Yuushu woke up again, this time to the smell of fresher sheets, the scent of lilac and lavender from the detergent and the static sheets. With those combining elements, his sheets still smelled from the day he washed them. Though he didn’t remember the dream, the silence and the darkness that he been dreaming, there was a bit of comfort in those sheets, a smell that remind him of home, once such a blessing but the amount of blessings did not surmount to the endless bitterness about it; a memory far gone from his mind and now replace that emptiness he once had, he opened his eyes, his body supine and his eyes glanced up at the ceiling. He sat up and got up from the bed and stepped out into the living room. There he was viewing the entire layout of the apartment complex, clean and tidy from the lack of someone living here every day. This was the second time he actually slept in the place. No doubt due to his job and no doubt due to his lust to wander from night to night returning back from a place from the night before. His eyes caught glance of the phone on the counter. The message machine was blinking a soft red over and over again reading one missed call.

Yuushu paused a moment wondering when the phone had rung. It wasn’t as if he was a heavy sleeper, there are times where he would actually be sleeping in a state of complete obliviousness to the world around him. Even though these were rare, he was aware of the surroundings even as he slept. He is a shinobi infiltrating for goodness sakes, no point of being slain in his sleep after having countless training from his former employer. He would’ve heard the phone ring; he remembered clearly that the he put the setting of the phone to ring with the volume up to the max so that it would wake him up, even if the door was closed. He walks over to it and looks at the setting. It was still where he left it. Must’ve fallen asleep hard last night he thought to himself. It was the only clear explanation, a rational explanation that seems to justify why he didn’t hear the phone go off.

“What if the phone didn’t ring because of the caller?” he said to no one in particular. “Or rather, they called in through means of not allowing me to answer right away.” Now that made even more sense. Kirigakure was a place of secrets, a place where someone could hide themselves without anyone taking notice because of the type of life this place has. This isn’t also for those who are on the run but also the people who have lived in Kiri for a very long time. Anyone who wanted to keep a secret and share it could use different means of giving out information. Yuushu summed it up in his head that the only people who could do this would have to have access to technology. He summed it down to someone in Black operations, which was impossible since he ran it day and night. Someone from Water Country, the Daimyo perhaps or someone who has high standings like a Daimyo, could call the phone and have a device not allowing his phone to ring. The last one would be a major corporation but with that guess, that would even bring out wider options to the table.

Yuushu pressed a button on the machine. The automated voice stated that he had one missed message from 5:25 am. He looked at the clock and it was 12:05 pm. The voice didn’t give out the number; it only said it was an unknown caller. Of course, that would’ve been a bit easy on his part. “Hello” said the female voice on the phone. It sounded young, though it was professional nonetheless. Yuushu guessed a receptionist of some sort or someone’s personal assistant. “I’m calling for Kirinonai, Sono. I called your office eight hours ago but I received your voicemail and said to call this number. As you already know, your phone didn’t ring. It was not our intention for it to ring. This message is suppose to go straight to voicemail and by the time you receive it, it’ll be hours after this message is given. I have a proposition for you Kirinonai-san, something that maybe you, perhaps just you alone could do if you’re up for this task. If you wish to know more, please meet us at the C.F Building in the Business District at one today. My employer will give you more detail.” The phone on the other line clicked and the automated voice said end of message.

Yuushu had placed a hand over the small scruffs of hair on his chin and rubbed it methodically “Interesting. The C.F Building huh?” He tried to think of some things as to why this company wanted to hire him for his services. For starters, they knew him by his falsified name so it wasn’t anyone that he knew personally. If it was, they would’ve called him by his real name. He can’t seem to recall if there was a major event that had taken place in the past couple months with the company personally or something surrounding that company externally. He supposes he’s been lax on the reports given to him on a bi-weekly basis. He gave off an embarrassed laugh and rubbed his messy hair. He should really look at them more often.

He had less than fifty-five minutes but that was plenty of time for him to move his way onward. He wasn’t too far to the business district of Kirigakure. It was only five blocks from here and the C.F building was one of the larger buildings in the entire village. He got himself ready, showering and putting on his usual many pocket pants and his heavy coat. He looked at the swords leaning up against the nightstand next to his bed. On the surface of the nightstand were his hidden blades and his gloves he had worn last night. It would be better to go in with some type of weapon. The swords were a bit obvious but the hidden blades were less conspicuous than them. However, he had never been into the C.F building and had no idea whether it had metal detectors or top line security. It was safe to say that his gloves alone would be enough. He grabbed the gloves and put them on.

By the time he got out of the house, it was twenty minutes to one. He walked with the crowd of business men and women towards the business district. The Streamline, the name of the transportation system of Kirigakure, jetted past them at speeds that would range from ninety to maybe 100 miles per hour. It didn’t take long for Yuushu to find the building and see that it was the C.F building. He walked up to the door seeing the company’s logo on it saying C.F Corporation: Main offices in Times New Romans lettering.

He walked in and his first impression of the place was something that one sees in a ad for a five star hotel. It had that hotel feeling if Yuushu could put it simply. There was a stretch of walkway that led to the receptionist desk. White marble flooring that had been stepped upon by business men and women alike with their shoes clacking on the floor moving to the elevators that was maybe ten feet away from the reception area. He could see there was five in all, all going to the same place no less. They had to be large he pondered, large enough to carry maybe twenty or twenty-five people no doubt. To the left was another part of the area where he actually saw maybe four or five people sitting down on couches. There was a woman sitting, drinking from a container that he recognizes from the coffee house up the street. She took a sip of it and resumed typing on a laptop. There were three men sitting around a table, eating their lunches from a Styrofoam container. One of them let out a howl of laughter as he bit into his lunch. The others were farther away than Yuushu imagined but he could determine that they were also on break or on lunch or waiting for someone.

He looked at himself for a second. There wasn’t many instances where he felt he was out of place. He knew from the very beginning of his life that he was someone who was out of the box in the world society claimed. He never cared about the things he wore, the things he ate, the hobbies he done or anything like that. But for a moment, he saw for the first time how it was for him to actually be standing in the lobby like this. He was wearing his infamous red coat, long enough that it reached down to the back of his knees. The cargo pants he wore seem better fitting outside or anywhere else that wasn’t in this building. Though it was only for a moment, he did feel a tad bit uncomfortable.

He walked the long stretch over to the reception desk where a woman, a woman in her early to mid thirties with red hair and little spots of freckles over her cheeks, sat and looked up at Yuushu. There was a look that Yuushu sees with most women that he walks past or stands by. He saw that mixture of professionalism and lust in her emerald green eyes that she had; one side was trying to hide it while the other was just asking to let loose. “I see you’ve arrived Kirinonai-san.” It wasn’t the woman’s voice on the message but she did have that sultry voice that almost seem out of place from her. She looked at the clock “Ten minutes early but better to be early than late I always say.”

“Expecting me eh?” he said with a casual smile “Which floor is where I’m suppose to meet Mr.…?”

“Onjani.” She completed “He’ll give his name and all of that when you arrive. The top floor. Take the elevator on the far left and it should take you. He just got back from his lunch so you should be able to catch him in his office.”

“Thank you.” He gave her a wink and as he walked off he gave a slight wave. He reached to the far elevator and pressed the up button on the panel. The elevator doors immediately open. Yuushu got in and looked at the panel of buttons that had the number of floors. The top one was the 55th. He pressed the button and the doors closed immediately. The elevator shifted a bit then proceeded to move up the railing with surprising speed. It was silent most of the way and Yuushu could hear some soft violinist play from the speakers above him. He had his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth before the elevator slowed. The little light over the door red 52nd, 53rd, 54th the elevator made a dramatic shift in speed till it reached the 55th. The doors open up. The red carpeted floor led to a wooden doorway into another room where there was a glass table set in front of a stretched red, velvet couch and a lounge chair resting beside it in the corner. Yuushu steps were softly padded on the carpet as he made his way into the room. The room itself felt like a novelist office that imitated the offices of every story teller’s tale of a C.E.O receptionist area. There was a door with speckled glass that had the title Don Onjani C.E.O, President.

The door unlatched and the knob turned. The one who open the door was something that put a bit of shock to Yuushu’s eyes as the woman with the clipboard in her hand had walked in and said “Good afternoon Kirinonai-san, it is a pleasure and a honor to meet you.” She had a hand out for him to shake. He took it and shook her soft and almost kissable hands. Indeed, this was the receptionist on the phone that made that message. She had sultry lips that seem to speak out honey, long brunette hair rich in color that seem to have some sort of highlights in it, feint but noticeable to the train eye. Her curves fit alongside her white blouse and black skirt she wore with heels that made that marble in the lobby area click and clack with men looking back at her wanting to see every inch of her existence. “I had a bit of doubt whether you were to show up or not. It was a very cryptic message.”

Yuushu nodded “You can imagine how I felt when I realized that my phone with straight to voice. Very few can do that to my home phone so I had a feeling that whatever it is you are wanting is very important otherwise I wouldn’t have showed.”

“Indeed” she said and gestured him to follow. Yuushu did so leading behind her into the room. The room had changed completely, the carpet gone and back to the marble flooring. The room expanded upward from what was probably a twelve foot ceiling to thirty feet where the walls and ceiling were white as ivory. It was a bit of a long stretch before he even saw a glimpse of a man in a desk sitting idly waiting for Yuushu to arrive. He caught himself looking down at her lower side, looking at her as her hips shifted as she walked. “I can assure you, Sono-san, that everything that you are thinking about will be answered briefly”

Really? He thought I don’t think you know what I’m thinking right now but an ass like that can give me all the answers I need. “I know this is probably stupid of me to even ask but will you give me a hint as to what I’m really in for.”

She didn’t turn her head to answer but she said “I believe Onjani-san will have more information about it than me. Do not fret, your curiosity will be satisfied once he explains.”

He was a bit curious. It’s what led him to this place, the undeniable curiosity that he had that made him not ignore the message he had on the machine and it was that curiosity that drove him out of his apartment in twelve in the afternoon. Both the receptionist and Yuushu reached the man behind the glass desk. There was a computer to the left of Yuushu, four manila files on the desk and some knick knacks he sees on most desk. There was a picture of his family, his son at his current age and the daughter that he had who was in a uniform of the current attire for shinobi. Yuushu eye caught a glimpse of what appeared to be breathing shag carpet lying on the floor. When he turned his head, he then saw that shag carpet and it had more mass than what he pictured it to be. It was a white tiger, laying on the ground with its eyes closed resting. He could hear the soft purrs of the large feline, its stomach and chest moving up and down at a slow, easy pace.

The man sitting in the chair was a man who was roughly in his forties. Clean shaven, he showed pride of his strong jawline seeing no need for any facial hair of any kind to spoil his good looks and charm. Black and lustrous hair that didn’t show any signs of balding was trimmed and neat with one bang of hair hanging down to his forehead. This wasn’t the person Yuushu was expecting but he couldn’t say it disappointed him. If any, he enjoyed the surprise because that was thing about not knowing what to expect. The man had a serious look to his face, nothing that spelt how this was going to be a friendly nor hostile meeting just business.

Yuushu smiled nonetheless “Sup?” he said in his casual tone of voice. Don didn’t speak, only leaving his expressionless and rather emotionless face do the talking. He gestured his hand over to the chair in front of his desk. Yuushu shook his head “I rather stand if you don’t mind. You’re a businessman and you should know that other businessmen have certain procedures to things.”

