9 am on a Tuesday

[Guest]

Osamu of the NIN clan walked into the Palace of Jade. It was true to it's name and it's beauty would soften the eye to a form of love. Being a woman of lower begetting, she felt a tad out of place in the vast reception room where she was to wait. No place to hide, no place to have a tactical advantage unless she tried to climb the slippery walls.

Nothing.

Sitting on the decorative couch, the dragons on the embroidery swam in and out of her sight as her own body covered up the artwork. She had covered her own appearance just as well. Like a hand over that dragon print. Black long hair with clean cut bangs, a white coat and orange leggings beneath a black dress. Her shoes the same simple black. Her red and purple eyes? Covered with brown contacts. Her skin? It was altered to a more Xingese appearance. Everything about her was covered up except for the painfully worn out bag next to her. Containing things of much importance.

Osa checked her watch. Three to nine. In just a few more minutes she will find whether the Xingese intelligence department would grant her protection from the most closely kept secret in centuries.

[Captain Kelly Tián-Yé]

Osamu Tanuki NIN. Seemed to be about sixteen to nineteen, based on her voice, which was soft, a soprano. She spoke Amestrian, as he'd soon figured out, and she wanted to talk to him about secrets of interest to Xing, about Aerugo and her ninja clan, or something. Very interesting... After a sweep of data, censuses, birth records, geneologies, newspapers, and anything else of interest; nothing. Well, not nothing, actually. A video of her beating a Cretan senseless, which he laughed at. From the video, he observed inhuman strength (chimera, perhaps?), and caught a lovely view of her. Sad fact was, she was pretty hard to gather stuff on, even then; wearing baggy pants and a shirt fit for a fight, she looked more a man than a woman, and compared to the tone of her voice on the phone, it had, in fact, surprised him a bit. From what he could see past the clothing, which was almost all-encompassing, he noted white hair, and caught a glimpse of brown in her eyes. All of this was jotted down in a dossier. This took him three days.

He'd compiled this much data on Aurellius Schwarz within a day, bar birth records, which he could find nowhere for the man. Osamu was good. Very good... He cracked a grin as he read over the dossier again, spinning slightly in his office chair. As head of intel in Xing, he was entitled to a rather nice office, furnished well. It was painted a dull green, pleasant to the eyes and not as garrish as one would assume. He liked it, it was the green of his Xingese uniform, currently traded out for a black suit with a dark violet ruffled shirt, quite fancy, really. He seemed more prepared to accept a crown, or attend a high-society opera than to work his desk job. On the walls were posters, most displaying his musical tastes. Chen Chi Chen, Dropkick Murphys, Thin Lizzy, Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchiakovsky- they were all hung on walls in some form or another. Not to mention artwork; Directly behind his desk, overhanging his chair, was a large portrait of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Painted at the time when Mozart was twenty-three; it had cost $406,000, which was mostly paid for by the emperor of the time, Ace. A gift, for all his hard work. He liked it, it suited his office well.

Standing, he walked over to a large door to his left. Even inside the Jade Palace, one had to be cautious; while an intruder would be hard-pressed to successfully break in, it had happened, and while they'd have an even rougher time navigating the place unseen, it could happen, and while it would be REALLY hard to break into his office, in particular, it was a possibility. Therefore, this door was operated by five biometric systems. Handprint, Retinal, DNA, Vocal, and Visual. He placed his hand on the scanner, heard a satisfied buzz, stepped up on his tip-toes to see into the eye scanner, recieving a buzz as a response, plucked an eyelash and placed it into the DNA scanner, buzz, smiled ugly for the camera, buzz, and finally, leaned over the microphone and said his name. Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. The door, content that he really was him, whooshed open to reveal twenty-seven filing cabinets. One for each letter of the Tiberian alphabet, as well as a cabinet for no-names. Ordered by surname, then further by nationality and gender, he held a massive database of dossiers in here. The reason for the security measures was an important one; it was hard to fake a retinal scan, yes. Even harder was to fake five different scans, after acheiving the impossible, and getting into his office in the first place.

Finding the "T" file cabinet, and the drawer labelled "Aerugo", and the "Female" section of the drawer (talk about OCD...), he quickly found the folder labelled "Osamu Tanuki NIN," into which he placed his measly dossier. He had to hand it to her, not many could pull the slip on him like that... He glanced at his watch as he locked up the dossier closet again; five to nine. He had time to fix a cup of coffee for himself before she arrived. As he did so, he pinged in with the secretary; "Have Ms. Tanuki sent to my office, if you would." Brushing a green lock of hair out of his eyes, he poured a shot of rum into his drink, mixed it with a spoon, and tipped back the cup as he heard her footsteps approaching the door. "Enter on inwald. Door's unrocked." Gah, he hated his Amestrian skills. Ah, well. He tooka sip of his coffee. Mmmm... Ah, he loved Creig coffee in the morning.

