We crept through the forest like a ninja.

Well, I tried to at least, but I was making a lot more noise then Karenbana was happy with, she was also pretty upset that I’d woken her up to go chase after a random ninja that hadn’t even come near us.

“Look, if it’s the leader of those four guys that ganked us earlier,” I argued quietly, “We can beat him up and then turn the guy in back to the capital.”

“Why?” Karenbana said quietly, “Trying to get an in with the Daimyo? Defeat the ninja, attacking them and earn their trust?”

I shrugged, but she had pretty much nailed it.

“You’ve got me all figured out,” I admitted.

I was almost sure she was smirking in the dark.

“How strong is this ninja? Chunin?” Karenbana asked softly as we started approaching them.

I nodded.

We stopped at the tree line and peeked out onto the road, just in time for some woman to smash a rock over the back of Hinata Hyuuga’s head. I stared in disbelief as the ninja actually got knocked out.

What the fuck?

I stepped out of the tree line, and Karenbana hissed in surprise.

“Oi,” I said suspiciously, “How did you do that?”

I couldn’t even land a fucking hit on some Genin, and this random lady was taking out named characters with a rock; this was some bullshit. The woman turned around, alarmed, and pointed the rock at me aggressively. I dodged to the side in case she threw it or something, but she just moved to point it at me again. I checked above her head for a second to see her name.

I observed them both while I had a moment.

Name: Hinata Hyuga

Title: Princess of the Hyuga

Gender: Female

Age: 13

Level: 117

Next Level: 45.55%

Health Points - 980/1000

Chakra Points - 1500/1500

Vitality 100

Strength 80

Speed 120

Perception 105

Intelligence 90

Chakra 150

Status Effects: Unconscious.

Emotions: Hope. Determination. Worry.

History: Hinata was born in the Land of Fire. She is a member of the Hyuga clan’s main branch and is a ninja of Konohagakure. She tries her best but feels like she is never good enough. She is a member of Team Ten.

Hinata looked pretty typical for a Genin, I think. I wasn’t exactly a master of comparing strength, however.

I was beginning to think that there was something strange about the stats that ninja had. I had one-hundred and seven Speed, and Hinata had one-hundred and twenty, but there was a vast gap in my ability even to track these genin rank ninjas, let alone even consider fighting them.

It had been a long time since I had last observed Sakura, but I’m reasonably sure her stats had sucked. I think my Speed now was actually higher than hers was then, but I’m also sure that Sakura would have kicked both of those Genin’s asses at the same time. I absolutely couldn’t move at the same Speed she had been back on that beach. There had to be some hidden boost going on that observe wasn’t listing.

I had actually observed all four of the guys that had attacked us, and I had several of them beat in a couple of areas, again, mainly Speed, but I couldn’t keep up with their pace at all. It's part of the reason I had tried for a reflex skill in the first place. My best guess for what was going on here was that the stats that showed up with Observe were just their base stats before chakra enhancement got involved.

This meant that Chakra was complete bullshit because it seemingly multiplied there stats in a way that I couldn’t even see.

They must gain some massive overall boost from whatever the chakra reinforcement ‘skill’ would be for them. I distinctly remember Hinata fighting head to head with Neji for like five uninterrupted minutes in the chunin exam before he beat her. There was no way in hell I was even close to approaching Neji in Speed, not if he could dominate Lee in hand to hand.

Besides, Lee had two-hundred Speed while wearing his weights. It really made no fucking sense at all.

Name: Haruna

Title: Princess of the Land of Vegetables

Gender: Female

Age: 24

Level: 15

Next Level: 5.55%

Health Points - 200/200

Chakra Points - 1/1

Vitality 20

Strength 10

Speed 15

Perception 20

Intelligence 70

Chakra 1

Status Effects: Stressed.

Emotions: Despair. Fear. Guilt.

History: Haruna is the daughter of the Daimyo who rules over the Land of Vegetables, she was taken as a political hostage as a child in a foreign country, she was treated well physically but emotionally torment by those around her. Haruna seeks to take her place as the rightful Daimyo of the Land of Vegetables, and ensure the country survives. She is currently disguised as a merchant.

“No,” Haruna said, terrified.

Wait a minute, a princess in disguise, taken from her country when she was young. Wasn’t that the plot to that snow movie? They were just repeating this shit all over the place now.