“It is something to respect.” The man said in a very deep voice, another thing that surprised Yuushu “You are the person I’m hiring so I suppose I can’t force you sit down.” He reached into his suit jacket pulling out a case that was filled with cigars and placed one in his mouth. He cut the end of it with a cutter and lit it immediately after. The embers at the end of the cigar light dimly and a tiny bit of the cigar disappeared. He let out a soft, chocked cough. He grimaced then took the cigar out of his mouth “It’s been over twenty years since I had a cigar. These things are the death of people. I quit them long ago but seeing that this issue that I’m about to discuss makes me want to start smoking again. Makes me wonder why I even carry these sticks of cancer.”

The receptionist sat down in a chair next to the chair that Yuushu was supposed to sit. She began to jot down something in some fierce handwriting skills that put Yuushu’s receptionist to shame. If she was here right now, she would’ve had the same reaction as he only she would’ve showed it with her dramatic facial expression and exuberant body language. Don breathed in, rubbing his nose as he did so “I’ve heard you are head of special operations. I’ve heard you many skills in the art of killing, espionage, infiltration and the ego to boot.”

Black operations Yuushu wanted to say. The little differences like that really wasn’t the issue here. Yuushu didn’t know whether he should be proud of what Don had said or offended or both. He just raised an eyebrow and let Don continue on “I’ve also heard that you have skills that make you a master of deception and key tactics placements in the military before you became head of special ops. If that is the case, then this issue that the company is having may have some good use for your skills and I am hoping you would take the offer.”

“That depends” Yuushu said “Is this matter of personal interest or the interest of the company? You say it’s for the company but mostly when a large C.E.O of a large company asks me to do some hired work for them it’s usually for personal things as well.”

Don tilted his head trying to feign confusion to Yuushu. It almost worked, someone who wasn’t as skilled as Yuushu would’ve taken the gesture as pure and utter disbelief. “Why do you say that I have personal interest in this?”

Yuushu made a noise that said he didn’t believe his little charade. He didn’t want to come off as an arrogant prick that felt cheated in a way but there was no way Yuushu would let him play that little lie of his. “Well, let’s see about this hasty conclusion you. You called my home at five o clock in the morning. Now, I usually don’t get calls that early in the morning unless it is my secretary who even then gives me an occasional when I’m awake. Straight to voicemail? Only certain phones in this entire village can do that and that would be the Mizukage’s and certain substantially powerful companies like the C.F Corporation. You purposely made it so I wouldn’t answer right away because you knew if I had answered and your receptionist gave me that cryptic message when I was up, I would’ve been a bit more hesitant in coming into your office right now.” He paused and pointed at the files on the desk “You probably have a manila folder like such that listed potential people you wanted to hire and I was certainly qualified. If this has to be dealt with the company as well, it would certainly be on the list that the Mizukage’s have and they would’ve assign it to me” He smiled “I have high doubts that this type of issue wouldn’t even reach the ears of the Mizukage’s, am I right?”

Don expressionless face now showed complete and genuine surprise that couldn’t be refuted by anyone in the room. Then the surprise turned to into that crocodile smile “Figured me out on just a few words. Indeed, you live up to your reputation. Ok, I’ll admit that this does involves myself at a personal level. The company does want this issue to be solved but I needed someone who was effective and not a part of the Mizukage’s personal circle.”

“Ah. You wanted me because black operations are essentially under the radar to both the public and to sometimes the Mizukage’s and the council.” Yuushu shrugged “Makes sense, I would’ve done the same thing really in your position. So my question, again, is what it is that your company and you want with me?”

Don and the receptionist looked at each other having some sort of conversation unspoken. Don looked up at Yuushu “We want you to solve a murder Kirinonai-san.”

Yuushu’s stomach twisted inward; the excitement within him surged his body with adrenline. He grinned at him.

Chapter 2
Don saw the look in Yuushu’s eyes now, seeing now that it had sparkle in the moment of interest of the word ‘murder’. He didn’t know whether this was a good thing or something awful as Yuushu’s eagerness was unnerving to him. He shifted in his chair turning his body slightly to the left to twist his back. There was a soft crunch of his spine. Yuushu notice the look in Don’s expression as he did so, the business man had something awful to tell, and something like this that could forcibly put him in the middle of this may lead to something that Yuushu couldn’t get out of. The receptionist had stopped writing from what Yuushu could see. She had a glare at Don that could be described as nervousness with small sprits of eagerness for him to say something. Don had stalled some more by grabbing a small glass cup and sipped the content inside. Whether it was water or some sort of spirit, Yuushu couldn’t tell the difference. He didn’t show any signs that it was anything alcoholic, maybe he had been drinking it before hand to get use to that burn or maybe it was just water, he didn’t know.

“Let’s hear it Onjani.” Yuushu said, half curiosity and half impatience “My time is limited so I do wish to know what and who got murder.”

Don cleared his throat “My apologies, it’s not something that’s easy to speak aloud. It sends shivers down my spine. Maybe the information that I will give you may be easy for you to swallow.”

“I’ll be the judge of that” Yuushu folded his arms “Now, let’s start at the beginning. Who was murdered?”

“Yes, well. I suppose that should be the best way to start. I’ll begin to tell you that it all started not eight months ago. Around 10:57 pm, our security system had spotted the alarm of a break in at the 48th level of the building. Our security force was set up via an emergency elevator that goes up to each level with quick response time. We have our own security team. Not because we don’t trust Kirigakure’s shinobi but it’s the fact that our company has had issues with Water Country for several years now and our services simply will not allow us to hire them. In any case, our security team saw that there was a breach within one of the meeting rooms. The doors were off the hinges, the door comparable to reinforced door had been caved-in in the middle. Even around the outer door there was blood still wet and fresh from what was inside. When security walked into the room, there were two board members; both mutilated and defiled by whoever it was that murdered them.” He slid on of the manila folders to Yuushu. “These are a few pictures taken on the scene when we got forensics on the case.”

Yuushu grabbed the file and open it up to eight high definition pictures. He grabbed them setting the manila folder back on the desk. He went through each of them individually looking at any details that would show out of the obvious. In the pictures, the room had to be at least twenty-five feet by ten feet, something that could hold a board meeting. To the left was an overturned refrigerator split out of its contents of what looked to be water and cream for coffee. There was a table that was bent inward, the legs contorted into metal that didn’t look like they were table legs at all but twisted pipes that had been set into the table long before hand. There was the long oak wooden table that took up a fourth of the room itself. It was meant to hold up to ten people, the board and the vice president and president of the company. Laying on the table was a man, stripped naked entirely with blood running down his back. From the angle the picture was taken it, it was hard to see what physical damage had happen to the body only that it was in a prone position. The second corpse was on the ground not five feet away from the person who took the picture. The person was lying on their sides, one arm overlapping the other as if the person was sleep. He was also stripped bare like the corpse on the table only that was left on the man was just one sock but even that was difficult to say if it was a sock or not. It was blood soaked red with the edge of the sock torn away showing the man’s toes. From the look of it, there was a deep wound on the obliques and even more gashes on the man’s arm. Yuushu flipped to another picture where it was the man on the table, this time a better view of what happen to the body. There was a deep wound, deep enough that Yuushu could see the white of the spinal cord all the way down to the upper buttocks. Yuushu could see in the detail that it was a clean cut, most likely caused by a sword or a very sharp kunai. There was an opening like a surgeon’s incision to the back of the skull where even the skull had been split. The mixture of cerebral fluid, blood and brain matter protruded out of the man’s skull.

“Someone has a thing for defiling a body.” Yuushu said plainly “Whoever wanted to make a statement, they made it.” Yuushu switched over to the next picture. This picture was the man on the floor getting a closer view of him. It was taken maybe four feet away but the definition of the picture made it clear as to what happen to the man. As Yuushu saw in the beginning picture, there was a large gash on the side of the abdomen. There was the descending part of the large intestines hanging out of the body. He saw how deep the gashes were on the arm. Part of the arm muscles were hanging out from the wrist up to where the biceps and triceps resided. Yuushu lean in closer seeing that the man’s eyes were left open…with nothing left in the sockets but darkness. Someone had ripped out the man’s eyes completely.

“Well hot damn” Yuushu exclaimed “This is an issue. I see why this never went public. Has anyone found any leads?”

“If there was” Don stated “I wouldn’t of hired you now would I?”

Yuushu couldn’t help but smirk at that one. He made sense on that note. “Is this all the pictures you have on this murder?”

“No, just a sample of the hundreds the forensic team had taken altogether.” He leaned back in his chair and set two fingers over his lips “You’ll have full access to the files once you decide to take the case.”

Yuushu examined the man’s body language. The leaning back attempting to get comfortable, the eyes that never really made contact with Yuushu’s eyes, it seem to hide more than what was really going on. From experience, even as a missing nin, body language told a lot to Yuushu’s examination, telling him various amounts of emotions even if the person didn’t know he or she was expressing it. “What else happen?” he pressed on setting the pictures back on the manila folder. He pointed to the other one that was resting in front of Don. “You said there were more pictures. Is that manila folder something else?”

Don slid the closed folder towards Yuushu. Yuushu placed a finger on it to stop it from sliding and open it. “This murder was set fourth months after the events of the first. This was our previous C.E.O and president. This time the alarm didn’t go off, we found him in his office around 8 the next morning. You can decide what happen to him in that picture. It explains a lot.”

There was fewer pictures in this particular folder though Yuushu understood why there was. Don was clear when he meant that the pictures explained a lot in this one. The man, roughly in his late fifties, was hanged up by a tightly fitted rope around the neck. He could see the skin hanging over the noose, the skin purple from the lack of oxygen. This one was more heinous in the act than the other two slain in the other file. The former president’s eyes were removed, just blank sockets of darkness that once led to the man’s soul. There were long, drawn out cuts that came down from the middle of the eye sockets all the way down to the cheek as if it was cut purposely to make it look like he was crying. The man’s was stripped down from the waist down, his legs and his hands were both bound. The man didn’t die from the cuts it seem nor did it seem like he died from the hanging. The pictured showed a pile of the man’s life onto the ground, not able to be soaked up by the green carpet the man had as there was still blood still coagulating.

Yuushu closed the file and set the folder down. “This one seem to be more silent, something very under the radar that even security didn’t notice. Do you think it was an inside job.”

“We’ve considered that.” Don said “But we didn’t believe it to be so. We don’t have enough evidence to say that it was an inside job.”

“You’ve considered it. Well at least you did that. Could’ve been worse. You could’ve said that the statement was completely ridiculous which is better than what most people can say.”

“This is true. I cannot say that we do not have enemies inside of the corporation. The amount of power that is given to the board members and to the vice president and I could make a man, especially a grunt worker, want to kill us. It wouldn’t do them any good seeing that killing won’t give them a pay raise or grant them a higher position.”

Yuushu kept to himself about that statement. He looked over at the tiger, it yawned a great yawn as if it was about to let out a roar. Its eye twitched suddenly and then the tiger went back to it’s rhythmic breathing. “Do you have any enemies outside of the corporation? Maybe someone with a big grudge against you? A former board member perhaps or a corporation with the ideal of killing your corporation off by killing off board members one by one?”

“Many of the board members in the past are long gone. They were in their sixties and seventies when the corporation was founded twenty years ago. I doubt there are any one of them is left alive. To answer your question about other corporations…” Don rubbed his lips with his finger “I can’t really think of any. There is the treaty that we have to consider.”