[Guest]

After sitting down for three more minutes, she was given an escort down the elegant hallways. There were twists and turns that only came when a large structure was renovated for modern use. That, or to maintain as much tactical usage as possible. Soon she was in front of a reinforced door and her guide had vanished in a turn of the hall way. Just like that, she waited until someone called to her.

"Enter on inwald. Door's unlocked.

Taking a gloved hand, she walked into the room. Just like the rest of the Palace, it was green. There was modest seating in front of the man she talked to. He was the head of the Intelligence for Xing and thus was exactly the person she needed to see. She needed to tell him everything in quick order. She didn't want to end up like several of the people she herself had killed.

But first: she bowed and took a seat.

" My name is Osamu Tanuki NIN."

She opened the worn out bag and pulled out a few samples that included hair, scales, a fetus in a test tube and a few others that looks more animal than human. " I'm being targeted by the assassins you mostly know as what had protected Aerugo in the Han Dynasty from you taking over. The NIN clan are known to be simple beings but they have been experimenting on their own family, myself included. Their breakthrough was that they had isolated the gene that created a heightened amount of intelligence. Though, due to that, the child ran off at the age of four."

She pulled out a dossier of a cute white haired child in a large grown up T shirt. The child in the picture looked like she was trying to make a supercomputer. " If I remember correctly, you had a security breach as several political figures had their promotional websites that was regulated through the Jade Palace mainframe hacked into....and" Osamu coughed a bit, but not continuing her sentence. A few weeks ago someone had hacked into the website and placed sexual pictures over the ones that were previously there.

" That was her doing." She pointed to the dossier that was now on the table. It would show several murders in aerugo, affiliations with yakuza, and the better part of it was simply her signature on a destroyed military desktop. She was seen so many times in the backgrounds of things, and was even recorded several times in beating older men at arcades.

" I believe this is more than enough proof for protection. If you agree, there is quite a bit more. " she clicked her bag shut, leaving what looked like only the least important pieces to the puzzle. Quite a bit more was in that bag of hers.

Her solid temperament and straightforwardness was a bit fazing but she knew that this person could handle it. He had to.

[Captain Kelly Tián-Yé]

She first introduced herself, which Kelly shrugged off with a polite smile. "Yes, yes, I know you are Osamu. I name are Captain Kelly Tián-Yé, and I are Head of Interrigence. Most aporogy for I bad Amestrian, I rearry need rearn better Amestrian or Aerugese." Aaaaaaaahhh, this was so awkward. No matter, no matter. He'd make due.

At the moment, he wasn't concerned with his awful accent, but with her hands; they slipped into a bag and objects were being brought out and set before him. As she did such, he spoke once more, with a grin, though on his face, it could be easily mistaken for a grimace. Gladly, his tone of voice spoke otherwise. "So, you are infamous Osamu Tanuki, ne? There are no data about you. None at arr. Arr I find are video on internet of fight, and what you say to me on terephone. I congraturate you, after three day, I know ress about you than I know about my butrer; I do not have butrer! Hehehe..." Indeed, it was a feat worthy of commemoration; a very select few had eluded his skills at finding data on people, and she was at the top of that select few. Compliment aside, he turned his attention to the evidence. Not a homicide detective, he lacked that cold emptiness at heart; he felt a pang of depression at the sight of the fetus in the test tube. It was brief, and could not have been percievable by Osamu, but he did note it. Showed he was still human, so he allowed moments like that.

Carrying his eyes over some of the items, he saw scales, hairs, and some objects, or corpses, or... he had no idea what they were, just that they seemed Lovecraftian in origin. Taking one of the scales into his hand, he examined it up close, with one hand twisting the hairs of his beard as he did so. "Hmmm... Much strange..." Listening to her explanation, which was very concise and to the point, he nodded along, still examining the scale. How peculiar... As she went on, he looked up as she mentioned genetically altered genes and highly intelligent children. A four year old runaway...?

