Vita twitched visibly at Kiba's question and frowned. She glanced over toward Asuma momentarily and then back toward Kiba as she shakily walked toward him in a manner that worried Shikamaru and had Akamaru whimpering.
"Umm, can I help you with something?" Kiba asked as Asuma was trying to get him to back off. "What's wrong with you Akamaru?"
Vita kept reminding herself over and over not to start a diplomatic incident here as she looked for a way to...express her displeasure. She glanced over and saw one of those peculiar metal knives, the kunai, that Naruto and Hinata sometimes used in their spars.
Reaching over she picked up the knife and everybody took a step back from her in caution.
She ignored them as she crushed the point carefully and then bent the edges in on themselves before crushing the knife down into a mass of metal and rolling it out into a tube as if it were clay before. She walked back up to Kiba who was flinching nervously himself now as Vita reached up and wrapped the long metal bar around his neck and bent it around like a collar.
Shikamaru swallowed nervously at the small red-headed woman as even Choji and Asuma looked on, impressed.
"I am Vita of Wolkenritter, called the Knight of the Iron Hammer, boy," she said. "And a Second Lieutenant of the Time and Space Administration Bureau. I am not 'kid', got it?"
"Errr," Kiba said, reaching up to feel his new collar. "Yeah, got it."
Taking a deep breath she turned back toward Asuma.
"Sorry about that, my mistress has told me I need to try and be more subtle, I hope that was clear enough," she said.
"I wonder what she considers unsubtle," Asuma thought to herself.
Asuma had been in the Land of Rain once before and seen its huge towers and buildings, so he'd seen some of the largest population densities of his world and seen some truly impressive towers. The majority of the city they arrived in after being carried by the ship they never saw the outside of had smaller buildings, but it was still a much larger city than he had ever seen and was much cleaner and more welcoming than anything in the Land of Rain.
His genin could just stare in shock and awe at what was around them.
"Stay on side of the roads," Vita said. "We had enough trouble with Hinata and Naruto getting into traffic as it was."
Shikamaru glanced toward the roads in question and noticed the wheeled vehicles pulling themselves along without sign of an animal pulling them and nodded as he quickly reasoned out the facts of the matter.
"Ehh? What are the roads for then?" Kiba asked. "If we can't walk on them?"
"Look at those metal carts," Shikamaru said. "They're moving around fairly fast, but according to some sort of rules."
"The people and vehicles are separated out to prevent accidents," Asuma said.
"That's right," Vita said. "If one of those cars hit you at the allowed speeds here it would be like falling off a sixty foot building. Now, for me, that means I'm pissed, but for the civilians around here rarely have much more than a D or C rank so that means serious injury or death. And the people in the car can get hurt too, especially if they hit another car trying to go around you."
"So no playing in the roads," Kiba said. "Got it."
Akamaru nodded as well with a little bark.
"The TSAB offices are just behind us here," Vita said. "And Enforcer Harlaown should be waiting for us - oof!"
Vita was stopped when small blonde girl with mismatched eyes virtually tackled into her calling out loudly.
"Hi! Auntie Vita!" the girl said loudly and smiling cheerfully.
Kiba and Akamaru watched as what looked like a stuffed rabbit floated around the little girl's head.
"Ah, Vivio," Vita said. "What are you doing here?"
"Mama and I were taking Fate-mama a special lunch!" the little girl said.
Choji's ears perked up at the word lunch.
Kiba and Shikamaru shared a look at the use of "mama" for what sounded like two different people while Asuma blushed slightly before getting a hold of himself.
Then the little girl looked over and caught sight of the headbands.
"Hey! You have bandanas like Naruto and Hinata," Vivio said. "Are you from their home-world too?"
"Oh, you know Naruto?" Shikamaru asked.
"Uh huh, Mama said Hinata and Naruto helped rescue me that one time," Vivio said. "Along with Auntie Vita and Subaru and Teana and..."
"Where is your Mama?" Vita asked, diverting the young girl.
Vivio blinked and turned around to look towards the TSAB building and the young woman with long reddish brown hair walking out and carrying some sort of bag on her shoulders.
"Hey Vita," the woman said with a smile as she approached them. "Did Vivio surprise you?"
