CH_7.27 (245)

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The Hidden Frost army had taken over one of the tourist districts of Yu, forcing the big inns and hotels to accommodate the shinobi as guests for months on end. Most places had shut down and the staff had abandoned their buildings, but some places housing the chunin and jonin were still operating while being paid by wealthy turncoats supporting the shinobi.

Yuriko was part of the housekeeping staff at one of those hotels.

It was dinner time and everyone was either out, or eating at the hotel's restaurant. She arrived in front of a room and looked around the hallway before using the staff key to enter it after confirming that the occupant of the room wasn't in the hotel.

She moved quickly, remembering the instructions she had gotten two days back.

———

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Yuriko gulped as she stared at the bags of flour, pulses, and spices sitting in her living room. She looked across the table at the kid sitting alongside Motohiro. She recognised him from the posters around the city.

"You're... Takuma, right?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am," Takuma replied with a smile. "Has your husband discussed our intentions?"

She looked at Wada, her husband, who worked under Motohiro, the owner of a milling business.

"Yes."

"And what do you think?"

At the start of the week, Wada had brought Motohiro home and they had talked about a job she could do for the resistance. She worked at a hotel with shinobi guests and without saying, she understood that the job was related to it. At first, she was hesitant. She spared no love for the shinobi as life had gotten harder since they had arrived—but her job was important—and not even her husband's displeasure about the job could make her stop working.

They had three children to raise and it took two people's income to do it. Though neither she nor her husband had lost their job, Wada's pay had decreased because of the current hard times as, in an attempt to keep everyone employed, Motohiro reduced everyone's salary so that no one was left behind.

Just entertaining the thought about doing something against shinobi would risk her job—something they couldn't afford. But now as she looked at the food sitting in the corner of her house, the prospect was too attractive to refuse.

"W-What will I have to do?" she asked.

"Nothing too different from your usual responsibilities," said Takuma. "We want you to take out some trash."

———

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Yuriko quickly entered the bedroom and looked for a "go-bag", which according to Takuma was something every self-respecting shinobi worth his salt had always prepared in case they needed to leave their residence with no time to pack a bag.

She carefully went through the bedroom and tried to find anything that looked like a bag of emergency supplies, but couldn't find it. For a moment, she panicked, but took a few deep breaths and moved on to Plan-B, put in place in case she wasn't able to find the go-bag.

The aim of the mission was to make it look like the room's resident left quickly.

Yuriko went through the suite and took all the essentials from a couple sets of clothes to toiletries and put them in her cleaning cart. Given that the occupant was a shinobi, she took the weapons as well, handling them carefully to not injure herself.

And finally, she looked around the room for money made from drug dealing she was told would be hidden in the room.

If it was any place else, she would struggle to find it, but she had been cleaning the same rooms for six years. She knew the hotel rooms better than her own house and quickly found a big stash of hidden money with a stash of drugs. She ignored the drugs and took more than half of the money —Takuma promised her that she would be able to keep a portion of it, so she took more than she was instructed.

After ensuring she hadn't missed, she left, leaving no signs of her presence.

She took a deep breath, feeling confident. If she did this one more time, her family would have the promised food and money, giving them time to relax.

———

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Aranai woke up feeling like a steam engine had crashed into him at full speed. He raised his hand to massage his throbbing forehead but couldn't reach because of the shackles tying his arms, legs, and torso to the wall behind him. Memories and realisation slammed into him like steam engine and he recalled loosing all sensation in his body as he was fucking Chinatsu before someone hit him on his head.

"That bitch!"

He looked around the barren room with jute bags piled up in the corner and saw sunlight streaming through a window with steel bars. He tried to get up but the chain length didn't even let him do that. He tried to force the chains off the wall, but he had no strength. He couldn't even bring his hands together to form hand seals, but that wasn't the biggest problem—he couldn't mix chakra. Which was when he noticed the fuinjutsu seals running all around his body.

Prisoner seals, he thought—he felt a chill go down his spine.

Captured in an unknown place, his movement restrained, and without access to his chakra—he was in the worst position possible. He didn't know how long he had been out, or if he was in Yu, or who had captured him. From the sunlight outside, it had been at least one night, but as all the unknowns kept piling up, the fear only grew.

He heard the faint sound of footsteps and looked at the heavy double doors with a panicked look and closed his eyes, pretending to be unconscious.

The door opened and Anko entered the room with a bucket; she walked to the tap in the corner of the room and started to fill it up. The screech of metal against the floor stabbed the ears as Takuma dragged a metal table along with an assortment of stuff into the room.

She walked toward Aranai with the bucket with water sloshing out of the rim, falling to the floor. "Pretending to be asleep, are we now?" she chuckled as she raised the bucket and threw the water in his face.

Even though he guessed it by the sounds, he had his eyes closed and the cold water hitting his face startled him enough to stop his breath for a moment. His eyes snapped open as he jerked the chains loudly. He opened his eyes to see one of Chinatsu's handmaids before him, smirking down at him.

