Operation Shark Fin Soup

Quickly Rich Casino operated twenty-four seven and, as it was Kazu's base of operations, was constantly under guard. From what Reiko could determine, the gang had two twelve-hour shifts: Twenty men at day, and nineteen at night. There should have been a twentieth man on the night shift, but with his passing, they had been left one man short — their strongest man, no less.

Kazu seemed to be spending the night partying and drinking out in the city. He was away from the casino, and that was all that mattered. If that was what he usually did, or if he would return to the casino later in the night, Reiko neither knew nor cared.

He was now on a race against the clock. It was only a matter of time before Kazu and his gang noticed Chakra Thug's disappearance, at which point security would be tightened, Kazu's guard would be raised, and the gang would come knocking on Lady Nyoko's door searching for answers. Reiko did not have the luxury of taking his time scoping out the casino, tracking the gang members' patterns, and the like; he had to act immediately.

It may have been reckless, but the element of surprise was not an advantage Reiko could squander if he wanted a hope of defeating a shinobi potentially stronger than himself.

Reiko had considered various plans of action, but it always boiled down to one underlying issue: civilians. Kazu was a man who operated in the light without fear of the law, which meant innocents crowded nearly every aspect of his day-to-day life, be it at the casino or at a bar. At this moment, it was no different.

Reiko could not openly stride into the casino and slaughter the gang members; there were far too many clueless civilians present who would flee in terror. If the corrupt Leaf shinobi were to be alerted of his actions, it was all over. It was a game over scenario that had to be avoided at all costs, which meant he had to remain clandestine in every aspect of the operation.

Reiko had decided on a three-part plan:

Part one was to infiltrate the casino and seize the list of names while keeping the gang none the wiser. It was crucial that this be executed first. He feared that if he targeted Kazu first and word got out to the gang or one of the corrupt shinobi, the list would be destroyed before he could get to it.

Part two was to ambush and assassinate Kazu in as remote a location as possible, which may just end up being a moderately-populated road if his luck was poor.

Part three was to run like hell and flee back to Konoha. Presently, he was not strong enough to confront the Leaf shinobi alone. It would be suicidal and moronic.

