Chapter 16.1- One Thousand Hands

“Well, what we have to do is simple. We go back to the village and try to figure out what’s going on?”

“The same village that the Mayor basically banished us from?”

“Yes, the very same. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Just making sure that we have the same things in mind”

“Well, while we were walking through, I and Uzume noticed a few things” Shika continued.

“Like what? The general poverty of the people? I think we all noticed that.”

“But did you notice how all the women without children seemed devastated, and how the ones with male children were watching their babies like hawks?”

“No. No I didn’t.”

“Of course. What I think is that no one has been returned, but the Mayor has somehow been threatened by those who took the kids in the first place into keeping his silence. If my suspicions are right, then they realised we were coming sometime after the mission had reached Konoha and it was too late to retract it, so the Mayor was under pressure to send us away without any investigations, or at best leading us to a false trail” She continued.

I nodded at her words, seeing the logic in them. “That explains the relief, at least”

“What?”

“The relief. He felt relieved when you asked us to leave. Like a lot of relief. I thought it was just because he was an arsehole, but to be honest the emotion that would have made the most sense in that situation was victory or triumph, and not relief like a blade was suddenly taken off his neck.” I explained.

“Alright then. Change of plans. Toshiro and I will look into investigating the mothers and the missing kids. You and Uzume will look into the Mayor. Please don’t kill the man or anything. We still need him” At that last part, Shika turned to me with a direct look.

I lifted my arms affronted, “What? I don’t go around killing people who piss me off, you know that right?”

“Your impulse control…” Shika started

“Or lack thereof..” Toshiro cut in, earning him a look of betrayal that I’d been practicing in front of the mirror. It screamed ‘Et tu, Brute’ in all the best ways.

“Is quite legendary” She finished.

I just huffed and turned around to head off.

“Let’s go Uzume”

“I don’t answer to you” She said, but still followed at my heels.

“You do now. I’m the leader of this little group of ours.”

“Says who?”

“Shika”

“She never said that”

“Well, she did in the second page of the mission briefing”

“You’re lying”

“Would I ever lie about in a situation so serious with the potential to derail our careers for years if handled irresponsibly?”

“Yes”

“You know what? Valid.” I relented with a smile.

“Let’s just get to that office, I want to see what it was he had in those filing cabinets.”

“The ones at the corner of the office?”

“Yeah, them”

“Why?”

“They had an inordinate level of security for simple file cabinets.”

“Hmm. Never noticed. Was too busy staring at the shirtless woman with the nice-“ I had to dodge out of the way of a rock that flew at my head with a shocking amount of force.