Vita sighed and nodded an affirmative to that as she turned to look at Nanoha.
"Just a little, I get from her that Fate is around then?" Vita asked. "She was supposed to be, but it's good to have confirmation."
"Yes, she and Teana are..." Nanoha looked over toward the ninja and took them in. "And these are not Naruto and Hinata."
"There was a mix up," Asuma said.
"Ah, with Naruto that is often the case," Nanoha said, drawing a snicker from most of the people present. "But he means well. Anyway, I'm Nanoha Takamachi, you've already met my daughter and Vita obviously."
She gave a short bow as she introduced herself.
Asuma looked from the little girl to her apparent mother and quickly determined that she could not have been born from the woman given the difference in ages. So it was a case of adoption.
"I'm Asuma Sarutobi, the jonin instructor for Team 10," he said reacting to her polite bow. "And this my team."
He gestured toward the three genin with him and Nanoha looked them over, nodding.
"Kiba Inuzuka," Kiba said before pointing up toward Akamaru sitting on his head. "And this Akamaru."
"I see," Nanoha said, turning toward the next in the line.
"Shikamaru Nara," he said dryly.
"You show her some respect," Vita snapped, drawing a wide-eyed expression from Shikamaru who took a step back.
"Ah, Vita, be nice," Nanoha said. "I'm sure he doesn't mean anything by it. They have such friendly eyes. Don't let Vita get to you, she's really a very nice person when you get to know her."
"Nanoha," Vita said. "You're too easy going at times."
"Is that why you and Fate are always worrying about me?" Nanoha asked in a clear note of amused irony. "Anyway, there's one more person."
"Choji Akimichi," Choji said. "Did someone say something about lunch?"
Nanoha laughed as Kiba and Shikamaru groaned at the question.
"There'll be food," Vita said dryly, draw a flinch from Choji.
"If they don't get something to eat," Nanoha said. "They can stop by my house, just call ahead. I'm sure I'd love to talk to more people from Hinata and Naruto's home world."
"Mmmhmmm," Vivio said with a firm nod as the stuffed rabbit danced around her until she grabbed it up into a hug.
"That's a fine offer, Takamachi-san," Asuma said. "But it will depend on how urgent the mission is."
"Of course," Nanoha said with a nod. "I may see you later then."
She turned toward Vita briefly and her look turned serious before glancing back toward the office and meeting Vita's eyes as the smaller woman nodded. Then the smile was back on her face and she was waving to the ninja and knight on her way to walk down the street, holding Vivio's hands.
"She's not just anyone, is she?" Asuma asked.
"No, that's Captain Nanoha Takamachi," Vita said quietly.
"So she's one of the big cheese's around here?" Kiba asked, Akamaru had noted that the woman smelled like she was brimming with chakra.
"She has a civil job right now," Vita said. "Focusing most of her time on taking care of Vivio."
"Eh, that much power and she can just retire that young?" Asuma asked.
"If there were trouble, Nanoha would be there, whatever the risk," the red-head said. "And she would make her feelings clear and known."
"What was that at the end there?" Shikamaru asked.
"Private conversation," Vita snapped. "Now let's get on with this."
Fate and Teana looked over the information in front of them and Teana noted a grim look on the elder Enforcer's face. Then Fate looked up briefly as she and Teana received word from Vita and Nanoha.
There was some mix-up, Nanoha said. Sounds like Naruto and Hinata are not coming.
Mix-up? Teana asked.
The ninja kids were trying to out impersonate each other and got their mission assignments mixed up, Vita said irritably.
What talents do we have then? Fate asked. No, wait until you're up here.
"So we don't have Hinata's eyes and Naruto's clones," Fate said. "But we have Jutsu system ninja. And that should be enough for these people not to notice them coming and we can get proof. Did you get where we think the next location is?"
"Yeah, went through a list of reagent shipments," Teana said. "And equipment. Nothing illegal, but, I've got it narrowed done to a three or four likely spots, some more likely than others."
"And every time we've got this far, they've picked up and left," Fate said. "Leaving us with evidence that's useless until we can actually connect it to someone. If we leave this sitting, we'll have another JS Incident."
