"Doing the reading and the thinking?" Katsuko asked with good-humored indignation. "I'm sorry, I don't think I could handle all that mental multi-tasking. The pressure would be too much."

She relaxed her arms and folded her legs into a cross-legged sitting position, looking down at Ryouma's face. He grinned up at her, everything about his body language and tone saying he was relaxed and cheerful. It wasn't a reaction she'd expect from most shinobi right before a heavy-combat mission.

She was starting to realize that Ryouma was not like most shinobi. It was a thought she filed away to think about sometime after the mission, when bloodlust and Masahiko's bounty weren't taking up her attention.

"I'd say strike at sunset," Katsuko said thoughtfully, turning to gaze down at the fortress. "People get afraid, when night falls. Superstition and horror tales and all that. Makes them fearful, especially when they're stuck alone with nothing else around for miles. Scared of their own shadows."

Her belt pouch rustled as she took out a packet of explosion tags. "You've got a good plan. With my clones putting these notes on the other side of the fortress, we can go in and take Masahiko out. I'll make a distraction afterwards so that the explosions knock out a large part of the structural support and hits most of the guard barracks. We won't have to worry about pursuit at all."