Naruto: The Outsider's Resolve: CH_573: Good Ol' Spywork (Patreon)

Tern straightened her back, reaffirming her control over her chakra masking. Hayato was a sensory-nin, and she wanted to come off as at most a genin, not someone with trained chakra reserves like most chūnin.

Both Watari and Hayato were busy welcoming other guests, so another core member of Kikyo received them. As Kurosawa chatted with him, she stood by the side, and the moment Hayato became free, she very naturally turned towards him. She immediately caught his eye as they stared at each other across the carpet.

He smiled while making no attempt to hide that he was checking her out. He was a handsome man with a type of self-confidence that was attractive. She smiled back, making conscious, subtle moves to show off her dress and body, and he seemed to appreciate it as she felt his eyes on her. And then, he stepped forward, intending to walk towards her, when more guests were sent his way, and he had to welcome them.

Distracted, Hayato looked away from the guests to find her gone. He looked around and spotted her walking into the main tower.

Tern turned around at that exact moment and smirked at him, having caught him staring. She turned forward once again, and knowing he was looking, she put a little sway in her hips.

Not hearing a word the guests talking to him were saying, Hayato took a deep breath with a glint of desire in his eyes.

———

.

Tern was waiting inside the main tower when Kurosawa arrived after doing some networking with Kikyo’s people and other guests.

“I saw that; good job,” he said.

“I thought that went well too,” she replied—but that was the easiest part of the plan.

Ono Hayato was an infamous womaniser who just couldn’t keep his hands to himself, and it had cost him his career as a shinobi. Hayato had once been a Leaf shinobi, and being a sensory-nin, he was treated well in return for being stationed at the River-Fire border for most of his career. He had shown talent as a sensory-nin and was progressing promisingly overall, and he would’ve had a relatively easy career path if not for his tendencies.

Everyone who knew Hayato was aware that he loved the ladies and they loved him—well, that is, he slept with them until he was bored and then dumped them. Despite his reputation, he was still able to charm the ladies, and many admired him for that. However, they knew him to be smart as well, so people warned him not to eye the beautiful wife of the new station head when they saw him talking and laughing with her.

He didn’t listen and was caught in her bed two months later.

The station head didn’t transfer Hayato out. Instead, he put him on the permanent night shift. His every mistake was recorded, and his salary was docked every month. His requests for leave were rejected. Anyone who associated with him was given difficult and unpopular responsibilities until they got the message and stopped talking to him. The station head would berate him every time they crossed paths and regularly used him as a sparring partner. When Hayato requested a voluntary transfer, his requests were rejected. That continued for three years until Hayato’s genin contract ran out and the Hidden Leaf didn’t offer him an extension.

At twenty-one years old, he was no longer a Leaf shinobi.

“But you can’t make it easy for him,” Kurosawa said. “It’s the game or the thrill of it that he likes. He needs to feel you aren’t an easy catch, even if what he truly wants is quick gratification.”

“We need to give Ratel time as well,” Tern said.

The offices of the top leadership were bound to be protected. To breach those protections, Ratel would have to use jutsu and chakra. They didn’t want Kikyo to be alerted to any such attempts via Hayato, which was why it was imperative that Tern was there to distract him from sensing anything.

The timing of it all was important.

———

.

It had been an hour and a half since Takuma had snuck into the main tower. He had bounced between different staff responsibilities—mostly cleaning—that took him all over the three floors of the party—ground, first, and second. Even though he had memorised the castle’s blueprint, actually walking the building familiarised him with what he had seen in the architectural drawings.

Takuma dragged a broom in the corner, looking inconspicuous to the guests, who didn’t even spare a glance in his direction. He subtly looked up at the end of the hallway, where the service staircase for the workers and staff lay open with two guards chatting. There were three staircases in total in the castle—one main and two service. The main staircase had too many eyes and too much security. There were dumbwaiters that went to the higher floors, but there were far too many eyes on them, and they were in constant use to shuttle food and drinks from the kitchen.

That left the service staircases as the only viable option.

Knocking out the two guards blocking access to the third floor and beyond would be easy, but that would leave him to hide their bodies, and their absence might alert some people.

Fortunately, he had already thought of a way to bypass them.

He leaned the broom against his body and wove an unorthodox string of hand seals before once again picking up his broom and walking towards them. He swept the stiff bristle brush against the floor in a looping rhythm, creating repeating scraping sounds that reached the guards’ ears, which they ignored while chatting about the people on the guest list and rumours about them.

Takuma stood beside the entrance and swept near the door one last time.

Crash! The guards jumped to their feet as they heard the loud sound of things falling from around the corner. It was loud enough that they immediately jogged towards the sound despite their duties. They completely ignored Takuma, leaving their post open.

To their utter surprise, they couldn’t find anything broken no matter where they looked. Eventually, they returned to their post.

“Huh, who left that here?” one of them said, grabbing the wooden broom leaning next to the door.

———

.

Takuma skipped the third floor and reached the fourth floor, where Watari’s office was. The floor was completely devoid of any presence, and it took some effort to deaden his footsteps as he slowly walked through the hallways.