"That might be overstating things," Teana said hopefully.
Fate didn't say anything, but had to admit that the girl was right.
"Did we hear from the Saint Church?" she asked.
"They're sending the help you asked for," Teana said.
"Good, because they're also people that are under the Mana radar," Fate said.
"There are a lot of women here," Shikamaru noted idly.
"Of course," Vita said. "Women usually have higher magical potential than men."
Shikamaru stopped dead in his tracks at this as Kiba snickered at him.
"All you have to do is look at my mom to know women are scarier then men," he said.
"HI-NA-TA-CHAN!" a voice declared loudly just a moment before something jumped out of the wall and tackled Kiba. "Welcome bac...wait a minute...you're not Hinata. You're not even a girl."
Vita had her hand to her face as a hyper young woman straddled over Kiba with Akamaru barking at her.
The Inuzuka flashed to standing and thrust his face into the newcomers.
"What are you doing just tackling people out of the walls like that?" he demanded.
"I heard Hinata-chan would be back," the girl said, ignoring Kiba. "She has been developing such nice firm breasts and a wonderful butt. I thought I'd get to see if she'd grown any."
Kiba flinched in surprise at the statement.
Asuma coughed, covering his own blush.
"Ignore Sein," another person said, walking more sedately down the hall. "She's too excitable."
"Otto, Sein, so the Saint Church is in this too?" Vita asked.
"Harlaown needs someone with mana that is hard to detect and are skilled with search," Otto noted. "That is us and that is Hinata and Naruto. But who are you?"
"Classmates of Naruto's," Asuma said by way of introduction. "And we have search ability as well."
Otto blinked and it was hard to tell on her expressionless face as to whether she believed that or not.
"I believe Harlaown is waiting," the girl said.
Akamaru barked briefly in sequence at Kiba before hopping back to his head where he was glaring at Sein at first.
"What, what do they smell like?" Kiba asked before looking up after another series of barks.
"Well?" Asuma asked.
"Akamaru says these two smell like...metal," Kiba said.
"And that would be because we're cyborgs!" Sein declared.
The answer of what a cyborg was came soon thereafter in the briefing given by Fate Testarossa Harlaown.
In a momentary break while information was gathered, Shikamaru leaned over to quietly speak to the other woman in the same uniform as Enforcer Fate.
"People really try to grow another person, like a plant?" he asked.
"And try to create them with enhanced magical power," Teana said.
"Your boss seems to take this a bit personally," the Nara noted.
"Right, well she would," the young woman said. "She was the first. And she doesn't like the people that are behind experiments."
"Shikamaru, pay attention," Asuma noted, "looks like we're starting again."
"We suspect someone is trying to reproduce the experiments of Jail Scaglietti and my mother," she noted. "We've caught some attempts to smuggle lost logia that are probably being used to power things and purchases of the reagents necessary. Unfortunately, every time we narrow them down to a single location, when we arrive it is already abandoned and all we have to show for it is their failed experiments."
She looked back at the screen behind her.
"Somehow they're sensing us coming and getting closer," she said. "And leave before we nail them down."
"And that's why you want our help?" Asuma said. "Because we're less 'noisy.'"
"Hopefully you can find them quickly enough with your jutsu without leaving a paper or rumor trail or being sensed by whatever they have warning them that mages or knights are in the area," Fate said. "However, we were expecting the byakugan and a person capable of providing a small army's worth of personnel. Plans are going to have to change."
"Why not get them to come to us," Shikamaru said.
"Been tried," Teana said. "We had a team of Enforcers set up as smugglers to try and get close, but they got found out and it turned into a fight. All we had were small fry."
"It's a small operation," Otto said quietly. "Is it worth so much effort?"
"Weren't you a small operation," Fate asked pointedly.
Vita and Teana rolled their eyes and sighed. Scaglietti's operation could hardly be called small despite the limited number of people involved, but this research was a subject Fate sometimes got a little intense about.
"In any case that wasn't what I meant," Shikamaru said. "I meant find out where they're going to run to next. And set up there."
"Easier said than done," Fate noted though she was obviously considering the idea.
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(Posted Tue, 31 May 2011 17:39)
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