“I said, how did you do that,” I repeated, “Not did you do it.”

Haruna took a terrified step backward as I approached the unconscious ninja on the ground before Karenbana appeared next to me in a Burst of Speed.

“It’s a Konoha ninja!” I said happily, “Remember those?”

Karenbana gave me an annoyed look.

“I’m going to wake her up, make sure rock lady doesn’t run away,” I said easily. “Or somehow defeat us both with her magical ninja slaying rock.”

Karenbana stalked over to the terrified woman and took her by the shoulder. I cast Status Removal on Hinata, and she stirred almost immediately, I guess it wasn’t a very strong hit.

“Hey!” I chirped.

Hinata slowly pushed herself to her feet before taking several steps backward to get everybody in sight; she looked extraordinarily tense.

“You’re one of those Konoha ninjas, like Naruto and Lee?” I smiled.

Hinata blinked at the name drop before nodding carefully.

“Yes,” Hinata said quietly, “Please let Haruna-san go.”

“Sure,” I said easily and waved my arm vaguely in their direction.

Karenbana pushed her towards Hinata uncaringly, and Haruna stumbled over to stand behind the tiny girl.

“You look awfully comfortable with her at your back,” I asked bemused. “Considering she just hit you in the back of the head with a rock.”

Haruna flinched.

“It was a stressful situation. I think I understand why she did it,” Hinata said quietly. “How do you know Naruto-kun and Lee-kun?”

“I met them on a mission about, uh,” I floundered for a moment.

“Three months ago,” Karenbana said, amused.

“Three months ago!” I said cheerfully, before glancing away. “Actually, I think Naruto just stepped into my range.”

I titled my head as the massive signature that could only be Naruto appeared at the edge of the mountain Karenbana, and I had been using for shelter, I pointed out the direction before continuing.

“He’s got two people with him-” I stopped.

There was a Jounin level Chakra signature chasing the three of them up the mountain, and it wasn’t Kakashi.

“Uh, Karenbana?” I asked weakly, “How do you feel about fighting a Jounin?”

“Byakugan,” Hinata said immediately. “Naruto-kun!”

Hinata looked between us and where Naruto was apparently fighting the Jounin.

“Come on then,” I said, resigned, “Let’s go dogpile the Jounin.”

I turned and started running towards the fighting. Karenbana immediately fell in step beside me, while the other two moved closer together and then started after us, Hinata must have been carrying Haruna.

“Naruto, was the orange one?” Karenbana said quietly.

“Please don’t kill my friend, you shitty bodyguard,” I sighed, “or I’ll fire your ass.”

Karenbana smirked.

There was weird chakra stuff going on in my Energy Sense, there was a floating cloud of Chakra zooming around in the air, and there were tiny condensed orbs of Chakra scattered around the Jounin. Some kind of technique obviously, but I didn’t know what it was from here.

“The Jounin is using some kind of chakra technique; it's flying around chasing the others?” I tried to explain, “He also has something set up around him, a defense maybe? Lots of little orbs of Chakra; seems notable.”

“I’ll stealth and poison the Jounin,” Karenbana said quietly, “and then hit him with a genjutsu, shoot him in the face if you see the chance.”

I nodded easily, between saving Naruto, or killing some random Jounin. I would pick Naruto every time. We ended up climbing straight up the side of the mountain. Using our respective techniques to stick to the stone, and in a fraction of the time, it would have taken us to run around to the actual path we were on top of it.

Karenbana vanished suddenly from beside me, but I could feel her slowly moving towards the Jounin. That was the invisibility technique that she had used to hide back in Moon, way back when. Some other ninja had the same technique, but I couldn’t remember who.

I think Kakashi fought him once? Or was it Jiraiya?

I took in the area as quickly as I could. Naruto, Choji, and a ninja with black hair called Yurinojo were all fighting the Jounin.

What the hell was this strange ass team composition? Naruto, Choji, and Hinata? That's one of each of the three main teams, where the hell was their Jounin? I’d never seen the dark-haired ninja before, and he was only about as strong as Karenbana was, at least Chakra wise, so it wasn’t him.

There was a large mass of water floating around in the air, with tiny fish in it. There was also what looked like orbs of water floating around the guy protectively. What the hell kind of nonsense was this? It was like a budget version of Kisame Hoshigaki, with tiny fishes instead of sharks.