“Treaty?”

“Ah, yes” Don sat up “The Treaty of Economic Prosper is what it is called. It was created twenty years ago after the revolution in Kirigakure. It is written in that treaty that no corporation within water country and corporations in water countries that have branched out to other countries can wage war against each other. Water Country have strictly forbid it and if that is the case then there will be another war but this time it’ll be with corporations instead of clans”

“That does seem like a good motive. War is prospers when it comes to money for corporations. Even you know that. You’re a plastic company, something like containers to feed troops and hold in munitions would make you more of a billionaire than any person on earth.”

Don narrowed his eyes at Yuushu “You’re saying that someone may want to cause war with us?”

Yuushu shrugged mildly with his shoulders “I’m just saying that it could be the possibility of a war. It could be one of the deciding factors to say why you haven’t released any information to the Mizukage. They would have to report it back to the Daimyo if that was the case. The Daimyo would have to decide whether to take initiative. He would probably give the order for a select team whether shinobi from Kiri or someone else to look into your corporation.” He paused placing a hand on the file “I’m going to take a educated guess saying that if this was made public, you would have no choice to agree to this treaty I imagine and they would have to be the third party in all of this. That means, you’ll have to give away more information that you didn’t give me at this time. Any skeletons in the closet may put your business out. It’s another reason why you planned to hire me. I keep this very under the radar and I have the option of telling the Mizukages or not.”

Don didn’t have a smile this time for Yuushu’s analysis. He looked down at the files shifting his legs in his seat “You are right that it would cause some trouble for the major companies that may be involved. We included into this mess. I don’t want this to be public; I want your investigative skills to find out more about these murders. I want these men to be put under arrest. I’m sure you can do all of this in some manner, yes?”

Yuushu thought for the moment, thinking on how a war would benefit him in the long run. In the short run, it would help his business out and the businesses that would keep him in tie. He was right about his statement that war was profitable and it was definitely profitable for the black market dealers like him. The long run however didn’t seem appealing as he knew this would cause another great shinobi war if Kumogakure decides to take the advantage of attacking Kiri during its time of crisis and he would be force to leave if that was the case. He couldn’t do that now, not when he is starting to find out the pieces that’ll lead him to the key, the thing of ultimate power it is said. Yuushu sighed and began rubbing the back of his head “I’ll need every bit of information about this. The forensic reports, the coroner’s reports, autopsies, records of the past years in security detail, background of each one of these men including yourself and even any information pertaining to the corporations that may be involved.” He raised a finger up “And I want reports on every past board member from the last thirty years if possible.”

Don let out a sigh of relief, his body lowering in tension as he did so “I’ll send it to your office by tonight.”

“Send it to my home Onjani-san. I rather want to solve this case in the privacy of my own home. I’ll be expecting it by tonight?”

“We’ll make sure we’ll have everything by six pm.” He glances over to the receptionist and had another silent conversation. She nodded and stood up taking her leave “You’ll get everything you’ll need. I only ask you to solve this as quick as possible”

“I’ll try Onjani-san. I can’t guarantee that I’ll solve this case but I can at least try to put your mind at ease.” Yuushu looks over the pictures one more time “Those men had a family too. All of them probably had a wife, children trying to be like their dads. I see one of them is trying to be a shinobi. You must be proud of her.”

Don lips pursed a bit. He leaned his head up against a fist he had propped up by his elbow “She always wanted to be a shinobi. I’m thinking how dangerous that is, how it can become. I was there when the revolution took place and I saw how many men and women who were shinobi got slaughter by their own comrades and the clans that went against them. I was there when one man saved my life from being killed by an assassin. How I was in perilous shock. How I hated the shinobi for doing what they did and not stopping it in time” His free hand balled into a fist trying not to lose his temper “I hated them for the longest time. Even as we began to build up our companies yet again, I still have this raging hatred for the shinobi. I was hesitant to even let you in on this seeing that you’re background is-“

“Each shinobi has some differences, yes. Even I myself can’t agree to everything a village does for their people. All I care about is resting your mind and making sure these people are judge thoroughly. I’ll make sure you’ll be able to rest tonight so that in the days after this, you’ll see your daughter grow up to be a very powerful and beautiful shinobi so that you can be proud of her.” He turned away from him and set to the door.

“Sono.” Don yelled out. Yuushu turned his head as he grabbed onto the door handle. “Whatever you do, don’t kill the man responsible. I want him alive. I want to see the man who did this.”

Yuushu nodded and left out the room.

Chapter 3

After the meeting with Don Onjani, Yuushu left the C.F Building and head to his apartment. He was glad he didn’t have to go into the office and do any recruiting at the moment. It was such a hassle to find and interview each individual that could be a potential candidate in becoming the black assassin’s for Kirigakure. There would be plenty of time to do that however. He had to keep in mind of the task at hand. As he open the door to his apartment, the room was filled with the smell of frying bacon with the fat sizzling in the pan as it cooked. Yuushu knew immediately not to tighten his fist knowing who it was that was cooking in his kitchen.

Yuushu turned to the kitchen to find his secretary cooking. She was flipping the uncooked side of the bacon to where it would cook. It made the hissing noises that came with it and some of the fat jumped out and pressed on his secretary’s skin. She let out a short yelp in both pain and surprise and stepped back. Yuushu had his hands folded with a casual smile on his face “Hello Yorui” he said “Cooking lunch again?”

“Mmm” she sucked on her arm before saying “I was getting hungry and I wanted something to fill me up quickly before you came back. I didn’t want to cook any of the big you have.”

“It’s all right” Yuushu waved his hand. He moved over to the little kitchenette where there were two packs of bacon open, one of which was completely gone. “Just a little snack?”

Yorui was from the city far west from Kirigakure. It is an unknown place; for the sake of everything it is called the place of old and new money. It is a place of aristocrats and politicians that mainly deal with the problems of water country from an outside perspective. They had an assortment of parties ranging from conservatives, to libertarians, to the green party, the black party, the blue and red party, the range of it was very high. Yorui was born into a libertarian family. Her mother and father are both politicians of the highest caliber having set a goal for their daughter to do the same thing like them. But Yorui was a rebellious soul, she still is one to this day going against the norm of things and trying not to be too much like her mother and father. The family were indeed disappointed by Yorui’s decision in the manner of not going for the occupation that they had invested their entire lives too. Yorui had set off to Kirigakure where the opportunity for her would be higher than it was in the city of new and old money. She out soon that Kirigakure was much more a harsher place than she expected, more so than anyone who is new to the village could ever suspect. She tried to enroll in a university, hoping to get a degree in liberal arts and English. She was turned down numerous times until the following year where she was accepted to go to school that following fall semester. She was working as a server at a local restaurant in the market district, barely making enough to even pay off rent. With the addition of college, it would be even more stress on her than ever before.

She had applied to different places, places that may want a receptionist of some kind and she wouldn’t of mind working the long hours due to it. Her application reached Yuushu only a month before she would start the fall semester. He took interest in the young woman at the moment of the interview, her words were very pronounced, very heavy in the accents of what is said in the city of new and old money. He smiled at her, his casual and very charming smile that could win even a dead man over to his side. He gave her the job at the spot and over time they had become good friends which was something almost entirely new to Yuushu. He had never been friends, a legitimate friendly relationship with a woman in his life. Seeing the difference in both men and women sometimes astounded his mind at times and he wondered what he was missing out.

“Well, I was hungry.” She said in her very pronounced accent (Her accent is equivalent to the real world English accent of many who hail from the United Kingdom. Most have different dialects of the accent) “I am a woman with many needs and my need was to consume most of the bacon you have in your refrigerator.”

“I don’t play you to eat my bacon Yorui. I pay you to help me out.” Yuushu sat down on the stool and set both his arms folded on the table where he laid his head on his arms. “But I’ll let this one slide this time. Bacon is one of my average staples that I like. If you enjoy it, I can’t complain.”

“That’s surprising Kirinonai-san, you let a lot of things slide with me. If you keep this up my workmen’s morale will surely falter and you’ll be left with no one you can stare at.” She smiled mischievously. She knew she was attractive, that was certain. Whenever she would be with Yuushu, he would take notice on the amount of men that stared at her. Her five foot three self gave the grace of a woman who knew how to work with what she had. Full pressed lips with a slender body and full breast that could be comparable to large grapefruits. She was young, she was beautiful, and she was every man’s wet dream in real life. Even with her attire now, just a white t-shirt and athletic shorts, she was still very attractive by every means.

“I don’t stare at you all the time.” Yuushu turned his head facing the left side of the room then he murmured “It’s just when you wear that mini black skirt that shows off your butt is when I look” he had a look about him that seem half kidding and half serious. “And besides, I catch you staring at me all the time.”

“Very hard to resist when my boss wears nothing but a coat, pants and shinobi boots. You know exactly what you’re doing with your entire outfit. It may be the same everyday but you know what you’re doing.” She took the crisp bacon out of the pan and onto a plate with a paper towel on the bottom. It immediately soaked up the hot fat. She put another paper towel but didn’t press on to it. She kept it there to keep the heat it. She got a few more strips and put it on the pan, the bacon immediately sizzled but it died away soon after. Yuushu could admit that she was a good cook, he could imagined her being in a large family with her being one of the eldest children cooking for her brothers and sisters while their parents were away. The way she looked was so natural that it reminded much of his mother “So, were you this afternoon? Busy finding yourself a lady friend? Or were you flirting with every women in the entire Water Country?”

Yuushu looked up at her as she stared back with a spatula in her hand “I was actually hoping that I wouldn’t have to tell anyone this bit of information. It would be better for me to just keep silent.” Yuushu stared into her eyes this time “Though knowing you, you’ll pester me about this until I tell you so as you already know…” he was beginning to say but Yorui cut him off.

“That I can’t say a word to anyone and this information is between you and myself. I know the rules boss, you don’t have to tell me.”

“Just making sure.”

Yuushu told her everything that went on from the beginning where he received the message to the point where Onjani had explained their secretive mission with him. He summarized it up so it wouldn’t get to the boring part and he excluded the points where he flirted just a bit with the secretary before he left out of the building. When he was done, Yorui had finished cooking the entire pack of bacon and set it down on the table. Yuushu took three pieces and began to consume the crunchy pork.

“Sounds like a bit of trouble boss. I can’t imagine what would happen if Kirigakure went into war because of a few murders. That would be bad business wouldn’t you say?”

Yuushu sighed heavily “Indeed. Wouldn’t be good for us if we’re trying to recruit more members into the org. I really wasn’t too sure about it at first but there is some sort of code in me that doesn’t want children to be fatherless. It’s a bit…annoying.”

“No it’s not” Yorui said “I think it’s very noble of you if you’re doing it for that instead of the money. You get paid enough as is and you didn’t take it because you needed more. Sure, it’s helping out a corporation, a large one at that, but that’s not your main focus.”

Yuushu could only be awed by the amount of innocence this woman had as she sat there nibbling at the edges of crisp and warm bacon. He felt that he was losing his touch if someone saw through that exterior of being much of an asshole most of time and saw the true nature of him. It was probably the reason why he didn’t have that many friends because he didn’t want to seem like an open book to most “Well, I’m supposed to get a lot of files tonight. I’m hoping soon that I can get started on this all and perhaps find some clues as to where to begin.” He sat up from the counter and stood up on the stool standing behind it “It’s rather strange to be honest. I don’t know much of the corporations in Kirigakure and their sister branches. They are very secretive about their stuff, even down to where they get their damn doughnuts I’m sure.”

