First mission Part 6

They finished planning and began resting, waiting for the night to begin their operation.

Panda, Katsuo, and Maki were still up, as the first two didn't need sleep and the last two were whispering to each other.

"How confident are you in the plan, Katsuo?"

Katsuo looked at Maki and slowly said.

"There are too many unknown variables for me to say that I'm confident, but I'm going to do my best either way."

Maki heard him and nodded her head. She thought Katsuo was very reliable.

"Don't worry, Katsuo. This is the best plan we can come up to right now and we are all strong so trust us as we trust you."

They were silent until Maki fell asleep.

A few hours passed, it was already night and everyone woke up.

Katsuo picked the hand mirror he borrowed from one of the mean girls and started manipulated his CE, transferring it to the mirror.

The mirror quickly darkened and soon had a pitch-black reflective surface.

Katsuo closely observed the process to learn something from it, after all, this action had to count as training so that his Binding Vow could be maintained.

That's also the logic that he uses to keep the [Reverse Curse Technique] always running, even in battle, but he could feel that just that "trick" is already straining his Binding Vow, so Katsuo didn't try to further push his luck with other "tricks".

Katsuo examined his temporary creation.

The black hand mirror didn't have any special techniques, after all, it was just an object saturated with CE, but it could harm weak cursed spirits if they are hit with it.

He gave the mirror to Toge, who was Masao's substitute due to their similar height, and used his inner sweater to make two makeshift masks, one for Masao and one for Toge, and explained why.

"He might know that the mirror has bound to someone, so the disguise will create some confusion, and if he doesn't, it will not create suspicion, after all, there all kinds of conditions to activate innate techniques."

"Shake!"

They agreed and officially began the execution of their plan.

They separated into two teams, the "real" team was Katsuo and Masao and the decoy team was Panda, Maki, and Toge.

The decoy team started running at their highest speed, while the "real" team waited for a few minutes. Then, Katsuo rushed out at break-neck speeds tolerable to Masao who was clinging to his back, while hiding when he sensed some sorcerer nearby.

Toge occasionally and "naturally" showed a glimpse of the fake cursed mirror at his waist while they were running, and soon they had a guy on their tail.

That sorcerer pressed and activated an app on his smartphone and, gradually, the decoy team gained more and more tails, even Shikamaru and his colleagues joined in.

Shikamaru noticed how the cursed corpse manipulator was missing but the cursed corpse was here.

He became interested. Was the cursed corpse or the sorcerer that was special? If it was the cursed corpse, he had to bring it back if he saw that it would be useful. He ordered two of the sorcerers to track their path back to where they hid and to notify him as soon as they did or if they found someone.

This made it seem like he had some kind of authority over them, and looking closely, seeing as most of the sorcerers present had subtly altered their position to become easier to defend him, it looked like they saw him as someone important and this implied that they belonged to an organized organization.

The chase continued for some time but the TJH sorcerers were forced to stop in the middle of the street and dodge after realizing that they were surrounded, at the ground and roof level, and CE-based attacks were being sent their way from the roof.

A burly, bald male sorcerer, who was in the roof, leaned forward.

"Kids, give us the mirror and the cursed corpse and no one will get hurt."

Maki tightened her grip over her weapon and said.

"Get you and your third-rate villain lines out of here!"

"You want me~, but I don't like you! If you force me I will scream like this. (girly voice) Yiaa~"

Exclaimed Panda while striking a maiden pose.

Toge, who was masked, only nodded.

Some of the sorcerers around snickered and the man's face darkened, it seems that he wasn't very liked.

He glanced at Shikamaru, who nodded at him from the back, and he said.

"Capture them, don't destroy the mirror or the cursed corpse."

The close-combat sorcerers on the ground initiated the fight while systematic non-lethal attacks came from the rooftop.

Maki, while dodging and parrying the ranged attacks with her cursed naginata, also kept at bay the sorcerers who came looking for a physical fight, and Panda, with his body, protected Toge from those weak attacks, giving the opponents a show of protecting the disguised Toge.

The fight becomes one of attrition, designed to wear down the three sorcerer students.

Ten minutes passed and the fight, if it could be called one, was still going on.

Suddenly a stronger attack came in Toge's direction. He managed to evade it, but it tore through his mask.

Maki, thinking that enough time must have passed for Katsuo to arrive and Toge would join their fight, now that he didn't need to keep his identity a secret, continued fighting and lunged at them without excitation while saying.

"It's too late, you bastards!! We won!"

Shikamaru, who witness all that happened and received information from his subordinates until now, closed his eyes, started analyzing, and quickly reached some conclusions. He, with experient hands, took a pen and a paper from his pocket and wrote something in it.

If Katsuo knew his conclusions he would have realized that he had underestimated Shikamaru's intelligence.

Shikamaru looked at the filled paper and activated his innate technique, his sclera and pupils became a void-like pitch black with a white spark in the middle.

Half-Hour Earlier

Shikamaru' sosia was in a warehouse with three of his earlier associates, the telepathic woman and the two middle-rangers, the marksman and the one with movement restraining eyes.

They were waiting for news from their searching colleagues.

Suddenly, Shikamaru's look-alike eyes glowed white, and he saw a written paper, which he read without hesitation or confusion.

After understanding the content, he looked pensive for a moment before he grabbed the woman's hand.

She, understanding his intentions, activated her innate technique and started broadcasting his current thoughts to everyone she tagged before.

"The mirror has probably bound with someone and is being protected by the tall man with red eyes and black hair. Their position is around XXX. Soon, two people and one cursed corpse will exit that location, I want five of you to harass them and force them to run without stopping or turning a while after they leave it, also try to capture the cursed corpse."

The Shikamaru sosia stood up and started walking.

"Let's go, the mirror is practically in our hands."

""As you order!!""

(AN: So, the romance is steadily advancing, a baby step each chapter for now.

What do you think of Shikamaru's sosia innate technique? It's broken, right?

I thought a lot until I made a plot I was satisfied with, as I'm making this ff on the fly, chapter by chapter.

An unknown hidden organization is gradually being shown, my trump card against the manga slow story progression.

This chapter was a little confusing so for those that didn't understand, basically, their plan backfired and gave Shikamaru the necessary information to make some conclusions.)