Mission: Preemptive Measures

It was early in the morning, early enough that Saki would see that it was pitch black in her room when she felt someone shaking her awake. Of course, there was really only one person that it could be. No one ever visited the home of Rakdos, there were too many horror stories about the man for anyone to venture out to meet him. "Saki, wake up and get dressed in your battle gear, we have work to do" Rakdos said with a grin before turning and leaving. Saki would get up on her own, Rakdos didn't need to oversee that. By the time she came downstairs, she'd find Rakdos updating his large map of the shinobi world with some information.

"Morning Saki, I took it you rested well?" Rakdos asked as he continued to put up a few notes, not feeling a need to tell Saki anything about this work yet. He knew that she'd ask him soon enough.

Saki awoke with a small yawn when Rakdos awoke her. She didn't complain or question it, of course. This wasn't the first time her master had summoned her early in the morning and it wouldn't be the last. She was always ready to serve in whatever way required. Obeying her orders, she quickly dressed in her combat gear and made her way downstairs where Rakdos was waiting for her by his map.

"I feel much better rested, thank you," Saki said, with a respectful bow. She walked over to the map and looked down at it again curiously. "What do we need to do?"

"Not we, you" Rakdos said with a small smile before stepping back. "Saki, your training has continued past my expectations, but not everyone believed that having you trained by me was a good idea. Don't ask me why, but some questioned the decision. I believe that you are now within the proper strength to be a Jounin in Kiri and receive all the perks of that title. As such, I have chosen this mission to be your test and the village has approved it. Should you be successful here, there will be great rewards for you"

Rakdos pointed to the shortline of Hot Springs country. "The village has received word that Hot Springs country have given the approval for a new shipyard to have been build on their coast. We have it on good authority that one of the other villages is backing this funding, and we believe that it might be used to attack Kiri or an attempted blockade. Your mission will be to lead us both to this facility, dismantle it, and find out who's behind it" Rakdos said before turning to Saki. "Any questions?"

Saki welled up with excitement when Rakdos explained the mission. The fact that he was placing so much trust in her to do such an important job meant that her servitude was really starting to pay off. She certainly had no problem finding whatever facility this was and destroying the people responsible. She would relish in it, in fact.

"When do I start?" she asked, in response to her master asking if she had any questions. "You can count on me, master. I will destroy these worms."

"We start now, Kiri wants this place destroyed before they even get close to start building enough ships for any kind of an attack" Rakdos explained as he grabbed his leather jacket and draped it over his shoulders. "I believe that you're capable, but don't get arrogant Saki. We don't know what kind of defenses or forces they have here. For this mission I'll be under your command so don't forget to utilize my strength here" he added before starting to walk towards the door.

"If you're ready, let's go. If we move out now, we should arrive there just as it's getting dark, allowing for the perfect opportunity to strike"

"I'll be...commanding you?" Saki blinked a little in confusion, at a loss for words. Never in all her dreams would she have expected to be commanding her own master. She was his loyal servant. She was to be serving him, not the other way around.Just the thought of it was terrifying, and suddenly she felt quite nervous, almost sick to her stomach. "O-okay... I'll do that."

With a clear of her throat, she turned to the doorway and said, "Um...let's go then. I'll...lead the way."

Rakdos felt a small smirk form on his face as he couldn't hide his amusement, as Saki was so thrown off by the idea of giving Rakdos orders. Jounin weren't just based on strength though, Rakdos had to make sure that Saki had learned from Rakdos's intelligence along with his strength. This would be a good test to see if Saki knew how to truly command and give orders. If she could give orders to Rakdos, she could command anyone.

"Then by all means, lead the way" Rakdos said before moving after Saki, staying just slightly behind her as they traveled out of the village.

Saki wasn't exactly afraid of giving orders, or taking charge, or leading on a mission. However, she had expected when this time came that she would be ordering around individuals with much less experience than herself, not the person who had trained her and was superior to her in every way. It would take some getting used to, for sure. For nearly the duration of the entire travel to their destination, she remained quiet, or kept to only idle small talk. She wouldn't have to worry about giving orders until they were actually there.

When they did arrive at the designated town, shortly after nightfall, Saki gave her first command, as silent as it was. She held up her hand as an indication to stop. She could see the lights burning in the darkness ahead from windows and street lights, along with the occassional movement of people. "Okay, um...first thing's first. We should look for this shipyard they've started to bill, or the area where they've set aside to build it. Shouldn't be too difficult to spot...it'll have to be big, and near the water."

