Hana

I was cleaning myself up a little in the bathroom in Kuro’s office. I had left the door open and I could still see him sitting there on his chair with his throat slit. I’d been a bit shocked when I had to experience just how much of a sick fuck he really was, but other than that, everything had gone according to plan. In the end, all it had taken was a loose lipped underling to cause Kuro’s demise. I recalled my mud clone in the form of Bakan back into the room.

I had identified Bakan bringing girls to Kuro from different hostess bars. Bakan was not a ninja and it had been relatively easy to extract information from him. The real Bakan was in his apartment, tied up and drugged. He wouldn’t wake up until tomorrow morning. I’d forgotten how scarily effective I could be when I had reliable information. I hadn’t actually planned to cut it this close to the deadline to perform the assassination. But, Kuro had cancelled his plans to call girls into his office yesterday and the day before yesterday.

I exited the bathroom and saw Kuro’s corpse again. He had a look of utter disbelief on his face. He’d been caught with his pants down, literally. For some reason, I felt like laughing at the lame joke in my head. If the rumours around town were to be believed, the man had been a chunin with a power rivalling that of a Jonin level ninja. In the end, it didn't matter.

There was something that I always felt was quite stupid about most of the chunin exams that I’d attended. The final stages always involved one on one fights between candidates. In most of the conflicts that I’d ever known, that hardly ever happened. Usually, one party was dead before they even discovered that another party was involved. It was stealth and preparation that mattered the most. Although, it would have been difficult to set a public exam based on that.

I’d decided to use a paralytic toxin that only affected bodies with a well developed chakra network. Since my kekkei genkai allowed me to have the chakra network of a civilian, the toxin wouldn’t affect me. My clan members typically used this toxin on themselves while in disguise and transmitted it via blood using vectors. But, any poison that could be transmitted by blood could also be transmitted by sex. I’d placed it in areas where I was sure Kuro’s dick might go.

My clone and I made our way out of the building without any issues. The ninjas guarding the checkpoint let us through with only a cursory examination. I was careful to keep up the appearance of a distraught girl who’d been used by Kuro till we were out of sight. According to his usual schedule, we had a couple of hours before Kuro’s office would be checked by his subordinates. The toxin essentially froze the chakra network of a ninja, making it impossible for even a sensory ninja to detect his death for a few hours. There was more than enough time for me to go take care of that asshole Fuji if I wanted. But, I decided against it.

Kuro had a lot of enemies, so it was anybody’s guess as to who’d kill him. But, if I carried out a strike against his nephew on the same night, that might serve to narrow the suspect pool enough that attention might get focused on the Sin’s den incident. I ditched my mud clone at a secluded spot at the banks of the canal and got rid of any way my scent could be traced. I walked back into town as Kenji Akio. There was just one more thing left to do tonight before I headed back.

Boss Renji

I was sitting in my office with a drink in one hand and the monthly balance sheet of our organisation on the other. It told a story of steady decline. Most of the city’s leadership was now in the hands of Kuro and his organisation was encroaching on our territory more and more everyday. Kuro’s organisation should have been killed in the crib. But back then, I was still dealing with taking over the organisation after my father’s death.

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Now, I wasn’t sure if Kuro could be taken down if all the bosses in the city decided to join hands against him. In a couple of days, Kuro would take over Sin’s den. It was a stab in the heart for more than one reason. It has been one of the most favourite places to visit for my late father. He’d asked me to take care of Matsumoto san before he passed. Sin’s den was also located at the heart of my territory. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that Kuro would be idle after taking over the bar. It would soon become the centrepiece for Kuro’s operations to undermine our power. I couldn’t shake the feeling that some great change was coming.

I was pulled back into reality by the knock on my door. Sugu stepped in with an envelope.

“What is it, Sugu?” I asked

“I’m not sure, boss. This was found pushed in through the bottom of the door. I had our mail screening team go through it and open it slightly to verify there were no traps” he said as handed over the envelope to me.

‘Urgent - for Boss Renji’ was written on the cover of the envelope.

I opened the envelope and did a double take as I read the contents.

‘Kuro is dead. Move fast’

There was nothing else on the paper except a chakra seal. A chakra seal enabled a ninja to sign a note and imbue it with his/her unique chakra signature. Normally, I would have dismissed a letter like this out of hand. But, this one had indeed been signed by a shinobi. A check with the sensory ninja in my employ confirmed that this didn’t belong to any of the chakra signatures that she was familiar with and she knew almost all the shinobi who worked for Kuro.

“Sugu, send Jiro over to Kuro’s office to check. He practically lives there. Also, assemble our top strike team and tell them to be on standby”.

Sugu went out to carry out my instructions. I didn’t let myself believe it yet, but if true, this could be the end of Kuro’s entire organisation. He was a paranoid fuck who never trusted his lieutenants with crucial information. All the political connections and majority of the capital of the organisation would become useless without Kuro. He had purposely designed his organisation to not be able to function without him at the helm. He had done all this to ensure the loyalty of his subordinates.

Jiro was the stealthiest person under my employ. He should be able to get confirmation if Kuro really was dead. If he had met his demise at the hands of an assassin, I needed to try and get to the safe in his office. It was possible that it contained a treasure trove of information that compromised the politicians affiliated with Jiro. If I could get my hands on that, I could practically take control of this city. It was the longest 40 minutes of my life as I waited for word to come back from Jiro.

When Jiro confirmed that Kuro was indeed dead, I almost broke into a dance then and there. There was even more good news. It seemed that there were fewer guards on duty tonight and that they seemed unaware that Kuro was dead. Now was our chance. I immediately gave the strike team the go ahead to take down Kuro’s guards and retrieve the safe itself. The safe had to be opened in a controlled environment by experts. There was every chance that it was rigged in some way.

After I gave the orders, I went to the hanging picture of a wolf on my wall. I removed it to open a hidden compartment behind it. I took out the most expensive bottle of alcohol I owned. I’d waited for more than 20 years to open this bottle. I poured myself and Sugu a glass and toasted the unnamed shinobi who had finally put an end to the biggest menace this town had ever seen.