Oh, there was a shark.

Karenbana arrived behind the guy and tossed a kunai at him before leaping away, her invisibility still intact. The guy immediately had a shield of water in between him and the explosion, but the airborne poison would have still carried to him easily. The Jounin spun around and searched the area but failed to locate her before spotted me with my finger pointed at him. His water shield was still up, but the Line Spear went through it before going through his shoulder and out of his back, causing the Jounin to stumble backward in alarm.

I fucking missed.

I shot again immediately, but the guy had already started moving with untraceable speed, and I couldn’t adjust my aim in time. Then he moved to put the three ninjas in between him and us, so I couldn’t shoot again or risk hitting them.

A massive amount of water was being brought forth from the ground now, dripping upwards out of the cracks in the stone, pulled from the dirt far below us. The guy's face was wrought with tension as he dragged all of the water into a single massive orb that continued to grow above his head.

Which was when Karenbana appeared behind him and stabbed him in the neck with her kunai.

In the guy's defense, he immediately reacted, spinning and backhanding Karenbana with obscene speed, launching her back off the mountain into the trees, all the while his water orb fell around him to puddle at his feet. The Jounin stumbled forward before falling to one knee and gurgled something hateful. He bled out in less than a minute.

It seemed to take a long, long time.

Your level has increased by 5!

Hinata arrived with Haruna a minute later, and none of us had really moved by then we were all kind of in a fugue at the man's gruesome death. Naruto was staring at the Jounin quietly, and Choji looked vaguely ill.

Yurinojo was better off, and immediately started towards Haruna when he spotted her, calling out her name on the way. I could feel Karenbana slowly making her way back up the mountain, taking a long way around so she would come up where I was still standing.

“Hey, Naruto,” I said belatedly.

Naruto made a surprised noise, and turned around, having been facing the Jounin the entire fight he had yet to see me and to busy trying to free Choji from the water technique to notice my own contribution to the battle.

“Sora!” Naruto shouted, “What are you doing here?!”

I scratched my cheek for a moment in thought.

“I’m just passing through the Land of Vegetables, and I got attacked by some ninja, I was trying to hunt down their boss and ended up here I guess,” I said honestly.

Naruto looked amazed, at least until Karenbana stepped over the edge behind me.

“You’re that ninja that tried to kill Sakura!” Naruto cried, “What are you doing here?”

I’m honestly surprised he recognized her without the wig. Her shortish brown hair had finally grown to hang around her ears, she looked like an entirely different person, although the large pink eyes were rather memorable. The massive bruise that was already growing on her cheek and her swelling face made it even more impressive that he remembered.

“Karenbana is my bodyguard,” I said dryly, “I hired her after you guys killed her teammates.”

Naruto flinched at the reminder, apparently not a fan of killing people in general. Karenbana huffed quietly beside me, also annoyed at the reminder.

“So was that the ninja responsible for setting everything on fire?” I wondered.

Another signature just appeared at the edge of my range, Jounin-level again. It wasn’t headed directly towards us, though. It was moving carefully like it was checking for something. I immediately dumped all of my new stat points into Speed again.

“Incoming, Jounin again, more chakra then the other guy,” I shouted.

I pointed out the direction.

“Another one?!” Naruto said in alarm.

“Fuck,” Karenbana said quietly. “Fix me.”

I immediately placed my hand on her shoulder and started healing her. The Konoha ninja formed up around Haruna and stared at where I was still slowly tracking the guy's path across the forest with my other hand.

“Karenbana, you got a plan?” I said simply.

“Same plan as before, make lots of distractions,” Karenbana said simply, before vanishing. “If the Jounin stands still for longer than a second shoot them.”

The guy must have found a trail because he started following it straight towards the mountain.

“You heard her Konoha dudes,” I said cheerfully, “I don’t know what you two can do, but Naruto, you should definitely make a bunch of clones.”

The Konoha ninja didn’t say anything in reply, and the Jounin suddenly crested the mountain ahead of us, he slowed to a stop as he saw us.

“Hey asshole,” I said loudly, “We killed your friend.”

I pointed to the guy, and the Jounin looked over at the body before turning to look at the empty space to his right, exactly where Karenbana was standing.

