Inside a dimly lit room, in the middle of the night, three men discuss shady business like any other day.
"Did he move?" asks a middle-aged man, holding a cigar in his hand and taking deep drags from time to time.
"He doesn't seem to show anything strange, but the girl stopped going to work" another man replies, an extremely thin, blond man with very pale skin and dark circles under his eyes.
"If the information is correct, it shouldn't have been a problem for him to find a house anywhere a long time ago, but why now? He realized" I tell you, "Aoto was very unsubtle when he followed the girl" the first man continues.
The man in question, Aoto, who is leaning against the wall and dressed entirely in black, simply shrugs without saying a word.
"The girl is blind" the skinny man says.
"Well, it doesn't seem like it. The last time I saw her walking down the street, she seemed to have perfect vision, even dodging others without any problem"
"Well, but everyone knows she's blind. I'm telling you, if we kidnap her, we can get a lot of money from her brother. It wasn't hard to find where they changed places, so if we just wait for him to leave town like always, we can just go in and take her. There's no place Aoto can't get into, no lock he can't pick" the skinny man insists.
Aoto nods at his companion's words and gives a thumbs-up. The first man remains silent for a minute, focused on his cigar while he thinks.
"This hit is too important, and we can't screw it up. We're deep in the city, and if the guy moved to a better neighborhood, the danger increases even more. If the samurai catch us, we're dead... I think it's best we call the 'black cat" the man concludes.
"But he always asks for 50 percent. We did all the work ourselves, we deserve it" the skinny man says.
"It's a huge risk, and I've seen many of these situations where idiots get too confident and end up dead or in jail. Besides, the target has a lot of money, so 50 percent is still a large sum. The "black cat" was a genin, so at least we ensure success and simply attack at night when both are sleeping"
At the cigar man's words, his two companions finally agree to the plan and immediately divide up their roles, including contact with the "black cat." All they have to do is wait for the right moment and be quick and effective.
…
A week later, during a particularly cold night, with almost no traffic on the streets and no guards on patrol, three men dressed entirely in black and wearing masks make their way through fences and the roofs of houses until they reach one in particular, completely identical to all the other houses, but with an individual particularly important to them.
One of the men, wearing a mole mask, easily opens the perimeter locks and effectively guides his companions, one wearing a dog mask and the other a cat mask, into the house's reception area.
When they reach a door that seems to lead to the bedrooms, Mole finds the first surprise of the night, a state-of-the-art lock with two additional latches, each with a different type of key pattern. The man initially freezes, staring at the locks, but at Dog's insistent beckoning, he gets to work, pulling a case from his clothes containing all sorts of tools and lockpicks.
Sweat begins to accumulate on Mole's hands, and a few drops fall from his mask as well. But the locks begin to open as time passes, under the impatient gaze of his two companions. What neither of them realized was that as the last lock opened, a small electrical circuit was cut, which is directly connected to the two occupied bedrooms inside the house.
When the door opens, the three men enter the main hallway, where Dog, using sign language, indicates where they should go. Mole heads to a secondary bedroom and the remaining two head to the master bedroom.
Mole makes quick work of the lock and waits for the signal to enter, which comes when a cat's meow is heard in the hallway. Upon entering the bedroom, the man finds the girl peacefully asleep and immediately approaches to capture her, but just as his hands are about to take her hand, the girl exhales a surprising, dense mist from her mouth, filling the room in a matter of moments.
The man first covers his face defensively, but when he tries to look again, he's surprised to find it's impossible to see anything further than a few centimeters. Panicking, the man tries to turn back the way he came, but a direct blow to his right knee leaves his leg at an impossible angle, leaving him completely collapsed on the ground. The former perpetrator tries to scream with all his might, but another direct blow to his head causes him to lose consciousness.
Across the hall, the situation is just as dire for the unwanted guests, only this time, there's a headless body at the entrance to the bedroom and a torso, without arms or legs, breathing heavily, face down on the carpet.
"Did you take care of your guest?" a man's voice is heard in the hallway.
