Kento refused the idea of having an early celebration over his first easy victory as he believed that the current mission that he was part of required him to not waste a single second. Sending his hand through his pocket, he carefully got hold of the map that his grandfather had given him to track down the parts of the star quickly.

“Yamazaki, Check the map and try to locate the tourmaline of Mobility. It should be highlighted on the map with an orange dot.”

“Got it, Kento.” Yamazaki then grabbed the map with care and unrolled it to reveal the location of their next objective.

But...

His face took on a tense look the moment he saw the face of the map. Drops of sweat started dripping down his face, highlighting his feelings even better,

“Um, guys…”

“What’s wrong Yamazaki?” Kento insisted.

“Well...um…”

Nakamura’s temper flared up, as he thought that Yamazaki was up to one of his silly pranks. He decided to strike his brother on the head to bring him back to reality. He almost beat him up, but he paused mid-attack when he was sharing what Yamazaki was seeing.

“Ah...Kento, You’d better see this.”

The words of Nakamura caused the others to glance at the map with curiosity.

Kento walked right towards the circle, annoyed while his friends and siblings were staring at the map, flabbergasted.

“So what is up with the ma...”

The moment he witnessed the map’s present state, Kento’s jaw dropped open. His eyes forgot to blink and held their focus. The map was empty. There wasn’t a single coloured dot on the map. Not even a Kanji letter was on the map. It was enveloped in a dark black coating.

His friends could see his tough attempts to produce words. But neither a word nor a sound was produced.

"Surprised, Huh!" A grim chuckle from our downed friend, Kusunoki made everyone turn back.

The very little annoyance that Kento's mind possessed instantly transformed into anger, which triggered the muscles of his right arm to punch Kusunoki to the ground.

"Shut up! What is the meaning of this?

Kusunoki refused to answer and just kept on staring at Kento's mockingly. Kento observed his movements carefully for the next few seconds. he spotted some Metsubishi bombs, hiding inside Kusunoki's ninja gear. The sight of Kusunoki's hands crawling towards those vicious smoke bombs kicked energy into Kento's limbs, preparing them to act them instantly if Kusunoki were to use them to the youngsters.

"Well, I don't have the answer to your question, so I suggest you go and ask my Sensei, Master Keiichi."

The moment his speech ended, Kusunoki got hold of a Metsubishi ball and rapidly struck it to the ground. It produced a sense-blinding smoke, during which Kusunoki took the opportunity to escape from the Teen Ninjas. Fortunately, Kento's warning was on time and none of his friends was harmed by the deadly smoke bomb.

Kusunoki's escape enraged Kento's brother, Kyuzo.

"Damn, that moron escaped. We couldn't extract any useful information from that bastard. We only managed to find the first piece. And the map is no longer providing us with the coordinates. We are done for."

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"Kyuzo-kun," Kumiko replied. "We might not have the power of the map now, and that Kōga ninja has escaped. But please, don’t lose hope just yet."

Yamazaki twirled his naginata and started blabbering his answer.

"Bro, I think we might need to search the entire city of Kyoto to find the pieces of the Star of Izanagi."

"Well, that’s quite obvious, isn’t it?” Isoko partially agreed with his suggestion, “But how are supposed to clean up an entire prefecture in a few hours? And even then, from where should we start?"

Hinako suddenly broke her silence to solve Isoko's problem.

"Look there! It seems that the eastern side of the town hasn't been touched by Kusunoki’s work. I can still see people around that area. I guess we should start there."

"Then let's go!" Kento replied while reloading his dirty katana into the case.

Nakamura secured the first piece of the precious star of Izanagi by placing it inside his clothing. Nakamura's ninja gear was a special one. It contained many places to hide anything he wanted, without alerting anyone around him that he was carrying valuables.

The ninjas grabbed their gear and walked right towards the downtown marketplace, which hadn't been infiltrated by Kusunoki. There were many people and merchants, doing their regular jobs. It was quite a busy sight and was a relief for the ninjas too. The Teen Ninjas were always careful not to harm and cause disturbance among innocent civilians in any way during their missions.

The gang got close to a small stall, where an old woman was sitting and selling some onigiri. Yamazaki, being the hungry guy couldn’t prevent his mouth from watering when he caught sight of them. Unable to bear the fresh aroma of the tasty rice cakes, he pulled out some coins and bought two and seemed to inhale them in just a few seconds. This action annoyed Isoko, who punched Yamazaki in the head, believing his actions to be part of his childish behaviour, well at least from her side.

"You baka, is this the time to munch on some onigiri? We are out here trying to find some needles stuck inside a huge haystack! And look at you! Taking everything easy to enjoy some rice cakes? You are nowhere close to being identical to your big brother!"

Yamazaki's response to the head strike was simultaneously hysterical and sympathetic. He bowed to Isoko twice, while apologising to her.

"I am so sorry, Isoko! Please don't be mean. I was just hungry, you know…"

A pleasant laugh entered Yamazaki's ears, and he turned behind to see the source. It only took a few seconds to realise that it was Kumiko, who was laughing while having her cute smile lit up her face. She then took Yamazaki's side and tried defending him, while convincing Isoko.

"Isoko-chan, maybe you don't need to punch him too hard. He couldn't even eat breakfast today. Someone has been motivated to beat me in the next triathlon. So, I think it's okay to have a small break to enjoy some delicious food right?"

Yamazaki was feeling thankful, and he repaid Kumiko with a smile. He then spoke gently to Isoko, not raising Isoko’s temper.

"See, even Kumiko is agreeing with me. I was just hungry. I wasn’t trying to jeopardise my bro’s mission by any chance."

"Okay, okay. Forget it," Kento leapt right into the conversation. "We need to first check the entire downtown market for anything related to the star of Izanagi. Let's spread out and look for clues."

"Affirmative," Kyuzo replied, and they scattered to look for more intel.

"Okay then I will look for some information as well," Kumiko said and left for the other side of the site.

Meanwhile, Hinako's eyes were observing something unusual. Her eyes caught sight of a crowd of customers, who seemed to be quarrelling in front of a seller wearing a conical hat, just like Kento. He had a long beard, which ran all the way to his elbows. He wore a kimono dyed in a dark saffron colour.

She analysed everything happening at that site and concluded that it was some sort of auction.

So she went straight to her big brother to notify him and the others about what she had found.

"Big brother?"

"Yes, Hinako."

"I found something interesting going on."

"What is it?" Her words then caught the attention of the others. She pointed towards the auction that was going on and started.

"See that? It seems like there is an auction going on over there. There are a lot of people there."

Kento too took time to analyse the crowd near the auction and was almost about to submit his report but he was interrupted by Kumiko, who had rushed towards Kento with a fatigued face...

"Kento-kun, you’ve gotta see this!"

"Kumiko!" He whispered." What is it?"

She paused for a while but Kento said insistently,

"Kumiko speak up!" Yamazaki then banged his naginata into the floor, just when Kumiko was about to speak up.

"Kento…kun," She said……

"I guess we might have just found the Tourmaline of Mobility."