Rakdos stopped the moment that Saki held up her hand for him to stop. He moved to her side as they overlooked the village where the supplies for the shipyard were being moved about. Saki was right, the shipyard couldn't be that hard to stop, especially since it had to be somewhere near the shoreline.

"Sounds like a good place to start, did you have a specific plan for how we should carry out this search?" Rakdos asked, wanting Saki to give him a specific command. He needed to get her to be more vocal, as much as Rakdos cared for Saki he would only sign off on her promotion if she truly performed on this mission. He knew she could do it, she just had to warm up.

"Right, a plan." Saki muttered, as her mind kicked into gear to think of something. Obviously they needed a plan. Finding the shipyard was a goal, not a plan. "You look down along the eastern shoreline, and I'll sweep the western side. We'll meet back here in thirty minutes. Don't be seen, and don't engage anyone until we're together. Once we're sure we know the location, we can infiltrate and see if we can find any documents linking this town to the village supporting them. If we can find someone to interrogate, even better. Then we can get the names of everyone involved and make sure they and their families never get a chance to try something like this again."

Rakdos smiled, enjoying how thorough Saki was in her instructions. "Stealth it is, you got it commander" Rakdos said before moving down the western shoreline as Saki instructed. While Rakdos was a violent individual he also knew the value of stealth. Thankfully at this time of night he was able to fly about in the darkness unseen. While he saw a few shinobi patrolling the village he didn't see anything that would indicate a shipyard being built. "Must be on Saki's side" Rakdos said to himself before turning around. He arrived back where they had started with a few minutes to spare. He waited patiently for Saki to arrive back.

While Saki could not, she did know the transformation technique, as did every othe rshinobi alive. With a simple hand sign she transformed herself into that of a small dog and trotted off through the town towards the shoreline. Anyone who passed her paid little attention, not interested in getting involved with a stray. One guy tried to feed her some leftovers from hsi sandwich, but she kept right on going. Some time after she made her way down the western end of the shore, she came a cross an area partitioned off with piles of lumber stacked all around, including a couple cranes. She scurried around the piles to see several aquatic vessels sitting in a makeshift horbor, along with several more that were being built.

Saki raced back towards the meeting place, only coming out of her transormation when she arrived in front of Rakdos. "I found it. They're building their ships near the very end of the town on the west."

Rakdos turned his head to look towards the west end of town that Saki had mentioned. "Excellent work. You got a good layout of the area I'm sure and the hostiles that we might interact with on the way there" Rakdos remarked. "So what's the next step from here? We destroy the place first or try to figure out who is in charge?" her mentor asked curiously, wondering how Saki felt it was best to proceed. Sometimes there was no clear answer on a mission, but Rakdos wanted to see if Saki at least had logic to support her decision making.

"We need to know who's behind it first," Saki said, with an affirmative nod. "There should be some documents or something left around. Payment recepits, names, anything. If we're lucky someone will be there. If we don't find anything, then we can set the place on fire and wait for people to come running. Then we ask around and see if anyone knows anything. In disguise, of course. Either way, we need to kill everyone involved with it, or else they'll just keep trying again."

Rakdos nodded with understanding before looking out to the village. "Lot of places to comb through if we're going to find information" he pointed out. "What would you like me to do in order to find this information? Stealthily sneak inside of a building? Good old abduction? What would you have me do?"

"Well it doesn't do us any good to abduct any random person," Saki said, with a scratch of her head. "We need to concentrate on the shipyard itself. There should be a foreman's office or something set up there with records and directions, even if it's a temporary space. We'll start looking there. If we see anyone else there though, then we can take them, since they're likely involved. Otherwise we could wait until morning and spy on the place, watch them work, get to know their faces and who to go after. Then we could take one of them when they leave. We can do that if we don't find anyone tonight."

"I see, makes sense to me" Rakdos said as he turned and looked out at the village. In truth he wasn't too impressed by the security here, but if they made too much noise and started drawing attention in things could turn ugly rather fast. "Guess we need to make our way to the shipyard then, meet you there?" Rakdos asked before once again taking off in to the air and using the darkness to start moving forward.

"Uh, y-yes, I'll...see you there," Saki stammered, as Rakdos was suddenly gone. He didn't even give her a chance to affirm the orders. As long as he knew what they were, anyway... With a small sigh, she transformed into a dog again and scampered off to the shipyard to see what she could find. She really hoped she wasn't screwing this up.