“Maybe we can find something.” Yorui said with much optimism in her voice “I do think you may find some things with all the stuff you asked for. Hey, you may find something out that the investigative team couldn’t find. You never know Sono.” She smiled gleefully.

Yuushu and Yorui waited till the people from the C.F Corporation knocked on their down. It was exactly six p.m. when this occurred. Yuushu was impressed by the delivery of it all stating that they sure knew how to make an impression. It was the secretary from before, now out of her work uniform and into something more comfortable. She adjusted her glasses and turned herself gesturing to the five men carrying suitcase among suitcases of files they had “You asked for them all Kirinonai-san and you shall receive it all.”

It took roughly twenty minutes for them to set all of suitcases down in his living room. There were maybe twenty or twenty-five case when Yuushu was attempting to keep count. He was talking to the secretary who explained that each suitcase had a label to each individual request he asked for, documentations for the forensic team, the autopsies, more pictures for those nights after the murder. In one case were DVDs of all of the security cameras that stored all the data from the beginning of last year to a few weeks ago. There were even extended security reports for the past year or so, the amount of information was staggering almost entirely. She sent her luck for them both and left them. The time was 6:36 pm when it was all said and done. They both looked at each other and said at the same time “Let’s get to it!”

Yuushu and Yorui decided to split up what it is they were going to look for. Yuushu did have a keen eye and wanted to look at the tapes of the security footage but Yorui claimed to that before he got the chance. Yuushu said fine and decided to look at the coroner’s report on the bodies. He wanted to check up on some things he was suspecting and wanted to make sure he was right on them. Yuushu then claimed the rights of the security reports while Yorui would go in and look at current and former board members biography. It was then that they split up. Yuushu stood outside of the living room and dining room moving around in a circle as he carefully examined each and every one of the coroner’s reports at first while Yorui was in the other room, the lights dim as she began to watch the dvds.

Yuushu, although he wasn’t admitting of this fact, was only above the average in the manner of looking at and performing things in the medical field. He was a man caused pain and put people in the hospital not vice versa. Granted, he knew more than what most people could comprehend on the subject matter. In his line of work, he had to patch up himself and he had to investigate murders and have some sort of knowledge of what he was doing in order to get ahead. It wasn’t because he had no skill in the medical art; he understood all of what the coroner wrote out in the long, Latin medical terminology that every doctor and medical student could interrupt. When he glanced at the pictures, every one of them had the exact patterns of mutilation. There was a proper incision down the back where one could see the spinal cord. All three of them had their eyes removed. He found out also that each one of them had their tongues taken out as well. It wasn’t ripped from what the coroner wrote but rather surgically removed. It was noted that it had to be the work of some master medical doctor who could easily perform the glossectomy in such a short amount of time. It was noted then that when they removed the tongue that the victims were still alive and were semi-conscious of it all. It made Yuushu sick for a moment knowing that whoever did this was both inhumane and was skilled in the art of medicine. The puncture wounds, however, was not anything of medical affinity. The wounds were very messy, nothing precise about them only that it made them all bleed out in a short amount of time. The guy or woman who did was certainly one for brutal methods of handing the victims but from what the coroner wrote, it seem that they did not die from external bleeding. This could only mean that the person of medical descent had probably fixed them up so that they could only bleed out slowly rather than a quick and painless death. They made sure that these men would suffer slowly and experience a great deal of pain before they went unconscious.

This gave him a bit of insight that whoever it was that murdered the three were most definitely assassins of the kind. They were definitely shinobi, something that were probably high ranking with the amount of skill that showed to him that they were hired, missing nin perhaps. He imagined that it could be some Kirigakure shinobi who decided to play both rogue and loyalist in the midst of it all but that likelihood was low on the spectrum so he summarized it to the missing nin category. From what it seems, there was only two assassins, one would did the threatening and beating upon while the other did the surgical work and some added on beatings as well. The latter one was probably a sophisticated sadist and indeed took pride in his work. The former had only joined because he wanted to beat someone to a pulp and maybe help out with the suffering. It was typical these days and Yuushu had seen a whole mess of this in the black market side of things.

By the time he had looked at it all it was around one o clock in the morning. Yuushu didn’t feel the drag of sleep come along anytime soon but he didn’t know whether Yorui was asleep or not. He couldn’t imagine her asleep seeing that she was the typical college student who endeared through sorority parties and all nighters. Something like this would keep her up and excited for the most part. He walked into the other and saw that she was still awake only that the television was left on only the blue screen showing the insignia of the DVD player. She was looking at the biography reports going through each and every one of them slowly reading them.

“Find anything?” she asked in a rather monotone voice.

Yuushu had his hands in his pockets and let out a sigh “Nothing that I didn’t already guess. I can tell that this is the work of highly trained assassins. One is medical shinobi while the other is probably just a brute man who prefers to make things hard on people and likes to get paid to do so.”

“You got all that from the pictures and medical reports?” she asked, tilting her head as she glanced up at her. Yuushu nodded “Well, now all you need to do is find random medical shinobi number 1 and random brute number 2. How many people are their around here in Water Country. 100? 200? You got quite a list going on.”

Yuushu shrugged “Yeah, well at least I know it is was a professional hit and not some low-life fiend from the streets or some mediocre shinobi for that much. Did you find anything?”

She shook her head disappointedly “I’ve looked at the videos and sadly nothing has showed up. I did make a note that the time between the murders of the first two don’t add all up. The time that it was taken was around 8 o clock on the dot that night and then it skips two hours to where you see a bunch of security officers within that room.”

“So someone tampered with the security footage. That makes it an inside job or that the assassin’s fiddled with the entire security system, either way that doesn’t lead us anywhere except to maybe forty employees in the security and about forty of their elite squadron who are always there waiting for shit to happen. Won’t get anywhere near that. Anything else?”

“Mmmm” her hands moves through the files methodically “Not that I’ve seen, I’ve probably missed a few but nothing out of the ordinary. Though, there was something weird that I found but I didn’t think it pertain to anything this case has.” She turns herself to the left where there was a table sitting next to her. She grabbed what looked to be a picture of some sort, nothing old but the picture did display a group of men sitting and another group of men standing over the men sitting. Yuushu took the picture looking at each one of the people within the picture. At first glance, it was the older board members sitting down with their hands in their laps. All of them were different sizes and different shapes. Don may have been right that this group of men were probably dead seeing their gaunt faces, if any of them were alive, they had to be in their late eighties to early nineties. The people, who were standing, however, were much younger, most of them were probably Yuushu’s age. He didn’t recognize most of the ten men standing except for one. There was Don Onjani, standing there with a short, more military cut with serious blue emerald eyes that spoke business even at that age. He rubbed his chin for a moment looking at the other nine with careful thought. He wondered whether or not if there were any one of them that he could recognize. Yorui stood up, her hair fell upon Yuushu’s arm as she did so “Hmm, looks like one of those annual pictures. Anything of them ring a bell?”

“One does, the employer and then there are the three that were killed just much younger and the other five I don’t know.” He turned to her “You know anyone in here?”

“Me?” she let out a ‘are you kidding’ laugh “I wouldn’t know clam from oysters in this picture. Like asking me if that picture of red is different than that other picture of red. All of it is the sam-“ her attention caught something, she leaned out from the picture then leaned back in it “I take that back. There is someone I recognize in this picture but, I didn’t think he was a board of the C.F Corporation. I thought he ran his own corporation himself.”

“Who?” Yuushu asked with a bit of eagerness “Who is it? Which one?”

Yorui pointed “That one. The chubbier guy. I mean he’s older now and bit bigger in that picture but I recognize him. I can’t believe I didn’t see that before. I guess I was busying for something to stand out as I read instead of a picture. Why is this picture in the files anyway?”

“I did ask for everything so I guess that must of meant pictures as well with their biographies. Do you know the man’s name?”

“Reishou…I believe…” she thought about it and then nodded “Yes, that’s his name. He owns the R.A.I Ten Corporation. I didn’t know he was a board member back then.”

“These were probably candidates to be board members. The older men were the current at the time and that was about twenty years ago. Many things probably happen like he didn’t become board member and left or just set out on his own goals. Good eye Yorui, I wouldn’t of notice if before.”

She smiled at the comment, widely no less. “I could show you where he’ll be next if you want.”

“Where he’ll be?”

“Yeah! Today is Thursday and at the Diner of Wok he comes in and orders orange chicken for the most part. I use to serve him every Thursday when I use to be a server. There were always three bodyguards by him but he always let me serve him. He’s a very nice man and I see from time to time. I would sometimes sit with him and eat and he’ll always talk to me about my day and how I’m getting along in school. I have mentioned you before and told him about my job at the bureau. I hope you don’t mind” she said the last part timidly.

“Not at all. As long you didn’t tell him anything else besides that, I’m quite fine with it. So he’ll be there today? You sure about this?”

“I’m very positive. He’s a man of habit and I was going to meet him anyway. I think he treats me so nicely because I’m like a daughter he never had. He has sons and they’re pretty power hungry from what he describes. I always worry about him, his health and what not. But that’s just me personally. Are you coming with me?”

Yuushu nodded “He might enlighten me with some things that Don hasn’t told me and it might lead us to a new lead. Let’s get some rest so we’ll have something to think about for tomorrow”

“Yeah” Yorui yawned and stretched her arms wide “I am getting a bit sleepy. Is your spare room done with maintenance? I rather not walk the fifteen miles to my place at this time of night.”

“It’s good. You can rest easy cause I fixed the damn plumbing in that place. It was a bitch and a half to fix it but it’s fixed nonetheless. Make yourself comfortable.”

He didn’t even need to say such words. She was out the room and made a left down a short hallway where there was the second room that was made into a guest room for whomever it was that would sleep in his room for that night. She closed the door and Yuushu heard a click of the switch turn on the light. “Good night to you too” he said softly and smiled at that leaving out of the room and returned back into the living room where he decided it would be best to continue looking at some of the reports before he head off for bed.

Chapter 4

Yorui was already up at nine o clock, cooking herself a mighty hardy and fulfilling breakfast that would had essentially keeled over two or three men. She had scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, a bit mixed nuts put into a bowl where it was toasted lightly, filled with some bananas and dates and was drizzled all together with honey. The smell didn’t wake up Yuushu however. He had the door closed when all of this occurred; sleeping away soundly dreaming no dreams as he usually did each and every night. He awoke at noon, getting out of bed with sweatpants on and, of course, no shirt on. Yorui was looking at the coroners reports that Yuushu had left on the table from the early morning before he had went to sleep. She saw him coming into the living room with sleep in his eyes and in his now uncombed hair.

“Sleep all right?” she asked, covering her mouth to hold in her laughter. It didn’t do anything but let her giggle some more.

“Fuck if I know…” he said it in such a groggy voice that oozed out the remaining sleep he wanted to get so the words sounded muffled at first. He cleared his throat shoving the sleep away “What time does this Reishou character eat?”

“Well the orange chicken special is always half off after five and he is always their first to get the freshest batch so we’ll have to meet up with him around that time.”

“Good…” Yuushu yawned then smacked his lips. He finally took notice the smell of the kitchen which was thick with bacon grease and roasted nuts. “This place smells like a diner. The hell did you cook this time”

“That was three hours ago that I cooked one of my famous hearty breakfast. I’m surprised you didn’t smell it while you were sleeping. The entire apartment smelled like it.”