He got his explanation moments later. Taking the picture into his hands, he looked her over. Adorable kid. And she was in danger? Screw that. She carried on, and he listened, as she noted what she'd done with computers in Xing, specifically, in the Jade Pal- Aha... Ahahahaha! Kelly suddenly broke into laughter moments after she spoke. "You are kidding I, right!? She hack those into websites here? Oh my... Oh my God, that great. Ahhhh, hahaha!~ My men spend so much time staring at computers that day, I have fun pistor-whipping them back to work! If I knew where she are, I will give her hi-five!" He was laughing, indeed, at the hilarious comedy of her putting such pictures up, but really, he was astonished that a kindergartener had cracked into the Jade Palace's high-security network, and then edited data, all without being caught, or even traced. He'd assumed it was a few kids, possibly with connections to the network's administrators, that did it, but a single child, that young? Glorious. Simply glorious. Best yet, Osamu had a dossier ready about her. He glanced over it, taking everything into account. With this much data, he'd have four pages or so by the next day.

As he read, she concluded by stating it was enough evidence to warrant Xingese protection- it was- and he had to agree. With that hidden smile, he nodded. "More than enough, it are. Now, as you recarr, I congraturated you on being hidden, right? Werr, I have to break that streak, I are afraid." Standing, he walked over to a cabinet to his right. Enclosed within it was a set of tools. Bringing some over to his desk, he laid them before Osamu. "Arr I am need are DNA sampre, retinar scan, and prints. I arready has vocar and picture, from phone carr and video. Standard procedure, you know. Rater, there wirr be a interview, blood sampring, dentar data, and other stuff, but that's arr rater. With this and a reference to another NIN member, you're arr ready for protection." As an after-thought, seconds later, he extended a hand for her to shake, and a wink, speaking almost mischievously. "And don't worry, arr these data are going to be for my eye onry; onry between the two of us, it'd be impossibre for anyone erse to get into my fires." Pointing with his free hand to the large doors on his left, he figured that was plenty to reassure her that her identity was safe. All she had to do was trust him, and he'd trust her, as trust worked that way; splendid thing it did, too, as it was one of the few aspects of life he wasn't hopelessly cynical about.

"So we have a dear?"

[Guest]

This man whom was making the best he could with the meager verbal connection between them. His almost blatant kindness spoke more than the words that emitted from his mouth. This "Kelly" man, had a rare human side to him that Osamu wasn't accustomed to. If she wasn't with big rich politicians who sold their soul; she was with hardened law officers whom had seen too many broken souls and pitiless eyes.

Whoever had seen NIN and heard how brilliant she was, they liked her immediately. " NIN won't need protection now that she had joined forces with The Dragon's Blood Alkahestrist." She didn't need to mention that NIN was now 7 and would be more of a threat to each country the longer she stayed alive.

" Though if my family could create such a being and learning such destruction organically. You might feel my fear once you realize that they give each child strict direction. " Her voice was hollow when she said such a thing, while she took off her glasses. Pulling off the contacts, and her skin draining back to flour white. The black in her hair drained to silver tendrils.

" You may not be able to track me with DNA, but we have a secluded albinism that can be tracked to any NIN, due to inbreeding. You will find it in the Head of Affairs Officer called Yakusu Modorima. He has the same chameleon ability. Though watch out for his retractable claws. He cut off my arm once."


She stood up, taking away the necessary pieces of information from her body. " We have a deal."

A person who can change their pigmentation is also able to alter their DNA structure to do so.

From here on out, she would be citizen of Xing. Giving her body to science in which to make better soldiers, or to cure veterans whom had lost limbs. Though she would never tell anyone that in all of the chimereas....

That in all of their testing that they had not found out....

That she was fertile and able to hold a child.

Which would soon create generation 7.

[Captain Kelly Tián-Yé]

Kelly listened as Osamu went forth, responding to all the things he said, in turn, and all, as that's how conversations tend to happen. Y'know, with talking and crap. And as such, he responded to her responses and such, like a normal human being, and not someone who was internally extremely flustered about his horrid Amestrian, despite his external calmness; it was a trait one picked up from experience as an intelligence agent. Emotions could work in bipolarity; inside, he could be one thing, and convincingly cover that one thing up with a perfect mimery of another. A gift and a curse, y'know? Could be seen as calmness in the face of anything ever; could be seen as dishonesty, smoke and mirrors. He had a feeling Osamu knew this all too well, herself.