"You! Do you know what you have done!? I'm a chunin from the Hidden Frost! They'll be looking for me by now!" he yelled at her, hoping to intimidate her. "You're finished! You doomed everyone you involved in this shit! They'll hang your corpse for everyone to see!"

Takuma came forward holding a folding chair. Aranai, seeing him for the first time, froze up, remembering the posters that had been put up around the city. The entire army was mandated to memorise the details on the poster.

"Y-You're Takuma," he said.

"I am," Takuma said as he placed the chair behind Anko. "Let's be real here for a second. Do you think the Hidden Leaf will ever be scared of the Hidden Frost?"

Aranai glared at him, but couldn't deny the words. He didn't know where the information came from, but the jonin confirmed that Takuma was from the Hidden Leaf. Even though they weren't in the Land of Frost, their home ground, they had complete control over Yu—but as he stared at Takuma, he was reminded of the Hidden Leaf, the stories he had heard, and the shinobi he had come across.

Maybe he wouldn't be rescued after all.

"Now we can do the easy way or the hard way," said Anko, making him scoff. She paused to smile before continuing. "Here's how the situation is looking for you on the outside. The drugs you sold to your comrades were poisoned—"

"Faulty," he barked.

Her smile broadened. "Poisoned, my dear. If your iryo-nin are any good, they'll find the cause, which will definitely be poison." Aranai felt something in his stomach sink. She continued, "Once they know that, they'll look at the suppliers—you and the Goharu Family. The Goharu Family will be there, but they'll find you missing, and I don't need to tell you how that looks."

Aranai stared into her eyes, trying to see if she was lying. If the pleased and amused look was any indication, she wasn't lying, which set heart beating faster. He had already sent bricks of drugs back home and if they were poisoned, and the blame was falling on him, then he was as good as dead, doomed beyond any chance of help.

"Not to mention, when they search your room. They're going to find a lot of things missing... as if you had packed up a bag and ran away," said Takuma. "We've also taken that stash of money... the one behind the wardrobe? I think we'll buy some drinks with it, so thanks."

That was the breaking point. "You s-set me up," he said, unable to hide the crack in his voice. If his own people turned against him, then no one was looking for him—no that was wrong, they would still be looking for him, so they could punish him for his crimes. Even if he managed to escape on his own, there was no guarantee they would believe him unless he brought them the concrete truth.

"Here's the proposition," said Anko. "Cooperate with us, answer our questions, and you'll find your time with us peaceful and comfortable."

"...You're never going to let me leave... you can't," said Aranai. Letting him leave had no incentive for them; he grasped that the group was operating in Yu undercover and the moment they let him go, they'd be revealing their true identities to the enemy.

"Ah, you misunderstood my words, Aranai," said Anko, leaning close enough that he could feel her breath on his face. "I'm not promising freedom... I'm promising you the absence of pain. Cooperate and we won't touch you. You'll get ample food and water, and creature comforts will increase the more information you provide us with. It's a simple contract of give-and-take."

Torture, thought Aranai, fearfully. He wasn't surprised given that he was captured for information, but facing the prospect of it so directly was an entirely different experience. He didn't know what they would do to him except that it would bring him a whole load of pain.

"Your subordinate, Ryoya, refused to take our offer, so we gave him a taste of our treatment," Takuma said as he rubbed his knuckles. "We spent the night spilling blood, sweat, and tears together—though the blood and tears were all from him. We gave him a rest by coming here so I think he'll be interested in our proposition once we get back to him.

"What about you? Do you want to experience what you'll be missing out on if you accept our proposition or would you like to skip it?"

Aranai's heart was pounding but he was starting to calm down, and with it, his reasoning. Ryoya's capture meant when their comrades started searching for them, they would go to Chinatsu because it wasn't a secret that he was meeting her and his other two subordinates knew that he was taking Ryoya along with him.

"...I will cooperate," he said.

Chinatsu and her handmaidens, who he suspected were all shinobi, would be interrogated. Given that they were the last point of contact, they would be interrogated heavily, and there was a real chance of some sort of slip-up that aroused suspicion.

He was counting on that.

Next was the poisoned drugs. He had betrayed his allies so his motives would be questioned—why did he poison the drugs? To answer that question, the resistance groups in the city would be targeted to find a link. He refused to believe that his captors had managed to keep their presence limited to themselves and only themselves; it was foolish to do so—the local support was essential for optimum effectiveness. He expected for someone to screw up or willingly open their mouths. Once that happened, the search radius would become narrower, and his chances of being rescued would increase.

Aranai looked up at them, hiding his thoughts.

"I will tell you everything I know."

According to his estimates, he just needed to stall for two to three days. Yu was completely closed-off and they had enough manpower to comb through the city for clues. Aranai had enough non-critical material to stall for that amount of time.

If help didn't come by then... Well, he would cross that bridge when the time came.

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The link is in the synopsis!