Beside her, Makoto was finishing the last of the binding. A little genjutsu would make it look like all the words were there, even if they were jumbled around a little. It wasn't like they'd be using it in a few days anyway. As far as he knew, there was a single book dedicated to each village. The Iwa and Konoha books were to be taken straightaway, for the obvious reasons. If they had time (and Makoto was certain they would; he always planned for an extra five minutes in his operations), the others would be taken, transfigured with genjutsu into Murkami's hairpins and off the two would go into the night, fleeing hell-for-leather back to Konoha.

Actually, fleeing didn't sound like such a bad idea. Especially if it meant that they escaped any notice of the Iwa-nin.

He chanced a glance at Murakami's oval, painted face. It wasn't so bad to be a little distracted. What if one of Iwa's ninja found them. Better he go to death with someone's name on his lips than, you know, screaming. "Almost ready, Murakami?"

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"Huh?" Sumire paused with a brush of eyeliner poised over one eye. "Oh. Almost, yes." She looked back at the mirror, carefully lining her eyes in the rich black with a steady hand. Her shirt she'd left mostly open, a trail of black seed buttons looking a little like a runway towards her impressive boobie-trapped cleavage. A final dusting of finishing powder, a secondary look in the slightly dirty mirror, and the kunoichi was finished.

"Well, I'm going ahead. I'll meet you as planned at 2350, Yonaga offices." She swept out of the room, preparing for her long night's work. As usual, she would be meeting poor, clueless Fukuzawa in the better part of the pleasure districts. It was going to be close, preparing herself had made her late and she couldn't risk using her usual abilities - for some reason, Iwa-nin had been a lot thicker on the ground. Keeping her chakra to civvie levels wasn't hard, she did it everyday in the last near-two weeks. Outside of the hostess club she was currently an employee of (idly, Sumire wondered if she'd get to keep her pay), stood a group of six Iwa-nin and three Taki-nin. Dressed in rank, three of the Iwa were Jounin-level in comparison to the one Taki-nin. The others were chuunin.

Sumire was a lucky kind of woman, but if they found her out, she'd be a very dead kind of woman. Carefully, drawing on her full abilities to act like an insipid civvie twit, Sumire skirted around the group, who were beginning to argue noisily.

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"I said get the hell outta here," an Iwa-nin hissed, pushing the Taki-nin with a meaty hand. "This ain't your territory, asshole." What kind of shit was Takigakure churning out these days, anyway? Uppity little bastards.

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The Taki-nin said nothing, just continued glaring; perhaps he was mute. The chuunin beside him looked ready to kill, but he wouldn't allow the civilian woman to get caught in the crossfire. An unfamiliar handmotion told his subordinates to stand down. Takigakure wasn't going to bring turmoil to this region - not when they still had so much to do.

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Sumire had almost made it around the second jounin when (and here she blamed having to act like a civilian, normally something like this wouldn't have gotten her) his hand reached out and snatched her by the shoulder of her shirt. She almost cursed in frustration, turning it instead into a helpless, surprised kind of squeak. "H-hey! Let go of me!"

The jounin bastard had the nerve to guffaw at her. "I mean it! I have to get to work!" Shit, shit! If she didn't get in there soon, Fukuzawa would leave. If he left, she wouldn't be able to pickpocket the backup key. Then, their mission would fail, and she'd have to explain to the Hokage and Shida why their village was now a part of massive destruction.

And Sumire really, really didn't want to talk to Shida. She struggled at a third of her usual strength (damn women for not always being ninja-strong!), trying to wrench his fingers away.

"You could spend some time with me, tonight. Wouldn't even have to charge me," his breath smelled like stale beer and watered brandy. He had a nasty array of scars across his face that likely came from her countrymen.

"Like hell I will!" she spat and stomped on his foot with her steel-shanked high heel. He yelped, and his companions -startled by her sudden hurried run into the club and his noise- laughed. Sumire didn't look behind her to see if the Taki-nin had managed to get away. Currently, as the noise of her pursuing Iwa-nin caught up to the staccato of her running down the hosting club's stairs, she was a little more busy worrying about blowing her cover.

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Meanwhile, Makoto was busily unbuttoning the head secretary's top. A few days of being someone's eager gofer, dropping compliments on her hard work, and voila! Instant office-makeouts. The key was in her blouse, under her bra, he'd seen it poke through once, when she was leaning over a table, looking at someone's work. Tonight, Makoto also hoped that was still the case.

"Ah~ Kyo-san," she murmured, trying to keep hushed. The keycard bumped his nose. Bingo. His fingers danced through a genjutsu quickly and he pressed his fingers against her sternum, putting the woman to sleep.