"Dragon's Brood Alkahestrist? Who are this? Would rike to meet him, specificarry rittre girl. " He didn't, of course, mention that he was planning on keeping an eye out for the girl as well, despite what Osamu might have said about her not needing protection. It was in his nature, protection of those younger, more vulnerable than he. And of course, he kinda wasn't kidding about high-fiving the kid over that accomplishment of hacking the Jade Palace. He'd actually assembled a team of hackers, each about thirty years into their trade, and all with different backgrounds and techniques. Twelve men and women with the best hacking skills in the world couldn't hack the Jade Palace the first three attempts. On the fourth, they succeeded, but were booted from the system before a backdoor could be created, or their mission completed. A small child had done it in one try, and succeeded in doing what she'd come to accomplish. Likely, she had even created backdoors, and borrowed some files. Osamu couldn't have possibly under-exaggerated the girl's intelligence any more than what she'd said of it.

Osamu spoke again as her appearance was changed before his eyes; Kelly didn't react to this, so much as to the words. "Perhaps the fear are quite tangibre, yes... Rike supersoldier, just arr wrong..." He went about taking the required samples as he spoke. She'd surprised him again, he'd admit, but he didn't show it this time, and his admiration for her skill at hiding her identity. It was almost perfect, only the absolute best at his field would be able to scrounge up any more than he had. He found it amusing, actually; the only things he'd found out about her before this meeting had been name, age, sex, location, and tone of voice. While this might have been quite enough to track down insane amounts of data on the average person, he'd found next to nothing on her, and what he had found had just been proven false. He was tempted to laugh, but deigned against it.

Next, she began to explain her family's genetics, the fact she had no DNA signature, which he had expected, and the inbreeding. It made sense, but it got to Kelly's nerves a little; he wanted some fresh air, so he stood as calmly as he had done anything else thus far, and walked over to the one window in his room; practically a slit, it was slanted, to deter snipers. He opened it, as air began to slowly filter in, and he took a little breath, before walking back to his desk, sitting down agan, with a bit of an apologetic smile. "Aiyaa, aporogy, it just a rittre hot in here." He had been listening the whole time, and as such, continued to do so, after his interruption. Putting the disturbance of the whole inbreeding thing out of his mind, he paid more attenbtion to the man she'd mentioned. "Major Modorima, ne? Why, pray terr, might he is in Xing?" Hmmm... A spy, perhaps? Now, he didn't wish to jump to conclusions, but from how she described him, he assumed such; he'd most certainly have to be cautious with this. He'd likely go it alone, pistol in his pocket and a peace-flag in his palms, as the proverbs always say. Better to talk first and shoot second than to risk dying, killing the target, or scaring him away.

As the pair shook hands, she noted the pact they had made, and he offered a smile, genuine, but, like the rest of his facial expressions, concealed behind the ugly smoke and mirrors of battle-scars long past. Good to see she was being reasonable; in all his days of trading protection for information, at least twelve of the witnesses coming to him had left by security escort, with a broken nose and blood on his fist. Honestly? If he said that he couldn't protect someone just because they tried to take on some gang, and knew where the gang met on some Thursdays, it meant the information was useless to him, and for them to go away. Not to pick up a chair and ruin a perfectly good Ming Dynasty vase...

[Shula Brighton]

{BUMP}

[Guest]

"Dragon's Brood Alkahestrist? Who are this? Would rike to meet him, specificarry rittre girl. "

After settling back down and reapplying her guise, she looked up. Would it be too much to correct that the Dragon's Blood Alkahestrist is a woman? Or that it is extremely difficult to even know where she was last let alone where she is now?

No. It would muddle up the negotiations that have been going so well up to this point.

" They are both commonly located in Aerugo. That is all I will say in the matter until I know that NIN is taken care of."

Her tight-lipped composure suddenly appearing after giving the required information. She said she will make sure that Hikari is safe, and that could not happen until the NIN clan is removed from Aerugo.

After such a reply he opened a window and cool air gently flew into the room. What a wonderful feeling after such tense conversation.

"Major Modorima, ne? Why, pray terr, might he is in Xing?"

Osamu took out a phone and logged onto a clear wifi. From Kelly's perspective she was on Google Images. After some seconds she showed the picture to him. " He is Xing's Head of Affairs. If I'm not mistaken, in which I could be, he is two flights above us right now. "

She didn't want to alarm him and after he had a good look, she put her phone back into her purse. Modorima was the person she had been in disguise for. In case she had run into him, she had at least 3 different routes to escape from in the jade palace. Though due to it's strong design, none that was without loss of limb or at least a segment on the morning news. She was glad it was going so well, but that was getting ahead of oneself.

" I think that is enough information. At least until I am situated. Though I presume that is your call and not mine."

[Csilla Angelis]

{BUMP}

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