Chapter 9

Ayame dropped to one knee as a sign of respect to her boss, Matsudaira, along with Zenzou and 3 other ninja. He never asked for such formal gestures from them, but it was a habit from the Oniwabanshuu that never disappeared.

"This was already confirmed, boss. Murakami would come visit the pleasure house tonight with his bakufu officials." She said while pulling down her ninja mask.

"Okay, good job, Sacchan. What about the arrangement we talked about?"

"Yes, I've also set it up with the boss over there. He will allow 2 members of our team to infiltrate the pleasure house tonight."

"Okay, then. The next thing to settle is, who will do the infiltration. Without question, Zenzou should be one of them. You will disguise as one of the guests in the pleasure house. Be careful not to let Murakami see you. He may recognize you as the leader of the Oniwabanshuu."

"Yes, sir!" Zenzou replied enthusiastically.

"And the second one is Sacchan. You will disguise as one of the escorts to be assigned to Murakami. The rest of you will wait outside the pleasure house for instruction from either Zenzou or me."

"Yes, sir!" All of them replied in synchronicity.

Ayame was told to wait along with the other escorts in a line for Murakami's arrival. To ensure that he would pick Ayame, she was put together with the fugly escorts so she could stand out. Ironically, fugly is exactly Zenzou's type, so he enjoyed himself a little too much on his table.

He didn't even comment on my appearance when I dressed up like this. – Ayame sulked. Admittedly, she and Zenzou had been nothing more than colleagues, but a few compliments from him would have been nice. Being looked over for some fugly chicks hurt her ego a little.

But the stress of the mission made that problem minuscule in comparison. The longer she waited, the more her fight-or-flight response became active and soon, Ayame was unconsciously fidgeting with her fingers and slightly shivering.

"Hey, are you Ayako?" One of the escorts approached Ayame.

"Uh, yes, I am." Ayame said with some hesitation, almost forgetting her disguise name.

"That gentleman over there would like to speak to you for a while." She pointed at Zenzou's table, where he was eyeing her despite having two girls on both of his arms.

"Tell him that even money could not buy me. I'm reserved only for the high ranking bakufu official." Ayame pushed her glasses arrogantly, part of her felt strangely satisfied that she could somehow get back at Zenzou for overlooking her.

"Yes, I did tell him that, but he said he wouldn't do anything. He just wanted to speak to you for a minute."

Ayame finally relented and walked towards Zenzou's table. The escorts sitting near Zenzou made space for Ayame to come in.

"May I help you, dear customer?" Asked Ayame while at the same time mouthing inaudibly to Zenzou: What the heck are you doing?

"Nothing, miss. I'm just too captivated by your beauty that I want to give you this." Zenzou took out a shiny flower hairpin from his bag. "Here, allow me."

He turned her shoulders around and gently placed the hairpin on her bun. All this time, Ayame thought he was clueless with women's accessories.

"Thank you.." Ayame coyly smiled with her rosy cheeks. It was both weird and funny to be this demure in front of the guy she frequently bullied.

After Ayame walked back to her waiting line, the fugly escorts teasingly sulked to Zenzou. "Hey, didn't you just say you only have eyes for us? It seems you're just like other men, going for the most beautiful woman in the room."

"No, no, all women are beautiful in their own way." Replied Zenzou and continued the upbeat conversation with his crowd. Ayame, on the other hand, noticed she had stopped shivering and started feeling flustered instead.

"Although we got the confession out of Murakami, he escaped and the mission was denounced as a failure." Said Zenzou.

Matsudaira blew out a whiff of smoke and solemnly looked at the beautiful Japanese garden in his house.

"Hmm, this Sacchan. I already gave her the instruction not to act on her own. She was supposed to wait for your support, not cut off his manhood with a hairpin and let him escape."

Zenzou shuddered every time he recalled that moment when he opened the door to Murakami's suite and saw him with his bloody crotch. He did not think that small hairpin could cause serious damage to Murakami, but he forgot how dangerous the kunoichi could be.

"Her action was out of self-defense. He tried to force himself on her."

"Zenzou, you should know that the higher-ups don't care about these details. All they know was that the mission failed and they're looking for a scapegoat to push the blame." Matsudaira pressed the cigarette butt into the ashtray and took another piece out of his pocket. "By the way, did she cut it all off or just the…?"

"Is that really the question to be asked?" Zenzou scolded.

"Hey, the higher-ups may care about this particular detail, you know."

"What kind of higher-ups are you dealing with?" Sometimes, he wondered why this goofy old man could be the Chief of Police. "Anyway, what will be the punishment then?"

"First and foremost, she will have to pay for the total consideration of the mission, which believe me, is no small feat."

Zenzou looked up anxiously. "She's got no such kind of money. She's only been in the profession for a few years."

"Yes, I'm aware of that. That's why I'm still not sure how to break this news to her."

After a moment of silence, Zenzou continued. "I can pay for it though. She doesn't have to know."

"Hmm? You sure? I know your family is wealthy but it's still a lot of money. Maybe you want to discuss this with your father first." Matsudaira lowered his voice and eyed down on Zenzou.

"If it's Sarutobi, my old man wouldn't mind."

"Still, I thought you're not the buddy-buddy type."

Zenzou was half-way opening his mouth to say something, but he stopped and just stared down at his teacup. Matsudaira caught glimpse of that and just snickered. He knew he had hit a nerve.

