End of the Line [S-Rank; Flashback]

[Shiruko Makoto]

Seventeen Years Old

Ostensibly, Makoto was a tracker.

This was, supposedly, one of his main roles on any team he was assigned to. Unofficially, he'd always assumed that his real role on any team was 'fill in for whatever is needed, since you're versatile enough with your whole non-elemental thing.'

But, apparently, either someone up top believed in the official explanation, or it actually held some small grain of truth. Huh.

Makoto perused through the dossier of the fugitive he'd been assigned to take out, sitting in a sheltered corner of one of the several mission preparation areas for the Wardens. The woman was responsible for several acts of arson on rather valuable holdings in the south, one of which had resulted in severe injuries and another of which had killed someone. She had been captured and sentenced the previous week, but had escaped. Being as she was from a smaller village and not the main city, she ought to be easy to track--and, apart from some minor fire skills, she was not very powerful and should be easy for him to collect.

Should.

The fact he would be doing it alone, with no immediate backup, was...well, in some ways thrilling and in others completely terrifying. On the one hand, no one to screw him up. On the other hand, if he screwed up, it was all his fault.

Better not screw up, then.

He closed the folder and tested himself on the details.

Kanazawa Fumiko. Nineteen years old. Some unofficial training, potentially from family members. A fire user. Tall, slim, looks older than her age, redhead. Typically wears long hair in a ponytail. Primary weapon of choice, weighted-knuckle gloves. Prefers channeling to handseals from what the arrest team noticed. He flipped open the folder and checked, pleased to see he'd gotten the details right, before setting the folder aside, taking a deep breath, and checking his weapons one last time.

Time to head out, then.

~

Running, running. Always running now, can't slow down or stop.

She could only pause, to hide or catch a nap. Biding her time until the ferry came and she could sneak onto it.

She hadn't done anything, but they wouldn't care. She had to leave, to get away, for her family's sake. Well...her remaining family, anyway. She wasn't strong enough to handle the one who had done this, but with her gone, maybe they'd find the right person.

Maybe. It was a big maybe.

Fumiko had slipped into an abandoned storefront and climbed to the apartment above a half-hour ago. Risky, but she needed a breather. And then, when night hit, she could get food. The ferry to the mainland was in three days. Maybe she could seek sanctuary somewhere.

Until then, rest for a bit, then run.

~

Of course they had something to track her with. Makoto would have told off the guards if they didn't have something to work with after keeping her confined. The fact that it was a hair tie and not, say, a weapon, was a bit eye-raising, but it was still quite useful.

His chakra sensing was quite good, so it didn't take him long to track her down. She was on the move, using the last few hours before sunset to either case the area she was staying in or simply stay away from trackers. Not that it would help her much, against him, but it was the thought that counted.

Pity she hadn't thought before she had torched two buildings with people inside them.

He tracked her to the warehouse district, where she had paused briefly before moving on. It was nearing dark now, the sun setting above the trees of the forest, casting a dim orange glow over their part of the world. No matter; this didn't inhibit him any. It even helped somewhat--anyone who was in this area after dark was asking for trouble in the first place, and he wouldn't get in trouble for cracking a few heads together if he was in a hurry.

"Gotcha," he murmured, turning a corner to the street adjacent to his target's, according to his senses. He slowed down, coming out of a run to muffle his footsteps. It wouldn't do for her to hear him and bolt; a protracted chase was not his idea of a good time.

As it was, she was moving warily, or maybe just getting tired. She didn't apparently have a whole lot of training, after all.

People in other countries' law enforcement might have had the luxury or necessity of stepping out in front of someone and saying 'stop! You're under arrest!' and then dealing with it from there. Wardens, being as they typically dealt with powered people or otherwise dangerous situations on an island with no real military and a surprising amount of ground to cover once all was summed up, did not have that capability.

And the thing was, he didn't need to take her alive. They'd been specific about that. Worryingly specific, in such a way that if he were a normal Warden he would simply have thought that she was more dangerous than was being said and that he shouldn't take chances. And he already treated everyone he went after, even with a team, as more dangerous than was said. So maybe they assumed he would simply do that and take her out.

...Or maybe there was something else going on here.

~

Fumiko didn't know what had tipped her off. All she knew was that something plucked at one of her senses, and she snapped to the side, narrowly evading a crossbow bolt. A second later, the boy who'd shot it touched down lightly from--a rooftop?

A Warden? Or just a bounty hunter? There might not be many of the latter in the city though, she realized; most would probably keep out of reach of the Shrine. But Wardens didn't wear any kind of insignia, like other Moon nin, so it was hard to say.

"I didn't do it!" she blurted, holding her hands up defensively, as if that would stop a trained ninja from obliterating her if he chose to. Then she winced, because it wasn't as if he was more likely to believe her than anyone else had been--even her own family hadn't believed her; why would he? "...I know that's what they all say," she added, feeling lame, "but, I really didn't."

The boy--no, young man? it was hard to tell, he was shorter than her, and his silver hair catching the moonlight didn't exactly make him look any older--had already lowered his crossbow. In fact, as she watched, astonished, he took several steps to the side, retrieved the bolt that had clattered to the ground, and tucked it and the crossbow away.

"I figured as much," he said, neutrally. "Something wasn't adding up. And if you were guilty, you would have attacked me by now." He shrugged, as if to indicate he wasn't particularly concerned about her making the attempt, which made her feel all sorts of competent right now. "Pretty sure a lot of this is someone's plan. So I suppose the question is: who has enough of a grudge to do this to you, or are you just a convenient patsy?"

His voice was smooth, definitely late teenage, but cultured. She wouldn't be surprised if he could sing, either--and well, to boot. She stared at him at a minute, at a loss for words briefly even as her mind worked. A grudge? Not likely.

"I...I guess, probably the second one," she said slowly. "...but they did it really well, even my family believes it."

He made a 'hmm' noise. "All right then. I suppose the real question is who would gain from that bout of arson down south. You were probably just a convenient pyrokinetic...are you sure you don't have anyone who might frame you up? Someone with connections? It would make this easier."

Fumiko shook her head. "I can't think of anyone. Might it be someone who dislikes my family, or the man who was killed?"

He considered this. "Certainly possible. Either way, the next move is obvious."

"...Obvious?" Was he going to turn her in after all? She had no illusions about her ability to fight her way past a ninja.

"Oh, yes." There was a ghost of a smile on his face. "I'm going to get you a disguise, and we're going to head down to the scene of the crime--or crimes, rather--and start talking to people. Get to the bottom of this."

She reeled. Disguise? Go investigate? For me? But... "Why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" That faint smile was still etched into his face. "I don't like leaving a mystery unsolved."

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

Fumiko's hair would have been harder to disguise if he hadn't had her hair tie with him. When Makoto handed it back to her, she thanked him profusely, and seemed curious as to the reason why it had been taken in the first place. When he explained while she tied her hair back into a ponytail, she remained quiet until he was done, then nodded in understanding.

Not at all what would be expected of a suspected arsonist. He was feeling much more assured of her innocence now.

"So how do you intend to acquire disguises?" Fumiko asked as they made their way to the south end of the city and the road out toward the southern farmlands and smaller villages. "Oh! Do you intend to use some kind of ninja skill?"

"No. Anyone more skilled than me could see through--and I couldn't maintain it that long anyway." He was searching for something specific that he had been told about, some years ago. It was a less-trodden path that went onto lands owned by his family, into a sort of bolt-hole where emergency supplies were kept, including for spies.

It ought to have the supplies he wanted.

Fumiko remained silent as they traipsed stealthily through the small, tree-lined path that generally went ignored, but it was clear she was nervous, and potentially thought he was hiding something. She didn't appear inclined to act on this though, so he let it lie. Perhaps she thought it was a personal storage area, or something of the Wardens.

The building, which had had only been to once before so he could know where it was did he have need of it, was on the outside a small office, apparently containing clan records and other such things. It did some of that too, but its main purpose was in...well, exactly what he was using it for, though typically clan spies were the ones who used it.

Makoto cast the seal that unlocked the door, then locked it behind them. Another cast seal at a certain spot on the wall gave them light, independent of the electrical grid. Untraceable, in other words. Fumiko followed him as he went into one of the inner rooms and dug out a blue bottle.

"What is that?" she asked curiously. "I'm...not sure how that would be a disguise."