Yuushu raised an eyebrow then rubbed his eyes of the remainder of sleep he had “I don’t eat breakfast, I haven’t eaten breakfast for over ten years and even before that I rarely eat it.”

“Why?” She asked with the genuine concern one gives when someone made a harsh statement “Breakfast is the most important part of the day. Well, I think it is. Most people think it is BECAUSE they say it’s the most important. Me? I like to wake up the fresh smell of bacon and eggs and a bit of trail mix for breakfast. Reminds me of home.”

“Ah, I see you do it out of remembrance and not out of some ridiculous notion that you’ll starve if you don’t eat. That part annoys the crap out of me when people say that.” He looked at the time seeing it was 12:10. It would be another four hours and fifty minutes before the dinner rush. He had time to look over more of the coroner’s report and glance at the other topics concerning the board members. It wouldn’t do him any good he decided, it would be better to have his mind clear at the moment rather than jumbled and filled with information that could be potentially useful or more useless. He decided to walk back into his room.

“Where prey tell are you going?”

“Back to sleep. Wake me up at four.”

Yorui just shook her head and went back to reading the medical reports. “Goodness. One of these days you’re going to have to wake up like normal people. You know, because the morning is where it is at. Can’t be a night bird forever.”

“Bite me…” he murmured before closing the door.

Yuushu woke back up around 3:45, fully awake with no hint of sleep in him. He turned to his side and saw his three weapons that he had leaning against the nightstand and on it as well. He believed this time would be a good day to actually take them with him. He got himself ready only this time he grabbed his weapons, strapping the swords behind his back and putting his arm through the bracer. He walked out of the room with him putting own his gloves. Yorui was sitting down reading a book in her hand. She was wearing a different get up than what she wore in the afternoon. It was simply a white blouse with blue jeans that was would normally be consider low riders but she tucked it in the shirt so that no one could even get a peak of her assets. Her eyes peered up from the book as she saw him walk in, cracking his neck as he walked over to the table “You looked suited up. Where are you going, to war?”

Yuushu mimicked a laughter that was nowhere near humorous and went over to one of the files to read over what he had set from last night. “I’m just saying boss.” Yorui said, looking back down at the book that she was reading “I doubt he would want to sit with you seeing you are armed. Kind of makes a person notice if they see it.”

“I’ll have the blades down underneath the booth. He wouldn’t even notice it was there, not even his bodyguards. Trust me, this for after the meeting if things go well. I may be able to get a search on the people if his information is true and legitimate.”

“And what if he doesn’t have the information that we need to frame this guy?”

“He will.” Yuushu said with confidence “If I know his type, he’ll have the information I need seeing that he’ll be dealing with a business man himself.”

“So sure of yourself, it’s pretty hot.” Yorui closed the book and spun herself so her feet would meet the ground “So are we leaving now?”

Yuushu nodded, pocketing the picture that they found from last night and proceeded to the door. Yorui got up and followed.

The market district of Kirigakure was essentially one of the more prized and famous section of Kiri that holds a jumbo order of pride. It was due towards west if one was standing in the middle of Kirigakure where it would be close to the wealthier side of Kiri where both new and old money resides themselves in apartment complexes and housing sections that were usually sectioned of by fences or gates. The market district was more of the general area where anybody who was anybody could come, eat and be merry. The plethora of restaurants ranging from every culture from every side of the planet gathered here to make business and to make food. This was somewhat liked the business district where competition was at its maximum but the type of competition here wasn’t as deadly or as cataclysmic as the business district. No one was going to start a war become one waffle was better than the other so the other owner of the store tries to steal it. The health inspection agency were the ones who handled it in Kirigakure, enforcing laws and justice onto the restaurants with as much mercy as Yuushu’s own black operations group. They did do things by the book and sometimes underneath the radar which made their jobs both something to admire and to fear.

The restaurant that they went to, a cuisine from the eastern continents was one of the more homely and friendly type of restaurants that didn’t see much payroll unlike the bigger and more tech related restaurants. Yuushu saw the small sign that was said in some language that he could not translate. Underneath that kanji were the words he could translate and it read “Cho’s family diner: Home of our famous orange chicken”. Yuushu was more a fan of beef seeing that sign and his stomach purred at the thought of beef in his stomach. He was hungry, he had eaten nothing when he left the house and the only thing he eaten from the day before was about five strips of bacon. He rubbed his stomach but he decided it would be best to wait it out before going in and biting down on some food. He pushed the door open letting Yorui go in first then him. The smell of the place had the scents that mixed in with chile spices, ginger, garlic, onions, sweet peppers, some foreign oil and of course the sizzling of meat. In the back were men, probably in their late thirties and forties yelling in their native language. He smiled at it all under his breath seeing how they were yelling yet the efficiency of the entire place was so moving that it looked like one big life form to him. One of the servers came up to Yorui and greeted her. Yorui was excited and hugged her and the woman server, two inches shorter than her hugged her back saying how it good it was to see him. The server looked at Yuushu, eyed him up and down and had a smirk on her lips.

“Is this…” she nudged Yorui on the arm and winked.

“Him? Oh no!” she waved her hands side to side quickly trying to tell her to not make that assumption. Her face was flushed with a light pink “He’s…he’s my supervisor! He got me the job I have now! We’re only co-workers and…”

“Good friends” Yuushu finished. He put a hand out “Sono Kirinonai, a pleasure to meet you.” The woman grabbed her hand to shake but Yuushu reached down a placed a soft kiss on her back of her hand. The women instantly blushed the moment his lips pressed against her skin. “It’s always good to meet a friend of Yorui-san.”

They got done with the pleasantries and Yuushu asked the woman, her name was Li Cao, about the man Reishou. Her face lit up but not the reaction he was expecting. It was neither fear nor excitement, just a plain widen expression “He sits in the far corner booth. He ends his day off with two plates of our orange chicken. Would you like for me tell you that he’ll be joining you? You’ll have to wait for another fifteen minutes before he leaves his office.”

“That’s fine Li; it’s our weekly visit anyway. This time I’ll be the one to surprise him this time.” She gleamed a smile, one that was irresistible to everyone. Yuushu had to admit that her smile made her a thousand times more beautiful than any person he had met before.

“Ok.” Li leaned over to the side and saw the hilt of Yuushu’s katanas. Yuushu turned to the hilts and already knew what to do. He had gotten use to people glaring at that weapon like he was ready to use it and cut a man’s head off. Shinobi were only allowed to use their weapons outside of the facilities of the businesses and restaurants and if one was carrying a weapon like a katana, it should be kept sheathed at all time. Yuushu nod his head showing that he would not unsheathed it, his eyes holding to the promise he made to the Li. She smiled and nodded back. “I’ll get you two a plate of our famous chicken. It’s on the house. I’m just glad to see you again.”

“Oh Li. You can’t keep on giving us free meals. Won’t your father be upset that you’re-“

“Nonsense!” She said this then she spoke her countries language “He knows you and you’ve worked your fair share in this place that has many people coming in. It may not be a lot but it surely keeps us in business.” She put a reassuring hand on Yorui’s shoulder “It’ll be all right. Please, sit down and wait for Reishou-san”

Yorui blinked at her then gave her a reassuring smile. “Ok” she said softly.

Yuushu and Yorui went to the far booth where they sat down beside each other. Fifteen minutes later, sure enough, Reishou walked through the door. He was a very large man, large in the means of having a heavy mixture of muscle and fat all configured together in one massive six foot five body. Standing beside him were three guards who were equal to Reishou’s height only they weren’t fat but pure and solid muscle. All three of them were wearing a black suit jacket with match ties to go with it. Li walked to them and greeted the massive man. Yuushu could hear Reishou’s voice, both heavy and massively deep with a hint of someone who had come from the country would say. It was a strange mixture of business and country and Yuushu could not forget that voice. “Oh that’s all right Li.” He said in that strange combination of dialect “I’m glad to see Ms. Yorui is doin’ all right.” There was a pause “Nah, nah, I don’t mind him either. I kind of expected it. Please, don’t hesitate with my food, I’m looking to be very hungry today, had a long day at work.” Another pause hearing just a feint whisper of Li’s voice “All right then.” He walked over to the table where Yuushu got a better glimpse of him. He was darker than he was in the picture, a mixture of olive skin with hair that was so coarse and thick with black curls that it was comparable to sheep’s wool. He had a long, shaped beard and dark mustache and he wore tinted glasses over his large head. “Yorui!” he said, his voice ringing in Yuushu’s ear. “How has my darling daughter been?”

Yorui didn’t exactly stand up but rather stretched her body out of the booth and wrapped her arms around the large man. Yuushu couldn’t see how she done it but she did nonetheless. He smiled at her, a fatherly smile that he hasn’t really seen in a lot of people these days. Reishou looked up at Yuushu, his expression didn’t harden but it did have a stern look to it “You must be Sono, Head of Black Ops.”

“That’s me” Yuushu said. He folded his arms and lean back “You must be the legendary man who runs the R.A.I Ten Corporation. I’ve heard many things about you, both good and bad.”

“R.A.I has always been good and bad” he said “Just a matter of what is true and what is lie. That’s up to you to decide” he went over and sat down on the other side. The three body guards stood over by the side, their hands to their sides standing with an attentive look like dogs on guard “You’ll have to apologize about these three. They’re new. My old crew was sent to guard one of my board members as he goes on vacation. They aren’t as tight and rigid as these guys but they’ll learn as I always say.”

“I heard you say you were expecting me. Did Yorui tell you before you came over?”

“Oh no Mr. Kirinonai, I knew you were coming a day before that. I had a feeling that you would find something that would make you want to come talk to me. To be honest, I would’ve rather you called me instead of having dinner with me. This is one of the few moments that I am able to rest and I rather enjoy without the need of going into business over the table. It’s just rude.”

“I feel the same way sir” Yuushu said back “But this may be important and people’s lives are in danger. I find that this may have been the quickest way to find you rather than hold a meeting. And I won’t be too long I hope.”

Reishou looked at Yuushu carefully with serious eyes before nodding “All right Mr. Kirinonai. I’ll help you. I already have detail that three members of the board have been slain in the past eight months. That I’m already certain you were going to say.”

“How do you know this?”

Reishou chuckled slightly “Every businessman in Kirigakure has more or less infiltrated into each corporation, hell even my corporation has probably informants from the C.F Corporation too. I had my sources tell me that they were hiring a private investigator to bring the man who killed the three to justice without causing such a racket.”

Yuushu had thought for a moment tapping his chin. He looked over at Yorui, how her long, black hair went down to her shoulders and how it complimented her black eyes. Eyes…who had eyes like that? Yuushu rubbed his chin as he remembered waking up that afternoon hearing that sultry voice, hinting of something elusive. “The secretary. Don Onjani’s secretary. “

“You’re indeed a smart man Mr. Kirinonai. I’ll give credit that he didn’t hire an idiot to solve the case. Yes, Ms. Reiko has worked for him for about five years now. She’s still in my service to this day for the past seven years. I’ve known you’ve been hired by him and I’m quite grateful to be honest. I would want you to find out who murdered these men. I do have some guesses as to who it might be the culprit.”

“I can’t take in guesses. I gotta have a lead.”

“Oh you’ll get one, trust me. You’ll get a lead. See, if you wanna know who the culprit is, you gotta know the history of the entire C.F Corporation.”