Rakdos flew under the cover of darkness, his eyes scanning beneath him as he looked for a sign as to what building they should start looking in to first. The whole structure was nowhere near completed, so finding a building that looked more important than any of the others was difficult. As Rakdos traveled, he suddenly saw a door open as a man stepped out. He shut the door behind him and was quick to lock it before starting to walk away.

Rakdos narrowed his eyes but couldn't get a look at the man's face. However, Rakdos did see that the man was wearing a shinobi weapon's vest. While it was possible for civilians to have these, Rakdos highly doubted the coincidence. His eyes went back to normal before turning to the building. He moved and landed on the roof of it, hiding as he looked around to see if Saki had noticed him stopping.

Saki arrived at the location a short while after Rakdos, considering she couldn't fly, but she did get there in time to notice the man leaving the building and making his way towards her. She waited in the shadows until he went by her, and then looked over to the rooftop where Rakdos was. Turning back into her human appearance from the dog, she motioned for him to go inside and begin searching. Meanwhile, she took off silently after the man as he rounded the corner of a lumber pile. As soon as she was within range, she reached around with both arms, planting one hand over his mouth, and holding a kunai to his throat with the other.

"Make a sound and you die," she whispered to him, as she started to force him towards the shadows. "Your whole family will die."

Rakdos just gave a nod, knowing that Saki could handle one lone shinobi like this. He moved down and simple turned the handle sharply, causing the lock to break with ease due to his vast strength. Rakdos went inside and began looking through the paperwork, quickly scanning his eyes over everything. A name finally stood out to him and caused Rakdos to pause before smiling. The demon tucked the paper inside his jacket before moving out and going to join Saki.

The shinobi didn't struggle against Saki. He made an annoyed grunt but held his hands up to show that he wasn't trying anything funny. Saki would hear Rakdos coming up from behind. "We need to take him elsewhere, I have questions for him" Rakdos said. This was not Saki's decision right now, Rakdos needed to speak to this man and learn what was going on here. The name he read caused him to become curious.

Saki gave Rakdos a confused look at the sudden orders. She briefly wondered if this was some kind of test. After all, he had told her this would be her mission, that she would be giving the orders. But he seemed...too serious for it to be a test. Perhaps something he found in the shack had changed things. So she gave a subtle nod and started to push the man forward into the shadows, towards the outskirts of town.

Saki and Rakdos traveled for some time, until they were both certain that they had distanced themselves from the town and hadn't been followed. After locating an out of the way meadow, Rakdos bound and gagged their prisoner, ensuring that the man wouldn't try and escape successfully. Once the man was secured, Rakdos touched Saki's shoulder and walked with her a few feet away before speaking in a whisper.

"I found some notes in the shack you had me check out, a name popped up that has me concerned: Ken Supaku" Rakdos spoke in a serious tone to make sure that Saki knew he didn't share this information lightly. "Very strong shinobi from Kumogakure, and it seems like he's been overseeing this project. I don't know whether or not his village has been backing him, but if he's involved this threat just because far more legitimate. We need to figure out where he is, and kill him" Rakdos said before glanging back to the bound prisoner.

"I have a feeling, you're going to learn what we need to know from our friend. Aren't you?" Rakdos asked before rhetorically.

Saki didn't need a second reminder. With the change in tone, and what Rakdos insinuated they had to do now, she was only more willing to prove herself. As soon as their brief chat was over, she focused on their prisoner and pulled out a kunai. Kneeling in front of the man, she held the blade at him and said, "You get one chance, and one chance only to answer my questions before I start cutting things off. Depending on what you say, you might not even feel any pain at all. Or...you could be in for a very, very long night."

She turned the man around to get at his bound hands placed the tip of her kunai just underneath one of his fingernails. "So tell me...where is Ken Supaku?"

The man let out a small grunt of pain before hearing what Saki was asking. He bit down on his lip before looking in to her eyes. He didn't know who she was, but the man was far more aware of the man behind her. Very few shinobi hadn't heard of Rakdos Hanyou before. If this girl was some kind of a student of his, she was probably as brutal as rumors would suggest. Still, the man couldn't betray his comrades.

"Do your worst" he said, having no idea what he had just agreed to. Rakdos just smiled and shook his head. He loved to watch people break.