"It's hair dye," he explained. "Blue, specifically--it'll make your hair purple. Your hair and current clothes are your most distinguishing features that you'll have on record, so we'll dye your hair and I'll grab you a change of clothes out of one of the supply closets. If you want, there's a bathroom where you can switch hair styles too, though I'm afraid if you want to braid it I'm no good at that."

Fumiko took the bottle, popped the cap, and sniffed it. "It smells like...blueberries? Are you sure this isn't just blueberry juice?"

"I'm fairly sure it is in part, actually," Makoto said, unbothered, and pulled a small box out from the wall cabinet. "If you like, we can get you coloured contacts as well."

She only hesitated a second. "...Blue, I think. Why do you have this place?"

"I don't, my family does," he said, opening the box and pulling a pack of blue lenses out. "It...comes in handy, sometimes. Hand me that dye and lean over the sink, I'll get your hair."

She handed over the dye after a cursory glance at the contact lenses. "Your family has need of a place to apply disguises and, if I'm not mistaken, hide documents?" A pause. "Should I shower first?"

"After it sets," he said, and frowned slightly. "And yes, we do. As you might have guessed by how quickly I believed that someone in the Shrine's hierarchy was so willing to allow an obvious frame-job."

Fumiko's expression relaxed somewhat, and she removed her hair tie before leaning over the sink. "So you're part of that Shiruko family? And the rumours are true, then."

"Yes, and yes." Makoto waited for her to finish getting her hair over the sink and to visibly brace herself before he started pouring the dye on it. He'd done this, trained for this before. Though he would have to note that he'd done this and why, because they did keep inventory here.

Fumiko flinched a bit, likely at the coolness of the liquid pouring over her scalp, but didn't jerk away or protest as he worked it into her hair carefully, making sure not one spot of red was left. Then he had her lift her head a bit and carefully covered her eyebrows as well.

"It's organic, and it won't be harmful if it gets into your eyes, but it won't be pleasant either," he said. "Give it ten minutes to set, then you can shower. No shampoo on your hair, only water. I'll dig you up some clothes to change into when you get out."

Her hair damp from the dye, she nodded quietly. "Thank you, Makoto."

He gave her an awkward nod, then left to root around for clothing that would fit her.

When he returned some fifteen minutes later, he could hear the shower running. Keeping his eyes averted (there was a curtain, but still), he nudged the bathroom door open and put the clothes next to the sink--which, apparently while waiting, she had rinsed the dye that had dripped into it out of. That was nice of her.

Keep making me feel better about not hauling you off to execution, why don't you.

Leaving the clothes he'd found by the sink, he edged back out to the main room to work on a game plan.

It took Fumiko twenty minutes all told to shower, by his estimate, which was actually fairly quick considering she must have really wanted to get clean after spending several days locked up. By that point, Makoto had a working plan to go and handle things down south when they got there, subject to change based on what she knew of the local situation--undoubtedly more recent than his intelligence on the area.

When she emerged from the bathroom, it took Makoto a second the recognize her. The frame of her face was the same--he couldn't do makeup well enough to make it look different. But her hair was braided rather than in a ponytail or loose, and a dark blueish-purple rather than bright scarlet. Blue contacts in her eyes hid their normal vivid green shade entirely. The clothes she was wearing, too, were more suited to a city dweller's than her previous country clothing that she'd been imprisoned in.

It would do, he decided, particularly since anyone looking for Fumiko would be looking for a chakra-based disguise, if any at all. There wasn't an ounce of chakra in this.

"It works," he said, somewhat relieved. "You won't be likely to fool anyone who knows you too well--actually, hold on, I have something for that too, since we might need to talk to them."

Fumiko blinked as he crossed the room to a linen closet and pulled out a long scarf, similar in design to his but in white, and handed it to her.

"Wear this, and when we get near the southern settlements, you can pull it up over your mouth," Makoto advised. "It'll disguise your voice and part of your face."

She took it, silently running her hands over the soft material before tying it around her neck. "...We might have to talk to people who know me?"

"I'm not going to rule it out as a possibility, no," he said, keeping his expression even. "Unless you need to rest, by the way, we should probably get moving. If you need to eat, we can and should get it on the way."

Fumiko swallowed, slowly lowering her hands from an apparently-reflexive check of her hair. "I'm fine on rest. Do you actually mean we should stop at a diner?"

"They're good places to get gossip, so yes," Makoto answered, checking his weapons. "Are you armed and ready?"

Her head jerked up and down once.

"Don't worry," he said, smoothing his voice further than usual. "No one outside my clan knows about this place. We're not being tracked. They're unlikely to even know I don't believe them yet. We have plenty of time."

"You shouldn't be risking yourself for me," she said, eyes downcast.

He shrugged. "I'm not. I'm solving a mystery, remember? Once I bring in proof you're innocent, this all goes away. Even if I do get in trouble, my family won't let anything happen to me. You don't have that luxury." She met his gaze again, and he indicated the door. "We should get moving. We'll want to be out of the city limits before dawn."

Fumiko took a deep breath, and exhaled. "...All right. Let's get going."

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

The journey to the southern settlements took only a few hours by boat, but the roads were more twisting and winding and took some time longer on foot--especially accounting for a barely-trained ninja's pace. Makoto had to slow himself to a comfortable walk for Fumiko. He was far more confident in her disguise than she apparently was, as once they turned onto the hard-packed dirt road from the paved street out of the docks district, she kept glancing around nervously. She stiffened even more when a man on a horse with a cart behind him trotted up, sparing them not so much as a look.

"Part of a disguise is getting in character," Makoto said, not paying more than cursory attention to the man with the horse. He was likely picking up supplies from the docks, since the cart was empty, and of no concern. "Would you like to work out your character that you're going to be playing? It'll kill time on the way there, and you ought to have one."

Fumiko's head jerked around and she looked at him, clearly surprised, as if believing a disguise would work properly if it was only skin deep. "Um."

"Oh." She really hadn't considered it. "Did you think that simply changing a few pieces of your appearance would fool people who knew you?" He had mentioned they would potentially be speaking with people who knew her, after all.

"I didn't think about it." Fumiko was clearly trying to relax, and not doing a very good job of it. "...Do you have any ideas? It's not something I've ever done before."

Makoto shrugged. "Well, presuming I use my real name--and I will--then you'd need some reason to be traveling with me. It's possible they keep track of who's a Warden, if they have someone on the inside, so we don't want to tip of whoever framed you by claiming you're one. And you wouldn't pass combatwise anyway--no offense."

"None taken." At least with no one else on the road, she wasn't looking every which way. "Where does that leave me?"

"I suppose you could be working with me because of my family." He watched her carefully now, intent on judging her reactions, keeping one ear on the road. "Do you know anything about weapon creation? Or perhaps poisons, or seals?" Anyone believably working for his family would have to have some kind of grounding in at least one of those things...

"I take it you don't mean seals as in handseals." No, then. "Um. I mean, I do have an interest in weapon creation, but I've never actually manged to do anything other than my gloves. We don't have--I didn't have access to a forge."

That was promising. "No, I meant drawn seals. Never mind; it'll do. If you're interested, so much the better. I'll teach you a few things so you can pass as an apprentice of my family's or something."

Fumiko nodded enthusiastically, apparently holding enough interest to shed some of her nerves.

What followed as they traveled the road winding gradually southward was a beginner's primer in forging. Makoto had to dredge up some of it from far back or simplify it, as some of these precepts were so ingrained in him they were difficult to put into words, but Fumiko was a good student. She listened keenly, asked clarifying or insightful questions when needed or when he paused, and his impromptu quizzes showed she had a good memory to boot.

It put an idea in his head, but he didn't mention it. Had to get through the current crisis before suggesting anything else.

It was about an hour past dawn when they hit one of the small villages that lined the roads, the kind with less than a hundred people, all of whom knew each other. There was a single restaurant in town, as was typical, and they made their way in there for breakfast.

By this point in time, Fumiko had become more comfortable in her disguise. They'd also taken the opportunity to hammer out an identity she could work with that would still be able to hold up to scrutiny. No one in the village restaurant asked for more than cash, but it was good for her to practice her persona--just as quiet and thoughtful as her real self, but with significantly more confidence and straighter of posture.

It was nearing noon when they hit the first town on the list and had to actually use the disguise as intended.

