Rin nodded and looked over the oddly constructed building. "Strange architecture."
"Just normal weapons except for three of 'em," continued Naruto, still concentrating on the information his odd weapon-sense was giving him.
"So what's the plan?" asked Sasuke.
"Silent and cautious on approach," said Rin. "Gato most likely had the bulk of his mercenaries with him. I'd expect he left a few guards here and there just for emergencies. News of their boss being dead has most likely not gotten back to them yet."
"You sure we shouldn't tell Kakashi-sensei?" asked Naruto, dropping the technique.
"I left him a note," said Rin. "Most likely he won't even notice. Either of you have any special stealth techniques?"
"Well, I can be pretty sneaky when I want to be, I painted the Hokage monument without anyone noticing till I was done," said Naruto.
"But no technique?" asked Rin. "That might just be luck or relying on psychological quirks such as the tendency of people not to look closely at things they're used to seeing. Sasuke?"
"No," answered Sasuke.
"What has Kakashi been teaching you?" asked Rin.
"He's been teaching us?" scoffed Sasuke.
"Mostly we just meet up, go do a D-Rank, spar or throw shuriken or something, and that's about it," admitted Naruto.
"Well, we'll just have to try anyway," said Rin. "Last chance. Either of you want to not risk it - now's the time to say so."
Neither said anything.
Rin made a point of pulling her sword out of its scabbard and putting it back in, making sure the excessive moisture of Wave didn't cause the two to stick at exactly the wrong time.
Then they were through the front gate in silent formation, with Rin taking point as the chunin.
It was similar to bandit camps around the base of the structure, probably for the same reasons.
Rin Nohara had done a few raids on bandit camps and the like. They themselves had similar setups to camps used by mercenaries, researchers of old ruins, trading caravans, and the like. Possibly because of mercenaries being found in all such groups as part of their 'do whatever it takes to get a paycheck' lifestyle.
The professional mercenaries, the ones who had been in the business for awhile and knew the score - were both the toughest and easiest to deal with. Most, on finding out that they were facing a ninja tasked with stopping their boss, would simply back away and go on to the next job. They knew when they were in over their head and had no chance of survival in a ninja fight. Rin called them the 'pragmatists' because they were ones to weigh the odds and leave the game rather than lose everything.
The second category was the mercenaries that would be the most problem. Veterans who had a sense of honor or duty. They would fight, even against overwhelming odds. Thankfully there were damn few of those. She'd met a couple like that on the job with the ruins being researched. If faced with truly overwhelming odds those two would have grabbed the client's children and attempted to retreat. Anything less than that and they'd have fought with everything they had to protect their client. Rin referred to that group as the "loyalists" while she'd also heard them referred to as "ronin" among other less flattering terms by other Konoha nin.
Considering what she'd already pieced together about Gato, she was guessing that his mercenaries were of the last category. The least-trained and experienced, the desperate and the lazy, the most unpredictable. Some, most even, were just normal untrained people who'd picked up a weapon and declared themselves a mercenary. Some had minimal weapon training or some practice with their weapons. They would have no real loyalty to their employer, little or no discipline, and could be treated as civilians. Even genin fresh out of the Academy could deal with one.
Rin sniffed as an odor reached her, then made her way to an outhouse. Seeing a way to barricade it from the outside, she did so and simply left it that way. One less problem. Judging from the noises within, someone was so busy being sick that she didn't have to do anything else.
Rin glanced at the two behind her. Naruto had sniffed too and was looking a bit ill. Sasuke merely looked puzzled, probably not understanding why they were leaving a potential enemy alive.
"We're ninja," whispered Rin, deciding this was a Teachable Moment. "We aren't here to rack up a kill count. If we can leave them alive and terrified - so much the better. Think of when that guy gets out and finds out ninja have come and gone while he wasn't looking."
Naruto's grin indicated he thought this was amusing. Sasuke just made an annoying little noise and turned his attention to the surroundings instead.
The next one was an older man, grumbling to himself as he carried a folder of papers from an office towards the top of the building.
Sasuke was ready to put a kunai into the base of the man's skull, but Rin beat him to it with a poisoned needle. The man hit the ground.
When Sasuke looked irritated at her, Rin offered a whispered explanation. "Clerk. Civilian. See the inkstained fingers? If we need information we can come back and interrogate him and the guard. If we kill them, there's an information source we've lost."
Sasuke looked a bit frustrated at that but at least nodded.
"What is all this?" asked Naruto, having started gathering up the scattered papers.
Rin took the folder and flipped through. "Invoices. Payments received and payments issued. Everything but the numbers are coded though. We check Gato's office there's likely a codebook to make sense of this. I especially want to see what 'A-3' is as that's got the biggest numbers and they're all outgoing."
Naruto looked like he didn't get it. Sasuke lost the irritation, or at least some of it, and got a bit more thoughtful.
Rin made a gesture with one hand and they continued on, silent as before.
