Chapter 4

Vita was usually not one to brood or sit around and mope. She was an action girl, and rather than sit around and think about what had happened or what she had done or whatever, she would usually be trying to either fix the situation if such was possible or moving on. That made the image of her sitting on a corner with her legs crossed and an angry frown on her face all the more hilarious.

"What did you do this time?" asked Zafira, looking somewhat surprised.

"You don't want to know," Vita said, shaking her head. "Anyway, where were you? Shamal, too, I haven't seen her since this morning."

"Packing," Zafira said, simply, "and buying souvenirs, respectively," he explained, simply.

"But you weren't in the room," Vita said.

"I was also collecting all the things that Naruko lent out to the orphanage kids. Our mistress is very generous, but she is also very lazy," Zafira grumbled.

Vita chuckled. "So I'm not the only one on punishment duty? What did YOU do?"

"I'm not entirely sure. She said I was being mean, but all I did last night was scare a man trying to cheat her with some rigged carnival games," Zafira said, shaking his head.

"She probably wanted to compete anyway," Vita said, shrugging. "Anyway, come on, I'll help you pack."

Vita stood up from her corner and dusted off her buttocks, adjusting her skirt a little and pulling on her shirt so that it covered what the skirt revealed once she pulled it down a bit. At times, Vita wondered what her mistress was thinking when she bought them clothes. For the most part, she'd let them choose what they wanted, but every once in a while she'd come across an article of clothing or an entire outfit that she just loved, and force them into it. More than a few had been quite embarrassing, but then again, their mistress hadn't forced them to wear those. She'd just look disappointed when they'd refuse… which was practically the same as forcing them to wear it.

Vita would be the first to tell you that her mistress's pout was a fabled weapon of legend, capable of moving mountains and thawing the coldest ice, and her teary eyes were known for arranging miracles. Like getting Signum to help in building a sand castle.

Admittedly, she also chose things that they liked, every once in a while, such as the outfit Vita wore currently, a simple white shirt with a stylized broken heart in black and a matching black skirt accented with lace. Better that than being forced to walk around wearing a maid's uniform, Vita mused, though she did have to agree that Zafira looked very good rocking a butler's uniform.

Vita's musing on clothing ended as soon as she finished packing the casual clothes they'd worn for the week back where they came from, and had then started to go through all the swimsuits. That had been quite a bit more of a fight, as Naruko had flat out vetoed most of their choices. Vita had, at first, laughed at Signum, Shamal and Zafira's embarrassment at the choices Naruko had made for them, but had to ultimately agree that they were a better fit than the more conservative choices the knights had made.

Though Zafira did keep that one striped bathing suit that seemed as antiquated as the fossil of an old woman that ran the store they'd bought it in. Naruko thought it was funny, for some reason.

The swimsuits done, Vita sighed. "I didn't think we'd brought along this many," she admitted.

"You'd be surprised how much clothing we went through in just a week. We weren't washing them, so…" a new voice said.

"Oh, hi, Shamal," Zafira said, deadpan.

The blonde laughed a little. "I am mostly done. All that remains is taking a few photos around town, and we'll be set," she explained, waving around a camera. "I thought it'd be best to get everyone together for that. Is Signum here?"

"Yes. She's taking a bath with Naruko right now," Vita said.

"How odd that you're not the one with her," Shamal replied, tilting her head. "Punishment?"

"Punishment," Vita confirmed.

"All the punishment," Zafira added.

"At any rate… I detected a few usable cores nearby on a routine scan," Shamal said, conversationally, holding up a thick book bound in leather and decorated with a large golden cross.

The two nodded. "We'll hunt them down, then."

***

Rokusho Aoi was not a weakling.

And he hadn't been for years. Not since he broke away from that pathetic village that had done everything in its power to stifle his growth, to keep him from becoming as great as he could be. A village that refused to use all of its assets and to exploit them to their maximum potential. A village of weaklings.

He'd spit in Konoha's name any time he spoke it, but right now, there was something else in his mind.