The arson attacks had occurred in three separate farming villages, but these villages were clustered fairly close to each other. That was a fairly normal pattern in southern Moon Country; a group of three to five villages of different specialties clumped together, who mostly did trade with each other on a regular basis and only occasionally sent away for other supplies or to trade in the city. Occasionally, these villages were grouped near a slightly larger town, especially closer to the southern tip of the crescent, but these ones were near enough Tsukigakure itself that they didn't need that.

Fumiko tensed when they entered the limits of the first town, but a sidelong glance from Makoto made her visibly relax. She had already tugged the white scarf over the lower half of her face when they sighted the village in the distance. Any piece of the physical disguise alone would have been pathetic and easy to see through, but the combination ought to suffice for their purposes.

They headed for the location in town that had been burned. Makoto was hoping there was some sort of residual chakra trace that he could pick up on, but it was more likely they'd at least initially have to talk to people and ask questions.

Local law enforcement--a few barely-trained weapon users better at investigation methods than actually catching or holding criminals--was still milling around the burnt building that looked as if it had been a shop of some kind. One of them, wearing a deep purple uniform of the kind small town law enforcement did in Moon, was talking to someone out of uniform who appeared to be the shop owner, from the way he was acting.

One of the officers spotted the two of them coming and signaled someone else, the person apparently in charge there. The woman approached them and Makoto halted, Fumiko coming to a stop a half-step behind.

The woman pulled out her badge and flashed it at him. "Sorry sir, I'm going to have to ask you to stay away. This is an active crime scene."

Interesting. So they aren't convinced of her guilt either?

"I know, that's why I'm here," Makoto said smoothly, pulling out his own identification--not a badge, but a glossy card. "I'm Shiruko Makoto, a Warden down here investigating the crimes. This is one of my family's retainers, Flare, accompanying me." At his family name, the woman had straightened, and paid significantly more attention to him than to Fumiko--whose disguise must have at least passed muster to not be remarked upon as unusual or suspicious. "I was under the impression, however, that local law enforcement had already fingered the person responsible and remanded them to the Wardens' custody? I'm only here because she escaped."

(He and Fumiko had argued a bit about that part. She had said that he ought to act like he was quite certain she was guilty, just in case it got him into trouble to act as though there was any doubt. He had said that was nonsense, and that they were far more likely to run into cooperative authorities if he didn't right away say what side he leaned on until he found out what they thought. That way, if there were people who believed her innocent, they'd cooperate. She'd eventually agreed, reluctantly. He really had to find a way to convince her at some point to stop feeling so guilty about things that weren't her fault.)

The officer frowned. "...Yeah. We thought that, at the time. But one of my men found a few things that didn't check out. Kanazawa had no motive at all for any of this. And while it wouldn't be the first time in the world someone snapped and did something crazy, her behaviour when she was taken into custody didn't match that. So, we're looking into everything again."

Makoto hummed noncommittally. "Then it's at least good she escaped for now, since otherwise her execution would have taken place within days."

The woman didn't react except to blink, once. "...That's awfully fast."

"Yes," he agreed. "It is."

She glanced between him, the disguised Fumiko, and the burnt-out husk of a building.

"All right, maybe I shouldn't do this--but this is my jurisdiction, and you wouldn't be down here if you weren't looking into things. So you and your friend there can have a look at this place and the other two." She motioned to the others on duty, some kind of hand signal that he couldn't divine the exact meaning of but seemed promising in connection with the words. "If I'm not there when you get to each, just have them radio the chief, that's me. I don't know how long it takes you Warden-types to go over a crime scene."

"It depends what we find," he said without humour. "Come on, Flare, let's get to work and not abuse these people's hospitality for too long. Oh," he added to the chief, "one thing first, though. Is this the site where someone died?"

She shook her head. "Injured, yes, but no one died here. One of the people injured was the shopkeeper's daughter though. She's seven years old, in with the local healer at the moment. There's been talk of getting a healer from the city for her, but we haven't requested it yet." She glanced at Fumiko again, not as if she knew her from somewhere, but as if she was speculating on how helpful a fire user could be to investigate an arson. Probably thinking the answer was 'very,' which was more true than she knew.

"Excellent, thank you," he said, with what felt like the right amount of sympathy. An injury that had them debating to call in a more experienced healer would be quite significant.

"Your name opens a lot of doors," Fumiko murmured as they entered the crime scene. "Did you see her reaction?"

"Exactly what I was counting on," Makoto answered, already scanning the area. "...Have you seen this place, since the fire?"

"No," she said, clearly restraining herself from a headshake that she might have to explain later to others. "This isn't the village I lived in."

"Good," he said, metaphorically rolling up his sleeves. "We're both looking at this with fresh eyes."

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

Supposedly, Makoto's talents in tracking made him good at investigation and observation.

This part, fortunately, was not only true but something he did in fact have a good deal of practice at. Well, not when it involved reading people, but burnt-out buildings were not people. Yelling owners of said buildings were, but that was local law enforcement's problem, not his. He quite happily left them to it.

Fumiko was picking around the scorched wood that had, apparently, made up the railing to the second floor of the building. The stairs themselves were partially intact, having been made of a much denser wood, but there was very little left of the railings. Judging from the look of the area, the fire had been set on the ground floor.

The building itself was brick and mortar, the walls cool to the touch now but frequently layered with soot. It appeared there had previously been wallpaper ringing the upper part of the room they were standing in--the storefront, if the remnants of shelves were anything to go on. A standard shop with upstairs living quarters, then, which definitely explained why the owner was so angry. The upstairs appeared less damaged, so it was likely he and his family had been living there.

Fumiko made a noise, and he beelined for her. She was holding in her fortunately-gloved hands a golden chain.

"What kind of store was this?" she asked quietly. "A jewelry shop?"

"No..." he said slowly, taking the chain when she handed it to him. "It was a general store."

Makoto inspected the chain carefully. It could have been something innocuous, or perhaps something snagged from one of the people who had been in the shop and pulled off trying to get away, but that didn't seem right. Closer inspection revealed broken links at both ends, as if it had been pulled off something, then had something pulled off it.

"And I was so hoping to avoid talking to the owner," he muttered. Louder, enough so that it was likely the officers outside and upstairs would hear them, he said, "Flare, is there any chance you can pick up on the chakra signature of the fire still?"

Fumiko blinked at him, then caught on swiftly and responded at a similar volume. "Not precisely, sir, but I will definitely recognize the person who started the fire when I meet them now."

He gave her a quick, sharp nod. Just because the chief had seemed to be on their side didn't mean the whole department was clean; someone had had to select Fumiko as the best scapegoat for this.

And also, the information they were speaking at the moment happened to be true. Just because he was using it to obfuscate his actual concern didn't invalidate that.

They poked around the ground floor for a while, not locating anything of interest--though there were a good deal of ashes that were suspiciously placed for a store that could have, at one point, been interesting. The mysterious golden chain was the only thing of any investigative value on the first floor.

Makoto did not expect to find anything upstairs, but they were not given much of an opportunity to search there anyway. The building's owner had long since ceased his shouting match with the officer outside and muscled his way through people who were probably not really trying to stop him to drown himself in ledgers. (Makoto was not inclined to disturb him in this; he liked numbers well enough, but economics and ledgers were sheer sorcery, and not of the kind he was well-disposed toward.) Rattling around the man's living space, while he had a daughter in with the healer with what had to be assumed were serious injuries, did not seem wise.

But they would still have to talk to him at some point.

It didn't take much poking around upstairs to see there really wasn't much of any informational value there, as he'd suspected. The damage to the upstairs was not very significant, and mostly relegated to the stairs and the hall immediately in front of it.

"Well?" he asked Fumiko as they wrapped it up, keeping their discussion just out of hearing range of anyone else.

"The initial attack was probably a single powerful burst," she said. "It looks like most of the damage was done by mundane fire after that. The stairs didn't take since it wasn't hot enough, and if someone were trying to demolish the interior they would have targeted those specifically with another jutsu. Pending results on the chain, this almost could have been random."

She appeared to have the same gut feeling on the chain Makoto did. "All right. Then we'll just talk to the owner and see if he gives us anything on it, then get out of here and move to the next spot."

She nodded, but looked a bit edgy. Perhaps she didn't think the man would cooperate.

Truthfully, he wasn't sure either, but it was worth a shot, and the only reliable way to figure it out.