Each office was given a once-over, Rin knowing what she was looking for. There were several of them, plus a large bedroom, plus a kitchen, plus something that was likely a barracks for veteran mercenaries. There were also some interior restrooms plus a locked and trapped (poison needle trap) door that led to a storage room. She disassembled the trap and handed it off to Naruto who brightened as if a child with a new toy.
Well, he'd detected the needle before she'd even got there. Apparently that counted as a weapon. Handy to know.
Getting to the pinnacle of the building revealed it had a major office and what was apparently Gato's bedroom just beyond.
She hesitated before the door, listening.
"One weapon," whispered Naruto. "Knife. Masterwork level folded steel. There's also something else."
"Can you be a bit more specific?" whispered Sasuke, clearly annoyed by something.
"Don't know what it is," complained Naruto. "Haven't run into one before."
"Describe what you're getting," whispered back Rin.
Naruto closed his eyes and looked as if he was concentrating hard on something, the only sign he was using his weapon-scanning talent. "Old. Very old. Protected. Someone with weird eyes got ahold of it. Didn't make it. Used it a couple of times. Put it aside, sealed for later research. Never came back. Something making it hard to see - wards or something I guess."
"That does not help a lot," noted Sasuke quietly.
"Is someone there?" came a female voice from the other side of the door.
Rin made a gesture and all three of them hid.
The door opened.
The girl that came out was barely dressed, maybe a year or two older than the genin, and had a pronounced limp. She was also quite attractive under makeup that made her look fairly "trashy" despite her age.
"It's okay," said the girl, calling back into the room. "It's not Gato. Must have been the wind or a mouse or something."
"I could have sworn I heard something," said another woman's voice.
"Well, I don't see-" began the girl before she stopped and stared at something.
Rin was moving as soon as that tell was made. The ring-end of a kunai slammed into the back of the girl's skull with a very precisely applied amount of force.
"Rika?"
Sasuke went through the door, shuriken held between his fingers and ready to throw. He stopped and stared.
Naruto went through a second later, rolling through and then ending up facing the opposite direction from Sasuke. He turned and stopped and stared as well.
Rin was more curious than alarmed, guessing already what she'd find.
The girl spread-eagled and chained to the wall was looking confused. "Uhm. You guys are awfully short to be mercenaries."
"Gato's kept women?" asked Rin.
"Does it LOOK like I've got much choice?" asked the naked girl chained to the wall.
Rin glanced at the two boys, who were still staring, and made a disappointed noise.
"You didn't kill Rika, did you?" asked the girl on the wall. "She's not that bad. Unless she starts singing."
"How do you know we're not mercenaries?" asked Rin, looking over the room which was dominated by a bed that was simply too huge for the short little guy she'd seen earlier who had apparently been this 'Gato' person.
"The way they're staring? If I had any innocence left I'd be embarassed."
Rin nodded. "You two. Stop that. You're genin, not Academy students out peeping."
Rin was partly mollified by the two acting sheepish. Naruto went over to the bed, reached under the pillow and pulled the knife out that he'd sensed earlier.
"'Genin'? So you three are ninja?" asked the girl on the wall. "Then there's one thing to ask. Are you going to let me down?"
"Maybe. In time," answered Rin. "Know anything about the safe or how to open it?"
"The safe in the open just contains business records," said the chained girl. "Petty cash. Stuff like that. The one behind the cabinet contains his valuable stuff. Combination lock. Never got a chance to see him open it, so I don't know the combination."
"Figures," complained Naruto, going over to something in the corner.
"That crate is something he got in awhile ago," said the chained girl.
"Hadn't opened it?" asked Rin.
"Waiting for some 'expert' of some kind," said the girl. "So? Useful enough to be let go now? I've kind of been up here awhile."
"Where's the key?" asked Rin.
"Gato kept it on him," said the girl. "You're ninja though. So you know how to open locks, right?"
Rin glanced at the girl, noting the new perspiration. If they had been Kiri-nin, she'd have been dead already. If they had been from Kumo or Iwa, most likely they'd leave her here without a second glance. "So, Naruto. That's the 'weird thing'?"
"Yeah," said Naruto.
"Don't touch, but look over it. Check for traps before going any further," said Rin, going over to the girl and checking the manacles. Pretty standard construction. Mass produced crap. Enough to hold a standard prisoner, but a ninja would have gotten out the moment someone's back had been turned. Which fit what she had put together about the girl so far. Not a ninja. Maybe fourteen at most. Both girls looked to be noncombatants with minimal useful skills, chosen for physical attractiveness only.
Having both of them around to point out things might be useful, and they WERE from Konohagakure - which generally didn't run around killing potential future clients. Or much of anyone for that matter unless they had a good reason. It's not like they were from Kiri or something.
Naruto shifted the top of the crate to the side and looked inside it. He made a puzzled sound.
Sasuke went around to the side to look in at what Naruto was looking at, with a faint puzzled expression as he tried to figure out exactly what he was looking at.
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(Posted Wed, 09 Oct 2013 17:49)
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