He named it 'Operation Shark Fin Soup.'

~~~

In the darkness of the night, Reiko casually approached the rear entrance of Quickly Rich Casino. The two men standing watch at either side of the door promptly stood up straight — a hint of fear could be seen on their faces.

"W-Welcome back, sir," one of the men said, his eyes fixed on the air in front of him, refusing to make eye contact.

Reiko, transformed into the form of Chakra Thug, glared at the man like he wanted to murder him. The guard visibly flinched and said nothing else, deciding instead to mind his own business. The other guard quickly chose to do the same.

The logic was simple: Transform into Chakra Thug, act like you were pissed off at the world, and people would naturally leave you alone. The more Reiko interacted with the gang members, the more liable he was to expose himself, so it was better to not interact with them at all.

He had considered sneaking in, but with there being so many people in the casino and his [Stealth] Skill at a lowly Level 2, he decided against it. One of the benefits of using the transformation jutsu against normal people, assuming it was decently accurate, was that they were incapable of seeing through it.

Reiko aggressively shoved open the metal door — which earned a small jump of fright from the two guards — and let himself inside the casino's back-of-house. He arrived at a three-way junction. The hall stretched out in both directions, and its walls were lined with doors to staff rooms and decorative pots filled with flowers.

Reiko carefully looked in either direction. He knew exactly where the office was; he'd spotted it through one of the second floor windows during his brief reconnaissance of the place. He would have climbed through had it not been locked from the inside. It only made the task at hand a bit more difficult.

Reiko decisively turned left and made his way down the hall. After locating some stairs, he moved up to the second floor. He had passed a few gang members on the way, but seeing the face of unbridled rage that he held, they all did their best to avoid him.

'It should be over here.'

Reiko turned a corner and faced a smooth chestnut door. The door had a silver nameplate, but the nameplate had oddly been left blank.

Reiko came up to the door and fished a small bronze key out of his pocket. He had picked it off of the late Chakra Thug among cash and other items. He inserted the key into the door's lock and turned it. There was a small click. He entered the office and locked the door behind him.

The office was spacious and had a carpet of red velvet. A pair of fine white sofas sat across from each other with a table in between covered in empty mugs, playing dice, and cash. It seemed to be a place where the gang's high rollers hung out more so than a personal office.

Reiko's eyes froze on the cash, but he restrained the greed within himself. He could do nothing to risk blowing the operation, even something as unlikely as someone discovering that the cash had been stolen. He briskly walked past the sofas and towards the beautifully carved desk in the back of the office.

Reiko glided his hand across the desk's smooth surface as he circled it. For the mayhem that had been made of the table, the desk was kept surprisingly spotless.

Reiko quickly sifted through its drawers. There was blank paper, writing supplies, scrolls, and trinkets stored about, but none of it was what Reiko was searching for.

'Come on, come on. Where it is?'

Reiko peered under the desk and chair and then began to double back on the drawers. He had to have missed it; there was no other place it could have been. In the middle of his frantic search, he froze. It was as though the answer had hit him in the head with a hammer.

'A false bottom?' Reiko carefully moved from one drawer to another, softly knocking on the bottom of each, and then on the third, he stopped.

'It's hollow…' Reiko felt a wave of relief wash over him, but he couldn't celebrate yet.

He used his fingernails to pry open the drawer's false bottom, and inside, he found exactly what he came looking for.

Reiko plucked the note from within and ran his gaze over it. There were dozens of names listed alongside their occupation and position in the organization, as well as the amount they were due to be paid. And at the bottom were five names, each designated in bold letters as 'LEAF.'

Although he didn't recognize any of the names, he had still achieved his aim of seizing the list. Now he simply needed to escape the casino and the first part of 'Operation Shark Fin Soup' would be considered a success.

Reiko began to stand.

There was the sound of a lock clicking, and the office door swung open.

Reiko quickly ducked and concealed himself behind the desk.

"—So then I set her cat on fire," a male voice said.

Another responded, "Woah, so what'd she do?"

"She picked him up and threw him in the sink. The sink! It wasn't even filled with water. She just started washing him off like he was a vegetable or something."

Reiko quietly dispelled his transformation. One of the downsides of impersonating Chakra Thug was that his equipment would be inaccessible, and it would have been too suspicious for his thigh pouch to be included in the transformation; it was not a part of Chakra Thug's apparel.

Reiko peeked around the corner of the desk. The two men were sitting on the sofas across from each other and gambling with the dice on the table. Considering that they had access to the office, it was likely that they were 'higher-ups' among Kazu's organization.

There was no route out of the office he could take without alerting the men, which meant that he would have to silently deal with them and hope that no one found them after. He would do his best to hide the bodies.

The sofas were parallel to the desk, meaning while one of the men was turned away from Reiko, the other was facing his direction. Once he revealed himself, he would have to act fast enough that the man facing his direction would not be able to react and alert the rest of the casino.

Reiko readied a kunai in his right hand and slowed his breathing. He would need focus and precision for it to go smoothly.

"Booyah! Snake eyes!"

"That's cheating. You're not allowed to drop the dice so close to the table."

Reiko made his move.

"Don't be such a sore—" The man's eyes widened, but before he could say anything, a kunai lodged itself in his windpipe, severing his means of vocalization.

Reiko dashed forward and yanked a spool of ninja wire from his pouch, deftly wrapping it around the knuckles on each of his hands.

The other man's brain was in the process of unraveling what it had witnessed when something tightened around his throat. A great force pulled him over the back of the sofa and onto the carpet. Laying on the floor, he desperately clutched at the wire around his neck and clawed at the person behind him, but with his strength faltering and vision wavering, he succumbed to the strangulation and stilled.

Reiko moved quickly to hide the other body behind the sofa alongside his companion. It was a terrible hiding place, but he would have to hope for the best because there were no better options available. All he could do was minimize the odds of his infiltration being discovered.

For the same reason, he did his best to limit the amount of blood spilled during the altercation. He made sure to remove the kunai from the man's throat only when his corpse had been hidden behind the couch. Using his sleeve, he wiped the droplets of blood off of the table, but there was nothing he could do about the sofa's fresh red stains.

~~~

[You have killed "Kazu's Operations Manager." Reward: 40 XP.]

[You have killed "Kazu's Chief Interrogator." Reward: 40 XP.]