Since there was nothing left to do, Makoto braced himself and entered the apparent study, which showed no fire damage. The man was hunched over papers as if he'd prefer not to think about anything else at the moment, which likely had to do with the situation at hand.

"Excuse me," Makoto began smoothly, and the man stood and whirled rapidly, dislike on his face, "we're here to--"

"I'm not talking to a Warden," the owner said, a bite in his voice. Fumiko flinched back, but Makoto remained undaunted. On a threat scale of one to ten, an unarmed civilian didn't even rate a three.

"Regrettably, that is not an option you currently possess, since this is an ongoing investigation," he said pleasantly, just a hint of menace in his tone. "So, let's try this again. I am Shiruko Makoto, this is my retainer Flare, we're here to investigate the identity of the person who set fire to your shop."

He expected mulish stubbornness or grudging cooperation. Neither was what he got. At the mention of his surname, the man's whole expression changed. Vaguely sour, vaguely grateful--an odd combination.

"I would say 'about time,' but I guess you guys couldn't have gotten a message I was never able to send," the owner grumbled, sitting back down in his chair. "I'm guessing you saw the case in the Warden files or something, huh?"

What?

This man was...talking like he'd expected to meet up with Makoto or another Shiruko before now...

He's one of ours? One of our importers or shippers?

This case had just gotten a lot more complicated. For that matter, it now seemed it was no accident, nor any kind of decision just that he was ready for solo assignments, that he had been the one to get it. Someone had deliberately put him and him alone onto this--likely someone on his side. Moreover, that person had instructed the one who had briefed him to stress caution, knowing what he'd get out of that...

There was no way that wasn't his family's handiwork. Maybe even one of his brothers', though the light touch and the investment in politics suggested an older cousin or one of the other adults.

"I was assigned the case, actually," he said, with a meaningful quirk of his eyebrow. "But the file wasn't specific about the location or ownership of any of the places targeted. You're quite sure it wasn't random?"

The man shook his head. "There's no way," he said. "You don't need to go out to the first fire site--there's nothing there of any real kind of evidence you can't get here. You can if you want, but it'll be a waste of your time. The third one, where the death was...that's where you want to be. And yeah--they're...affiliated."

All three sites hit were affiliated with my family. There's no way this is a coincidence.

Makoto nodded, absently documenting the odd choking noises Fumiko was making as the situation sunk into her mind. Well, she probably wasn't as versed in the ridiculous underworld politics going on constantly in Moon Country.

"One more thing," he said, pulling the gold chain out of his pocket. The owner sucked in a breath when he saw it. "I thought this might be important. What is it from?"

The man cupped his hands, and Makoto let it drop into them to puddle in a heap of golden links. It shimmered faintly in the sunlight coming through the window as the owner held it up gingerly.

"This was under the back counter by the till," he said, in a halting tone. "It was attached to the underside of the desk there. No, I should say it was holding something to the desk--a locked, fireproof, tamper-proof box."

Makoto nailed his feeling of trepidation to the back of his mind and refused to let it show on his face. "What was in the box?"

"I'm not sure," the man said, voice shaky, "but I know it can't be good. You're from the main family, yeah? Well, your grandmother gave that box to my grandfather sixty years ago, when we started acting as proper go-betweens for your suppliers in this region. We've passed down the instructions for it, and they said not to open it unless the Shrine made a move on us, I...I thought it was blown clear during the fire blast and taken as evidence, but..."

Which put a new light on the yelling; the man had probably claimed it was some kind of cash deposit.

"Well then," he said, much more calmly than he felt, "we'd best get moving to the third site and get this solved. If the arsonist is actually a thief covering their tracks, we need to move. We'll send a message to get a healer in for your daughter and head out."

The man nodded gratefully before turning back to his ledgers, though still looking troubled.

Fumiko remained silent as they descended the stairs, thanked the chief, and Makoto arranged for a messenger bird to be sent from the village mail center to Moon itself, flagged in such a way as someone from his clan would get it. She didn't speak until they were back on the road again, far enough along the path that she'd safely pulled her scarf down again.

"Is this significant? I mean, is it important?" Fumiko nibbled at her lip, looking worried. "This is...this seems a bit out of my weight class."

Mine too, he didn't say, even though he felt it.

"It's definitely significant, and important," he said instead. "Perhaps I should have sent for help, but if the message were intercepted...no, we have to handle this. Don't worry," he added as an afterthought, "I've never failed a mission yet."

She did not look reassured, but nodded anyway, albeit somewhat shakily.

He was feeling that himself. He was very aware now that he could not, must not fail this one. Not only was Fumiko's life on the line, but very possibly he and his family could be targeted, if he didn't catch the parties responsible.

It was not a future he wanted to face. So he would have to make sure he wouldn't.

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

The trip to the village of the final arson scene was much swifter.

Fumiko had seemed bolstered by the notion that they didn't have to go to the site of the first attack, which had been the one in her home village. She was counting on this making it much less likely they would run into someone who knew her, although Makoto privately doubted that; the three-village cluster was not so spread out that a civilian couldn't easily reach the other two in much less than a day. It was definitely not as likely, but not something he would rule out.

Thank goodness for his foresight in insisting on a disguise for her. He hadn't realized how close the three sites were when he had done so, but it was proving to be a good idea.

They would have to check the body in this one, too, which was...not something Makoto was looking forward to.

The location of the building was once again an active crime scene, with officers poking around it. There was no one arguing with them this time, and instead those working were somber and professional. The lieutenant in charge of the site allowed them through after a brief conversation over his headset with the chief.

If he had thought that the first site they'd seen was badly damaged, it was nothing to this one. Half the top floor was burnt off, exposing the remainder from the outside. What was left was distinctly scorched and charred. The windows had not merely shattered, but in some places melted, indicating someone with strong control of their flames in addition to power. What remained of the bottom floor was blackened, everything that might have been made of wood in it ash.

Due to Makoto's suspicions, they attempted to track down a lock-box first. There was a safe that had been blown open--deliberately, although it took a close examination to see that, and the officers might have thought it an accidental byproduct of the heat from the fire. Nothing remained inside the safe, not even ash.

"This is...not good." He drummed his fingers absently on the open safe door, for lack of any other hard surfaces aside from the walls nearby. "Presumably, whatever was sealed in there was not just cash, though any of that will have been taken too. I wonder if he had a wife we can find somewhere around here."

"Do you have any idea what might have been in those boxes?" Fumiko asked worriedly. "Some kind of weapon?"

Makoto shook his head. "I've been thinking, and I don't think so. There's no kind of weapon that would fit in there my family would entrust to civilians. I think it must have been blackmail on some prominent people." Perhaps of the mutually assured destruction kind, which would be why they had been instructed not to use it immediately, or perhaps simply something his grandmother wouldn't have wanted to hit the Shrine with.

She looked dubious. "What kind of blackmail would be good sixty years later? Surely anyone involved is dead now."

"The kind that isn't tied to a person, but rather an organization," he answered, though he was thinking. "Or perhaps it wouldn't be damaging to whoever holds that position now, but it would appall them. Or maybe a descendant of whoever was involved with the original affair doesn't want something getting out--or someone tied into the original issue still is alive and has enough pull to make requests of their successors." The latter would narrow it down, but there was still no telling yet. "Regardless, I'm fairly sure it's some kind of very incriminating information. That first box the shopkeep described wasn't big enough to hold anything significant other than papers."

Fumiko seemed to accept this, but still looked worried to a degree. "Maybe it was in pieces, whatever it was."

Also something he'd considered. "Maybe. We don't know that whatever they had here was the same size as in the first place, and won't know how big it was unless we can find someone the shopkeep let know. Either way, whether it's copies or pieces, we're still going to have to recover all of them and kill the thief. And probably talk to the owner of the third village."

She shrank back. "So I...I mean we, have to go to my hometown after all?"

"Yes." He paused, taking in her expression, and added belatedly, "Sorry."

Fumiko gave a gusty sigh that was muffled by her scarf and turned her head away, folding her arms, but did not object.

"I think the thief must be lying low for now," he said, forestalling any rational objections. "I don't think they'll have done whatever it is they intend to do with the stolen goods yet. Whether it's blackmail or something more immediately dangerous, it would be smarter for them to lie low until the heat dies down, pardon the pun."

"Unless they just want to destroy it," she pointed out, but he shook his head.

