Eighteen Years Old (loosely ctd. from here)
A milk run turned into an actual missions had at least proved one thing to Makoto: as useless as he usually thought Saito was, he was at least up to the standard their family set, and therefore at least better than all the rest of the other people on the mission. All of whom were entirely useless, especially the rest of the Wardens. While the medics had at least been doing medical things, the other Wardens hadn't even managed to help apprehend the criminals.
Ah yes.
The criminals.
Makoto honestly wasn't sure what to make of them. The Shrine had set the mission, and therefore wasn't behind them. He knew their family had no interest in randomly poisoning (irradiating?) a bunch of random townsfolk. The criminals did not seem to have a motive on their own. And the actual murder itself was still basically unsolved--they had the perpetrator, but not the motive. Which, as far as he was concerned, was not enough.
In principle, he'd heard of the fact that there were more factions than just the Shrine and his family. There were a number of smaller players dotted around the country, even before you started getting into the question of pirates. It would seem that one of them had been the perpetrators, for their own enigmatic reasons.
Now they simply had to find out why. Which would really only entail one of their interrogators and an closed room, probably. Most likely, they were done with the whole affair. In which case, he would find out about it later.
Well, probably. There was always the chance the faction would prove to be dangerous and require an urgent investigative--or takeout--team sent after them. A higher chance than usual, given the usage of a dangerous element.
But that didn't seem all that likely.
"I'm asking you because I trust your opinion more than that of the Warden team leader," Kanashimi said patiently to his twin, who was attempting to demur. "I did already debrief him, as a matter of fact, but I didn't get a lot useful."
Saito sighed, drawing his cloak a little tighter around himself like he did when he was agitated. "...Honestly, there isn't a lot to tell. You already know I worked out that the poison was actually radiation chakra from checking the water supply, and that Makoto caught the person who killed their chief healer before anyone else was even really aware what was going on. The other one came in to help her, we caught her too, and both of them clammed up when they realized we saw past their smokescreen."
Not what he'd wanted to hear, but it would have to do. Unless... "Any...other insights?"
His twin's expression flickered briefly. "Probably a third faction." Colloquially, of course; there was far more than one smaller faction within the idiot politics of Moon Country. "And...probably dangerous, if they're willing to deal collateral damage like that...assuming it was collateral."
That was what he had been afraid of.
"All right. Thanks then." He would have to wait for Sheimi to finish interrogating the prisoners to get any more.
They weren't exactly in Warden-only territory, but Saito was only allowed to be in this particular section of the surprisingly modern (for that section of the city, anyway) pavilion because he was being debriefed on his joint mission. Well, people other than Wardens actually wandered into this area a lot, but they weren't supposed to...security could just be a little lax here because there was nothing important in this corridor save interrogation rooms.
Which also made good meeting rooms.
"How did he do?" he added, as an afterthought. His twin knew who he meant.
Saito shrugged loosely and turned his palms up. "Scarily brilliant. Alienated everyone else." With the undercurrent of 'what else is new?' "We'd definitely never have caught them without him. On the investigation part of the mission, he was at least two steps ahead of the rest of us the whole way. But he just didn't listen to anyone else." When Kanashimi raised an eyebrow, Saito qualified, "well, they weren't...really able to keep up with him, anyway. What we thought the initial mission would be sort of got away from us, and the rest of the team wasn't good at adapting to the change."
Not a great trait for a Warden, that lack of flexibility, but the pickings were rather slim in a place like Moon, which had to keep a nominally low ninja population proportional to the overall population to maintain their ruse of not being especially powerful.
Well, comparatively, they weren't. They probably couldn't manage to meet any actual official ninja village in force. But they could be annoying, they had strong fighters, and it was probably better that people outside the country not be aware of how much they were unaware of. Let them snicker behind their hands whenever they met a Moon ninja at their claims of no official organization; they couldn't possibly be aware of the truth of it. The neutrality part was at least accurate, and that was all that they needed to maintain for no one to bother digging. You simply had to back neutrality with force sometimes...
Kanashimi hated politics.