“If you don’t mind giving me more of the shorten version?”

He shook his head wanly “Kids these days. Always want the microwave version instead a good slow cooked meal. All right fine. I’ll try to shorten in the best as I can. The C.F Corporation was funded thirty years ago by the board of trustees. They handled many of the trade of plastic from one side of the continent to the other. In the current times, there are two corporations running the plastic trade: The C.F Corporation and the Pine Corporation. The former handles the southern continents and eastern continents while the latter handles the northern and western continents. Before that, there were seven corporations, each one splitting up the trade to their unique country. The C.F and the Pine over the ten years began to buy up and fuse with the smaller corporations until it was one two left and not one of them wanted to work together due to some differences that would never work out, not then and not now either.

“The old board of trustees had taken on apprentices; I was one of them before I decided to run my own business ten years after. But, before that, I was one who would be trusted to run parts of the C.F Corporations. Many of board members heavily influenced their apprentices displaying prejudice against the Pine Corporation, knowing that one day the Pine would come back and there would be a cold war between them. There is a cold war now but it would get heated in the future and they all had plans of making sure they would be the top company to own all of the exports and imports of the entire world.”

Yuushu pulled the picture out of his coat and set it down on the table “Are the people standing the new board members now?” he slid it over for Reishou to see. He took a glance down and nodded “Three of them are dead, the one with the military cut is the C.E.O now”

“Yeah, that I know much. So your best bet would be to find the other few before they get hit with them gruesome murder brothers”

“Gruesome Murder Brothers?” Yuushu sat up “Who the hell are they?”

“Oh damn. I said a bit too much.”

“Too late, tell me now.”

Reishou sneered “I don’t have to tell you shit good sir.”

Yuushu frowned, his eyes narrowed wanting to strike at him. He could, he was quick enough to do so but that would leave him with a dead C.E.O on his hands and black operations could do so much hide a body that was one of the major corporations in the village. He sat back “no, you don’t have to tell me. That’s true. It would be wise to tell me however seeing that if these murders continue, that would mean that I’ll have to direct this to the Daimyo and seeing that every company here is under a treaty, this may presumably shut you guys down and order you to pack your bags and head out. I mean, if the Daimyo’s men can’t find any evidence and see these murders, they’ll probably be forced to shut every company down, investments included. Kirigakure is good business if I might add, you’ll be losing a crap ton of money if you don’t tell me who these Gruesome Murder Brothers-“

“Ok, ok” he groaned “I get it. Not telling you would put me and everyone else in a pickle.”

“How do you know about them?” Yorui asked, she was all shocked by this. Hearing this shattered the illusion that she had for Reishou. “You didn’t-“

“Oh heavens no, good lord I would never want to use them. Those two are, as their title states, gruesome as hell. I had peopled whacked when I was younger but I’ve stop doing so over time. I’ve only heard of the Gruesome Murder Brothers and what their services are. I’ve never hired them in my life, that I can promise you.”

“How do you know it’s them anyway?” Yuushu asked.

“From what my spy told me, the murders are exactly like what I’ve seen and heard in the past. They would strip their victims so they are bare to the bone, then they would begin to injure you profusely so that you may be bleeding either inward or outward. The big guy, don’t know his name, likes to punch and stab holes into the victims’ bodies. The medical man would sow the victim back up so that you can still feel the pain and still be dying but you it wouldn’t be such a mess in the long run. They would split the person down the back, giving them an numbing drug that they can feel some of the pain.”

“Probably to make sure that they are away of them being cut and having some pain come in but not enough sedatives to put them unconscious”

“Yeah” Reishou agreed “They like to do different things to different people in some grotesque manner that makes them very gruesome, hence the title of their names. That’s all I really know about. That I can swear on my mother’s grave.”

“Do you think they would still be in town?”

“That I wouldn’t know. They could be I wouldn’t be surprise. Some corporations like their services and are most likely fond of their effectiveness and the showy things they do with a human bodies. It’s disturbing if you think about it. So maybe another corporation or the same corporation that hired them has in the area. Most likely they rather finish the job the quickly than letting them come back and forth into the village.”

Yuushu saw the logic in that type of business. Better to finish it quicker to the dot than prolong it. It’s difficult enough to even get Nukenin into the village; Yuushu had about three months of figuring that little niche out. The brothers probably decided that the first hit would be their last but the second one was a bit more costly seeing that someone would eventually catch on. One of them did….

Oh crap.

Yuushu got up from the table. His knees were close to hitting the bottom of it. All of them looked at him “what’s wrong?” Yorui asked.

Yuushu looked to Reishou “How long has your spy known about this tidbit of information? A few months now?”

“I would say so yes. Why? What’s the matter?”

Yuushu was hesitant to say but he had to swallow the lump in his throat “I don’t think it’s the board members that are in danger as well. Nor is it the C.E.O of the C.F Corporation. Your spy is in trouble too.”

Reishou eyes widen with sudden panic “Why you say that? This isn’t something to j-“

“I’m not joking. You said that there are network of spies running around in each corporation, the best of the best transferring information among each other from one to another. The brothers were hired now to not only kill the board members but to make sure that it would be kept under the radar, so much so that not even other businesses should even know about. If that is the case then that would mean that someone had jeopardize the entire informant system.”

“You’re speculating” Reishou began “My spy is one of the best in the business. There is no way someone would even have the knowledge of knowing she was a spy and knowing she would give out information to me. That I know of.”

“Are you so sure?”

Reishou had a moment where he thought about the question before answering “I..I believe so, yes.”

“Even you don’t know do you? Your own spy is the one who is doing a double on you giving information to the enemy of my employer. How would I know this? Just call it a intuitive speculation if that what you want to call it.”

“This is a foolish notion. I will not sit idly by and let you say that my spy is some double agent. I will not take this bullshit you are spewing. Guards, grab this man and escort him out of here.”

Yuushu saw one of the guards reach out to grab his arm. Yuushu hand sprung to life grabbing a hold of the man’s thumb. He turned it so that the leverage would make them turn his arm the way he wanted to turn: into the wooden booth. The guards hand made a large thump on the wooden seating. He yelped out something obscenities. Yuushu used his other hand to do a quick jab to his solar plexus. It connected and it made the man fall over onto the table. Yuushu vaulted over the booth where he landed in front of the keeled over guard. The guard who was in the middle try to lunge at Yuushu only to meet Yuushu’s foot. Yuushu did a high side kick to his nose, then with his hands spun around and quickly rotated kicking him in the side of the face where he also went onto the table where Yorui and Reishou was sitting. Reishou yelled at the other guard to get Yuushu but Yuushu had already sprung to his feet and was out the door before the guard even turned to face.

Yorui sighed “That man will be the death of someone one of these days.”

“How do you work with him?” Reishou said in a surprisingly mellow tone of voice “He seems to be on the bit of the crazy side.”

“He likes to call himself an eccentric. He’s a bit weird like that.” Li walked over with four plates of orange chicken with what appeared to be mini vegetables of carrots, broccoli and cooked spinach. She looked over at the two men on the ground letting a quick shout as set down the food. Even when there was a bit of chaos on the floor, she certainly knew how to serve food. Yorui took one of the forks and stabbed at one of the pieces of orange chicken. She took a bite out of it and said it was delicious before continuing eating.

Chapter Five (Final Chapter)

It did speculative to come to that conclusion that the two brothers would attack the C.E.O of the company today. It was just one of his guesses that never really failed him before. But what Reishou said made sense to him. No one would hire the brothers because of the fees and because of their acts. He could estimate that they wanted to finish the job off and get on with their occupation of killing, murder and more killing. It’s the way they are, probably the way they act. Staying in a village for too will cause some of the disrupting chakra sensors to find out their signature soon after. The longer they stayed, the more of a chance someone will detect their chakra signature. Knowing that was the case they couldn’t allow themselves to stay long. They would probably rush their employer into dealing with them now. What also startled him was the fact that they killed every four months. That little bit of info he didn’t inform Yorui about. He figured that if he told her, she would’ve been determined to actually come with him. She wasn’t a shinobi, she was born an aristocrat. She wasn’t defenseless either. Yuushu had taught her the skills in martial arts over the months. She seemed to have a natural touch to the skills she learned. He taught her a bit of Jujitsu and Judo, enough to make sure that she wouldn’t be completely defenseless against the common man who would try to take advantage of her. He also taught her not to think about getting harmed but rather harming the other person, by any means necessary. That meant biting, kicking low, hitting the eyes, hitting any vital point that’ll give her the chance to move. Though she learned well, Yuushu knew that this wouldn’t be one of those times where she’ll be up against just a common man. If his corrections were certain, there would be shinobi all around and the security along with it and no judo or jujitsu on her skill level would even compete against these men.

Yuushu rushed from the building’s rooftops jumping long distances from one building to the next. He could see the C.F building quite easily with its fifty-five stories of pure engineer glory. All of which the lights were shining brightly from the windows. As he got closer, he saw down on street level seven men walking around the perimeter of the entrance. Each one of them was wearing armored security uniforms, probably advanced to enhance their strength and stamina. He took refuge on one of the rooftops of the building and got low. He was hiding behind a large billboard. He walked along side it where it he was able to able to see the edge of the building. He counted down at the men on the street level. He missed one as he came out of the entrance of the building. “They are normal people, not shinobi. And I have my doubts they are trying to protect the C.E.O from getting out.

“I could rush in. Use my speed to get into the building and rush up the stairs so I can get into the top floor. No doubt they’ll probably signal the alarm and the two gruesome brothers will take their leave. It would somewhat benefit me but it won’t end the murders of the two. There’s gotta be a way to get inside. It’s too far of a stretch for me to-“ he looked over at one of men who was walking over to the far side of the building. From the look of the other men who were in front, this man was alone from the looks of him. Yuushu smiled eagerly at this. He jumped silently across the rooftops so he could catch up the one lone man who was walking to one side of the building. It was heavily lit; no doubt that anyone was inside of the building could see him. But the thing about the business district was that some businesses surrounding it closed early and it left that part of the area very dark. Yuushu took advantage of this. Stalking on the edges of the rooftops, cat balancing on the ledges of the roof, he saw that man had stopped. He was standing just fifteen feet from the entrance of a dark alley way. Yuushu wondered how jumpy the man was. He hopped off the ledge onto the rooftop and bend down to grab a chunk of-well Yuushu didn’t know exactly what it was. It was metallic that’s for sure but it surely wasn’t a rock.

His hand, flowing smoothly with chakra, began to loosen the wires that surrounded his black gloves. His gloves began to lose its luster becoming more leathery the more wires began to unravel it. Flowing within the wires was his own chakra, giving the thin death a life of his own. Yuushu put his hands together then began to perform seals. His body began to fade away into nothing becoming invisible, becoming the darkness itself. He jumped down from the roof and onto the street. It was a eight story drop but Yuushu landed plainly and rolled when his feet met the ground. He turned to see that man’s back was still turned to him unnoticed by the little sound Yuushu had made.