"They could have done that here, without bothering to smash safes and pilfer boxes. It would have been simple enough to destroy the safe, or the box. But they went to the trouble of ripping the box out, and smashing the safe open instead of simply blowing up the whole thing. No, they want to do something other than destroying the evidence."

Because whatever was in that box and this safe, it was assuredly evidence that connected in some way to their fire-starting thief--even if it was just them as a go-between. However, Makoto thought it was a little more direct than that. His investigative senses were telling him that with an operation like this, involving this level of property damage and finicky things like blackmail (probably), you didn't want to use anyone who didn't have their own stake in it. That risked them turning whatever they found against you. No, the thief was definitely connected.

"Let's go find the wife," he said after a moment. "Assuming there is one. Unless you can find anything else useful here?"

Fumiko looked around, as if she hadn't been doing that while he had tested the safe, or perhaps as if she wanted to stall so as to not have to set foot in her home village again. "...No. Nothing that wasn't in the other one."

"Good to know," he said briskly. "Let's get moving."

~

The wife was more help than Makoto had expected, especially since she had two young children to look after on her own now.

"Yes, I know the box you mean," she said. She was a slender, exhausted-looking brunette with bags under her dark violet eyes, and had become very cooperative when Makoto had thrown his surname around, even handing over a written note authorizing them to look at her husband's body to check for the murderer's chakra signature. "I don't know exactly what was in it; we never opened. But it sounded like papers, when we moved it. We moved it every couple of weeks, like my husband's grandfather said to."

Smart. But that's also probably why the fire here was worse; the thief wanted to be sure they got it. "Was it in the safe during the fire?"

"Yes," she replied. "I know, they probably got it. The safe was open when I had the chance to look, too. Do you know what it was?"

"I only have suspicions," he said carefully. "Nonetheless, you should probably continue to accept protection from local law enforcement until this blows over. The thief might not believe that you didn't know anything."

She nodded, and glanced over at Fumiko, who was entertaining her children while they talked. "...You're going to catch them, aren't you?"

I'm working on it, would have been the honest answer, because he was still a little doubtful they'd manage. "Yes," he said instead. "I will."

He and Fumiko next went to the medical center, which had only a single-room morgue with very few spots for bodies. The autopsy had already been conducted on the shopkeeper's body, but the medic hadn't had enough chakra training to check on that.

Chronic personnel shortage, he thought. Happens far too often in these towns. There just weren't enough chakra-trained people in Moon outside the capital to cover everywhere inhabited.

He wasn't a medic, but he had good chakra senses--but for fire damage, Fumiko's were better. He let her handle that while he read the autopsy report. Something seemed...off...

"It's the same chakra signature as the two fires," Fumiko reported. The examiner was hovering around her, and had insisted she wear gloves first. "However, I can get a more precise read than I'd expect from someone who died in a chakra fire. I think I might even be able to pass you an impression to track."

"He didn't die in a chakra fire," Makoto said slowly, as the pieces connected in his mind. He spun and went for the examiner, who shuddered a bit from the force of Makoto's Pressure aura impacting her as a civilian, but stood her ground. "Is this report entirely accurate?"

"Y-yes," she squeaked. He reeled his aura in a bit. "I wasn't...entirely sure? Of the exact cause, other than that it involved fire, and I thought maybe chakra fires didn't act naturally...but it still shouldn't have scorched his bones like that, right?"

Normal fires could have inflicted a fifth or sixth degree burn if they got hot enough--but that would have assuredly burned the rest of his body too, not just one specific spot on his chest that just so happened to be his heart.

"So you told them it was a murder by fire chakra instead of an accidental fire death or death incidentally by arson, but they ignored you?" he queried, pulling his aura back all the way, since it was clearly not her fault this had not been reported. It was right here in the autopsy.

"Ye-es," she said. "They didn't want to hear it since I couldn't give them any chakra data...I haven't taken the course for that, yet."

"You can now," he said. "Flare and I will corroborate your initial findings. Good catch, by the way; not your fault they didn't listen."

He now had a pretty clear picture of what had happened to make this town so much worse than the other two, and it hadn't just been that the box kept getting moved around every now and then. Most likely the thief hadn't known that at all.

He signed off on the updated autopsy report as a Warden and handed it back over after securing a copy, leaving it with the examiner who proceeded up the steps with it triumphantly, undoubtedly to go tell her superiors to stuff it and get her the training already. He and Fumiko followed behind and made their leave of the building in time to just hear the coroner's piping voice, sweetly informing her superior of the fact that she had been right all along.

They were on their way to the next and last, hopefully, destination, Fumiko having passed him the chakra signature as best she could. It was solid and specific enough he could pin it to a specific person, in the village she had called her hometown.

"You looked like you figured something out back there," she said after they passed out of the second town's limits. "What was it?"

Makoto knew the smile he wore was not a pleasant one. "The shopkeep in this town caught wind of what happened to the other two, and correctly deduced what was going on. He was going for the box to open it and use it, perhaps send it to us to use, when the arsonist caught up with him and killed him to prevent it. So they will assuredly kill whoever tries to expose this information. The one thing I don't know that he probably did, and seemingly didn't tell his wife, was who the information incriminated and thus probably who the arsonist is. But that doesn't matter now we have chakra evidence."

Fumiko's eyes seemed drawn to anywhere but the road ahead. "And...they're there? In my--in the next village?"

"If the signature you gave me is correct, and I'm sure it is? Yes." He fingered the release on his parasol. "And it's quite likely they have no idea we are coming."

"That's good...right?"

Makoto knew his expression was cold, now. "Oh yes. Very good."

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

Fumiko drew her scarf over her face well before they even reached the sight of her home village. Makoto did not tell her off for doing so; there was no point in arguing for less caution.

There was no point in trying to avoid alerting local law enforcement, even with his building suspicion that it was someone there responsible for the whole thing. They may or may not have been told by their chief his surname, but would almost assuredly have been told a Warden was investigating. They also wouldn't know it was the person they'd framed who was running around with him. That wasn't likely to stop them from spooking, but they might have been more willing to try an intellectual standoff than a physical one. The culprit might have believed that had a better chance of working.

Not that it did.

However, Makoto had to revise that after they crested the ridge nearest the town. He and Fumiko didn't even have to glance at each other before breaking into a run.

There was a barn on fire.

~

His water jutsu weren't elementally water, but that didn't make them any less physically water. He made short work of the fire, with Fumiko managing to find some level of control over the flames to keep them from spreading as he put it out. The family that owned the barn were clustered nearby, and all of them breathed sighs of relief when the last of the blaze went out. The youngest there was around ten years old, so it wasn't as if any of them were incapable of understanding what an impact a fire would have on them.

There were horses milling around a nearby paddock, too, having calmed down once the heat died down. Skittish creatures.

"That," Makoto said after they'd received their thanks and the family moved off to assess and repair the damage, "was a warning shot. Whoever it is knows we're coming after all."

"So they're on law enforcement after all?" Fumiko asked, upset. "That's..."

"No more or less than we expected," he pointed out. "Someone involved in this must have doctored the reports that made it to the Wardens to frame you in the first place. It could have happened only after they got there, but that was unlikely. As it is, some of the local police seem to have seen at least one or two of the original reports to have their suspicions. If anyone in the Wardens had seen..."

He trailed off, because someone in the Wardens, or someone who had access to their files, must have seen some sort of irregularity, or he wouldn't have received that subtle tip-off in the first place.

"Someone in the Wardens did see," he corrected himself. "But if they'd seen the reports we have, they wouldn't have bothered passing it off to me; there would have been enough evidence to get a full tracking team down here to go after the real culprit. Did you have any help of any kind escaping?"

She frowned in thought. "Not...exactly?" she hedged. "But it was certainly a lot easier than I thought it should have been. I mean, as you said yourself, they left me a weapon."

Makoto nodded, suspicions confirmed. "So someone down here doctored or omitted most of the reports that made their way to the Wardens, but missed enough for someone to notice something was off. However, it wasn't enough to go on, so it was simply passed off to me, since they couldn't be sure of their suspicions...it's sounding like whoever caught it is at least a family ally, though there are enough of those I don't know who. I suppose we'll know when we get back to Moon. They're likely to check to make sure I followed through."

He saw her mentally translating 'Moon' to 'the city' before she nodded.

