Stop the Mugging:

The Legendary thief Ryoku attempted to rob Shikamatsu, as student of Lord Shikashige. At the time, Shikamatsu had none of his treasured belongings, and had gone out onto the mountain to appreciate the beauty of the moon.

Upon seeing that Shikamatsu had nothing, Ryoku expressed his disappointment. Seeing that Ryoku was disappointed, Shikamatsu offered the thief the clothing from his back. Ryoku bowed to Shikamatsu, took his clothing, and left.

As Shikamatsu walked home naked, another student of Lord Shikashige asked him what had happened, and why he had given the thief his clothing instead of killing him. Shikamatsu responded that he could not leave the Legendary thief disappointed with the reputation of Lord Shikashige's students, and that, if he could have, he would have even given the thief his appreciation of that night's bright moon.

The Will of Fire was strong in Ryoku and Shikamatsu.

The moon shone bright over Konoha, and the streets were emptying. The military village did not have a curfew, but the people tended to rise early, and only the seedier elements could be found out and about at night. This fact would benefit Shinako greatly, as her quarry could only be found in the dark. While the mugger had not developed a legend as thorough as Ryoku's, he had become a sensation in the papers in the past two weeks. She had been tasked with catching him.

To that end, the young woman had designed her trap. Something in her, deep and dark, felt the thrill of hunting in the shadows; felt a sense of sleek anticipation at being the predator. Her knowledge of her prey was not absolute, but she knew how he moved. She knew how he thought. It was this closeness with him that would bring them together tonight.

The clock struck midnight, and the Kunoichi knew that she would have scarcely an hour to spring her trap. The mugger liked to work between twelve and one, mugging no more than two women per night. Some of the women had light knife wounds, and had stated that the mugger did not immediately injure them. However, one woman had truly feared for her life when the mugger had heard another person approaching. She had been convinced that the criminal was going to kill her if he had been caught. For this reason, Shinako knew that she could not allow the criminal to get his hands around the throat of another innocent Leaf Village woman.

She had made a pitch to her superiors as to how best to apprehend the criminal, and they had liked her idea so much that they had sent her out on her own, despite her relative inexperience. The proposal had been simple. In order to more effectively become the predator, Shinako would become the prey.

472/1500

The blonde woman almost staggered down the street. The only sounds that cut through the silence were the click of her high heeled shoes and the almost melodic jingling of her keys. Every now and then she would stop and lean on a wall or a sign-post, either to get her bearings or to stop herself from falling. More than once she dropped her keys, and had to pin the hem of her skirt to her exposed thighs as she bent down to retrieve them. When she passed under street lights, one could tell that her make-up had been applied with a fine attention to detail at some point earlier in the night. Hours of sweat, laughing, and close encounters had produced smudges and clouds, though any passing man would have said there was something attractive about her, in a vulnerable, broken sort of way.

The blonde passed the ramen shop, which had been closed for several hours now. The posted 'closed' sign did not stop her from rattling the downed grate rather noisily and yelling out something about her 'goddamned thirst.' A cat, in the alley nearby stirred at the commotion, and slunk off into the night, preferring to find a quieter spot before anything particularly unpleasant could occur. Seeing it go, the blonde bent down and made several kissing noises at its upturned tail before deciding that seeking the animal's affection was a losing endeavor. However, as she attempted to right herself, she miscalculated her target and fell over backwards into a pile of garbage that smelled faintly of tempura.

Her skirt now too far up her thighs for decency, the young woman expressed aloud her gratitude for the darkness and the empty street. She was grateful for the soft garbage, as well, though that last thought made her laugh until she produced produced a shrill hiccup, followed by a retching sound as she emptied the bubbly contents of her stomach onto the street beside her. She had barely managed to keep her hair out of the way, and rolled away from the vomit and onto the hard sidewalk with a soft moan, scraping her knees against the concrete.

With quite a bit of effort, and the use of the nearby telephone pole to stabilize herself, the blonde was able to stand. Sweeping her hair back and fixing her skirt, the young woman closed her eyes and lifted her nose into the air, as though fighting off a spinning feeling that threatened to throw her back into the garbage. After a few moments she was walking again, staying close to the store-fronts, just in case her balance decided to betray her again.

As she passed the mouth of an alleyway, she caught sight of a metallic glint, and knew what was happening even before the heard the raspy voice call out in the dark. The voice she could, and did, ignore. However, the very next moment she had something cold pressed to her neck, and was dragged backwards into the alley, and the darkness.

982/1500

Shinako waited until her foe was off-balance, bodily dragging her into the alley. Her bait had worked perfectly, and now she shifted her disguise to escape her attacker's grasp. Her Henge technique had always been particularly good, and now was no exception, and she heard a grunt of confusion as she sprung into action. In a puff of smoke, she transformed into a large, unwieldy table, breaking her opponent's grasp, before re-taking her normal form. The bewilderment on the man's face was surprisingly pleasant to the young Kunoichi.

The man's knife gleamed in the moonlight, and Shinako acted quickly, forming the seals of the horse and the rat, and then kicking a swirl of paper and garbage into the man's face. She watched the telltale signs of her illusion taking effect, as the man cast around to catch sight of her. Stepping softly, she moved around to take his back, observing carefully. His demeanor was quite impressive. He did not flee, or panic, and expressed a heightened awareness of things; truly a cunning predator.

When the illusion took full effect, the robber lost his previously admirable composure. As always, Shinako almost felt bad about using this particular technique. She had known the fear of this illusion more than once, and never desired to be subjected to it again. It was such a pure feeling that it almost made her skin crawl to watch the man drop his knife and grovel. Shinako wondered what it was he could be seeing.

That distraction aside, Shinako carefully picked up the knife and placed it in an evidence bag for the man's trial. She checked the entry-points of the alley, making sure that the mugger was not working with an accomplice, and that the danger had passed. Just then, she heard the sniveling stop, and turned to face the unfortunate soul who had been too dull to fight her Genjutsu. He was entering a stage of adrenaline dumping, and his body was entering a state of shock.

Like a malevolent serpent, Shinako's shadow detached from the wall where it lay, snaking through the air and wrapping around the man's neck as the Kunoichi ended the illusion. His eyes, now seeing the world clearly, still held the wildness of fear, as his hands grasped at the tendril around his throat. Shinako spoke calmly.

"You should surrender. Any further fighting would be unpleasant for both of us."

As the man's fingers moved to his neck, the shadow squeezed, constricting the blood-flow to his brain and choking him. At the display of force from his new collar, the man instead produced his hands in a gesture of surrender. When he did so, the shadow relaxed a bit, and he looked relieved. The robber knew when he was beaten.

Shinako gave just enough slack in her shadow for the sullen-faced criminal to stand up and proceed to exit the alley. The paperwork for this one would be simple, at least, as neither she nor her quarry had actually been harmed. Though the man hung his head, and the scene really was a rather depressing one, Shinako could not help but feel a sense of accomplishment, having made the streets just a bit safer.

549/1,531

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