Asuna

The mattress that I was lying down on was super soft and I felt that my head could simply melt into the pillow. We’d arrived in the town of Kurashiko yesterday to investigate a murder that had happened a week ago. They’d put up Kazu and I at one of the finest hotels in town. The food had been excellent, the rooms were luxurious and had a bathroom that was bigger than my whole apartment back in the hidden leaf village. The town leadership was sending a pretty clear message in my opinion.

‘Enjoy your stay at our town, conclude your investigation without causing anyone trouble and please fuck off’

I couldn’t really blame them for wishing that. This was a commercial town that hardly saw any violence out in the open. If it was me, I wouldn’t want a bunch of ninja investigators rooting around in my business either. But, we were here and we had a job to do. I sat up in my bed and went through all the information he had so far.

The victim was a former hidden leaf ninja named Kuro. He had left the hidden leaf more than 2 decades ago and had started a business in this town. It was a widely known secret that Kuro acted in the capacity of a mob boss in this town until last week. He was found in his office a week ago with his throat cut and his safe looted. The town leadership and police force seemed eager to chalk it up to a robbery attempt gone bad, but even a dumbass like Kushina Uzumaki, the stupidest girl in our class, could have told you that it didn’t make any sense. They’d have to be the stupidest robbers in history to go and target the office of a mob boss in town, even if they assumed he wasn’t there.

It was pretty obvious to me that this had been the work of a rival. They’d obviously hired a ninja skilled enough to take out someone like Kuro. From the background report that we had received, Kuro was a Jounin class ninja even though he never actually attained the rank. But, that was due to problems in his character evaluation, not due to a lack of strength. The only real issue here was to check whether the underworld in this town was consorting with dangerous foreign ninja.

I wished that we had a body to examine, but they had apparently found a will made by Kuro stating that he wanted to be cremated, conveniently destroying any evidence that we might have found on the body. So far, we hadn’t found anyone willing to share anything more than widely known information. The only lead we had so far was a message from someone claiming to be Kuro’s nephew, who supposedly had information the town leadership and police weren’t willing to share.

I laid on the bed for a few more minutes before I got up and dressed. It was almost time for me to meet Kazu down at the lobby. When I got down there I found that Kazu was already waiting for me at the lobby. When Kazu dressed in plain clothes, it really was ‘plain clothes’. I seriously doubted that anyone would be able to pick Kazu out of a police lineup after seeing him only once. Everything about his appearance seemed to make you want to gloss over him. Even though lacking in the appearance department, Kazu was a pretty reliable guy. He had the trust and respect of Fugaku Uchiha, the chief of the Uchiha police force.

“Good morning Kazu. Did you sleep well?” I asked. I got a nod in reply.

“Ready to go?”, another nod in reply. I knew Kazu well enough by now to waste time trying to elicit a halfway cheerful response from him. So, we exited the hotel lobby to the street and started walking toward the municipal building. Kazu stopped for a bit as we crossed a beautiful bridge on our way to the city centre. Our shadow clones continued walking towards the municipal building with the people tailing in pursuit. We had picked up on people following us as soon as we had stepped into the town. I wasn’t really worried about them. I was more worried about anyone skilled enough that we would have missed them.

Swiftly and stealthily, we made our way to the meeting place to meet our informant. We were there 2 hours earlier than the agreed time, but we had to make sure we weren’t stepping into a trap. The fact that any deeper look into Kuro’s death was unwanted by the town was glaringly obvious. It was a remote chance, but the assassin that did the job on Kuro might have been kept on retainer to deal with the fallout from any investigation into his death.

The meeting place was near an abandoned farm a couple of miles outside of town. We activated our sharingan and searched the area for any hidden traps or unwelcome visitors. Once we had secured the surrounding area, Kazu retreated into the woods nearby to watch the approach of our informer. About 10 minutes before our appointed time, I got the signal from Kazu that someone was approaching. Our system of communication was almost impossible for anyone to make out without having sharingan, so Kazu could continue to update me till our informant reached us.

I could make out someone approaching after a couple of minutes. The person was wearing a hood and the body language suggested that it was a guy. From the look of the undeveloped chakra network on his body, this was most certainly a civilian. But, as soon as he came into view, I received another signal from Kazu indicating that there were people following him. This could either be a trap or our informant was being watched without him knowing. I tensed up a bit as he came within a few feet of me. I kept an eye out for any signals from Kazu about this being an impending ambush.

“Are..Are you the uchiha investigator?” he asked.

“Yes, I assume you're the one who sent us the message. Who are you?” I asked.

He seemed to hesitate before finally removing his hood to reveal the tense face of someone who was close to my own age.

“My name is Fuji. Boss Kuro was my uncle.” He said.

He was either a really great actor or he was genuinely nervous and was risking his life to give information to us. I performed the hand signs required behind my back to activate the seal I placed in the ground before his arrival. The seal formed a cone of silence that distorted the sound waves exiting the affected area.

“What do you have for us, Fuji?” I asked, deciding to get straight to it.

“I…I know who killed my uncle. There’s things that the police and the town leadership aren’t telling you” he stammered out.

“Yeah, we figured as much. So, who was it that killed your uncle?” I asked.

“My uncle was a great businessman and there have always been people in town jealous of his success”. He started.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Cut the crap Fuji, We know Kuro was a mob boss. Stop trying to paint him as a saint and get on with whatever you came here to say” I said curtly.