The town itself was the smallest of the three in the cluster, most of it visible from the farm they were leaving. The burned building was not as bad off as the other two had been, though the windows were likewise shattered and there were law enforcement officials milling around. Unlike in the other villages as well, they didn't seem to be doing much of anything, as if they couldn't find anything that needed doing but they weren't allowed to leave.

It was not the most subtle of ways of guarding something, but it was at least a guard--especially since the owner in this one was alive and uninjured enough to be working in the shop. They doubled in to get confirmation this one had also had their lock-box stolen, after Makoto flashed his Warden ID, and then set about to hunting down the chakra signature.

It wasn't coming from any of the assembled guards, but it was fairly nearby and trying to track away. He bounded ahead, leaving Fumiko to cover him a little bit back, and homed in on the source.

They'll be fleeing to wherever they're keeping the boxes to try and retrieve them before I catch up. Too bad I'm faster than them.

Even slowed down a bit so Fumiko didn't fall too far behind, the person he was locked onto was rapidly getting nearer. In fact, they even seemed to be slowing down. Getting closer to their hiding place?

He heard Fumiko's sharp inhale as they crossed another property line and was met with a sinking feeling. It couldn't be that easy, of course. There was no way. He cleared a low fence, her after him closely, and then crested a small hill to take in the scene.

He didn't need Fumiko to tell him that the two redheaded children cowering against the barn with a large brown dog standing protectively in front of them were her younger siblings. The resemblance was obvious. Nor was it at all difficult to tell that she knew the person standing mere feet in front of the open barn door, ignoring the dog, hands wreathed in flame and a duffel bag that likely held the lock boxes strapped to her back. The girl was a similar age to the two of them, with brilliant orange hair done up in a wild pixie cut with jagged edges and streaked with white. Her expression was one of desperate determination, and only flickered into confusion briefly upon seeing him before going back.

"I kind of expected the older Shiruko Warden, not the younger," the woman said. "It doesn't much matter though. I need to finish my mission, and you're not going to stop me."

Makoto opened his mouth to respond and try to talk the girl down, but Fumiko recovered from her shock and beat him to it.

"Mieko," she said, "what have you done?"

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

Makoto couldn't help his double-take at Fumiko. Abruptly, he felt like he'd stumbled into someone else's mission, someone else's story.

The woman's--Mieko's--expression twisted into one of hatred and anger. "What have I done? What are you doing, working with them?" She flung the word like an invective, with a glare at Makoto. "Do you even know what they do, what they've done? What they've left lying around for people to use?"

Fumiko's expression didn't flicker. "Blackmail, he said it probably was. But it was a guess."

Mieko squinted at Makoto. "I suppose they could not have told him," she admitted grudgingly. "But, Fumi-chan...doesn't it bother you that you're associating with someone who talks of blackmail like it's no big deal?"

"As opposed to taking the word of someone involved in framing her for murder of an innocent civilian?" Makoto asked, keeping his tone lazy. "Not to mention triple arson. Plus there's a little girl who's likely going to be carrying significant burn scars for the rest of her life, too, just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Mieko's expression flickered into uncertainty, then despair. "I didn't--there wasn't supposed to be anyone there, and no one was supposed to die! He attacked me!"

"You gave someone targeted fifth-degree burns. You incinerated his heart. That isn't self-defense." Not for the first time, he wished the younger children weren't there; people tended to be more likely to speak of things without such distractions around. Then again, depending on her moral compass, they might keep her honest.

"To keep these from getting out? That's not a crime!" Mieko indicated the boxes in the bag on her back with a jerk of her head. The uncertainty in her tone shone through clearly.

"Mieko." He kept his tone even. "You don't believe that. But you aren't as responsible for this as whoever put you up to it. Give me a name."

That was the wrong thing to say. She glared at him, lifting a flame-covered hand. "As if I'd turn anyone over to you," she hissed.

Someone close to her. Got it.

Before he could say or do anything else though, Fumiko spoke up again. Her voice was more tired than anything.

"He's helped me, Mieko. Believed I was innocent, hasn't tried to trick me." She glanced at the children and the dog, and her expression twitched into something resembling anger. "Hasn't implicitly threatened my little brother and sister."

"Hasn't framed you for arson and murder," Makoto added in what he felt was a conversational tone. "I expect that goes a ways."

Mieko bared her teeth. "I've got no choice. It was her or me. My mission was way too important for it to be me. And you're not bringing me in til it's done."

The instant before she threw a fireball, he flipped his parasol out and held it in front of him. It easily blocked the projectile, not even warming through, and he sprang forward in the next instant. Fumiko was already moving, her own hands wreathed in flame. With Mieko turning to take a swat at her, Makoto used the opportunity to dart toward the children and pull them away from the combat zone. The older one tugged at the dog's collar to get it to come along without a fuss.

"The two of you go in the house and stay there," he instructed. "If you start to smell smoke, go out the other side and run for your parents to tell them what's happening. Okay?"

They both nodded vigorously and a moment after he turned back to the fight he heard the slam of a door.

The two fire users were not actually throwing around flame very much, instead both trying to grapple each other with burning hands. Mieko was the one with her back to him, which he intended to use. He furled his parasol so it was effectively a staff and approached the mini-brawl stealthily. If Fumiko saw him, she gave no indication. When he was near enough, he tapped Mieko on the head with his parasol.

Hard.

As her opponent crumpled to the ground, Fumiko blinked in shock. She looked down at the unconscious form of her friend/rival/cousin/neighbor/whatever she was. Then she looked up at him, her expression clearly puzzled.

"I thought you were going to protect my little siblings, or help me fight her," she said.

"I did," he said. "The thing is, if you had some sort of epic confrontation in mind, I have to inform you that was sadly inaccurate. I saw the shot and I took it."

She still looked a little disappointed.

"Cheer up," he said. "This way, there's no chance of anyone getting hurt or anything catching fire. Besides, I need your help to tie her up so we can interrogate her when she wakes. And I'm certainly not going to let her keep any weapons she can use to channel with."

Fumiko shook her head, brushing a lock of currently-purple hair out of her face. "We don't have to. Mieko only had ever had one relative who could have been responsible for anything the Shrine did, her great-uncle. He used to be an assistant to the chief warden, about forty years ago."

"Hmm." He looked the unconscious girl over. "All right. Help me search her for weapons and we'll turn her over to law enforcement, then. Unless you think someone's going to let her go, in which case we can drag her with us when we go talk to the chief detective for the area." He waited for her response with a slightly raised eyebrow.

She hesitated. "That...might be wiser."

"You're learning," he said approvingly. "That was a test, incidentally. Good job. But we should probably search her for weapons. I won't insist on a strip search, because that seems unnecessary, but you should probably handle anything non-visual yourself for minimal awkwardness."

"Most teenage boys wouldn't say that," she noted as he unclipped Mieko's backpack and hauled it to one side, then removed her gloves. "Maybe not even in front of a fire-wielding teenage girl."

"I'm a professional," he said with a sniff. "She's a criminal."

Fumiko knelt down to inspect Mieko's body for hidden tools and weapons--awkwardly at first, but after a moment she got over the initial oddness of essentially feeling up her unconscious...acquaintance of some description, and managed to be professional about it. She glanced over occasionally at Makoto pulling out and checking the lockboxes, and only did a double-take when he pulled a set of lockpicks out of an inner pocket of his coat. "What are you doing?"

"Well, in order to lure out this great-uncle of hers and sound like a credible threat, we need to know what the blackmail is," he said reasonably. "So I'm going to look at it."

Apparently used to him enough that the thought of him casually carrying a set of lockpicks around with the full capability to use them effectively wasn't even odd, she just sighed and went back to her work. Makoto hid a grin and went back to his.

The first box he tried was slightly singed, but otherwise intact, including the lock. It was a fairly good lock, and it took him a few minutes of work until he got it to click open.

Setting the picks aside, since he would want to check the other two in case any of the documents differed in some way, he opened it up and lifted a sheet out carefully, scanning it. He couldn't help an eyebrow going up as he skimmed through the pages, largely ignoring Fumiko finishing her search and beginning the process of restraining Fumiko with the ties they'd brought with them from the safehouse.

"Well then," he murmured. "That's interesting..."

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

By the time Fumiko had finished her work on the unconscious Mieko, her siblings had crept back outside with their dog, apparently having deemed it safe to come out when no more fighting noises occurred and no one came to burn them. Fortunately neither of them appeared injured, or Makoto was quite sure Fumiko would have given her ex-friend (?) a few swift kicks in the ribs.