He couldn’t play it safe and slow. Not knowing how long it might take for the two brothers to murder the C.E.O, he had to act with some attention. He had to get it together. He had sprinted over to the man which would’ve seemed like a blur if Yuushu was visible. He slammed the metal piece onto the man’s head. He didn’t have to apply that much force to it, he was strong enough to put a man unconscious if need be with just a little of his strength. The man’s skull made a thump noise which was good rather than a large crack which would’ve meant that he killed the man. The man didn’t make much noise, only a grunt that no one around heard. The man was about to fall over but Yuushu’s wires swiftly went underneath him and held them there so he wouldn’t crash to the ground. He then jumped back with the unconscious man and went into the alley where he laid him next to a pile of partially open trash which smelled awful of rotten fish and cheese. Yuushu had used his blinding speed to reach over to the entrance of the building. The light wouldn’t reflect off him. Seeing that no one was inside, he knew the jutsu was still in place seeing that there were three guards standing patrol by the reception area. One of them was leaning against the desk talking to one of the other guard who seem to be nodding to what he was saying. He opened the door slightly hoping it didn’t make a noise. It didn’t. Yuushu slid himself through the small opening of the door. He held onto the handle closing it quiet enough so that no one could hear the door make its subtle contact with its place setting.

He crouched down and slowly made his way past them. He saw one guard sitting on one of the cushion seats reading what appeared to be-no. No that was definitely what Yuushu thought. He caught a glance of what the man was reading and the one thing that caught his attention was a flash of cartoon depiction of breast. The man on the bench was reading hentai at his own leisure. He positioned himself so that no one could look over his shoulder. It was true with the way he sat and the distance with the other guards, he was set. But Yuushu was leaning up close to the chair and he could view over his shoulder. He shuddered slightly and continued to move towards the elevators.

One of the guard’s radios went off “45” a man’s voice said in a heap of static. Yuushu paused. He was crouched in the middle between the receptions desk and the elevators.

The guard grabbed the radio off his belt “This is 45.” He said back.

“78 have gone off his shift again. Probably went to take a piss in one of the alleyways again. You, 89 and 23 get back to their shifts. Break time is over”

The guard grits his teeth and cursed underneath his breath before gaining his composure and replied “Copy 14. 89, 23 and 45 will be out shortly.”

“Roger” the radio cut out. 45 had a hand over his forehead and drag his hand down his face stretching his features “Mother fucker. This always fucking happens anyway. Taking a piss during his shift, he knows the rules.”

“He’s got a weak bladder from what I heard. Prostate or something. He needs to go to the doctor but he says he’s too scared.”

“Yeah, well he should suck that shit up.” 45 shoved the radio back into the holster with a loud click against the plastic holding it. “Some people like to enjoy their breaks without getting called back to work.” He snapped his fingers. “Hey, 23! Get off your ass. We’re going back on shift.”

23, the man who had the hentai, shoved the magazine back into his plated armor “Already. That was a quick thirty.”

“Looks like 78 went on and gotten himself lost somewhere taking a tinkle. They wanted us back on shift.”

23 hadn’t possessed a look of amusement for it but it wasn’t exactly sore either. 45 and 83 were walking towards the entrance He had jumped over the chair and walked beside 83. 45 said some other words about the man that Yuushu put unconscious but it was inaudible for Yuushu to hear. They left the lobby and disappeared out into the night.

Yuushu stood up from his stance and walked over to the last elevator and pressed the button. This time there wasn’t an immediate opening. Yuushu heard the car come down, the gears turning as it lowered the elevator down. It was only a minute or so later that the door opened. Yuushu looked around then he looked down at himself. He was still in the invisibility mode though to him his appearance was wavering almost like looking at an image underwater. He got into the elevator and pressed the top button.


Three minutes before Yuushu got into the elevator, Genjo got up from the chair leaving behind a large imprint of his body onto the cushions. He walked over to the Don Onjani; the man was bound by the hands and ankles, tied together by very strong rope only to be tied by a very strong man. His mouth was muffled from Genjo stuffing a sock, his own sock, into his mouth then duct taping it shut. His head was down to his chest, he appeared weak with his face filled with bruises and small cuts. Genjo bent down over the small five foot seven man with monstrous dark brown eyes. The C.E.O stirred from his semi-conscious, twilight state and slowly raised his head. Their eyes met. One of Don’s eyes was closed shut and was a dark purple almost black. “Looks like the little one woke up” Genjo said the same accent Yorui had. He used two sausage link fingers to turn Don’s head to the side. He made tsking noises with his tongue “Oh this just won’t do, just won’t do. Genjou do you mind fixing him up a bit? I don’t like getting my hands all dirty with blood.”

Genjou was sitting down in the C.E.O’s chair and had his feet on the glass table. He had a blood splotched cloth in one hand and in the other hand was a scalpel. Next to him was the dead corpse of the white tiger, its body mutilated with its stomach and chest cut open and every leg cut off and sprawled over the floor. The tiger’s blood leaked out onto the marble floor forever staining it with life force. Genjou looked at his brother speaking in the tone of voice far similar to his brother’s proper pronunciation one only having a hint of an accent “Brother, our client wishes us to wait till 7:30 before we do anything to him. Though we may have to wait till 8 seeing that she’s still in the shower. Good god that woman takes long showers.”

“Well she didn’t like the way that tiger shot out blood. She did get a bit offended when I ripped the poor tiger’s arms off. Ah, such a majestic beast it was. It’s a damn shame that it ended so quickly, it would’ve been such a challenge

To say Genjo was a giant man would be more of an understatement by a little much. He was just shy of seven feet tall and was a solid 318 pound man who displayed not a single molecule of his body being entirely of fat. His arms were that of tree trunks while his legs were that of even thicker tree trunks. Because of his size, there wasn’t much he could wear but very loose fitting clothing. His upper body was bare but he did wear a loose fitting shirt when he came in. When he wrestled with the tiger, the tiger ripped parts of it off. His brother was more the opposite of his large twin. He was just five inches shorter than him who was lanky, gaunt and had a diseased looked face to him. He wore thick rimmed glasses that expressed his features even more and it gave him a mad scientist look to him. Both brothers had equally long black hair that reached to their shoulders and dark brown eyes. Both of them were not exactly ugly but they did appear older than what they seem. How old they were could’ve confused anyone who saw them mistaking calling out numbers in the forties or maybe their fifties. The life of crime has taken a toll with heavy dosage of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and whatever else these two were able to conjure.

“More so brother, his condition now is very unstable. He’s been coming and out of conscious for the past two hours. Cutting him now would lead him to go into a type of neurotic shock that could potentially kill him. It’ll be too easy and none of us will enjoy the slaughter.”

“Ah, true, true. You make a valid point brother.” He removed is fingers from the Don’s face and walked over the glass table. “This place is quite nice. Much nicer than that last person we had hit.”

“The Mikami Enterprise? “

Genjo snapped his fingers “That place. That man’s office space was boring. I couldn’t get any inspiration from that place, so dull. Trying to put art work and dullness together doesn’t fit my mood in its entirety.” He sighed “I cannot complain however. We were paid handsomely by that one hitman. He certainly paid us in full when we killed him.”

“Indeed my brother.”

There was the squeak of a faucet turning off. Genjo and Genjou turned their attention to the room over in the far corner where Genjo was sitting. It was condensed from the heat of the shower, streaks of water dripping down it and stream rising up to the surface as it leaked out from underneath the door. The secretary opens the door and was wrapped in a towel that covered up from her thighs up to her breast. Her hair was wrapped up together with a smaller towel. Both men seen women like her before, beautiful to the eye but underneath was the same, just fluid and organs.

“Ms. Ran” Genjou cleared his throat “How much longer do you wish for us to stay? It is quite a risk for us to even be inside here, especially a third time around.”

Ran eyed him then raised an eyebrow “Am I not paying you enough, I’ve met your requirements and more. As long the contract is intact-“

“We know that Ms. Ran” Genjo interrupted “But because this C.E.O hired a professional investigator, he might find us out sooner or later. Even though we may be gone after that.”

“Don’t worry about him boys.” She smiled with sultry in her lips “I’ve given him enough information both true and false so that he will be led in circles. It’ll be easy for you to kill him make the man who was hired confused and baffled by all this and you two will be set free. It’s as easy as that Genjo and Genjou, believe me.”

“I’m not so sure. This Kirinonai fellow seems legitimate. Knowing that he’s on our tail…”

“I assure you gentlemen” Ran reinstated “he will not find us. He will not know my involvement with you and he will not know anything about your involvement.” She walks over to Genjo and places her hand on her shoulder slowly putting one finger at a time on him. His skin crawled and shivers ran down his spine “Have faith in me.”

Genjou rolled his eyes at it all seeing Genjo falling heads for the woman of illustrious seduction. He looks over at the exit into the lobby where Ran would sit and work. Further down his eyes caught the glimpse of a light from the elevator. This raised a bit of suspicion. He saw that Genjo was blushing, his pale skin moving color towards red now. It was embarrassing to see his brother be like that, he was always so weak towards women. Genjou didn’t like the look of the light on the elevator however. He’s been in here for three hours now and not once had he seen the elevator move since. It could be his paranoia talking or it could be one of the idiot guards Ran had found and lean up against one button. Damn guards and their idiot selves. He didn’t know why she even hired them in the first place. From what he remember her telling, it was to make sure that Sono wouldn’t be able to get inside the building. The men were not shinobi but they were train to handle men like Sono. He would have a hard time coming up to the top floor of the building without him making too much raucous.

The light was still moving and the door open up. There was no one there. This was odd to Genjou. He looked to his left and saw Genjo and Ran talking. Genjo was going on about how attractive she looked and how pretty she would be in the future. It was one of Genjo’s sick things to do by describing each person as to how beautiful they look. The more detailed, the more ways he thinks about killing that person. He thought about it, Genjou heard his opinions on the matter of killing her right after this hit. But Genjou warned him that if any harm were to come to her, the company that hired her to do this would hunt them down for the rest of their lives and that company was relentless from what Genjou heard. The elevator doors closed itself slowly. Genjou sighed in relief. He was getting a bit paranoid, he kept telling himself that over and over again. Perhaps if he would’ve walked over, he would’ve noticed the person that could potentially been hiding in the elevator. If he had taken the time to actually walk over to the elevator he would’ve met the one man who was quick when he killed and could’ve given that man a harder time. If he would’ve taken one step to the right, the kunai wouldn’t have hit him straight in the head through the skull and into the center spot of the brain. Genjou didn’t feel a thing.

Yuushu was still invisible when he came out of the elevator. He saw Genjou leaning against the table looking straight at the elevator. From his distance, Yuushu could’ve sworn the man had seen him. He thought he saw him. His mind raced a mile a minute, going through each scenario of whether or not he should strike or not, whether it was a genjutsu or a clone, whether to use his wires, his blades or his fist to get the job. He needed to make sure there was only one of them. Two would be a problem. That he knew for sure. Going into a thing blind was one thing but when two skilled murderers were on the loose, there was no telling what the outcome might be. Yuushu couldn’t let one of them live because of the two of them were to attack; his job would get a lot stickier than it is now.

He reached into the back of pants where there were four kunai in a little pouch. He didn’t carry a lot, just enough to get him by. He began a light pace into the room before throwing the kunai, hard and swift into Genjou’s forehead. It was a direct hit and Yuushu made sure of it. Blood shot out of Genjou’s head spilling everywhere. Genjou’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and he slid down the glass table. Genjo looked over and saw his dead brother propped on the table with his arms sprawled on the table, his legs limp. He yelled out in both anger and sadness.

“Fuck. It’s the shinobi. Genjo, kill him at all cost. Do not let him get to the president.”