Namely, he was busy placing the Raijin no Ken, the second Hokage's legendary lightning blade, against a lead pipe. He let gravity do its job, and the blade cut through the pipe without issue. Then he brought it forward and put it close to the chin of the client that'd just tried to stifle him off his payment. The pipe spewed water all over the basement, but Aoi didn't really care about the property damage. No, he couldn't quite bring himself to care when he was causing it to the home of a man who tried to cheat him out of his money after he'd already performed a job.

After all, the guy was a coward, and even if he had an army of thugs practically on standby, that meant nothing when you have a sword that will pierce your throat long before the guards make it to the room. "So, fat bastard, where's my money!?"

"Ah-I-ah—"

But then, the door that led to the stairway up was blown to smithereens, and Aoi instantly moved to grab at the fat bastard's throat, pulling the man in front of him like a shield and holding his sword in a ready position to slit the bastard's throat. "Oi! You, if you move a finger, fatty here eats it!"

"Okay, to start with? That guy's not all that fat," said a rather high pitched, distinctly feminine voice, as what appeared to be a little girl holding a very long handled mallet walked into the room. In her left hand, she held a rather oversized book.

"He's a fat cat, I'm talking about his wallet," Aoi countered, a grin on his face. He did oh so love it when he had control of a situation.

"Don't care," the little girl said, shaking her head to knock loose a few of the pebbles that had lodged themselves in her oversized hat. "'cause the other thing I was going to say? I'm not here to save that guy. I'm here to kill you," she said, pointing her mallet at Aoi's head, visible behind his human shield.

"Wha—don't you—I'll pay you! Whatever bounty there's for this guy, I'll triple it!" the man being used as a shield yelled.

"Are you a Konoha Hunter nin!?" Aoi shouted, holding his shield a few centimeters further away from him, knowing it wouldn't do him much good to stop the senbon that the hunter nin favored, which were likely to go all the way through his meal ticket's body and straight into his.

"It doesn't really matter, now does it?" the girl said, advancing while waving her mallet. "Now we can do this the easy and painless way, or I can break every bone in your body before I kill you. It's up to you how you prefer to die," she said.

"As if you're going to beat me, little girl! I am a jounin! No jumped up brat is going to beat me!" Aoi shouted, throwing his shield against the girl, who knocked it aside with her hammer, causing a groan to erupt from the client, who was knocked unconscious by the blow. Taking the chance, Aoi leapt forward, Raijin-first, to impale her across the chest.

The mallet moved fast, too fast, and nailed Aoi in the wrist, forcing him to drop the sword, but as he was in the air, he couldn't stop his momentum, and he crashed into the return swing, which nailed him across the ribs, tossing him to the other side of the basement than his client had landed in. Far from defeated, Aoi flicked his wrist and used the wire that connected him to the hilt of his blade to call it back to his hand. Once he had it, he reignited the lightning blade and held it in front of himself. He'd had to switch hands, as his dominant hand was broken by the prior hit, though fortunately he had the presence of mind to train in the art of the sword with both arms.

The girl was now holding four metallic balls in between the fingers of her left hand, the book she'd had in it now tucked under her armpit, but she soon let them go. They seemed to float in mid air for a second, but a swing of her mallet, so fast it was but a blur, had them streaking towards Aoi.

He tried to bat them aside with the Raijin, but he could only hit two of them and the other two hit his torso, making him break through the wall of the basement office into a large storage area. Aoi rolled and growled. Such ridiculous strength, for someone that small! And it was clear she was fast, as well, since it took her only an instant to be once more upon him.

Aoi tried to swing his sword, but the mallet was too fast, and it once more hit the hand holding the Raijin. With that, both his hands were broken, and he understood right then and there that he was going to die right there, and there was nothing he could do about it. As a last act of defiance, he tried to kick her in the knee, but she jumped over his kick and landed with a stomp on his knee, breaking it.

The last thing he saw was her opening the book she held in her left hand and holding it open in front of his body, and the last thing he heard was her sigh. "Well, I might as well check in with the old man and see how much trouble you're worth…"