Smooth Criminals

Mission Info:

He was in their jacuzzi, sipping red wine and hotboxing their bathroom with his joint aflame. He ashed on the porcelain tiles where his arm hung out of the tub. It was late in the night, and there was still no sign of the ice cold bandits. They had hit up the wealthiest houses in the town several nights in a row, and no troupe of shinobi was able to catch up with them. That's when a group from Kumogakure was called in to help. The contractor was sure that the residence of the businessman renowned in the shinobi world for exporting snow was going to be targetted next. His grand mansion was grander than the haunted Mayberry Mansion at the edge of the Charred Remnants of Black Forest used to be back in its hay day. Separate spiralling staircases led up to no less than seventeen spacious bedrooms. The owner's family was locked up in one of the rooms for their safety, but the owner himself was feeling more brave - he paced up and down the large hallway in the ground floor.

Saturn was delighted when he came to learn that Jun Shibasaki was on the case with him. Whenever the duo paired up, the job got done. He wasn't worried in the slightest about the antics of the bandits. If the intel were correct, they would surely be caught. They would also be accompanied by two more of their compatriots.  His confidence led to a lax behavior with the owner, to whom he reassured that the case would be cracked without fail. He waited for his compatriots, but found the many features of the grand mansion to be far too entertaining to ignore in the meantime. After playing by himself at the foosball table, he excused himself to go to the bathroom in the master bedroom, where he had found an unopened bottle of red wine next to the irresistible jacuzzi. He already had a spliff rolled up in festive spirit, and he could not sense any suspicious activity inside the premises either. He told his octopus Mimas to take his place downstairs while he turned the hot water tap on and took much needed time for some self care.

But he wasn't completely lax. He had possessed an owl. He was practiced enough with his powers to possess pigeons and possums passively, and owls were of no exception. The hijacked body of the bird stayed perched on the branch of a fir tree no less than five meters from the residence. As he let out an exhalation to fill the bathroom with a thick spicy cloud of smoke, from the watchful eye of the bird he spied on twelve tiptoeing thieves talking timidly under teak trees. While they were huddled up wearing black masks and black gloves, they surely seemed suspicious, but they did not seem like the elusive experts who were responsible for so many successful heists within the last few days, and it was too early to be sure.

After her disappointment with the Arena, the raven - haired Kamigawa woman found herself receiving a mission of decent ranking. Even if she had failed to execute her task within those walls of that Arena, Meika was determined to continue forward as a dedicated shinobi of Kumogakure.

And for this mission, they needed her to speculate and make sure everything went smoothly. Since they were receiving some trouble during the special time of this season, the authorities wanted to make sure that there was absolutely no slip up. There was no room for failure.

So the woman found herself draped across the edge of a fancy kitchen counter, her upper torso hung over the white, polished marble as she leaned her weight against it. A wine glass held delicately within her fingertips.

Saturn wasn't the only shinobi that was deluding themselves to the finery of aged bottled wine.

Even with cheeks flushed with the sign of intoxication, Meika made sure she wasn't too over her head.

Now all they had to do was for the robbers to invade the mansion, and the three of them would perform an ambush. As long as the rest of the party was still available.

At that note, Meika wondered if she should check on them. Maybe she should be sure that they weren't too distracted by the luxuries that the mansion had to offer.

Her decision was half made as the sound of shuffling footsteps sounded from somewhere outside. The footsteps were faint, but her keen awareness as a shinobi was able to notice the littlest of things. She was aware of Saturn's whereabouts, but the other had disappeared somewhere else after his time in the home theater. Meika quietly, softly rested the wine glass on top of the marble and made her way through the mansion. She briefly knocked the outside knob of the bathroom with her left elbow, just hard enough to cause a bit of a clatter to catch his attention, before she continued her way to one of the windows.

Meika crouched low. Her profile hidden from any unseeing eyes that could be lurking on the outside of the mansion. Hoping to herself that she didn't need to worry about the other members of the assignment. So far Saturn has been the only one that she had worked with before, and even then was just once.

---

[395]

"Uh, occupied!" Saturn yelled from inside the hot tub when he heard banging on the bathroom door. There was no response. When he recognized Meika's footsteps as she wandered further from the door, he formed the seal of confrontation to activate Mind's Eye of the Kagura as he suspected that she was on the move. He could now sense all forms of chakra fifty meters around him with clarity. He sensed no less than nine chakra signatures from inside the building, and that number seemed odd. Including himself, there should have been no more than seven people in the residence - Jun, Meika, the businessman, his wife, their son and their daughter. This meant that three more people had already broken into the household. He checked from the eye of the owl to see that the suspicious trio under the teak tree were still huddled outside, causing him to think that they were perhaps part of a distraction. He heard a faint echo of a creaking door in the ground floor and inhaled sharply. He changed his hand seal to form Ram and immediately his forehead became more vascular, revealing the pumping nerves that ran across the side of his head.

Don't freak out, it's me. He sent a telepathic message to both Jun and Meika, talking to them both mentally. His voice was uncharacteristically shaky at first. It was the first time that he used this technique with either of them - he was usually careful not to reveal the nature of his powers to even his own compatriots and close friends. He had a fear of being rejected and being viewed as a freak. Even when he spoke to Jun in this manner, he used an animal vessel - an eagle - as a little portable telephone to make it seem more natural somehow. The nature of their current circumstances had now compelled him to rethink his priorities. His message would hopefully reach both of his peers, the one crouching behind a window and the one on the lounger beside the indoor pool if they were both within ten meters of the psychic. They would also intuitively know how to talk back to the telepath in their own minds. Be careful. There are three others in the mansion with us, and it's not the three suspects outside who are still huddled up under the teak tree. He grabbed a roll of toilet paper from a counter next to the tub and wiped his nose.