"I see," was all he said, but Saito undoubtedly picked up on what he was thinking, or at least the key points of it. They didn't have a 'twin link,' but lifelong experience and excellent cold-reading skills meant Saito could read him anyway.
They didn't have time to talk much more; he had to go meet with Sheimi. This was the sort of investigation he would be put in charge of, and probably already had been. Initiative still counted for a lot. Part of the reason he and Sheimi had both attained good rankings in the Wardens even relatively young had to do with that.
Most of it was necessity to him, but he really did tend to enjoy his work. For the most part, anyway. It was just the political aspects he wasn't fond of.
He met Sheimi coming out of the secondary interrogation room, looking like a cat that had gotten not only the canary, but a bowl of cream to wash it down. Clearly, a good session.
"The purple-haired bitch folded like a paper fan," Sheimi said cheerful after they slipped into a debriefing room. "Without orange around, it was actually harder to keep her from babbling about everything and keep her on topic."
"You can have that effect on people when you like," he said. "What useful did you get?"
"Even orange folded eventually, so plenty." Her expression shifted from cheerful to serious. "First off--these aren't amateurs. Even when purple cracked, like five seconds in, I couldn't get their real names out of them. Only codenames. I'm not using them because they're really dumb codenames, but they'll be in the report. They definitely work for an extra faction."
Troublesome.
"Secondly, there's not an ounce of remorse in either one. Purple didn't give a shit about straight up murdering a healer--she was more worried about what we'd do to her. Think she wants lenience." Sheimi snorted, leaning back in her chair and looking moody. "Yeah, right. Didn't promise her shit, of course.
"Orange didn't give a shit she poisoned a whole town. All she really said of substance was that she was following orders, and she was frustrated that our people managed to foil them. I get the impression that neither of them knew the why of what they were doing; they're just flunkies."
He nodded impassively, but smiled inwardly. Sheimi always got results, usually with colour commentary. "Any leads for me to chase?"
"A couple." She leaned forward again, drumming her fingers idly on the metal table. "First of all, they seem to operate almost entirely in the south. Have access to chakra training, but that doesn't mean much in this country. Prefer violence to intimidation or blackmail, don't care about collateral damage. Pretty sure we're looking at Red Hat."
Red Hat was the apparent name of a minor southern faction that had only made a few moves in the past. They didn't encroach much on major areas, nor had they trafficked or done anything to draw spectacular attention from either the Shrine or the Shiruko clan in the past. They had claimed to be the strongest faction at the southern tip (for whatever that was worth, really), to general apathy. It was certainly possible this was an attempt to assert it.
It also meant they'd stepped up in threat level somewhat.
"Second Sphere isn't going to like that," he said, mentioning another faction that 'held territory' (which all such minor factions only did in areas with crimes that neither of the major ones cared about) near the affected village. They were a little more notable than Red Hat, but much less violent. The local folk even appeared to tolerate them, from scattered reports. "Are we thinking there's a potential gang war? That could be something to get ahead of."
"Not sure I'd use the word 'potential,'" Sheimi said after a thoughtful pause. "Actually, if it had already started...that would explain this. Especially if our maps are slightly out of date and that village is now on the border of Second Sphere territory."
It was a good assessment. And definitely something to stop. The trick with gang wars was to break up all the fighting and handle the reason for it without appearing to side with either faction unless the other one went demonstrably beyond the pale. He wasn't sure if the radiation incident quite qualified. Speaking of...
"Did you check the water samples?" he queried. She was also the best in the Wardens with water, for similar reasons to Saito being the best Healer for it.
"Your twin was right," she said with a shrug. "That's definitely radiation chakra. Non-specific; not accidental jutsu fallout but a deliberate infusion. Anyone with chakra training would be likely to shrug off the dose unless they drank way more than the average amount of that well water, but civilians...well. And as to the medical plant he said it had also been dosed with to mask some of the symptoms, he's probably right about the reasoning and he'd be more familiar with anything medical than me. There's definitely something medicinal in there though; he's right about that too."
He'd already guessed as much, but it was good to have it confirmed.