Fuji’s face flushed in anger and embarrassment for a moment before he regained his composure.

“You’re still interested in finding out who killed him despite all that?” he asked.

“That’s why we’re here” I said dryly as I waited for him to actually give me a useful piece of information.

“There are two people in this town who are responsible for my Uncle’s death. Boss Renji and that old hag Matsumoto”, he said.

“Do you have any evidence for that?” I asked.

“No, but they’re the ones behind this” he insisted.

“Are either of them ninjas capable of murdering your uncle?” I asked.

“No,” he replied.

“Then how can you be so certain that they were the ones who murdered your uncle?” I asked.

“Boss Renji is certainly rich enough to hire ninjas to do the job. I believe that he has a few in his employ already. But, I think that old hag Matsumoto has more to do with my uncle’s death than Renji” he said.

“Why? Is she even more rich and powerful compared to this Renji guy?” I asked.

“No, She’s just the owner of a hostess bar that was nearly bankrupt a couple weeks ago,” he said.

“So, if she’s not as rich nor as powerful as Kuro, why would you suspect her to be the main culprit?” I asked. His arguments weren’t making much sense so far.

“Because, Boss Renji has been trying to get rid of my uncle for the last 20 years and I doubt that he was somehow able to pull it off last week when his organisation had been at its weakest in two decades. Not without some outside help. That’s where Matsumoto comes in. About 3 weeks ago, I was mistreated at Sin’s den, the hostess bar owned by Matsumoto and my uncle was going to make her pay for insulting our family. My uncle would have taken over her business had he been alive for two more days. Just as Matsumoto’s deadline was about to expire, my uncle got killed. That’s too much of a coincidence. I know that old hag may look weak from the outside, but she’s been in this town for ages and has connections. She must have called in some favour to make this happen” he said.

“What exactly were you doing at Sin’s den before you were mistreated?” I asked.

“Nothing, I was just there with a friend and they just started accosting me.” he said far too quickly. That was definitely a lie.

“Putting that aside, your theory is that an impoverished brothel owner and a mob boss who wasn’t able to get rid of your uncle for 20 years joined forces and took him out by calling in a favour from a mysterious benefactor. That about sums it up?” I asked.

“I know that you think it’s ridiculous, but there’s something you don’t know about how my Uncle’s body looked when he was first found,” he said.

“Were you there when his body was found?” I asked. If he’d actually seen the body, that information was much more useful than his ramblings so far. I wished he’d led with that first.

“No, I wasn’t there when the body was found. But, soon after my uncle was killed, his office was attacked and his safe stolen. One of the guards, in the course of fighting the assailants, barricaded himself in my uncle’s office before being forced to make a hasty exit through the window. He saw the state my uncle’s body was in. He was probably the first one to see him after he was killed”, he said.

“Wait. The robbery happened after Kuro was killed?” I asked. He scoffed before answering.

“The police probably told you that my uncle was killed in a robbery attempt. That’s a bald faced lie. My uncle was dead before the rather noisy and public attack on his office to take his safe. I have no doubts that Boss Renji was behind the robbery, but the assassination was done before that”. He said.

I was silent for a bit as I considered his words. I already knew that the ‘robbery gone bad’ theory put forward by the local police was probably bullshit. Fuji’s information merely corroborated it. What I really needed was any clues that might have been left behind on his body. I could care less about which rival boss or brothel owner had paid to finish off Kuro. This investigation was more about the ninjas who actually carried out the deed and the method they used.

“What was it that the guard found strange about your uncle’s body?” I asked.

“When he was found, he was sitting ramrod straight on the chair. Even though his throat had been cut, his head was held straight as if he was frozen in place.” Fuji said with a pained expression.

I might have given a fuck about his suffering if his sainted uncle hadn’t been a mob boss who had people killed on a regular basis.

“What else?” I prodded further. I had the feeling that he was holding something back.

Fuji seemed to be struggling with himself on whether to share any more information with me. He finally seemed to have reached a conclusion a few moments later as he sighed.

“He was found with his pants down and an erect penis” Fuji said in a rushed, small voice while he avoided eye contact with me. I could now see why he had directected most of the blame towards the brothel owner. There seemed to be a good chance that a working girl might have been involved. Or, the ninjas involved could have disguised themselves.

“You mentioned that Boss Renji had ninjas in his employ and given the fact that you said that your uncle’s organisation had been stronger a week ago, I assume that your uncle employed ninjas as well?” I asked.

He nodded in reply, still not quite looking me in the eyes.

“Do you know if he employed sensory ninjas to guard his office?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

That could rule out certain possibilities.

“Is it possible for me to speak to this guard who found your uncle’s body?” I asked.

“No, he left town like a lot of his other guards after boss Renji took over. I don’t have any way to contact him” he said.

Daamn. First hand account would have been better, but it seemed that that wouldn’t be available in this case.

“Is there anything else you want to tell me?” I asked.

He shook his head in reply.

“Okay, you can leave now. And you better lay low for a while. Break this talisman if you want to contact us again” I said as I handed him a basic signalling talisman. We would need to verify the validity of his information before we acted on it, but it did give us a starting point.

He nodded and turned before stopping and turning back to face me once more.

“I know that you and almost everyone in this town probably thinks that my uncle deserved what happened to him. But, at least for us, his family, he was a good man. Please find out the people responsible for this and bring them to justice”, he said.

I nodded to him before he turned and walked away.

I guess it’s true what they say ‘every man thinks his geese swans’.