A bandit just entered in from the front door, and I sense one more in the chimney.. I can't find the third, he vanished... Shit, I'll go check on the family! He scurried out from the tub, rushing to dry himself off with a towel before putting on his clothes. It was a dizzying task to pilot his body while keeping watch with the eyes of the owl outside and also maintaining a telepathic connection with the two others. He stubbed his smokable on the sink and wiped his nose some more, taking more from the tissue roll, dumping swabs of reddened tissue into the bin. He was still perfecting his telepathy, and thus talking to two others at once gave him a headache and made him bleed from his nose. He then quickly used Instant Transmission to teleport silently into the most spacious room in the mansion. To his relief, three members of the family were safely huddled up on their enormous bed. The girl was sound asleep, but the boy was weeping, wiping his snot on the mother's dress. He put his finger on his lip to signal them to stay quiet. "It's going to be okay, we're going to catch them now, and you won't have to lose your sleep anymore." He whispered, quietly reassuring the snotty nosed boy.

Downstairs, Mimas the octopus perfectly disguised as Saturn was passed out on an indoor hammock without a care in the world.

WC: 655

TWC: 1154

Meika crouched beneath the window, her eyes trained along the corner of the panel while her senses tingled with alertness. The woman's gaze broke for a second as a shaky voice sounded within her thoughts.

Confusion was written all over her face as Meika scanned her surroundings. At first she didn't quite understand the words, "Don't freak out, it's me. . '' Uncertain as to whether she completely was out of it, hearing things, or what not.

Her eyes resurfaced back to the window, when she finally realized that the voice was familiar to Saturn's. That was when it dawned on her, that he was somehow projecting himself into her head. Meika 'tsked' out loud, thinking to herself that Saturn better not be doing something too invasive.

Saturn's voice re-entered her mind, and gave her a play out of the current situations, giving her a heads up about there being three others who have already found their way into the mansion. She wasn't exactly excited about the fact that they were just now finding out about this. The robbers had already gotten beneath their noses!

Meika slouched against the wall beneath the window, listening closely as she evaluated the situation. There were the light movements of a skilled shinobi making their way towards the direction of the front door, so whether or not Saturn relayed Jun's message, Meika would already be heading for the chimney.

Her hands were on the move as her slim form slithered around the corner. She could witness the stretch of a dark shadow arching from the chimney before making it completely into the room. That was all she needed to know. Whomever it was by the chimney would find themselves frozen into place. With this sort of weather, it was possible to be the case, but it wasn't. Instead, Meika had performed her temporary paralysis to stop the intruder within their tracks.

Perhaps she will hear something back from either of the team. It was trickey that the intruders had managed to make their way in, but she hoped to herself that they were able to stop them from getting far.

---

[354/749]

 By the time Jun asked Saturn about the house owner, there was no cell reception. They had wandered too far from each other to continue communicating. Although he heard Jun's call to ask Meika to check the chimney, he intuitively guessed that she would head there anyway. This would leave the house owner unattended, as his familiar Mimas was still acclimating to the cues of shinobi and could not be trusted to do a decent job at all. Tiger - Horse - Ram - Clone seal. He formed a shadow clone so that he would not have to leave the house owner's family alone in their room when he went to look for him. He would leave his original body behind, and send his body double to look for the snow dealing businessman. Unlike him, however, his clone did not have the ability to teleport. 

Downstairs, Mimas was activated when the disgusting purple blob disguised as Saturn caught sight of Jun being attacked. While it had poor vision, it sensed the world around it by sensing movement, and it could feel the tension in the air between the two Genin. It was familiar with Jun, having attended a few missions along with him and Saturn, but it had not yet met Goro. Naturally, it was suspicious of the younger boy. The octopus moved at a speed of 70 from the couch to the spot right in front of Jun. Still disguised as Saturn, the octopus crossed its arms to block the incoming punch, taking a direct hit. Its 125 damage reduction helped absorb the impact force from Goro's punch. "Mimas!" It spoke, disapproving of the assault. It would not attack, however, as it suffered from mild social anxiety which would not allow it to make such a brazen move on its own accord.

 Saturn's clone passed the fireplace, running into Meika. He made his way closer to the bottom of the chimney, and leaned in before peeking up to see a masked bandit with his hands and feet clinging onto the walls, looking like he was unable to move. "Nice." The clone commented, giving her a thumbs up. "We can't leave him here, can we?" He scratched the stubble on his face before weaving hand seals in quick succession. Bird - Boar - Horse - Monkey - Dragon. "Swarm of 100 million Dragonflies!" He cupped his mouth and shouted into the chimney, hopefully striking terror in the immobilized bandit's heart. Only a few hundred dragonflies made their way out of the clone's sleeves to infiltrate the small space of the chimney's interior. Their fangs dug into the bandit's flesh, and they crept into his mouth to muffle his screams. He turned his attention to Meika. "Jun went to check the ground floor, I sense that he's in a standoff but I'm sure he's doing fine. Have you seen the house owner?"