"Sir," Hazō said slowly, "when you say that you want us to bring Mr. Shirakawa to you 'alive or freshly dead', it sounds a lot like you intend to feed him to your giant chakra snake-monster."

The old man studied him, head cocked to the side in puzzlement.

"Yep," the old man said.

"Oh."

"What's the problem? You're ninja, you kill people all the time."

Hazō looked at Keiko; she raised a very expressive eyebrow. Don't look at me, the eyebrow said. I don't do plan creation and, although I'm onboard with your 'uplift all the civilians' idea, I'm not so invested that I won't make an exception here and there. Such as, just by way of example, killing a random gangster-wannabe who intends to hurt people to increase his own money and power. Especially when killing said wannabe will help a member of Jiraiya's network whom we have every motivation to help because helping his agents improves the chances of making Jiraiya look good, which will make us look good, which will improve our chances of acceptance by the Leaf elders, which will in turn improve the chances of the aforementioned 'uplift all the civilians' plan coming to fruition. Also, the entire point of this mission is, firstly, to find our new clan leader's godson, the jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails without whom our new home village is at serious risk of extinction and, second, to reinforce the position of our new clan-leader-cum-Hokage (or at least not damage it), so helping his agents would be a positive action.

It was a very expressive eyebrow.

Hazō sighed at the eyebrow and then turned back to the shopkeeper. "I don't suppose I could convince you to go with intimidation instead of killing, could I? I mean, if you two could make an agreement it could be good for both of you. He'd be useful to you as a source of information and to keep other gangs away. You'd be useful to him since, being a wealthy merchant, you'd be a great contact through which to dispose of property he might have acquired extralegally."

The old man raised an eyebrow; it was far less expressive than Keiko's in that all it conveyed was amusement. "So, you prefer not to kill people but you're fine with gangsters climbing up the hierarchy where they will be running drugs, prostitution, and protection rackets? Oh, and let's not forget having people killed—shopkeepers who fail to pay the protection money, other criminals who try to muscle in on their turf, and any sheriff who tries to stop them?"

"Um."

Thankfully, Keiko stepped in. "As we mentioned previously, we will need to talk to our squad leader before we can decide to accept or reject your request," she said. "Given that our mission is urgent my expectation would be that if she chooses to accept the mission then we would accomplish it nearly immediately. Midnight at the very latest, so if you don't hear from us by then it means that we had to move on."

The old man snorted and shrugged fatalistically. "Fair enough. I suppose if you're not willing to do it I'll just have to hire a ninja of my own before he hires his. Really rather not; it's expensive."

"Right," Hazō said. "Well, we'll keep that in mind. In the meantime, do you mind if I browse around a bit?"

"Help yourself, I'm not going anywhere."

Ten minutes later, Hazō was starting to despair. The shop was full of gaudiness, frippery, and large and/or heavy things. None of it was appropriate for an active field ninja, much less for Akane.

Just as he was about to give up entirely, a small gleam of silver and red caught his eye in one of the display cases off to the side. It was a single blood-red stone, a little smaller than his pinky nail, carved in the shape of a flame and set in silver. Two additional stones, pale green and carved in the shape of leaves, were held alongside, suggesting the leaves of a flower.

"Good eye," the shopkeeper said, nodding approvingly. "One carat Earth-country ruby, silver setting, point-seven-five carat peridot complements. Lovely piece. Arrived yesterday; had several offers on it already, actually. Are you interested?"

"Yes," Hazō said. "How much?"

"Sixty-five thousand ryo," the shopkeeper said blandly.

Hazō choked. "Sixty-five thousand?!"

"If you do the job I'll knock off ten thousand. Professional discount, like I said."

"I'll...need to get back to you."

o-o-o-o​

"Welcome back," Nikkō said, as Kurosawa and Mori came through the trees to rejoin the rest of the team. "Any problems?"

"No," said Kurosawa. "Although he did ask for a side mission. There's a guy named Shirakawa trying to muscle his way up the local crime hierarchy. The contact would like us to capture him and bring him in 'alive or freshly dead'. I think he wants to feed Shirakawa to his pet chakra snake, Bitey." He paused, shaking his head in amazement at having to utter that sentence. "Anyway, he's willing to trade us some of Bitey's venom plus a store discount if we do it."

"What does the venom do?"

Kurosawa shrugged helplessly. "No idea. All he could tell us was that a sage had told him the venom was probably full of chakra."

Nikkō looked to her left. "Wakahisa, you're the medic. What can you tell me? Anything useful we could do with chakra snake venom?"

Wakahisa shrugged. "No idea, honestly. I've mostly focused on human medicine, primarily trauma, and I don't know much about poison. Still, it sounds pretty great and I'd like to get it if we could. I know the theory on how to produce antivenoms, although I've never actually done it. Alternatively, we could put it in a misterator and use it for a poison fog attack. Could be useful."

"Hm." Nikkō paused to think. This could be good; capturing a civilian would be a nice cakewalk exercise that would maybe help the rest of them see her as more than dead weight. It was a distraction from the main mission and the Hokage had strongly underlined the need for speed, but if it was just capturing a civilian then that wouldn't take more than an hour. "Kurosawa, what did you find out about the target?"

Quickly, the genin filled her in on the sketchy details that they had received.

"All right, we're doing this," Nikkō said, nodding. "We'll—get the plan together and then go." Careful, Nikkō, you almost screwed that up. The point was to show that she respected the kids by inviting their comments while still maintaining a leadership position. The task was so straightforward that she'd nearly just started issuing orders before managing to redirect the sentence. "I want this done and us on the road before sundown. Mori, any comments or objections?"