"So they are every bit dangerous enough to go shut down, but we'll probably have to deal with a budding gang war in the process." He ran a hand through his hair, a rare sign of frustration from him. "And of course, we don't want to make Second Sphere look better when we do this. I'm going to need to pick my team carefully. Are you free?"
Sheimi blinked, shocked, and then a slow smile spread across her face. She looked a touch sad, though. "I'm your first choice, huh? But no, I'm stuck on garrison and training for the next week and I'm guessing you want to move before that."
She had been his first choice; maybe she wasn't subtle but they would need some serious firepower too and she was flexible to boot.
...But why had he picked her? He had a brother who also qualified as serious firepower, as did he.
"Too bad," he said. "I suppose I'll grab Makoto, but that means I'll have to screen the rest of the squad for compatibility with him."
She snorted. "If they don't meet his standards, they're probably not worth putting on a mission like this. But Fukuzawa Hana got back from the mountain hunt yesterday; you might try her. I hear they get along. She's got a touch of medical training too, which you'll probably need."
Of course his brother got along with someone who couldn't talk. How like him. "She'll do, I suppose. I'll have to check the files for the others, if you're really not available."
"I really do wish I could be," she said, and clearly meant it by her scowl. No one liked glorified nanny duty. "When are you leaving?"
"Ideally? Tomorrow. Realistically? The day after, I suppose." Kanashimi nearly sighed; it was frustrating to not be able to rapidly assemble a team, but when his focus had shifted to heavy long-range assignments, he'd lost the ability to do that. "I'll collar my brother and Fukuzawa, then shake down a couple more with relevant skillsets. Something tells me this isn't going to be an easy one, and I want to get on it as soon as we possibly can."
"Good luck," she said sincerely, meeting his gaze. Something in her bottle-green eyes glimmered. They'd been in the same class together, worked well together, and had mutual respect for each other. He wasn't sure he was ready to pry deeper into her feelings--or his own--beyond that.
"Thanks," he said, pushing back his chair and standing up. "I'm fairly sure we'll need it."
A milk run turned into an actual missions had at least proved one thing to Makoto: as useless as he usually thought Saito was, he was at least up to the standard their family set, and therefore at least better than all the rest of the other people on the mission. All of whom were entirely useless, especially the rest of the Wardens. While the medics had at least been doing medical things, the other Wardens hadn't even managed to help apprehend the criminals.
Ah yes.
The criminals.
Makoto honestly wasn't sure what to make of them. The Shrine had set the mission, and therefore wasn't behind them. He knew their family had no interest in randomly poisoning (irradiating?) a bunch of random townsfolk. The criminals did not seem to have a motive on their own. And the actual murder itself was still basically unsolved--they had the perpetrator, but not the motive. Which, as far as he was concerned, was not enough.
In principle, he'd heard of the fact that there were more factions than just the Shrine and his family. There were a number of smaller players dotted around the country, even before you started getting into the question of pirates. It would seem that one of them had been the perpetrators, for their own enigmatic reasons.
Now they simply had to find out why. Which would really only entail one of their interrogators and an closed room, probably. Most likely, they were done with the whole affair. In which case, he would find out about it later.
Well, probably. There was always the chance the faction would prove to be dangerous and require an urgent investigative--or takeout--team sent after them. A higher chance than usual, given the usage of a dangerous element.
But that didn't seem all that likely.
Shiruko Kanashimi
Moon Warden
Moon Warden
"I'm asking you because I trust your opinion more than that of the Warden team leader," Kanashimi said patiently to his twin, who was attempting to demur. "I did already debrief him, as a matter of fact, but I didn't get a lot useful."
Saito sighed, drawing his cloak a little tighter around himself like he did when he was agitated. "...Honestly, there isn't a lot to tell. You already know I worked out that the poison was actually radiation chakra from checking the water supply, and that Makoto caught the person who killed their chief healer before anyone else was even really aware what was going on. The other one came in to help her, we caught her too, and both of them clammed up when they realized we saw past their smokescreen."
Not what he'd wanted to hear, but it would have to do. Unless... "Any...other insights?"