I followed Karenbana’s instructions and shot him the second he looked away, but because of the movement, the Line Spear only hit him in the crook of his left elbow, and then he was moving. I lost track of him almost immediately, even with my upgraded Speed and reflexes he seemed even faster than the first Jounin. The guy abruptly appeared right on top of Karenbana with a massive chunk of stone somehow stuck to his feet.

Karenbana desperately jumped out of the way, but she still got clipped by the boulder, tearing most of her right shoulder and arm to shreds with the force. I swallowed at the bloody arm that dangled loosely from her shoulder. The Jounin, whose name tag said ‘Jiga’ landed with a crash beside her and I shot at him again, making sure I kept to the left side of his body, and as far away from hitting Karenbana as I could. It took Jiga in the side of his left thigh, but he didn’t even slow down.

Hundreds of Naruto’s suddenly burst into existence across the mountainous area and immediately started rushing the guy screaming at the top of his lungs. Yurinojo, the other ninja with Naruto, quickly dashed off and circled the clones to try a get an angle on Jiga.

Karenbana spent about ten desperate seconds fending Jiga off in melee with only a single useable arm at her disposal before the clones finally reached them. Jiga ripped the metal thing off his back a lashed out in an invisible slash that removed three rings of clones from existence in an instant. Jiga kept the momentum of the chain-weapon going in a large circle to keep the hordes of clones away from him, and they died in droves as they approached without fear.

Karenbana retreated sluggishly towards me before stumbling down to her knees, panting desperately.

I immediately reached out to dump half of my Mana into a Heal that spiked her health back up and watched Karenbana’s bloody mess of what used to be an arm slowly pull itself back into a proper shape.

The wound was the worst thing I had seen, even worse than watching the other guy choke to death on his own blood. I could even see bits of white that could be nothing other than fucking bone, and despite it all; my power still dragged it all back together entirely in a matter of moments.

I stared at Karenbana quietly, feeling my heart thundering in my chest. She had almost died because I wanted to play the hero. We needed to kill this fucking guy immediately before he actually managed to kill all of us.

I observed the Jounin.

Name: Jiga

Title: Janin

Gender: Male

Age: 32

Level: 228

Next Level: 76.32%

Health Points - 1863/2600

Chakra Points - 2400/3000

Vitality 260

Strength 200

Speed 250

Perception 100

Intelligence 90

Chakra 300

Status Effects: N/A.

Emotions: Anger, Hatred, Fury.

History: Jiga is one of the three brothers that share the title Janin. They are from a distant nation and are all-powerful Jounin. Jiga is a master of the Kusarigama and is one of very few ninjas capable of using magnetic techniques.

I skipped over everything not relevant to the current fight and immediately picked out the word magnetic.

“Karenbana,” I said quietly, “He is using a magnetic technique of some kind to track the metal your carrying, lose it all, re-stealth and try to get him into the air where he can’t maneuver.”

Karenbana stared up at me intently for a long moment before ripping her headband off, dumping all of her pouches and then vanishing again.

Choji and Hinata had been hanging back near Haruno while the fighting was taking place. Naruto was just doing his best to swarm Jiga with as many clones as it took to slow the titan down. Yurinojo had been only this side of useless after the Kursarigama came out, he couldn’t approach at all.

I could feel Karenbana strafing around to the far side where the clones were thinnest.

Jiga was tearing through everything with ease. The clones couldn’t get within melee range because of the blistering Speed of his Kusarigama. Even when they managed to duck, he would just use his technique to manipulate the chain in the air to take them out on the next attack. I tracked the guy as best I could through the clones, but still couldn’t get a clear shot of him.

Karenbana, still invisible, paused just outside the range of the flashing weapon, waited a long moment before flashing forward under the chain, and then smashed a kick up into Jiga’s chin that sent him up into the air above the clones with a cry of pain. I immediately took six shots on his flight path but only two hits. One of the hits did nothing, barely clipping his wrist, but the second one went right through his center mass.

Jiga landed heavily and clamped his hand on his chest before immediately hopping backward, to retreat from the horde of clones that were chasing him down. Karenbana went wide around the clones, trying to come in from the side. I took six more shots while I had a line of sight, trying to predict where he would move next, and landed a single lucky one in his right ankle that sent him stumbling to the ground.

Naruto’s Shadow Clone army overtook him in an instant, and then Jiga was dead.

Your level has increased by 5!

