Eight p.m.
Shikamaru and Choji showed their fake IDs at the entrance and marched up the dim staircase of a certain nightclub in the shopping district.
The place was booming, despite its being a weekday, and most of the lockers were in use. On the atrium of the dance floor, men and women were jumbled together, moving their bodies to the explosively loud house music.
Shikamaru and Choji got drinks at the bar, then found a place near the wall to scout out their target. According to their intel, Chomen Nohto was the rare scientist who loved going out at night, the party animal type. It had taken them longer than they’d expected to pinpoint the location of this club, his recent favorite which he frequented every night. Fortunately, however, they soon spotted Nohto.
“There,” Choji said to Shikamaru, hiding his mouth behind his glass of beer. “Sofa seat. Three men, three women. Six-person group.”
Shikamaru casually turned his eyes toward the sofa seating that looked down over the atrium. Nohto was toasting the others at his table with a shot glass of distilled liquor.
“The men he’s with are shinobi, hm?” he said. “Glasses and Long Hair. Maybe bodyguards.”
“And bait for talking to women,” Choji added. “Just being a shinobi in the Land of Kizahashi is enough to get all the dates you want.”
The pair watched Nohto for a bit. The three women left the table and went down to the dance floor, while the men kept drinking at a hard pace.
“Pouring drinks down their throats like that, he’ll be headed for the washroom soon,” Choji noted.
“Right?” Shikamaru agreed. “Let’s get him then.”
But contrary to their expectations, Nohto didn’t get up. The other two men went to the washroom in turn, but Nohto remained sunk into the sofa, polishing off one drink after another, orange peels and all.
Just when Shikamaru had started to think that they would have to try a different tactic, Nohto finally stood up and headed for the washroom.
At last.
Shikamaru and Choji signaled each other with their eyes, moved toward the washrooms, and waited for Nohto to come out.
A minute or so later.
“Hey! It’s been ages!” Shikamaru called out amiably to Nohto and threw an arm over his shoulders.
“Huh?” Nohto frowned suspiciously.
Shikamaru kept moving his arm up around Nohto’s neck and pulled it tighter. Nohto wheezed for breath and in less than seven seconds, he was completely unconscious.
“Aah. What? I told you you drink too much.” Propping Nohto up, Shikamaru made like he was taking care of a friend who’d had a bit too much and dragged him back into the men’s washroom.
Luckily, there was no one else in the large room. With purple lights illuminating the tiled floor and walls, the interior design was really something.
Shikamaru pushed Nohto into the stall furthest back and frisked him. He found a portable terminal about the size of a business card case in one pocket.
“This it?”
He touched the screen, and four blank squares popped up, together with the words “Please enter your passcode.” Apparently, the machine used an electrostatic touchscreen.
He took a small bag from his pocket and sprinkled the adhesive powder inside on the screen. The powder would stick to the oil from Nohto’s fingers on the touchscreen and highlight his fingerprints, which would be concentrated in the places he touched most frequently.
The numbers with the most powder covering them were 8, 1, and 0.
“Tch!” Shikamaru unconsciously clicked his tongue.
The passcode was four digits, but he had only three numbers. Which most likely meant the passcode used the same number twice. If they had all been different numbers, then the number of possible combinations was twenty-four, but if one of the numbers was a double, that increased to thirty-six combinations.
At any rate, all he could do was start from one end and try them all. Shikamaru hurriedly tapped at the screen.
8810, 8801, 8108, 8018, 8081, 8180—
“Nohto? Are you okay?”
He’d tried about ten combinations when he heard a voice from the entrance.
Concerned about Nohto’s long absence, his companions—Glasses and Long Hair—had come looking for him.
Shikamaru and Choji reflexively held their breath, but no matter how quiet they were, only one of the stall doors was closed, and six feet could be seen below it. There was no way that wasn’t going to arouse suspicion.
Shikamaru decided to lure the two men in and deliberately made a sound as he slid the lock open. He knocked lightly on the inside of the door and waited.
The men came to stand in front of the stall.
“Nohto? Are you in there?”
Choji brandished a fist and launched a full-powered punch straight at Glasses’ stomach as he threw open the door.
While Shikamaru and Choji were examining Nohto’s body in the narrow men’s washroom stall, Ino and Orochimaru had transformed themselves into researchers and were boldly walking into the Kengakuin head office.
Ino had changed her face to look like a middle-aged scientist at least, but Orochimaru was wearing his usual face. Ino had no idea if it was his true face though, nor did she want to find out.
I cannot believe I’m here walking with the Orochimaru.
She glanced at the snake man beside her and shrugged to herself. Mass murder, terrorism, developing forbidden jutsu, human experimentation, theft, kidnapping—Orochimaru’s priors were a hit parade of the most serious crimes. To think that she was buddied up with a man like this. She half-expected him to kill her on a whim in the middle of the mission.
“I wonder what floor the office is on,” he said abruptly, and Ino nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Oh. R-r-right. I wonder what floor’d be good.”
“Hm?” He turned doubtful yellow eyes on her.
Yikes! That sounded weird, she thought in a panic as the elevator arrived.
“The director’s office is, let’s see, the thirteenth floor!” She checked the display on the elevator panel and then jammed her hand against the buttons. She’d meant to push thirteen but hit eight accidentally. Orochimaru’s gaze grew more and more doubtful.
Ino shrank into herself. She missed her usual team.
The bike carrying Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke raced up the wall of wood and earth, engine roaring.
It had been about five minutes since they started out. At some point, they’d passed through a thin cloud, and the ground had long ago disappeared from sight. If they were on target, they were just shy of 55,000 feet up. The wind grew so strong that keeping their eyes open was painful, but the bike itself was plastered to the pillar with chakra control and didn’t so much as twitch.