Fortunately, having apparently noticed the presence of two small children whom they did not really want involved, she had the presence of mind to shoo them off again, so they could look over the documents in peace. Fumiko did not seem to want to take the chance Mieko, even disarmed and unconscious, could escape, and so was sitting on her stomach as a preventative measure in case she woke up as they paged through the things.

"Well, that explains why someone would go to all this trouble," Makoto said finally, when they were done with the first set and had skimmed the other two to confirm they were all identical. "That sort of news getting out would ruin someone even in this country. And there's enough proof here in order to confirm it. I imagine the originals are in a similar lockbox somewhere in storage at home."

She looked at him like he was crazy. "Your family would keep something like this in your house? Given how volatile this is, that..."

"I live in the main clan house," he said, amused. "It's probably better defended than the Wardens' bunker. Keeping something in storage there is probably at least as secure as anywhere else on the island. Not," he added as an afterthought, "that this would be the only such volatile thing kept there. This is a little more extreme than anything I'm personally aware of, though--the Shrine has been looking for who to crucify over that whole affair for ages, and so have we."

"Mieko's great-uncle and his patron," she murmured. "If it was exposed that someone so high up was responsible..."

"That's the sort of thing that gets people made an example of, yes," he said mildly, ignoring her flinch. "And yes, they would, if we didn't get to them first. We would too, for that matter--if we did it, they would look even worse than if they did. If we were the ones who brought them in after blowing the lid..." He trailed off and shrugged. "It reflects badly on the Shrine, and makes it look like they condoned the whole thing."

She nodded silently, then glanced down at Mieko.

"We'll drop her off with the chief detective and tell her this is her arsonist and to be careful since she may have a mole loyal to the criminal's cause," he said, not having to affect his disinterest. "Over an affair like this, they'll likely keep a guard of a couple of people on her while they ship her to the city. They might even use the drugs we send to all small town law enforcement to ensure she stays out cold for the trip."

He got up and stretched, and she followed his lead.

"Does this mean I'm cleared?" Fumiko asked uncertainly. "Once we turn her over, I mean."

"Once they've charged her officially, yes, they'll clear you," he said. "I wouldn't push them by revealing who you are just yet, you'll need to give the whole bureaucratic mess time to shift, but basically, yes."

He hefted Mieko up over his shoulder, leaving Fumiko to gape in astonishment briefly before gathering up and sealing the lockboxes and picking up everything they'd confiscated. So he was short; he was still a ninja and a taijutsu user. Carrying another person a relatively short way wasn't anything big.

The chief detective for the area had moved into the town they were nearest to now, leading the now significantly more than halfhearted investigation. Makoto made a beeline for her, 'Flare' close on his heels.

"Here's your arsonist," he informed her. "Her chakra matches the prints on the body of the deceased man. A second specialist test will confirm it. In the meantime, she's bound and out, and I would recommend, mm, level 3 precautions."

"Restraints to keep her from handseals and possibly sedation," she said, checking over Mieko. "All right. Thank you. This one looks dangerous."

"We picked her up attempting to use two young children as hostages at a nearby farm," he informed her as Fumiko handed the equipment over to one of the chief's assistants. "Fortunately, neither of them were hurt and we managed to take her down before anything caught fire."

"Those boxes?" she queried, noting that Fumiko was hanging onto them.

"Stolen property from the various shop owners," he said indifferently. "We'll hold onto them for a bit because there's a loose end to wrap up, but if all goes well we'll let you have them to examine--though there's no need to look inside them." He gave her a meaningful look as Fumiko stilled behind him.

She raised an eyebrow. "Not relevant to the case?"

"Not in any way it would do you any good to know about," he said truthfully. "It would be best if once we handed them off to you, you confirmed the chakra prints on them and then returned them to their owners."

She nodded slowly. "All right. Go handle your loose ends; we'll take care of her. I'll see to it that we keep a good watch on her."

"Keep a very good watch," he said, with an emphatic glance around at her people. "You don't know who might be watching you, after all."

A suspicious look, and a more careful nod. Message received, then. "Good advice. I'll see you after your loose ends."

"How do we find the great-uncle?" Fumiko asked after they were alone again. "It's not like he left a chakra trail."

"No, but she did," he said easily. "And she would've talked with him recently. This shouldn't be hard at all, if he's even bothered to hide--which is debatable in the first place; it was a good frameup. I would hide if it were me, but I'm rather noted for being a bit over-prepared."

She raised an eyebrow, lifted a lock of her dyed hair, and let it drop wordlessly, as if to support this point. He shrugged. Things could have gone a lot less smoothly if he hadn't been prepared to this degree.

The trail of Mieko's chakra led to another farm, this one a little less well-cared for than the one Fumiko had lived on. It could have been a red herring, but he didn't think it was.

"He might have the place trapped," Makoto said, eying the area. "I would, in his place."

"That...doesn't seem like the best indicator," Fumiko said carefully. "But, if he went to this trouble, maybe not."

He nodded absently, looking for potential good trap spots. "By the way, you don't have to be involved in this part if you don't want to. Arresting your...friend?...has to have been difficult enough on you without also heading off to arrest or maybe kill her elderly relative."

"We...weren't really friends," she said with a sigh. "Neighbors, is all, so we were friendly, but I wouldn't say we were ever friends. We knew each other, or I thought we did, but it isn't as if I feel anything toward her now I know she's betrayed me. And..." she hesitated. "And while I'd rather not kill anyone, whoever was involved in that sort of business deserves to be brought to justice. Friendly neighbor or not."

"Good enough for me," he said, drawing his parasol. "Well then. Let's get moving."

 

[Shiruko Makoto]

After all that preparation, Makoto was almost disappointed when the only 'trap' was just a barking dog. Fumiko smothered a giggle at his irritation over it as they approached the front door of the main house.

There was smoke billowing from the chimney, as if someone were cooking something inside on a warm, sunny day. Or burning evidence, he thought, but that was probably just paranoia. After all, they were the ones with the evidence.

Indeed, the old man who came outside to shush the dog didn't seem particularly concerned to see them, giving them only a cursory glance. Either he didn't know what was in the boxes Fumiko held, or he felt like he could get them from him. Or that there was nothing in particular to fear.

That ratcheted Makoto's tension a little higher, but he said nothing, merely glancing at Fumiko, who appeared puzzled. Once the dog, a large mutt with shaggy golden coat, was placated, it trotted back off toward a barn, to do whatever it was dogs did on a farm that didn't appear to have any sheep.

(He wasn't exactly a farmer.)

"You two might as well come in, doesn't matter anyway," the man said. He wasn't looking their way, but rather had turned back to the door of the house. "Whatever it is you have to say can be said indoors. I've got a stew on so I'm not keen on staying outside or the place might catch fire."

"Lousy fireplace then," Makoto muttered, but followed carefully. He switched to his knives rather than his parasol at the threshold though; the indoor space was too small to flail such a large weapon around should he need to use it and was obnoxious if he didn't.

"Before you say anything," the man said when they were inside, "it wasn't my idea for my great-niece to go around framing people. And she wasn't supposed to have to kill anyone. It was just supposed to be a couple robberies."

"And that whole deal forty years ago?" Makoto asked, keeping his voice level as he gripped his knives. He heard Fumiko shuffle behind him. "Was it really necessary?"

"They were just wild animals, son," the man said, unconcerned. "Shrine needed money. No harm done."

"You traded with pirates and let them act as poachers!" Fumiko exclaimed. "And in the course of it, they killed eleven people!"

"Not our doing," the old man countered, turning to peer at her. "Little Fumi-chan? Huh. That's a pretty good disguise, actually. Sorry about the whole thing, Mieko-chan wasn't supposed to target you."

"I'm clear now," she said tightly. "But...this isn't something you can walk away from."

"You don't have the authority to arrest me unless you've suddenly taken up a new job," the man said, amused.

"No, but I do," Makoto said. "As a Warden, that is, I have every right to arrest you for conspiracy to commit theft and arson, as well as being an accessory to murder and framing." He couldn't actually nail the man on all the past crimes--not only was the statute of limitations on them up, but he had been cleared by some obscure loophole that was probably a code for bribery and hush money payouts.

