Shen's eavesdropping was a substantial breakthrough for Takuma. Through the conversations Shen had picked up, he was able to gather the date of the next delivery; unfortunately, those conversations didn't include the location of pickup and drop-off— from what Shen had told Takuma, the people seemed to have a predetermined location which didn't warrant stating the exact address during conversations.

Having done the delivery once, Takuma knew of the locations, but those could very well be a set of locations, with the different choices available for safety purposes. Even if he was to assume there was only one set of locations, that information was unusable, for he couldn't justify it— and even before that, assuming something like that was unwise when he had no previous experience with planning such operations.

Given the circumstances, Takuma had to pivot his strategy.

"What're you doing?" Arisu asked Takuma, who was going through a tower of folders on his desk.

"Looking into records of theft at state facilities," Takuma muttered as he went through the past several months of records to see if there were reports of missing inventory at state pharmacies.

Arisu frowned, "This is about the follow-up you were doing… you're still doing that?"

"Uh-huh… still doing that," Takuma's voice trailed off before he sighed. There was nothing worthy of suspicion that could be linked back to either Ryuu's crew or the Maiko Triad.

In his opinion, the sheer amount of product he had delivered wasn't something one could swipe away without it being reported. And if they were doing multiple deliveries, then there was no way anyone could hide it even if every member in the pharmacy were corrupt and under someone's payroll. There had to be at least a report of it somewhere— but the fact there wasn't, meant they were doing something different.

"You're wasting your time," said Arisu. "If the tip hasn't given you anything yet, it's bogus— drop it already."

"I don't have much time on hand; definitely not enough to waste," he muttered.

"Do you really think this is going to turn into something?"

Takuma swiveled his chair to face Arisu. "Think about it this way. If it does turn into something big, I'd be on the record of a big case, putting me up 2-0 on you."

"2-0?" Arisu frowned. "When did it go up 1-0?"

"The Higurashi Pharmaceutical case," he grinned. It was the first C-rank mission he was ever assigned; it was his first mission with Iruka. "And that was before I even joined the Police Force." He wriggled his brows at her.

"Oh, fuck off," she spat. "You got that job because we were short-handed. What your team did, I could've done alone."

"And they didn't let you do it. What does that tell you?"

"Fuck you," Arisu kicked his chair, almost making him fall, before walking away.

Takuma laughed before turning back to the tower of folders. The sight of it made him sigh. A dead-end. He needed more groundwork before he could move to the next step of the process— understand the entire operation and get an insight into how they pulled the con.

He stood up to gather the folders so that he could return them to the archives, but as he gathered the folders, a thought struck him from the banter he had with Arisu.

The Higurashi Pharmaceutical Case.

The mission that he worked with Iruka was part of a larger mission run by the Police Force. A group of thieves were stealing the raw materials meant for the privately-owned pharmaceutical business. They would hijack the shipments mid-delivery and then fence them off to people who couldn't buy the materials in bulk due to regulations.

Takuma stared at the files as thoughts began to form in his mind.

"They aren't stealing from the state pharmacies… they're using it as the kitchen," he muttered. Takuma immediately picked up the files and ran to the archives.

Previously he had thought they were stealing from the product produced by the state pharmacies, that the guard was stealing from the inventory, and Ryuu was selling it to the Maiko Triad. But with the lack of police reports as far back as Takuma had looked, he had a different thought.

Takuma rushed into the archives and began looking into any and all reports for robberies of raw medical-grade chemicals and other raw materials from producers that worked in the Hidden Leaf. And as he expected, within half an hour, he had found multiple reports all filed within the one year— each from a different part of the village, all from different businesses. Some cases were solved, some were ongoing, while others had gone cold due to a lack of leads.

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He took out his notepad and flipped to the page with the information Sango had given him about the ingredients used in the samples he had shared with her.

"Knew it," he flicked the notepad.

He found a third of the ingredients used in the samples among the products reported as stolen. All of them were restricted materials that needed proper permits to make, sell, buy, and use.

'There's an iryo-nin cooking for Ryuu,' thought Takuma. He had thought that guard was the sole party in the pharmacy, but it seemed he was only a contact, and Ryuu was in contact with an iryo-nin who was cooking for them using the materials they stole.

"Alright," Takuma smiled, "let's see what we can do with this."

———

.

Takuma stood outside Yoshiaki's office with a file in hand that he needed signatures on. He knew very well that behind the closed door was Yoshiaki and his entire team engaged in some heated discussion about one of their cases which had apparently gone wrong. Yoshiaki had been given a talk down by Yoshio, and he was now giving it to his team.