His twin's expression flickered briefly. "Probably a third faction." Colloquially, of course; there was far more than one smaller faction within the idiot politics of Moon Country. "And...probably dangerous, if they're willing to deal collateral damage like that...assuming it was collateral."
That was what he had been afraid of.
"All right. Thanks then." He would have to wait for Sheimi to finish interrogating the prisoners to get any more.
They weren't exactly in Warden-only territory, but Saito was only allowed to be in this particular section of the surprisingly modern (for that section of the city, anyway) pavilion because he was being debriefed on his joint mission. Well, people other than Wardens actually wandered into this area a lot, but they weren't supposed to...security could just be a little lax here because there was nothing important in this corridor save interrogation rooms.
Which also made good meeting rooms.
"How did he do?" he added, as an afterthought. His twin knew who he meant.
Saito shrugged loosely and turned his palms up. "Scarily brilliant. Alienated everyone else." With the undercurrent of 'what else is new?' "We'd definitely never have caught them without him. On the investigation part of the mission, he was at least two steps ahead of the rest of us the whole way. But he just didn't listen to anyone else." When Kanashimi raised an eyebrow, Saito qualified, "well, they weren't...really able to keep up with him, anyway. What we thought the initial mission would be sort of got away from us, and the rest of the team wasn't good at adapting to the change."
Not a great trait for a Warden, that lack of flexibility, but the pickings were rather slim in a place like Moon, which had to keep a nominally low ninja population proportional to the overall population to maintain their ruse of not being especially powerful.
Well, comparatively, they weren't. They probably couldn't manage to meet any actual official ninja village in force. But they could be annoying, they had strong fighters, and it was probably better that people outside the country not be aware of how much they were unaware of. Let them snicker behind their hands whenever they met a Moon ninja at their claims of no official organization; they couldn't possibly be aware of the truth of it. The neutrality part was at least accurate, and that was all that they needed to maintain for no one to bother digging. You simply had to back neutrality with force sometimes...
Kanashimi hated politics.
"I see," was all he said, but Saito undoubtedly picked up on what he was thinking, or at least the key points of it. They didn't have a 'twin link,' but lifelong experience and excellent cold-reading skills meant Saito could read him anyway.
They didn't have time to talk much more; he had to go meet with Sheimi. This was the sort of investigation he would be put in charge of, and probably already had been. Initiative still counted for a lot. Part of the reason he and Sheimi had both attained good rankings in the Wardens even relatively young had to do with that.
Most of it was necessity to him, but he really did tend to enjoy his work. For the most part, anyway. It was just the political aspects he wasn't fond of.
He met Sheimi coming out of the secondary interrogation room, looking like a cat that had gotten not only the canary, but a bowl of cream to wash it down. Clearly, a good session.
"The purple-haired bitch folded like a paper fan," Sheimi said cheerful after they slipped into a debriefing room. "Without orange around, it was actually harder to keep her from babbling about everything and keep her on topic."
"You can have that effect on people when you like," he said. "What useful did you get?"
"Even orange folded eventually, so plenty." Her expression shifted from cheerful to serious. "First off--these aren't amateurs. Even when purple cracked, like five seconds in, I couldn't get their real names out of them. Only codenames. I'm not using them because they're really dumb codenames, but they'll be in the report. They definitely work for an extra faction."
Troublesome.
"Secondly, there's not an ounce of remorse in either one. Purple didn't give a shit about straight up murdering a healer--she was more worried about what we'd do to her. Think she wants lenience." Sheimi snorted, leaning back in her chair and looking moody. "Yeah, right. Didn't promise her shit, of course.
"Orange didn't give a shit she poisoned a whole town. All she really said of substance was that she was following orders, and she was frustrated that our people managed to foil them. I get the impression that neither of them knew the why of what they were doing; they're just flunkies."
He nodded impassively, but smiled inwardly. Sheimi always got results, usually with colour commentary. "Any leads for me to chase?"