"Zenzou, let me ask you this. Why did you give her that hairpin? It was completely unnecessary."

"She was nervous and I thought it would be better if…"

"And you indirectly ruined the mission. If you hadn't given her that hairpin, this mission probably would've succeeded." Matsudaira was slightly raising his tone.

"Then, wouldn't it make more sense that I paid for the fine, since you practically said it's my fault?"

Matsudaira sighed. "Fine. If that's what you want. But I'll still have to give her some forms of punishment as a cover. This is a very high-ranking mission. She'll get suspicious if she gets away scot-free."

Zenzou was already giving his full attention to wait for what the punishment would be.

"She needs to clean the Shinsengumi premise toilet, for a month!"

Seriously? That's your punishment, old man? You don't think that's even more suspicious? – Thought Zenzou.

"Yes." Matsudaira grinned evilly. "It's not an easy job, trust me."

"Fine. I'll inform her accordingly." Zenzou bowed his head to excuse himself.

"One more thing, Zenzou." Said Matsudaira when Zenzou was almost out of the room. "I suggest you two work separately from now on."

Zenzou continued walking without reply.

Ayame arrived just in time for the Oniwabanshuu's monthly meeting. Luckily Zenzou had the habit of showing up late, so she didn't miss anything important. When she slid the door open and walked to the front of the room, most of the members were there and they all stared at her. She definitely became famous after the Murakami incident.

"Hey, hey, Saru-chan, I thought you were an M but it turned out you could switch to an S so easily." Wakikaoru playfully blew a kiss.

"Shut up. Do you want me to go all S on you?" Said Ayame with an emotionless face.

"No, thanks. I'm more a traditional type of girl."

From behind, Gou, one of the ninja in the Oniwabanshuu, interfered in the conversation. "By the way, Sacchan, I heard you have to clean the Shinsengumi toilet as a punishment?"

Ayame rolled her eyes and shook her head in disgust. "I've never seen a dirtier toilet in my life. And that was already through one round of toilet revolution."

"You should consider yourself lucky, though. Normally those high-ranking missions come with a huge failure fine which can easily bankrupt…" Said Gou, stopping mid-sentence when he felt something pinched his arm.

"Hey, Zenzou's here. Let's go back to our seat." Wakikaoru pulled Gou far away from Ayame after seeing her boss coming in.

"Psst, don't talk to her about the fine." She whispered in an almost inaudible register. "I heard from one of Matsudaira's guards that Zenzou paid off the fine for her, but he didn't want her to know."

"What?" Gou exclaimed loudly. Some of the ninja sitting nearby turned around and gave them an annoyed look, while Wakikaoru covered his mouth with her hand.

"Don't talk so loud. It was supposed to be a secret."

"I didn't know boss could be so altruistic." Said Gou. As hard as it was for Gou to believe, he knew better than to doubt Wakikaoru. She is one of the biggest gossip girls in the Oniwabanshuu, but that also meant she usually got the most accurate and confidential information.

"Oh, he's not, trust me." Wakikaoru laughed sarcastically. "But he got a soft spot for her."

Gou now turned his eyes towards Ayame. "Sacchan? I thought he only likes fugly chicks."

"I don't know. Maybe he thinks she's ugly? I also think she's not that pretty anyway." Wakikaoru shrugged her shoulders, adding a few spiteful comments that Gou knew for sure was out of the catty rivalry between them.

"I'd like to make some announcements to the Oniwabanshuu arrangement." Said Zenzou, with a piece of paper in his hand. "As some of you may already know, Oniwabanshuu will soon have a sub-unit specialized in high-ranking assassination named Shimatsuya. We have already chosen a few best candidates for the team, and that means they will no longer work under me, but will take orders directly from either Matsudaira or the bakufu. I will now read the names of the chosen candidates."

Everyone silently waited, some with eagerness, some with anxiety.

"Saiki Yoshiro, Nakazawa Shigeo, Hirai Arata…" Names after names were slowly called up, giving the chosen one a brief moment of attention.

"Sarutobi Ayame." Ayame looked up with surprise when her name was called and noticed she also received that brief spotlight. Some even gave her a thumbs up as a congratulatory gesture. Yet, Ayame wasn't sure how she should feel about this.

When the meeting came to an end and the crowd had slowly dispersed, she approached Zenzou who was hastily packing his bag to avoid her, but he was too late.

"Why did I get picked for the Shimatsuya team? Didn't I just fail one of the biggest assassination missions in the Oniwabanshuu?" Asked Ayame.

"I don't know. It wasn't my decision. Maybe because you had a good tracking record." Replied Zenzou without looking back at Ayame.

"I've only participated in two assassination missions since I first joined, one was a failure. I can't believe any bakufu official or Matsudaira would pick me after the Murakami incident. It must be you who made this decision."

"Why are you complaining? It's an honor to be chosen and assassination can earn a lot of money."

"I'm not, but… you've been distant since that mission… Are you… are you doing this to get rid of me?" Ayame now looked down on the floor with her hand slightly pulling the helm of his coat.

"Don't be ridiculous. I just thought you would do well in Shimatsuya, that's all." Zenzou scratched his hair, picked up his bag and walked out of the room without much of a goodbye.

"What a bad liar…" Ayame whispered.