"Sorry, miss. Business is business." Makoto apologized and took the key off of his victim. He looked up at the serious-looking clock at the wall. 22:55, Murakami would be joining him soon. While he waited, he rifled through the Head Secretary's desk.

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Sumire was up Shit Creek without a paddle, having just barely made it to Fukuzawa, when the Iwa-nin caught up with her, completely ignoring the sign that barred ninja from the hostess club. Fukuzawa remarked cheerfully about her being out of breath, but the cheer had faded quickly when they followed her in. Sumire's skin prickled into goosebumps, as everything suddenly slowed down and killing intent spilled out.

Then, as many cases with too many ninja (what was she thinking? Some days, one was too many!) and too much killing intent, panic broke out among the screaming hostesses and patrons. There were screams, the stench of watered brandy being dashed on the floor as they fled, tripping over themselves to get out of the Iwa-nin's way. Fukuzawa's men weren't much match for the ninja as they scurried to his side, trying to get their charge from the building and never-minding Sumire as she too fled the chaos. She cursed as she rounded a corner and headed for the backstairs, fear pounding through her veins and lending speed to what was supposed to be a civilian gait.

It was becoming a little too fluid, a little too fast. Behind her, somewhere, came the whiz of metal in the cold air, followed by the release of chakra. Sumire didn't look behind her and took another corner, splitting off into two, then four. Sumire rounded a corner and waited, chakra dead and cold. When he trapped her bunshin, who whimpered and shook like a leaf against the dirty brick wall, Sumire struck.

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Murakami was awfully late. She had been scheduled to join him ten minutes earlier. They were now five minutes behind. Makoto leaned back against a file, pulling books from a shelf. They were filled to the brim, with little things the average ninja didn't think about. For instance, Makoto had no idea that there was only one actual way into Iwagakure that wasn't through their gates.You needed to be an earth-aligned chakra user, and had to know which tunnel lead where. There were maps of catacombs beneath the rocky outcroppings of the enemy village.

Best of all, there were names. The Yonaga had been thorough in their gleaning of information, going so far as to collect rank and serial numbers. He closed one book and opened another, Konoha's and steeled himself. Some of these people he would know, talk to maybe. It worried him. People didn't knowingly rub elbows with traitors, and the best traitors always took down scores of people with them. Honor smirched, he'd even heard stories of people committing ritualized suicide to purify their names.

Where the hell was she?

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She was currently letting a Taki-nin save her. Well, her very thankful and gushing bushin. It rankled (someone? Saving her? Ugh.), especially when her plan was going to work so well. Before Sumire could strangle her molester, she'd seen the mute Takigakure jounin round the corner, and deliver an attack so violent, the Iwa-nin went down like a sack of potatoes. It didn't take a genius to realize that he'd been cut from his mortal coil with almost ridiculous ease. The kunoichi was suddenly glad they were on neutral terms with the village.

Sumire reminded herself that, as the Taki-nin lead her bunshin to the street so that she would be much safer, they needed to send an envoy to the village. A little thank you went a long way in politics. Then, she bounced herself between the walls of the alley and started flying over rooftops. The buildings grew thicker together, and higher, as she pressed her way into the city. The Yonaga corporate building rose high in the middle, glittering black-tinted glass windows as high up as she could see. Makoto had told her he'd leave the door open on the roof-access. Sure enough, as she hiked her skirt to throw a leg over the concrete lip of the roof, he'd kept true to his word. Sumire counted herself lucky. So far, so good. Even if she was minutes late.

She passed a sleeping woman with her skirt hiked and her blouse open and knew her partner had decided to go the seduction route. Oh, men, they could be so predictable. She followed the thread of his chakra. "Ran into some old friends," she said by way of apology. "Let's get to work and out of here."

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Makoto felt stupid relief, seeing her act so nonchalant. Whatever had kept her must've been resolved slowly, or she'd blown their cover sky high. He'd already replaced the books, and was currently working on transmuting the third of the village books into a kanzashi. "Good idea, help me with these." She assented and started work, apparently used to the jutsu required in such a way that it was almost a secondary nature.

They worked in silence, and when the last book was transformed and slipped into the now massive collection of pins that decorated her hair, they hurried back to the roof access. This was almost too easy, Makoto thought. It was strange to think that actually planning down to the minute not that ANBU had made him obsessive about these things, no worked in their favor. At least neither one of them had any injuries to speak of. Murakami seemed a little upset, however. Oda wisely kept his mouth shut.


There would be plenty of time to talk about this as they fled back to Konoha.

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