Takuma knocked on the office door and opened it without waiting for a response.

All eyes inside the room went to Takuma as he half-stepped inside.

He started, "Sir—"

"Out!" Yoshiaki immediately yelled. "GET OUT!"

Takuma did not attempt to try again or argue and immediately closed the door behind him. Naturally, he knew it was a bad time to approach Yoshiaki for a signature, and it was especially worse for him because the man hated him. It was clear before Takuma stepped inside the office that he was getting rejected.

And that's precisely what Takuma wanted. This way, Yoshiaki wouldn't be able to complain later by saying he wasn't asked first.

He ignored the eyes of people who had caught the scene and walked straight to Kano's office, knocked on the door, and waited on the threshold of the open office until she looked up and told him to step inside.

"Ma'am, Chunin Yoshiaki is busy with his team," Takuma presented the papers to her. "Can you sign these for me? I don't think it's wise for me to disturb him right now with what he's got on his plate."

"Oh yeah, he got thrashed by Yoshio, didn't he," Kano chuckled as she read the papers. "Hmm? You need an assignment of more people for a case. Which case— wait, is this regarding the tip you were following?" She looked up at him, "That reached this far?"

Takuma nodded, "We think there might be something there worth looking for," he stressed the 'we' to make it seem that Yoshiaki agreed with him, even if Takuma had given the man close to no updates about the situation. Takuma was sure that Yoshiaki didn't even remember that Takuma was working on something.

"Look at that, didn't expect it. Alright, here you go," Kano signed the papers. "Good job on sticking to it, Takuma."

"Thank you, ma'am," Takuma smiled.

———

.

The shinobi recruited into the Police Force were categorized into two categories— regular and special. They entered at the same time but were given different trainings, and were assigned to different departments with varying levels of responsibilities. Because of that, even though all of them were genin, technically speaking, Takuma was at a higher rank than them. He couldn't randomly order one of the new recruits to do a job for him, but he could very easily get the permission to assign them under him temporarily— which was what he did by getting Kano to sign the order.

Inside one of the precincts across the Hidden Leaf, Takuma stood in front of a group of four shinobi. Beside him was a whiteboard with four photographs and some textual information to go along with them.

"These are the men possibly related to a string of robberies which we suspect are related to each other, performed by the same group of people," said Takuma. "We are looking to build a case against them and learn more about their operation. For that to happen, we need information. Unfortunately, we don't have much of that— which is why you're enlisted to bridge that gap."

Takuma was only one man and dearly wished he possessed the Shadow Clone Jutsu. But he knew it wasn't in his stars. He understood that he couldn't keep all cards close to his chest and still expect to win. There wasn't enough time for him to do all the things on his own, and he couldn't be at eight different places at the same time.

The only option for him was delegation.

His heart was conflicted, begging him not to do it. Relenting control felt terrible. But his mind was clear that if he didn't push some responsibility off him, the entire tower would go down with only him inside. He needed help.

"Each of you will be assigned a target who you will stalk as if they were the most beautiful girl in the world," said Takuma, eliciting a few chuckles. "Find out all you can about them, what they do every day of the week, where they go, who they talk to. Watch them— but do not make contact with them. We are looking for a bigger score; let's not waste it on some petty change. If they do something that warrants an arrest, dock it down, and we will use it later."

———

.

It was quick. Quicker than Takuma has expected. Too quick.

The officers returned with some really good info on the people they were tasked to follow. Perhaps Ryuu's crew and Maiko Triad had gotten complacent after pulling jobs without a hint of resistance. It wasn't strange. That's how people got caught; they got careless.

Or, actually using a team of shinobi who knew what they were doing made tasks so much easier. He could see why people hired shinobi.

It turned out Maiko Triad and Ryuu's crew were using the same gambit as they did with Takuma and outsourced the delivery process. Just this time, unlike Takuma, the delivery person was a gambling addict in desperate need of money, who was nowhere as careful as Takuma and babbled about the plan to a loan shark, who cornered him, to get some additional time on repayment. One of the officers who was tailing the guy caught the entire conversation as clear as a crystal.

'I guess, this is it,' Takuma hammered down his excitement. It wasn't time to get excited, everything depended on what came next.

He pushed his chair, and the wheels beneath it carried him to Arisu's desk, who was reading a woman's magazine.

"Hey."

Arisu jumped and immediately hid the magazine. She turned and fixed him with a glare, clearly displeased.

Takuma ignored that and posed the question he knew would interest her.

"How would you like to be the secondary lead on a potentially massive case?"

He needed some manpower, and Arisu was going to be the gateway to it.