Mori seemed surprised to be asked; had she really expected Minami to not consult someone that the Hokage had announced was on the level of a Nara? Wow. They really did have a low opinion of her.

"No objections at this time," the girl said. "Thank you for asking."

"Right," Nikkō said, carefully suppressing a sigh. "I don't want anything complicated. In, grab the guy, out. Better if we're not seen taking him but I don't care too much as long as we aren't seen dropping him off at the shop. Suggestions?"

"Well," Wakahisa said, "the contact—actually, what's his name?"

Kurosawa and Mori looked at each other. "We never asked," Kurosawa admitted.

"Okay, well, I hereby dub him Shopkeeper Riku," Nikkō said, just to put the topic to bed. "So, planning time. Basic idea: we go to the docks, find out which warehouse these idiots are hanging out in, clear it, and bring this nitwit back to Riku. Comments and suggestions?"

"I did have a suggestion," Kurosawa said diffidently. Wakahisa snorted a snort of complete unsurprise.

o-o-o-o​

Shirikawa Takao was an important man. Not as important as he intended to be, but getting there. He had gotten his first dragon tattoo (granted, it was a small one and blue, not red) and still had all his fingers after two years, so he was on the right track to climbing the ladder. He just needed to show the bosses that he could take and hold territory. Hence the meeting tonight in which his top three enforcers were getting their marching orders despite all the whining they'd been doing.

"Look, Suzuki," Shirikawa said. "We need that shop or we look like chumps for having a hole in the middle of the block. Everyone pays. That's the rule."

Suzuki shifted nervously. "They really don't want to pay, boss. Hirota may be gettin' on, but he's plenty tough."

Yamasaki snorted, enjoying his fellow's discomfiture. "Yeah, and after he punched you in the face his wife hit you with that rolling pin."

"Yamasaki!"

Ueda was about to join in the fun of picking on his bruised-up coworker, when suddenly his head snapped up and he pointed into the rafters. "Look out! There's a—"

A wooden disk tumbled from the ceiling, landing directly at Shirikawa's feet. It bounced once before the gangster could even start to move. Then a fogbank exploded everywhere and the world went dark.

o-o-o-o​

"Here you go," Minami said, dumping Shirakawa's unconscious and thoroughly-bound body on the counter. "We'll take the venom."

"Of course, of course!" chortled the still-unknown shopkeeper, rubbing his hands in glee. "Oh, well done! Well done. Bitey will be so happy."

"Whatever. Just pay us."

Hazō was surprised and a little alarmed at the shifting faces of his squad leader. When they had first met her, Minami had been a bright and cheerful chatterbox, bubbly and talkative enough to drive Keiko to the edge. Last night she had been an inquisitor, digging out the truth with unrelenting persistence yet avoiding classified or sensitive areas with the precision of a surgeon. There had been a...rage was definitely the wrong word. Understanding? Resentment? Maybe some of each? Whatever, there had been something behind it, something intense. What he was seeing now was that intensity frozen into ice. The hard, uncaring assassin that civilians all seemed to think of when they thought of ninja. Very much at odds with the happy-go-lucky and cheerful Minami they had met at first.

Who was this woman?

While he had been ruminating the shopkeeper had dropped a small vial in his squad leader's hand. "We're done here," Minami said, turning for the door.

Hazō cast one longing look at the ruby pin—far out of his price range, he wasn't even sure what he'd been thinking—and scrambled to follow his squad leader.

"What's that?" Kagome-sensei demanded, grabbing Hazō's arm. "What are you looking at? Is it a trap? Do I need—"

"No, sensei, it's not a trap," Hazō hurried to say. He checked to make sure that Akane was already outside and lowered his voice anyway. "It's just a pin that I wanted to get for Akane's birthday. Forget it. Come on, we need to go."

"Hang on," Kagome-sensei said suspiciously. "Why are you saying forget it? You like Akane, right?"

"Yes, of course."

"Then why aren't you getting her a birthday present?"

"I can't afford it, that's all."

Kagome grabbed him by the collar and dragged him over to the display case. He bent over, wiry fingers clenched in Hazō shirt and beaky nose an inch from the pin in question.

"Hmph," said Kagome-sensei, straightening. "You! Sneaky counter guy! How much?" He jabbed a finger at the pin.

The storekeeper bustled over, a professional smile on his face. "Wonderful eye, sir. Earth-country ruby with—"

"Don't care. How much?"

The shopkeeper's smile got a bit frostier. "Fifty-five thousand ryo, sir."

Kagome-sensei grunted and shuffled around in his voluminous pockets for a moment before producing a storage scroll. A moment later Hazō was having to catch his balance as a seemingly enormous bag of ryo appeared from extradimensional space and plopped into his hands.

"Here," Kagome-sensei said to Hazō. "Sixty thousand seven hundred and nineteen ryo. Buy the pin."

Hazō blinked. "Sensei, I can't...this is your money, I can't—" He pushed the bag towards Kagome-sensei helplessly.

Kagome-sensei shoved the bag back at him and stepped away. "Happy birthday, that's your present," he grumbled. "There, now it's your money. Go buy her something nice and it better be the pin." He turned and pushed out of the store, nearly barreling over Minami as she ducked back in to find out what was taking so long.

Minami stopped and looked around: paranoid sealmaster leaving in a hurry while grumbling under his breath. Frosty storeowner struggling to conceal anger at said sealmaster and gratitude at his departure. Hazō standing helplessly with a giant bag of money, eyes wide and shocked.

Minami raised an eyebrow at her subordinate. In reply, Hazō pointed helplessly at the pin. Minami nodded.

"I'll keep her distracted," she said, ducking back outside.

Hazō blinked. Twice. And then turned to the store owner. "I'd...like to buy this pin, please?"