana saw just how did he involve the entire town in his web. “So what is it that you want, what troubles your young hea---“ the man suddenly stopped spewing his filth as a kunai flew right by his cheek.

Mana’s eyes greeted his, her hair moved out of their way letting the man see into her angry face and realize that there was nothing he could’ve said to change Mana’s mind. “I despise people like you!” the girl shouted out in an angry voice “People who think that dreams are just something that can be brought to life with a wave of their hand or throwing money at them. People who think that magic of life can be corrupted just the same way. Listen and listen well – dreams are something that makes us strive for them, work hard and keep dreaming and in terms make us better people. It is not the fulfillment of the dream that matters, it’s the way we get there. There are things that I want, for example I wish that my father’s hands would get better, that he could return to his career as a ninja and be happy, I’m sure you have the money to do that… But I know that if I achieve that dream by being corrupted by your filth neither me nor my father could ever forgive me and if that is the cost then what is the point of that wish in the first place?” Mana stopped talking, she didn’t know how long it would take the ninja to get here. “Is that so?” the Diamond hand replied to Mana’s equally long speech, “Well then, I’ll ask my ninja squad to be swift when they purge you from this world…”

Spoiler:

Age : 31 Posts : 1495

“What are you waiting for girl? Kill him and let’s leave!” Hanada shouted as he coughed again spitting few drops of blood. “No. And neither will you, Hanada-san” Mana replied, “I will not take a person’s life just because my own life is in danger. Though you should run, Hanada-san, it might get nasty soon.” Mana smiled at the security officer. “What are you talking about!!??” the man shouted back into Mana’s face as he tried to force his way through her only to be taken down by a leg sweep. “You may have been a better hand-to-hand fighter, Hanada-san, but you’re injured, just go and leave for Konoha, tell them all that happened here and take this man in, have him take trial like every other crook, I’m sure there’d be nothing worse for the likes of him.” Hanada roared into the air in a fit of rage, Mana really saw him considering it. Some more time passed and Hanada ran, the bodyguards tried to intercept him but as they saw Mana getting ready to fight them they reconsidered it.

Almost an hour more of this standoff passed. This entire time Mana just kept standing here, watching the bodyguards that looked rather confused, unsure of what they should do. The overweight crime-lord got more and more angry as the time went by, by that moment he realized that there was nothing he could've done to change Mana's mind but the girl could've flipped that of her own and kill him quite easily. As more and more time passed strange noises reached the great hall of the Shukuba museum, the Diamond hand got even more annoyed “Where the hell are my ninja?!” he shouted spitting up some saliva all over the platform again. “I’ll tell you!” Hanada’s voice echoed “They’re scared away by the Security force of Shukuba!” the man’s figure reappeared in the hallway again. “WHAT!?” the fat crime-lord shouted in disbelief. “All it took was giving them the same heroic speech the brat gave you and they got all warm and fuzzy inside, your ninja aren’t too loyal though, they all spread out after we took couple of them down…” Hanada laughed through his painful injury.

Several moments later the security force flooded the museum, the man that held an entire town hostage was surrounded by the very same officials he had corrupted. “Don’t think it’s over, I dare you to put me to jail, how long do you think it will take for me to bribe the guards?” “That’s why we’re bringing you in to Konoha prison.” Mana replied, “Konoha guards have their hearts filled with the Will of Fire too much to care of your petty promises…” the fat man started laughing in a maniacal manner. “Yes. Please expose me to an even bigger village to take over! I corrupted Shukuba in less than a month, I wonder how long would it take me to take over Konoha?!” the man kept shouting. “He’s right.” Hanada replied, “I appreciate your almost manic concern about people’s lives, kid, I really do. The thing is this guy is a living parasite. If he takes over Konoha the way he corrupted Shukuba… He’ll have a pretty fair chance to corrupt other villages as well, after then… The whole ninja world would follow. Think about it well, are you willing to have this on your shoulders, letting a man like that live?” Hanada desperately tried to convince Mana to kill him. “Sorry, Hanada-san, Hokage-sensei just isn’t the kind of a person to get corrupted and the rest are just too loyal to her blazing will to cross her. Even a devil like him will hit a bright wall of fire if he tries it…”

“You’re being an idiot! You’re risking the integrity of your home and the world for this one man, this pathetic excuse of a jelly-man. I’ve never…” suddenly the man’s face got locked into painful silence. He fell down on his knees clenching his chest and punching it trying to breathe. “Hanada-san!” Mana shouted as she dropped on her knees to see what was wrong with him, the girl felt a rough hand pushing her aside as someone started helping him out. “It’s OK, he’ll live. He needs another airway!” obviously this man was a doctor or at least knew what he was doing. It didn’t take long for Hanada’s injuries to catch up to the security officer. Mana’s head weighed down, the girl stood up and looked at the man once called the Diamond hand. “Take Hanada-san to the hospital, I’ll need help of several security officers in transporting this guy to Konoha, I’ve heard you have a zoo. We can use a cage you guys use for moving heavy animals, shouldn’t take more than five people to operate that.” The girl said with a depressed tone, Hanada’s words did hit her pretty hard as did the sudden deterioration of his condition. Still the girl had to finish this mission, she owed Hanada-san that much, for now she’ll have to rely on the words of that man who helped Hanada that he will live. Transporting the mastermind took precedence. “Calling him Diamond hand will be stupid, he’ll have his rings taken away in prison, what’s his real name?” the girl asked some of the security officers, “Yokotomo Donyoku.” One of them replied, Mana turned at her prisoner “Well, Yokotomo-san, I’ve heard the diet of bread and water does wonders for your weight problem…”

As Mana traveled back with a steel cage built to contain even the greatest of animals known to the ninja world with one of the most cunning and powerful criminals the girl had ever seen she wondered about the implications of what she saw. She’d have to report to the village that the entire Security force of Shukuba was corrupt at one point, of course they switched sides saving them all from imprisonment still Mana knew that Hanada was the only clean security officer which meant that if he was in condition when he recovered to continue his work he would be the new chief of the Security force. He’d have to start over with every smallest member of the force, re-check them and re-employ those he trusted. It would be a tedious and hard process. Mana didn’t doubt that Konoha would continue their funding now that it was safe from corruption, it would be money well spent rebuilding the whole security force from scratch. As far as her mission was concerned the sole reason of funds looking shady was now behind steel bars, about to be moved behind bars meant for scum like he was and Mana did assist the only member of the security force to bust the one and only reason behind the crime in Shukuba. The one who coordinated and held all of the Shukuba - both its underworld, and the ground level, hostage. Mana moved behind the cage to help push it, letting one of the officers to take a break, “You shouldn’t have done this… I’ll remember it, you’ll hate yourself so hard I won’t need to kill you for this. After I’m through with you, you'll do it yourself…” dirt kept coming out of the cage. “Keep talking, maybe you’ll get a head-start before jail time to lose some weight already…” the girl replied.

Mission Completed