The knock on the door made Kano glance up from the paperwork at Takuma standing at her office door. She motioned him to come in as she ticked some boxes and filled over the dotted lines. One day she would die, and she was sure the damned paperwork would be the reason behind it.
"Is it about the Shirogumi Robberies?" she asked. It was one of the cases Takuma was handling as the second investigator.
"No, ma'am," Takuma placed an open letter envelope and two sheets of paper on the table. "I was going through the anonymous public submissions… and well, I came across this one. I think this one might have some weight behind it."
Every police precinct had these submission boxes and postbox addresses where civilians could send anonymous 'tips' about crimes in their neighborhood or crimes they had witnessed to the Police Force to consider without divulging their identity.
Kano was skeptical. The anonymous tips were mainly baseless accusations by people who didn't like their neighbors, jealous business owners hindering their rivals, people with grudges who wanted others to get into trouble, building owners who didn't appreciate their tenants but couldn't kick 'em out because of the lease agreements. It was stupid people trying to get others into trouble— and they wasted time because it wasted a lot of manpower to process those submissions and chase the leads which looked real— which would then not pan out.
Of course, it had been long since Kano had touched the anonymous submissions. It was grunt work. She had long left the part of her career where she was required to do grunt work. Takuma, on the other hand, was precisely in that part of his career. Before him it was Arisu who handled the submissions, but the moment Takuma came in, she dumped the chore to him.
"You think so?" Kano picked up the letter. The two pages were printed by a typewriter, giving no indication as to determine what kind of person wrote it through the handwriting. They could send the letter to the Intelligence Division to analyze the linguistics, but that would be an overreach for an anonymous submission.
She read the contents of the letter with disinterest, but by the time she was past the first page, she could see why Takuma thought the submission was legitimate. The detail with which the things were laid out was well-thought and written, which made it easy to digest. But the point which made it look legitimate was the subjects mentioned.
One of the state pharmacies is illegally supplying to the Maiko Triad.
The way it was presented made it so that a Police Force member would read and appreciate the points mentioned in writing, making it convincing. The organizations and groups around the Hidden Leaf were made up and supported by shinobi— active or discharged— and were involved in a number of gray or outright illegal activities hidden behind the veil of legal fronts. They did everything from robberies to collecting payments for 'security.' A lot of them were highly territorial and had well-defined areas where they operated and clashed against their neighbors, which was the source of many homicide cases that came to Organized Crime due to the inter-gang conflicts. Shinobi deaths far outnumbered civilian deaths.
Maiko Triad was another one of the territorial groups that ran labor scams, contract frauds, security extortions, and a variety of other offenses in their territory. They were a big organization in the Hidden Leaf with several chunin associated with the organizations at its helm; of course, due to the nature of it all, when asked, everyone would refuse their involvement.
"Looks real, but as usual, nothing of substance we can use," Kano sighed as she dropped the letter on the table. It might have been a better submission than most, but nothing new she hadn't seen before.
The Police Force got hundreds of those submissions, and perhaps a couple of them looked legitimate. It took a hundred potential legitimate tips for them to get one lead that actually turned into something tangible.
"Should I drop it then?" asked Takuma.
"No, don't do that," said Kano. Even if she didn't appreciate the abysmal return on effort, she couldn't ignore it just because she didn't like it. "Forward it to either Yoshiaki or Miwa. Both of them have worked on the Maiko Triad before; they'd be the best to follow up on this."
"Yes, ma'am."
As Takuma exited the room, Arisu walked in with a stack of files in her hand. She opened her mouth to speak, but Kano raised her hand to silence her and silently took the files.
Paperwork would kill her someday.
———
.
Takuma walked out of Kano's office with the letter in hand and gazed across the Organized Crimes offices. He was satisfied with how the conversation had gone with Kano; he had hoped Kano would take charge, but he knew with Maiko Triad involved, she would forward them to those with experience and not needlessly increase her workload.
"Found something in the tips?" Arisu asked behind him.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"Yeah, just a little something. Hey, who do you think is less busy right now— Yoshiaki or Miwa?" asked Takuma.
Arisu thought for a second before telling Takuma that Miwa had just closed one of their major cases last week and thus would have more space on their docket if Takuma wanted to present them with the submission to follow up on. On the other hand, Yoshiaki was in a critical stage of two of their cases, regularly making that team pull overtime to ensure everything went right.
"Thanks," Takuma smiled and headed towards Chunin Uchiha Miwa's cabin before re-routing himself to the other side of the office where Uchiha Yoshiaki's cabin was situated and knocking on the door.
"Enter."
Yoshiaki was a slender man with broad shoulders. Like all Uchiha, he had black hair and onyx eyes with a mix of a few facial features one could find in the Uchiha Clan. He was older than Kano and had been part of the Police Force since the very start; as such was much more experienced when it came to police work, unlike Kano, who had joined the Police Force after completing her stint under a jonin team lead.
Yoshiaki was an admired figure not only in Organized Crime but also throughout the Police Force.
"Sir," said Takuma.