He noticed how different the interior decorations were from the party floors, which seemed to have been specially decorated so the visitors would think that Watari and Kikyo were well-off in the eyes of inner-city natives, though it only made them look similar to everyone else. The fourth floor, on the other hand, had a personal touch. He recognised chipped ceramic vases from the Land of Wind, various traditional, beautifully patterned fabrics from the Land of Rain showcased behind glass panels, different types of kunai from various hidden villages, a full but damaged set of samurai armour from the Land of Iron, a puppet from the Hidden Sand, and dozens of forehead protector plates from six different hidden villages all attached to a huge board, among many other things.

Takuma realised he was walking through the history of Kikyo. They had been in the business for a very long time and were active during the Third Shinobi World War, during which they had been in high demand, undertaking a dozen or so very high-profile missions through the years the war was waged—some of them even issued by the Hidden Leaf.

“There you are,” Takuma said as he stood before a pair of large double doors made from a heavy wood that had coiling dragons carved into it.

It was Kyohei Watari’s office. If there was anything to be learned about Kikyo’s connection to the Hidden Sand or Orochimaru, it was going to be inside the head’s office.

He fetched a small watch from his clothes and noted the time. The party below would be in full swing; all the guests should’ve arrived, the liquor and food would be flowing, and the various musical and performance acts on all the floors would be performing while the people mingled with each other.

Takuma turned away from the double doors and looked out through the window for a moment before fishing out a mini-scroll that held his lock-picking tools and stepping close to the double doors.

It was time to go inside.

He just hoped that Tern had done her part. Otherwise, things could turn ugly very quickly.

———

.

“There you are.”

Tern, who was standing in the middle of one of the many rooms in the main tower, put a smile on her face before she turned to face Hayato.

“Yes, I’m here,” she said.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere, but I guess we missed each other until now.”

“You must not have been looking hard enough,” Tern smirked. She had purposefully hidden from him while also briefly lingering near him, never acknowledging him and then disappearing before he got the chance to approach her. Her mystery grew in his mind, making her more attractive in his eyes.

It ensured that he would beeline for her when she gave him a chance—which was now. Right about now, Ratel ideally would be preparing to sneak onto the restricted floors, higher in the castle.

“So, who did you come with?” Hayato asked.

Tern stared into his light amber eyes. As she looked at him, she could see why many women liked him. His gaze made it feel like he was paying complete attention to whatever she was saying. He was also tall and stood just a hair closer than most people would, taking up more space in her vision. Both things made it feel like they were the only two people in the crowded room, in the middle of a party.

“Why? Wondering if you can afford to risk offending them?” Tern asked provocatively. She raised her hand and pressed a finger into his chest. “If you want to know that, maybe we shouldn’t be getting to know each other.”

“Not at all. I just want to know more about you,” Hayato said, gently sliding a finger down the length of her forearm with a feather-light touch. “I want to learn everything about you.”

Tern felt like barfing, but she just put on a teasing smile. “At least get the lady a drink first. Gosh, why are all you men so eager?”

“You have to be proactive with what you want,” Hayato said. “What would you like to drink?”

“Surprise me.”

Hayato stepped out of the room to get them a drink.

Tern secretly fished a small capsule from her purse and put it in her mouth. It was a drug that dulled a sensory-nin’s senses—a creation from the folks at R&D. It was fast-acting, only taking ten minutes to take effect after ingestion.

A few minutes later, Hayato returned with two drinks in his hands. “I was worried that you’d disappear again, or worse, that your partner would be with you. If it were me, I couldn’t have borne parting from you,” he said.

“You’ve got a sweet tongue, don’t you?” Tern said, receiving a martini glass with a peach-coloured cocktail in it. “As for my partner, you don’t have to worry about him. He’s busy playing cards in that room in the back.”

“You like cards?”

“I play the man, not the cards. And let’s just say, I don’t need cards when I want to play the man.”

Hayato had reacted well to her confidence, so she leaned into it. She glanced at his glass of whisky and then looked at her cocktail. As she brought the V-shaped glass to her lips, she bit the capsule to break the outer layer and secretly dumped the contents into the glass after taking a sip, all the while staring into his eyes so he would focus on her gaze and not on the glass.

Then, she pressed her lips to the rim of the glass, leaving a red lipstick mark clearly visible on it.

“I think that suits me more,” Tern said, exchanging their glasses. She took two sips of his whisky before shooting the rest down without a change in expression, even as the liquid gold burned down her throat.

“You know, maybe this suits me more,” Hayato said, raising the martini glass, turning it so he put his lips right on the lipstick mark. And then, without suspecting anything, he drank the whole thing.

“Was it yummy?” Tern asked.

“Extremely.”

“I’m glad,” she said and gave him her first genuine smile.

———

.

Hayato had thought the anniversary celebration was going to be a dull event. Watari wanted to assimilate with the inner-city elites, which meant catering to their tastes instead of celebrating Kikyo and what made them who they were.

“Keep your dick to yourself, Hayato,” Watari had said to him the day before the event.