Genjo probably didn’t hear what she said. He let out a loud roar, a beast that cried out in the hunt. He had his fist tighten, his breathing was very rapid, bull-like and eyes were only seeing red. Yuushu removed the invisibility from him and threw another kunai in quick succession at the giant. Genjo put an arm in front of him and let the blade hit his arm. It didn’t do much but bounce off. That wasn’t normal skin Yuushu thought, that was harden by the earth element. Great he thought just what I needed, a damn earth user who isn’t stupid.

Genjo open his arms and clapped them together creating a large shockwave. It sent Yuushu backwards, surprised by the sudden shockwave. He hit the wall in the back and fell to the floor. He didn’t yell but it knocked the breath out of him for a second. In that second, Genjo was upon him, his hands balled up together and he drove it down at Yuushu. Yuushu rolled out the way of the man’s fist. The fist drove deep into the marble flooring, cracking it entirely and then some. Yuushu flipped back and then slid till he reached the window where it stopped him from sliding.

Genjo stood up “You fucking shit. Hold the fuck still so I can end you.”

Yuushu wiped the sweat off his brow “Oh, so I can experience the illness your brother went through? Yeah, thank you but I like living today…and tomorrow so if you don’t mind-“ he got into a stance, his right hand out in front while his left was the farthest from him “I’m going to kick your ass now.”

Genjo picked up large piece of the marble flooring and shot-put it at Yuushu. Yuushu rolled out the wave dodging it with such ease. The marble went through the glass and out the window were it descending down to the ground. He heard Ran scream at the top of her lungs when the window shattered to bits but Yuushu didn’t hear it with all the noise. Yuushu picked up the president’s chair and threw it at Genjo. This made Genjo seem to chuckle with insanity “Are you daft!?” he yelled out. He swung his arm down at it and chopped it in half where it shattered into pieces. Yuushu lifted up the table and threw that at Genjo. This also made Genjo laugh more “You really must be daft!” He did the same thing he did to the chair only the one thing Genjo forgot was the fact that it was glass. It wouldn’t do much to his arms since it was flesh but that’s not what Yuushu had intended. Yuushu had rushed in, now given more space to move around in and dropped low to the ground and with as much ¼ the amount of force he mustered up, he pushed kick Genjo in the one area that would put him down.

Yuushu’s fought up against many shinobi who were heavily armed and experienced in the methods of martial arts. Some have experienced themselves in such a lifestyle of martial arts that some men just forget the basics: Do anything it takes to kill that person if the person is aiming to kill you, nothing is off limits. Yuushu was a master in two styles, one that was considered a lost but ancient art, The Butoukai Mugen and the deadliest fighting style upon earth, The Shinryakuteki. They were his bread and butter, or rather his bacon and eggs. But when it came down to the essentials and when all else fails he prefers to go to the basics of the Butoukai which was basically dirty fighting. He wasn’t afraid of fighting dirty and he wasn’t afraid of aiming where it really hurts, especially when his life is on the line.

There was a loud crunch and pop sound when Yuushu’s foot made contact with his groin. Yuushu would’ve thought that the iron skin technique would’ve gone towards the area of region. His question was answered when he saw that man’s skin was not in that technique. The man eyes lit up shot in pain and almost discomfort. Genjo instantly threw up his dinner spilling on top of Yuushu’s coat. The man’s skin grew pale. It didn’t take a genius to figure that the man was in dire pain and was in a matter of shock knowing that one maybe both testicles had ruptured completely.

Yuushu’s hidden blades sprang out of the holster, all seven inches of it, swiped crossed both pressure points in his the knees and stabbed into the thigh where he aimed for the vagus nerves. He rolled back then was in a crouch as Genjo fell down onto his knees. Yuushu stood up, his blades still out and proceed to stab him furiously into the abdomen. It didn’t matter of his muscles were as thick as encyclopedias the wires condensed into the blades were sharp enough to puncture into the abdomen. He could feel Genjo’s shake with mini seizures as he stabbed into his small intestines, his large intestines, his liver, his pancreas, his stomach, and all the digestive organs he stabbed with as much grace as a chef dicing an onion. Genjo made one last attempt to harm Yuushu. He spread his arms back and had wanted to crush his head. Genjo was much slower than what he tried to do. Yuushu raised both hands and blocked this with his arm. Genjo’s fists ran directly into the solid plating of bracers. Yuushu hit the arms away from him, Genjo’s arm almost seem like dead wood. He got up from the crouch and was standing. He sheathed the hidden blades and put his hand in an open palm fist. He grabbed Genjo’s long hair with his free hand and used the open palm fist that ram into Genjo’s nose. He shoved the nose deep into the man’s brain. That was the thing he didn’t feel.

Genjo fell back to the hole me had made and his body sunk into it as if the hole was cradling him. Yuushu looked down at the dead Genjo, then down at his coat “Mutha….” He heard the whistling of a kunai coming at him. He swung the jacket in a batman gesture protecting him. The kunai bounced off it and slid towards the remains of the dead tiger. It was Ran holding what appeared to be a launcher where the kunai came from. She was breathing heavily; strands of her hair fell out of place, the towels on her body and on her hair were in disarray. Yuushu looked at her hands, which was shaking from what appeared to be shock, fear and complete awe of it all. Yuushu began to walk over to her.

“G-g-get back…” she stumble to say “I’ll…I’ll”

“You’ll what? Shoot?” he outstretched his arms “Out of ammunition there” he gestured to the launcher “Not much it can do.”

“You stay the hell back. I’m war-“ Yuushu was already upon her, his speed putting her in complete shock. He stared at her, looking at her releasing just his kill intent out around her. It was a heavy feeling, a feel that could crush her, the feeling of this heaviness drawn upon her and she got down on her hands and knees. Yuushu pulled it all back in then. There was no need for him to continue, no need for him to even strike his blade at her although he did think about assassinating her. It would not have solved anything and he knew that too the moment she shot that kunai at him. He got on one knee and lean his head to her ear. “As a part of the agreement, I cannot kill you. If the president wishes it, he’ll grant me that permission to do so. For now, I’m just gonna let you lie there.”

He stood up and walked over Don. His head was down on his chest again. Yuushu put a hand on his neck. There was a low beating pulse pressing against him. He was alive. They beat him till he was just sitting between the waking and the dreaming and he probably had a few bouts where he was in the hands of death but he continued on. He quickly removed the tape. This seem to spring him to life a bit. Yuushu saw that there was a sock in his mouth. He pulled it out of him and threw it to the side “Onjani, Onjani. Are you all right?” He took one of the katanas out of its sheathes and began to cut at the ropes.

“You…” Don said in a horse voice “How did you…”

“Call it assassin intuition sir. I’m just here to do my job and make sure you get home to your family.”

Don tried to smile, Yuushu saw the attempt but it seem to pain him a lot to even do the simplest of things “Well” he said, his voice becoming a bit clearer “They’re going to be very pissed off seeing that I’m late for dinner.”

Epilogue

“Hold on a minute.” Yorui said smacking on a piece of bacon “Are you telling the truth? Did you actually do all of that before the security team got up there?” They were back at Yuushu’s home. Yuushu was attempting to wash the puke out of his jacket which he has attempted more than four times in the last three days or so. So far, all he’s gotten was the smell lessening just a bit. He figured it would be best to keep on washing it until the smell was completely wiped out of his jacket. He didn’t know what the hell Genjo had eaten but he knew one thing, whatever it was it almost ruined his famous jacket.

“You think I’m bullshitting you?”

“I think you might be exaggerating the story a bit but I do believe you to some extent. I’ve read the reports of the Gruesome Murder Brothers. They’ve killed several bounty hunters in the past and they seem to be very legitimate in killing. They took it as an art however deranged that sounds.”

Yuushu pulled a strip of bacon and began to crunch on the edge. “Yeah. Shinobi and people aren’t that different. They still piss, still eat and still drink the same things. It’s not like they are a special breed of people you know. That man went down just as easy when you kick them in the nuts. Doesn’t matter what skill level you are and how many men you’ve killed. A nut is a nut.”

“You have a vulgar way of describing that Sono-san.”

“I just voice it as I see it.” He finished the piece of bacon and grabbed another one.

“So what happen to the secretary? Did they arrest her?”

Yuushu swallowed “Well, after I killed the brothers and freed the president of the company, the security force came up from one of the emergency elevators that ran up. There was about twelve of them all loaded with crossbows and rocket propelled kunai launchers. They responded when the heard the crash of the window and the piece of floor that almost killed one of their men. They asked me to put my weapon down until the president said that I wasn’t the enemy. It’s kind of hard to say that when it looks like I was about to stab him.

“Anyway, the guy saw the two brothers and recognizes them right away as the Gruesome twins. The president then told the security leader to arrest Ran, which was her name. After that, I really don’t know. I’ll probably hear about it in a week or so but I can assume that she’ll be judged and then taken away by the most enigmatic jailers in the business world. More hidden than black ops if you ask me. You never want to meet the bad of that group otherwise you’ll never see the light of day ever...” he shrugged “Or so I’m told. Can’t believe everything someone says” He winked at her.

“Well I’m glad that’s over.” Yorui said “All I’m wondering is if you got paid for your actions and what’s going to happen to Reishou.”

“I will…eventually. I asked him not to pay me right away. I want this to at least cool down before I get payment. And for Reishou, well I have my doubts he knew that Ran was working as a lone wolf in all this. He’ll deny it for sure and of course they won’t have any proof that he had any connections to Ran.” He folded his arms in and breathed in “And to be honest, I don’t think he had any idea that she was working lonesome. Either she just went rogue or she was working along aside with another group with an agenda.”

“But here’s my question. How did you know it was here and not anyone of the board members.”

Yuushu chuckled and waved a finger at her “See, I thought something was wrong when she brought all of this information that night. It just seem too easy. See, I was up that night after you went to sleep, up till about eight that morning. I was going through most of the information given. And to be honest, it was all meant to be misleading to me. She planned it so I would go in circles. I don’t know why I decided to rush out of the restaurant though. Maybe it really was intuition that got me. Really, it was just luck on that part. I had no idea that the gruesome brothers would be there.”

Yorui looked at her, head tilt to side resting up against one of her hands “Well, Reishou wasn’t too happy that roughed up his guys. Though he did forgive you when it was found out she was a double agent so I guess that negates it.”

“Oh, he’ll get over it.” He made a gesture with his hands that waved it off “I could care less about his security guards. They were looking at me funny anyway.”

There was a knock on the door. Yorui got up from the stool saying she would get it. Yuushu watched her as she step to the door and open it up. Her head lifted back a bit as if she was staring up at a tall person. “Hello? May I help you?”

“Is Kirinonai, Sono in today?” A low voice said “I have some business that I wish to speak with him.”

Yorui turned to Yuushu. Yuushu rolled his eyes and lounged off the stool to the door. He came to see a tall man, five inches taller than his own self wearing sunglasses and a black suit darker than anything he’s seen before. He was young, probably younger than Yuushu by about five years, tall with a narrow face and some facial stubble coming in. He almost appeared to be a hitman with his hands grasping the suitcase as such. He used his free hand to remove his sunglasses “Ah, Kirinonai-san. An honor to meet you.” He put a hand out for Yuushu to shake.

“Mind telling me who you are before I begin contaminating you with my germs” He blew out a fake sneeze to his left away from everyone.

The man pulled his hand back “My apologizes. I shouldn’t been rushing into this all. My name is Mikami. Darui Mikami, owner of the Mikami Enterprise. It’s a pleasure to meet you both…”