"A couple." She leaned forward again, drumming her fingers idly on the metal table. "First of all, they seem to operate almost entirely in the south. Have access to chakra training, but that doesn't mean much in this country. Prefer violence to intimidation or blackmail, don't care about collateral damage. Pretty sure we're looking at Red Hat."
Red Hat was the apparent name of a minor southern faction that had only made a few moves in the past. They didn't encroach much on major areas, nor had they trafficked or done anything to draw spectacular attention from either the Shrine or the Shiruko clan in the past. They had claimed to be the strongest faction at the southern tip (for whatever that was worth, really), to general apathy. It was certainly possible this was an attempt to assert it.
It also meant they'd stepped up in threat level somewhat.
"Second Sphere isn't going to like that," he said, mentioning another faction that 'held territory' (which all such minor factions only did in areas with crimes that neither of the major ones cared about) near the affected village. They were a little more notable than Red Hat, but much less violent. The local folk even appeared to tolerate them, from scattered reports. "Are we thinking there's a potential gang war? That could be something to get ahead of."
"Not sure I'd use the word 'potential,'" Sheimi said after a thoughtful pause. "Actually, if it had already started...that would explain this. Especially if our maps are slightly out of date and that village is now on the border of Second Sphere territory."
It was a good assessment. And definitely something to stop. The trick with gang wars was to break up all the fighting and handle the reason for it without appearing to side with either faction unless the other one went demonstrably beyond the pale. He wasn't sure if the radiation incident quite qualified. Speaking of...
"Did you check the water samples?" he queried. She was also the best in the Wardens with water, for similar reasons to Saito being the best Healer for it.
"Your twin was right," she said with a shrug. "That's definitely radiation chakra. Non-specific; not accidental jutsu fallout but a deliberate infusion. Anyone with chakra training would be likely to shrug off the dose unless they drank way more than the average amount of that well water, but civilians...well. And as to the medical plant he said it had also been dosed with to mask some of the symptoms, he's probably right about the reasoning and he'd be more familiar with anything medical than me. There's definitely something medicinal in there though; he's right about that too."
He'd already guessed as much, but it was good to have it confirmed.
"So they are every bit dangerous enough to go shut down, but we'll probably have to deal with a budding gang war in the process." He ran a hand through his hair, a rare sign of frustration from him. "And of course, we don't want to make Second Sphere look better when we do this. I'm going to need to pick my team carefully. Are you free?"
Sheimi blinked, shocked, and then a slow smile spread across her face. She looked a touch sad, though. "I'm your first choice, huh? But no, I'm stuck on garrison and training for the next week and I'm guessing you want to move before that."
She had been his first choice; maybe she wasn't subtle but they would need some serious firepower too and she was flexible to boot.
...But why had he picked her? He had a brother who also qualified as serious firepower, as did he.
"Too bad," he said. "I suppose I'll grab Makoto, but that means I'll have to screen the rest of the squad for compatibility with him."
She snorted. "If they don't meet his standards, they're probably not worth putting on a mission like this. But Fukuzawa Hana got back from the mountain hunt yesterday; you might try her. I hear they get along. She's got a touch of medical training too, which you'll probably need."
Of course his brother got along with someone who couldn't talk. How like him. "She'll do, I suppose. I'll have to check the files for the others, if you're really not available."
"I really do wish I could be," she said, and clearly meant it by her scowl. No one liked glorified nanny duty. "When are you leaving?"
"Ideally? Tomorrow. Realistically? The day after, I suppose." Kanashimi nearly sighed; it was frustrating to not be able to rapidly assemble a team, but when his focus had shifted to heavy long-range assignments, he'd lost the ability to do that. "I'll collar my brother and Fukuzawa, then shake down a couple more with relevant skillsets. Something tells me this isn't going to be an easy one, and I want to get on it as soon as we possibly can."
"Good luck," she said sincerely, meeting his gaze. Something in her bottle-green eyes glimmered. They'd been in the same class together, worked well together, and had mutual respect for each other. He wasn't sure he was ready to pry deeper into her feelings--or his own--beyond that.
"Thanks," he said, pushing back his chair and standing up. "I'm fairly sure we'll need it."
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