It was pure luck that Genma happened to be near the power station at that moment. Whose luck, and what kind of luck that was, was debatable. It certainly wasn't Aburame Sadayo's luck. She was dead. Her throat was slit, her body cooling, blood turning sticky and gelatinous where it had fountained over her clothes and skin. She lay in an undignified sprawl, with only one or two of her kikai companions still buzzing near her corpse.

Genma found her when he stopped by her quarters just outside the power station at Morioka Falls. He'd been by there on his way outbound on his mission--a simple courier job, but the documents he was conveying were high-level enough that they merited a special-jounin as errand boy. Fine with him, really. It was nice to have a cushy solo mission once in a while, and they'd fed him well at the northern daimyou's residence. And there was Sadayo, who was expecting him on the way back.

She'd had a shitty job, really. Guarding a power station was certainly chuunin's work, but usually there'd be a pair of them. All she'd had for company, though, was a lifer of a genin who had neither the skill nor ambition to rise higher. Sadayo had had greater aspirations.

Genma stared at her body and found a prayer and a curse in the same breath.

Her subordinate was nowhere to be seen. The signs of a struggle were minimal--clearly she'd been ambushed. And clearly by ninja. Which meant the power station was the target. It had to mean that, Genma told himself, as he crept towards it. His hands flashed through seals--rabbit, ox, boar, tiger, horse--and he became a wisp of shadow, barely rustling the thick summer grass.

When he found the second corpse--one of the power station workers in his distinctive baggy overalls--the curse was clearer, the prayer less distinct. Genma slid as close to a steam pipe as he dared, and started scaling the side of the building. Some asshole ninja from somewhere or other were about to be very, very surprised.