Yoshiaki didn't attempt to hide the sourness that overcame his face when he looked at Takuma. The man looked like his day had been ruined by Takuma breathing the same air as him.
No man was perfect. And unfortunately for Takuma, one of Yoshiaki's flaws was his prejudice against civilian-born shinobi. It wasn't to the level where he despised them, but when Takuma was put in Organized Crime, that had apparently crossed a line in Yoshiaki's mind. He was one of many in Organized Crime who were against the special recruits training program and their subsequent transfer to major departments. Ever since day one, the man had shown no pretense and had put forth his displeasure for everyone to see.
"What?" said Yoshiaki snipingly.
"An anonymous submission that seems promising." Takuma tried to put the letter on the table, but Yoshiaki cut him off before he could even take a step forward from the office's threshold.
"Why are you giving me those? Chunin Kano is your commanding officer."
"Sir, it might involve the Maiko Triad," replied Takuma. "I thought—"
"I don't care what you think, genin," Yoshiaki's eyes narrowed. "Give it to me."
Takuma didn't mind the unfair behavior and handed the letter as he was going to do before being needlessly berated.
Saying Yoshiaki read the letter would be an exaggeration; he barely skimmed the pages before dropping them on the table. If he had Sharingan activated, Takuma would've given him credit, but he could see the disinterested onyx gaze cruising over the lines.
"This is a hoax," Yoshiaki dropped the letter on the table. "Maiko Triad won't do this; they have no reason to buy medical provisions. Take this away and get out."
'Well, they did buy up medical provisions. I was the one who delivered it to them,' Takuma thought— but he couldn't argue with Yoshiaki. He picked up the letter and turned to walk out of the office. Yoshiaki had refused him, but he still had Chunin Miwa he could pitch the anonymous letter.
"Wait," said Yoshiaki. Takuma turned back, a flickering hope in his chest. "I changed my mind. Let's pursue that." He smiled, "And you know what? We are a little busy right now. How about you try it out? I'm sure you haven't had an investigation where you were the first investigator. This can be your first stint as a lead. How about it? It'll be a good experience."
Takuma held back the smile that threatened to break on his face.
"Yes, sir."
"Excellent. I'll talk to Kano and have you report to me for this follow-through. We will see this through," said Yoshiaki.
"Thank you, sir. I won't disappoint you," said Takuma.
Yoshiaki smiled. "You better not."
Takuma walked out of the room, and his smile drained, but inside he felt phenomenally great.
He wrote the anonymous letter to get a starting point for a potential investigation. He had read enough anonymous submissions to know how to craft one that would gain some traction with the chunin heads. He typed it out with a typewriter to ensure no one could trace it back to him. All he needed to do then was to present it to Kano, who he knew would see some weight behind it, but due to her lack of involvement with Maiko Triad, he would have to pass it over to one of the teams who did have it.
From there, Takuma knew that Chunin Miwa and Chunin Yoshiaki were the two options Kano would send him to— those were the two names that came up the most in the police records when he was researching the Maiko Triad.
Both were viable options. Uchiha Miwa and her team were strictly professional with Takuma, while Uchiha Yoshiaki's team mirrored their chunin's opinion.
The reason why he had chosen to approach Yoshiaki first was because of that conflicting attitude.
Due to Takuma's position as the newest member and the culture of Organized Crime, if anyone wanted some grunt work done, they could have Takuma do it even though he was part of Kano's team. On multiple occasions, Yoshiaki and his team had dropped troublesome and even senseless work on Takuma, which they were supposed to do— Takuma couldn't complain— and no one saw any fault because that's how things were done in Organized Crime. The rookie had to earn the chops. All of them had done so at some point in their career.
Takuma knew that if he presented something to Yoshiaki, it would surely get rejected. But he also knew that there existed a possibility that Yoshiaki would try to burden him just because he could do it.
The letter was written in a way that convinced Kano, but it wasn't enough that chunin like Yoshiaki and Miwa, who had experience with the Maiko Triad, would see it as a 100% deal. If it was too convincing, they would take the follow through on their own— which Takuma didn't want.
He wanted a case of his own.
If he went to Miwa, there was a strong possibility that she would use one of her own to pursue the matter. That possibility only strengthened as they had just offloaded a big case recently, allowing them to take on more work. If Yoshiaki had rejected him, Takuma would have gone to Miwa, showed it to her, and would've tried to get involved in the name of experience. If she, too, had rejected him, he would have volunteered to follow through and say that he had a hunch that this might be something. Unlike Yoshiaki, Miwa could have given him a chance.
That was the second option.
There existed a chance that Yoshiaki would once again try to push useless work on him as he had done before. Takuma had been in the office long enough to have observed a good number of people and studied them to ensure he didn't say or act in a way to make them suspicious of him. He knew what kind of person Yoshiaki was. He knew that if presented with a chance, Yoshiaki would try to make Takuma's life difficult.
And that guess had paid off.
Yoshiaki had told him to lead the follow through, and if it turned out something, he would get the lead as the first investigator.
It was time for him to get some traction running in the Leaf Military Police Force.