The man looked at him as if he'd forgotten he was there. "Mm. A Warden. All right. But do you expect it'll stick this time around? I'm already pretty sure Mieko-chan'll be out in days. She didn't believe me when I told her that, I s'pose. Must be why she went and framed poor Fumi-chan."

Fumiko clenched her fists, but said nothing.

Makoto took a deep breath, then exhaled. "Hmm. I suppose there's nothing...legal...I can do about you directly then."

The old man nodded along with him, looking slightly smug, but Fumiko suddenly looked worried.

"But then, I have a lot of not-legal options at my disposal, too," he finished.

"Nothing you'd get away with," the man said, still relaxed.

"Well, that's actually pretty funny," he said lightly. "Because, you see, I too am capable of getting away with an awful lot."

"Is that right," the man mused, glancing at Fumiko. "He bluffing?"

"His surname is Shiruko," she said, an undercurrent of unease in her voice, like she wasn't quite sure what he was intending to do. For his part, Makoto simply stood there, knives out and an eyebrow raised.

The old man's countenance faltered. "You--you're running around with one of them?"

Makoto tapped the boxes Fumiko was carrying with one knife lightly. "Mm."

He watched the man closely. He had started sweating, just a little, and probably not from the fire. He was likely thinking of all sorts of terrible things that could happen to him if he didn't surrender, given the fact that he had sent his great-niece out attacking Shiruko family allies, and gotten one of them killed. That on top of the blackmail...well. Just because it turned out no one could do anything with the stuff legally didn't mean that it would be a good thing if it got out. Lynch mobs came to mind.

If Makoto had been a normal Warden, then the old man likely wouldn't have minded that he had the papers now; he could do nothing legal about them. But considering as he was part of the clan of the Shrine's real rivals and opponents, who would just delight at getting this one over on them if it became reasonably necessary...

Well.

The man swallowed, eyed the boxes, and then looked back at him. "I'll come quietly--but the rest of my family, they had nothing to do with this, you hear? They didn't even know. They'll get the farm and all, right?"

"If they really are clean, yes," he said noncommittally. "Come along, then."

~

Both Mieko and her great-uncle were kept under sedation, and Makoto and a newly-cleared Fumiko accompanied the caravan back to the city with them, after a brief but tearful reunion between Fumiko and her parents.

He met up with his brothers at the city limits, and raised a single eyebrow before lifting his hand in a lazy greeting.

"You have had a time of it," Kanashimi said after they said their hellos. "Good work, by the way. Good catch, for one, with the files. I wasn't sure you'd get it until I heard you'd left town on your mission."

"It was you, then," he said, relaxing fractionally. "I did wonder."

"Yes, I thought your usual excessive preparedness would serve well here," was the amused response. "That, and it had to be one of us. Our name carries a lot of weight with the people you had to talk to."

"I'll say," Makoto said feelingly. "Both positive and negative, depending. Was I really a better choice than you?"

"In this instance, yes. You're quite a good tracker." Kanashimi shrugged fluidly. "When you want to be."

"Hmm," he said, internally more pleased than he was letting on. "Did you know...how much did you know?"

"Not a lot other than that the suspect we had in custody we had was framed and that some family allies were the ones attacked," his brother answered. "I expect the full report eventually, actually."

"The little girl you sent word about is making a good recovery," Saito chipped in. "Only needed a little healing, and we've already gotten two requests from that district for chakra training next month. The coroner wants it too, apparently?"

Makoto would have snorted if he was in the habit of acknowledging anything Saito said as important or worth listening to; as it was he did not but didn't quite suppress a smirk.

"Oh, right," he said casually. "This family has some influence with the Shrine. We'll have to lean on them a bit to keep the trials fair."

"Is that right? Hm. Easily done." Kanashimi glanced at the loitering Fumiko. They had left the boxes with the chief, who had promised to dust them for both physical and chakra prints and then return them to their owners. "She was the victim, yes?"

"It wasn't a particularly thorough frame job, but yes," he confirmed. "Ah, but listen...we should get the prisoners in, but there's something I wanted to talk to you about on the way..."

~

Fumiko sighed, leaning back against the beachside railing and gazing out at the ocean in contentment. With the real culprits arrested and the evidence provided, she was free and clear, and was being provided with resources for a while that let her stay in the city while the trials were ongoing, as a sort of apology.

She hadn't been sure, exactly, what Makoto would do at the end there until she asked later. He had answered, as if she should have been able to figure it out (as was the way she had learned, over the past few days, he often spoke), that he would use the blackmail and do a considerable amount of damage with it.

As if it wasn't a big deal, the fallout hitting the rest of Mieko's family. None of them even knew anything.

And yet...and yet. He had still helped her, when he didn't have to. There was this strange shadow war going on in her country that until now, she hadn't had much more than the most vague of clues about. Probably a lot of people didn't. This had been another battle in that war, and helping her had been advantageous to them.

But Makoto hadn't known that when he'd pulled his shot.

Even if his brother, who had apparently set him out on this on the assumption she was innocent--and even been the one who ensured that she didn't have her weapon taken from her--had known inklings. Makoto, who had helped her, hadn't known at all.

She wasn't fooled into thinking this was any particular special quality of hers that he had any kind of interest in. But surely the side that produced someone who would do that was the better one to root for, if one had to pick a side in this in the first place.

In some ways, she wanted to go back to two weeks ago, before any of this. She didn't feel cut out for this, disguises and blackmail and secret wars. In others she...well, Fumiko had always liked learning, and she had certainly learned a lot. So much it was almost overwhelming, in fact.

Probably in a good way.

There was the crunching sound of someone moving across the sand toward her, and she glanced over to see Makoto. Now that the mission was done and they were in a more casual setting, she realized again just how short he was. His presence when he was working had overridden that the whole time they'd been traveling, especially with how much more he knew, but she was suddenly aware that he was younger than her. Shorter and younger both, and somewhat awkward, like he wanted to start a conversation but didn't know how when no one was carrying weapons or committing crimes.

So she spared him that awkwardness; she had much less issue talking to people in a casual setting than he apparently did.

"Was there something you wanted? I feel rather indebted to you, right now." She did, too. She quite literally owed him her life twice over.

"Not...precisely," he said, his tone hedging. "Actually, I was here with an offer--that is to say, I talked with a few people in my family and I'm authorized to ask you this."

Strange, so strange, to hear of a family run in such a way that they were probably better organized than most shinobi factions. "What was that? I can't think of anything else you haven't yet done for me."

He coughed delicately. "Well, as it so happens, I may have mentioned your enthusiasm for weapon crafting, and that you seemed to gain a good grasp of the principles relatively easy--for a civilian, that is. And we do take on trusted, shall we say, affiliates, now and then. If you like, you could be one of them."

Fumiko felt she was being fooled--except that Makoto was really not the practical joking kind. "...What? Train with your family?"

"You'd have to take on a codename--the one we used when we were pretending would suffice--and you'd be trained in combat as well. You'd live with us here, of course, though your home's not such a far run once you've trained a little." He gave a helpless sort of half-shrug arm gesture. "Only if you want to, of course. We'd refer to you as a clan servant, that's what lets us get away with training whoever we desire, but it's not strictly true in most cases and wouldn't be in yours either, unless you wanted it to be."

"Hold on a second." She held up her hand and he stopped, letting her close her eyes and think furiously.

Point one: She owed him rather a lot. But that probably shouldn't be a factor here, and she suspected he'd dismiss it if brought up, as he had done before.

Point two: She did rather want to learn what they had to offer.

Point three: She wasn't actually that homesick. Maybe it was a combination of previously thinking she'd never see home again and the still-newness of the city to her, but she felt it would last some time.

Point four: She had never wanted to work the farm anyway, but not had much of an option. This was an option. An option she was interested in, no less.

"All right," she said, lowering her hand and opening her eyes, directing a smile at him that seemed to make him unconsciously relax. "I'm in. Do I...really move into the same place as you?"

"After the trial, to keep up appearances," he said, now at ease. "Don't worry. It's a rather large house."

"I'm not worried," she assured him. Then a thought occurred. "Ah, except...do you think anyone in your family has anything to wash this dye out...?"

Apparently smothering a laugh (it wasn't that funny, was it?), he managed to say with a mostly straight face, "that's really not a problem, no. Welcome aboard, Flare."

She accepted his outstretched hand and shook it firmly. "It's good to be here."