Three women were having the time of their lives in the spot where the mirror ball would land, completely oblivious to their impending doom. Shikamaru grabbed all three of them and lunged forward. The mirror ball hit the floor and shattered, sending tiny pieces of mirror glass in every direction.
“Aaaaah!”
Screams filled the dance floor, and people rushed for the exit.
Shikamaru went against the flow of people, turned his back toward the exit, caught the knee that Long Hair came at him with, and knocked him back with one arm.
“You’re the one who stole Nohto’s terminal, huh? You’re not getting away from me.”
Shikamaru feigned innocence. “What are you talking about? I’m just an off-duty ninja who happened to come here to have a little fun.”
But Long Hair wasn’t having it. He pulled out a sword he had hidden under his jacket.
What a hassle.
Shikamaru inclined the axis of his body and easily dodged Long Hair jumping at him with the sword. While he was at it, he released his transformation jutsu. He feinted like he was going to launch a fist into Long Hair’s open side, and then stretched out the shadow at his feet toward Long Hair’s shadow as the other man approached almost recklessly.
But a flash of pink light cut across and interrupted his shadow. He tried one more time, but now green and blue lights came one after the other to cut into his shadow. The dance floor of a night club was the worst possible place to use Shadow Possession. The flashing strobe light and the pin lights that wandered across the dance floor kept getting in the way.
Nine forty-seven p.m.
Shikamaru clicked his tongue. I don’t have time to waste with this guy.
“So this is Furieh’s office.” Ino looked around the room as she gently set down the secretary in one corner of the room. Given that it was the Kengakuin head honcho’s office, she’d assumed it would be fairly luxurious, but there was only a chair and a desk with a computer on it plopped down in the middle of the completely white room.
“She seems heavy. Less of a burden to carry if you’d just taken her eye and her finger,” Orochimaru said in a tone that made it impossible for Ino to tell if he was joking or serious, while he tapped away at the computer keyboard.
Ino checked the time on her pocket watch—nine fifty p.m.
Was Shikamaru and Choji’s mission going well?
“Orochimaru, how long do you think it’ll take you to hack it?” she asked.
“I’m done,” he replied immediately.
“What?”
That’s too fast?
Surprised, she peered at the monitor, and at the same time, several windows opened. The one at the front read NETWORK PROTECTED in bright red letters.
“I broke through the local security. Now all we can do is wait for those young lads to unlock the firewall.”
So that meant that Shikamaru and Choji still hadn’t completed their mission.
Ino checked her watch again—nine fifty-one.
Once Shikamaru and Choji unlocked the firewall, Orochimaru would be able to access Furieh’s files. Once they got the signs for “the star that never strays” that Furieh deciphered, Ino would send them to Sai in the Land of Redaku with her Mind Transmission. Once Sai wove the signs, the satellite would open, and Naruto and the others would be able to get ahold of the substance inside.
That was their current mission. If any one of them failed, the whole mission would fail.
“Can your jutsu actually reach across such a distance?” Orochimaru asked, as if to fan the flames of her anxiety. “You’ll be able to connect all the way to Redaku? To your husband in that far-off land?”
“I’ve never done it before, so I don’t know,” she replied honestly, and Orochimaru flicked his tongue out and pulled it back again right away. She continued with a sigh. “During the Great Ninja War, I connected three hundred shinobi all at once. When it comes to connecting three hundred strangers nearby or connecting with one person far away, I feel like the latter’s easier. But I’ve never actually done it, so I can’t guarantee it’ll go well. But it’ll probably be fine.”
She was sure of herself. She had no basis for it, but she believed she could do it, because the person she was sending to was the person she knew best in this entire world.
“Hmm. Really,” Orochimaru replied disinterestedly, even though he was the one who’d asked about it, and propped his chin up in his hands on the desk.
There was nothing Ino’s team could do until Shikamaru’s team finished their mission.
Standby.
Intense standby.
Alone with the Orochimaru in someone’s office.
This is awkward …
Ino opened her pocket watch. Nine fifty-two. She’d had Inojin stay with Sarada at Master Iruka’s house starting the previous night. And now tonight, Shikadai and Cho-Cho were there too.
I guess they’ve already had supper by now, huh?
She glanced down at the whorl on the top of Orochimaru’s head as he sat in the chair.
Now that I’m thinking about it, he’s Mitsuki’s parent. So then does that make us mom friends?
“Mitsuki’s a good kid,” she said abruptly as she stared at the moving hands of the watch.
“What?” Orochimaru turned himself and the chair around.
“Inojin talks about him a lot. Good grades, always calm. Although I guess he found him hard to hang out with at first. But he says Mitsuki’s done some surprisingly stupid stuff with him, and he’s a good guy.”
“Where did this come from?”
“Nowhere in particular,” Ino said. “I figured a parent wants to know about their kid. And you never come to visitors’ day and stuff like that, right?”
The narrow, pointed yellow eyes turned toward her. But Orochimaru stopped just short of meeting her gaze, so she wasn’t entirely sure if he was really looking at her.
After a brief silence, he said something surprising.
“I went to the parent-teacher interview.”
Sai continued to be on standby on the roof of the long house made of sun-dried brick. The sun beating down robbed him of even more strength, and he was already on the verge of dying from lack of oxygen.
He checked the time on the pocket watch he’d brought from the Land of Fire and sighed.
Time was almost up, and he still hadn’t gotten a message from Ino.
Nine fifty-eight p.m.
The long hour of driving was over, and the bike and its passengers finally closed in on their targeted distance of 660,000 feet above the ground. The satellite was already entering their field of vision.
With no obstructions around, it stood out clearly, reflecting the light of the sun. The silver sphere appearing, the spinning whirlpools etched onto the sides were reminiscent of the mark of Konoha at first glance.