The clones vanished after almost another minute of stabbing the guy. He clearly wasn’t taking any chances with this one, not after what he saw what happened to my bodyguard. Karenbana finally reappeared near the body after almost a minute of silent vigil, but he didn’t miraculously get up.

I wonder if I could get her to help me kill Hidan, but I doubted she would want much to do with me after what I had just dragged her into. Besides, I would be long out of money to pay her by the time I got to Takigakure.

“Karenbana,” I said hesitantly.

Karenbana still looked pretty keyed up from all of the adrenaline rushing through her, and her eyes were rapidly taking in the area as if another one would suddenly appear from the trees.

“Please tell me that’s the last fucking Jounin I have to fight today,” Karenbana said darkly.

I considered pretending there was a third Jounin for all of half a second before I decided I had better not push my luck.

“None that I can feel,” I said quietly.

Naruto ended up bringing us back to their camp, which wasn’t that far out away from the area of the battle, but far enough away that it had been out of my sensory range. They had a couple of beaten up looking tents set up that was absolutely riddled with holes. Had they been attacked here by the first guy? I dropped down at the campfire as soon as we arrived, claiming my spot for the night.

“Let me get this straight,” I said evenly, “There is a god damned third Jounin?”

Haruna and her bodyguard, Yurinojo, had been discussing the identity of the other two. Haruna seemed to have heard of them before; they were pretty famous supposedly, which was weird because I hadn’t even heard of them. I don’t remember these guys from the series at all or even any of the movies.

Was this more filler stuff I’d missed or just wholly new?

“Yes,” Haruna said gravely, “The Janin, Ruiga, Jiga, and Renga.”

Janin. What a dumb name.

“Which was which?” I asked curiously, more for Karenbana’s sake than my own.

I already knew that we had killed Ruiga, the water dude, and Jiga the magnet guy, I saw both of their names easily enough.

“Ruiga was the first one, Jiga was the one with the kusarigama.” Yurinojo said quietly, “The three brothers assassinated the Daimyo and took over the Land of the Vegetables.”

“So Renga is sitting in the Daimyo’s house playing king of the castle or what?” I asked, frowning.

“Most likely,” Yurinojo said calmly. “I would like to thank you again for your assistance. We likely would have perished if you hadn’t arrived when you did.”

I waved it off like I had done the first time he had said it. I didn’t care about thanks I cared about making sure Naruto didn’t die and then getting the fuck out of this country. I noted that we were all pretty low in morale. I would need to fix that.

I took a deep breath and blew it out sharply.

“Don’t worry about it, buddy.” I said evenly, “Karenbana needed the exercise; she was getting fat.”

“Excuse me?” Karenbana said incredulously.

“Moving on to more important things,” I said cheerfully, “What’s your plan, Naruto?”

Naruto looked up from where he had been staring sullenly into the fire.

“My plan?” Naruto said quietly.

It looks like he needed a more significant boost.

“Let me set the scene for you,” I said cheerfully, “Three naughty ninjas take over a country and kill her dad.”

I pointed at Haruna’s face, and she stared at me stoically. There was a ruffle of disgruntled noises at the rude comment, but I ignored them all.

“They burn down people's houses, they burn down the people's farms, those are the things that keep all of the civilians from starving to death? You know about those, right?” I said, amused, “Then two of those naughty ninjas decide they want to take a crack at them.”

I pointed to Haruna again and then Yurinojo, and Naruto stared at me with wide eyes.

“Luckily for the Land of Vegetables ‘Team Naruto and Friends’ saves the day with a glorious display of jolly cooperation and even manages to kill two-thirds of the evil men who brought pain and suffering to an otherwise peaceful country.” I smiled at him, “So, are you going to leave the problem two-thirds solved, or are you going to go out there and help those poor defenseless people like the god damned hero you are?”

Karenbana was staring at me like I was a walking train wreck, but Naruto looked pretty fired up.

“Yeah.” Naruto smiled, “I’ve got a plan.”

Karenbana and I walked straight in the front gates of the capital. Its what we get for letting Naruto plan the attack, I suppose. We were still wearing the clothes we had bought in Sakai, plain beige cotton shirts and trousers, and a matching hooded traveling cloak. We just looked like ordinary travelers.

The gate guards at the capital didn’t even look at us as we entered, they looked sullen and uncaring, I guess suddenly having your city taken over by some jackass ninja was enough to ruin anyone’s week.