"Yes, Master, I think I knocked him out" a girl's voice replies.
"So, how did the jutsu work with your hearing amplification?"
"Incredible, Master. The advantage against someone who can't fight the fog is too great"
"Excellent. Now I want you to go to the kitchen and make yourself some tea. The first battle is always the hardest to deal with emotionally. I'll take care of our guests. Once I figure out why they're here"
…
"What's your name?" the male voice says.
"Ha, ha hahoggggh" Mole tries to say desperately, now with his face uncovered, revealing a face full of scars. His body, in poor condition, is now tied to a chair, his leg still bent forward and a knife stuck in the thigh of the other.
"He's mute, his tongue was cut out years ago" says a hoarse voice, with a tone of contempt and resignation, belonging to the man who was wearing a cat mask and is now tied to another chair, without arms or legs.
"How convenient" the interrogator complains, now addressing the limbless man. "You don't seem very concerned about your fate"
"What fate? In this state, I'm better off dead. What good does it do to keep quiet? Ask whatever you want and give me a quick death"
"It seems you don't like beating around the bush. I don't either. But sometimes it's necessary to create a little drama and prolong the interrogation so that the victim hesitates and feels hopeful of survival. A guy quite skilled in these things taught me this while I was torturing him for information. It was quite ironic" the interrogator comments, while slowly running a knife over the stoic face of the limbless man. "But you're different. You were a shinobi, Konohagakure?"
"Kusagakure, but that was a long time ago. You're different. You're not a shinobi, but you don't look like a samurai either, let alone a monk. But you're strong, and I can't sense the chakra in your body. What are you doing hiding here, living like a simple civilian? Are you a spy?"
"That's not your problem, what matters here is how did a criminal of your caliber get here? I don't remember having done anything that merits your presence"
"It's quite simple. The leader of these morons, the one who now has no head, found it too dangerous to attack a neighborhood like this without having a former shinobi as security, even with the fee I charge. Unfortunately, I wasn't enough, because with you, it would take at least a jonin to attempt it"
"The situation actually sounds simple. But what really worries me is the consequences of this incident. How many people know about this?"
"I don't know what consequences you're referring to, but a lot of people are definitely going to find out about this. Even if you manage to eliminate our bodies, there's still the third man in these idiots' gang, who must have disappeared by now, having not heard from us for so long. Then there are my partners, two of whom know exactly what I'm doing, plus the people who sold your information, who are perfectly aware that if nothing has happened to you for so long, it means you're not what you seem, or you have someone protecting you"
"So my peaceful life is screwed?"
"I don't know, but someone will definitely investigate you thoroughly, and more than one authority will be informed of your presence, at least to see if you're a spy or something"
"Just what I was afraid of" the interrogator says resignedly, sitting down in an unoccupied chair.
What follows is an awkward silence for the criminals, where the interrogator simply sits in his chair, staring up at the ceiling and muttering obscenities from time to time. It is when the mole's sobs turn into real crying that the man recovers and ends up getting up.
"I haven't done this in a while, so I apologize in advance if I don't do it right" the interrogator says, then takes a short sword from a table in the center of the room.
The man's movement is simple, so simple that it seems like a joke to the ex-ninja, but the effect is terrifying, because after a movement of the sword in the air in front of the sobbing criminal, almost magically, the crying stops and his head falls to the ground, his eyes and mouth still moving in surprise.
"I still can't believe you can do that. It's like a Samurai technique, but incredibly stealthy... I couldn't feel the chakra until it hit my body. Villages would do anything for a technique like that" Comments the limbless man.
"I know" the man concludes, then with another simple movement decapitates the last criminal in the room.
To any spectator, the scene inside the room would be a terrifying and grotesque spectacle, but only experienced warriors would immediately notice the absence of blood that should be present. The cuts on the victims' necks were so fine and precise that the veins and blood vessels ended up contracting and closing on their own, resulting in only small blood stains on the floor, a testament to the truly terrifying scene.