Of course, Hayato knew the importance of the event and wasn’t going to jeopardise Kikyo, despite knowing it would have been an absolute thrill to seduce a noble’s wife or daughter and bed her.

But then, he found a fiery woman who was flirting with him from the moment their eyes met. He couldn’t resist that. She was also dressed in a way that he liked, and that made him confident that he would score if he played a little; there was no way one of those important court nobles would let their wives or daughters dress like that.

The day seemed to be saved as he found himself enjoying the event. It made the two hours of greeting and entertaining boring old geezers worth it.

The crazy part was that he didn’t even know her name yet.

“Two whiskies, neat.” Hayato was at the bar, ordering more drinks for them, when he suddenly frowned and looked south. He could feel large chakra signatures from a distance outside the Hewn Stone Estate. A few seconds later, he felt another signature. By the time his drinks were ready, he could feel three massive chakra signatures.

Something felt strange, but he chalked it up to the higher-than-normal density of chakra users—samurai and shinobi—present at the party. Several people trained in chakra, when gathered together, were problematic for sensory-nin as their chakra senses were overwhelmed. It was something sensory-nin had to learn to work through—but still, places like the Hidden Leaf Village and the Ember Imperial City were difficult because strong signals were present in all directions.

He picked up the drinks and immediately found Watari, who was chatting with some bigwigs.

“Are you sure it’s wise for you to be drinking?” Watari said the moment he saw Hayato, frowning.

“You said nothing about not drinking,” Hayato complained, momentarily forgetting what he had come to say.

“Yes, but drinking loosens your inhibitions,” Watari said.

Hayato rolled his eyes. “I’ll be fine—”

“You have two glasses. I hope it’s not for a woman.”

“Listen, I felt strong chakra signatures just outside the property,” Hayato quickly said, changing the subject. “They feel strong, like someone is using strong jutsu. But they are coming from the outside, so I’m not sure it has anything to do with us.”

Watari fell silent for a moment. “Let’s inform the city patrol about it and have them take a look at it. We can send some of our own to do a sweep of the neighbourhood,” he said.

“Good, you take care of that,” Hayato said and then immediately walked away, ignoring both Watari calling for him and the chakra signatures in the distance.

He was more interested in his lady friend.

———

.

Roughly a hundred metres outside the Hewn Stone Estate, a clone of Takuma dressed in a beige cloak jogged beside the road. His skin was charcoal black as Earth Release: Earth Spear coursed through his body; he pumped increased levels of chakra through it, as he would when anticipating a strong attack, because it would make him stand out even more.

He looked at the Hewn Stone Estate in the distance. A sensory-nin was inside who needed to be distracted. Three of the four clones had the duty of throwing out enough chakra to stand out.

The fourth conserved chakra, just in case the original inside the castle needed it in a worst-case scenario. Of course, splitting chakra into clones made the original stand out less because he carried only six per cent of his chakra around.

The plan was to dull the senses and then throw up a strong chakra signature that couldn’t be ignored. Combined with a few high-ranking samurai on the guest list who would be bright bulbs on a sensory-nin’s radar, this hopefully meant that Kikyo’s sensory-nin would miss the unique chakra coming from a couple of floors above him.

They could only hope the drug was strong enough, because they hadn’t had time to test it.

“… I wonder if he’s having fun.”

———

.

The lock mechanism clicked open, and Takuma walked into Watari’s office, closing the door behind him and putting his tools back into his pocket. The office was like many others he had seen—heavy, luxurious furniture; ample wood; tons of books on shelves that almost touched the ceiling; decorations that matched the corridor outside; and a few other knick-knacks.

The first thing that stood out was the taxidermied heads of various animals high up on the walls.

“I guess the thing about him training to be a hunter was the truth,” Takuma said to himself.

He scanned the office and immediately started thinking about where the important documents could be. He didn’t need to look long because a large black safe sat against the wall near the office desk.

“You recognise that one, don’t you?” Grey said, pointing at the safe.

“I do. It’s the Black Iron Strongbox made by Tetsujin Lock. A beautiful piece of work.”

“Do you know how to open it?”

“I do.”

He even had practice.

However, opening the safe was going to be a problem, because it didn’t seem to be the standard version he had learned on. Takuma knelt in front of the safe, ran his finger along the cold steel, and felt grooves etched into the surface.

“Fūinjutsu…”

Unless it was a bank vault, safes weren’t much of a deterrent against shinobi who could rip the door apart or steal the whole vault without much difficulty. But there were still things that people wanted to protect, and thus people began to implement fūinjutsu into their safes. If someone tried to force the door open or move it, the fūinjutsu could destroy the contents inside or attack the thief with a powerful strike.

“Fortunately, you prepared for this.”

Takuma nodded and returned to the middle of the room. He didn’t have any real fūinjutsu skill; breaking the fūinjutsu on a safe was far beyond his capabilities. However, he knew someone who did. He found a spot not covered by carpet, wove hand seals, and then slapped his palm on the hard floor, hoping that Tern and his clones had done their job.

Summoning Jutsu!