The last Janin, Renga, was supposedly up in the massive stone and wood structure that made up the Daimyo’s residence. It looked like an old ‘Japanese Country’ castle more than anything, at least to me.

We headed into town and found the first place that was serving hot food, I picked out a table in the corner and sent Karenbana off with the money to buy us both something to eat at the counter, she returned a couple of minutes later with orders taken care of. All that was left was to wait for the food and then for the signal.

It got awkward pretty quickly, what with Karenbana staring at me quietly.

I did my best to ignore her for a long as possible, but eventually, she leaned forward to make it exceedingly obvious that she was waiting for something. Karenbana had at least been patient enough to wait until after we were away from the others before trying to get her answer, so I suppose she deserved some kind of credit, at least.

It was probably too much to hope for that she would just let it go.

“Just ask already,” I sighed.

“You had no idea who the Janin were; you didn’t know who either of those two Jounin were individually either,” Karenbana said immediately. “You watched the fight for less than a minute before you somehow figured out he had a rare bloodline limit. Then you figured out he was using some kind of metal sensory technique to find me when he might have just heard me!”

I sighed, but she kept ongoing.

“You have assassination techniques that are capable of taking down unaware Jounin. You know where legendary weapons are when nobody else does. You say you don’t have Chakra, but you seem to get faster in small bursts every couple of months for no apparent reason.”

I leaned back in my chair and watched her silently.

“Explain it to me, Sora,” Karenbana said quietly.

It was the first time she had called me something other than, ‘Boss,’ or ‘idiot,’ or with those strange words at the end of everybody’s name that they all expected each other to use that I couldn’t care less about.

“You called me by my name!” I said cheerfully, “Is it love, Karenbana!?”

Karenbana stared at me evenly, refusing to be derailed.

“Fine.” I sighed in annoyance, “This is one of my precious secrets you brute. I will be expecting a secret of equal value in return, got it?”

Karenbana didn’t even hesitate before nodding. I stared at her for a long moment suspiciously; she had agreed pretty fast. Karenbana had taken a mortal injury because I made her fight someone outside of all of our leagues, I supposed I owed her something.

“I can look at someone and see a brief outline of who they are, where they are from, how strong they are in specific areas, and if there is anything particularly notable about them,” I said slowly, trying to give her the idea without revealing the stupid interface. “Jiga was physically stronger than Kakashi, and Ishidate as well apparently, at least without taking Chakra enhancement or individual battle strategy into consideration. I’m pretty sure Kakashi would have wrecked all of our shit if we had fought him.”

Karenbana just watched me intently.

“The information I got from his outline said that he used ‘Magnetic Techniques,’” I continued, “You were invisible, and he looked directly at you. You’re dead silent when you run as far as I can tell, and even Ruiga couldn’t tell you were right next to him, I made the leap that he was tracking you via metal.”

I said the last bit in a rush as our food was brought to the table, and we thanked the old lady. Karenbana waited until she had left before turning back to look at me.

“That’s such bullshit.” Karenbana said suspiciously, “I’ve never heard of any kind of technique that just gives someone detailed knowledge of random people like that.”

“It’s the truth,” I said honestly.

“What does it say about me?” Karenbana said hesitantly.

“Former member of the Uemon Clan, wandering ninja mercenaries, no allegiance to a hidden village, recruited forcibly at a young age, the last remaining member alive.” I summarised, there was new stuff there as well, but that’s what it had originally said.

“I told you most of that,” Karenbana said immediately.

“I kind of led you into telling it to me, but I already knew all of that before,” I admitted.

Karenbana narrowed her eyes at me.

“What else does it say?” Karenbana demanded.

“High intelligence, remarkably high speed for your rank, small chakra pool, decent overall health,” I rattled off before smirking, “she also gives fantastic-”

I saw her eyes widen.

“Shut up!” Karenbana said quickly, cheeks red. “It doesn’t say that.”

I just grinned.

“It doesn’t,” Karenbana repeated firmly.

I made no move to confirm or deny.

“Moving on,” I said cheerfully, “You owe me a secret now, a juicy one.”

Karenbana took a deep breath to regain her composure before suddenly looking towards the door for a moment. I heard the sound of distant yelling a moment later. Karenbana glanced back at me for a moment before vanishing with a grin.

“Goddammit,” I said, annoyed. “Scammed me again.”