"Hiya, old man!" Naruko yelled, kicking the door to the Hokage's office open.
Nanoha was mortified. Intelligence said that this man was the leader of the village, and a man known across the world either as The Professor, for his vast accumulated knowledge… or the God of Shinobi, for striking such fear into the hearts of his enemies as to make them believe he was a god in the flesh.
"Hello, Naruko. I'm glad to see you as exuberant as always," the Hokage said, smiling warmly at the entering trio. "Vita-san, you're taking a lone mark today? That's rare," he added, seeing Vita. "And… I don't believe I've met this young lady. A friend of yours?"
"Sort of," Vita said.
"She's one of my two new friends! Her name's Nanoha! Nanoha, this is the old guy! He might look like he's really old and weak, but he actually once took on all four of my knights at once!" Naruko said, smiling at the old guy.
The man chuckled. "You exaggerate, I know I would've lost had that battle continued," he said, shaking his head. "You guys are just too fast, and there's only so much my body can take," he said, looking at Vita.
Vita frowned and rubbed at her side, phantom pain reminding her of the time she'd been crashed through a dozen trees. "I wouldn't want to fight him one on one," Vita admitted.
"Anyway, what brings you around here, Naruko-chan? I was actually thinking I'd pay you a visit once my workday was over," the old man said, raising his eyebrows questioningly.
"Well, we were gonna ask you to help us! See, Nanoha-chan is a really good mage, but she kinda doesn't really do melee fighting. She uses a staff, so I was wondering if—"
"Say no more, Naruko-chan," he interrupted, waving his hand. "Young lady, if you are willing to undertake the training, I will personally make sure you can use your staff to fight even the greatest of opponents!" he claimed, slamming his hand on the desk and standing up. Then he looked at them for a moment. "I also do spear training, but that's minor," he added.
"Uh… ah… okay?" Nanoha tried, blinking. She was really confused. Her upbringing told her to be really respectful of the authority figure that the Hokage represented. She was basically standing in front of a General. But the atmosphere was totally wrong, and she wasn't quite sure how to respond.
"Anyway, now that that's over with," Naruko said, "we're gonna be taking a mission! So see ya, old man—"
"Naruko you're not a ninja, you can't take missions," the Hokage said, frowning.
"Vita's not a ninja either, and she can," Naruko protested, pouting.
"She's a contractor, that's different."
"Well then make me a constructor, too," Naruko said, crossing her arms and huffing. "I can do missions, too!"
"Naruko, you can't even use your—"
"Actually… we don't know exactly why, but she has increased her ability to use magic dramatically. She could potentially learn to fight as she is now," Vita explained.
"She's at least got some spells down… That Bloody Dagger spell looked pretty powerful," Nanoha said, frowning.
"Bloody Dagger, you say..?" the Hokage said. "I… will want to hear more of this."
"You might want to visit the hospital and ask Shamal directly. She's got most of what we know," Vita said.
"And… what about this young girl? Can she fight, as well?" Sarutobi said.
"Not without my device," Nanoha admitted, shaking her head.
"But there aren't only combat missions," the Hokage said, nodding at himself. "Very well. I suppose that a C rank wouldn't be too bad. So long as you're looking after them… I guess it's alright."
Vita sighed. "I am going to regret this, aren't I?"
"We've got a caravan over an out of the way route. It should be just about safe enough…"
"Go take the caravan guarding mission, he said," Vita moaned, "it should be safe, he said," she added. "How the hell did we get into this mess!?"
'This mess' being the situation she now found herself in. To start with, apparently Naruko and Nanoha thought it was a good idea to tell their clients they weren't even ninja. Which made the clients throw a fit. Then she slapped them down by pointing out that she was a jounin-ranked bounty hunter and that she alone was worth the cost of several teams of genin. That'd made them calm down. The problem is, one of them apparently took offense at Naruko for some reason, probably to do with the fact that Naruko wasn't a ninja and was clearly treating the mission like it was a game.
Of course, Vita did not take kindly to that man, and had made a point to intimidate him into dropping fudge. Only that man turned out to be the caravan's chief. So their stay had been made miserable by the fact that their clients didn't like them. They couldn't just abandon the mission and leave them to fend for themselves, for all their faults they had actually paid the price in full.
Only, of course, things went further south shortly afterwards. What else would happen? Shinobi showed up instead of the highwaymen that Vita had been expecting. Dispatching the ones that jumped her had been pathetically easy. They were a bunch of genin ranked missing ninja worth little more than the clothes they wore on their backs and the weapons they carried. The problem, however, was that they were not the main force. They were merely a distraction.
So when she had planted the last one on the ground with Graf Eisen, she only had long enough to turn when she heard Nanoha's scream to turn around.
The last one… had managed to sneak past her, and was now holding Naruko with her arms pinned behind her back, holding a kunai to her throat. Naruko's eyes were wide open, and she was frozen on the spot. This was a horrible sight Vita never wanted to see… Her mistress terrified to the point she had frozen still.
"Drop the hammer!" the man demanded, tightening his grip on Naruko, "or she'll have a second mouth on her neck!" he added.
"Shit," Vita muttered.
"Stop this," Nanoha pleaded. "You won't get away…"
"We didn't expect a jounin, much less given the three brats present," a voice they all knew spoke, as the caravan leader entered into the scene. "What do you think?"
"Not as big a haul as I'd have wished," the man holding a kunai to Naruko's neck spoke. "Konoha loves their genin, though, so they'll pay a small fortune for these…"
"We're not genin," Nanoha said, "we're not even ninja, or part of Konoha's military at all," she explained, fully calm. Whether it be terrorists or plain criminals, she had actually received training to deal with such situations. One of the first lessons she'd gotten was to remain calm at all times, and to never show the enemy that he has something you want.
"Given the amount of privilege these brats have, they oughta be hella important," the caravan master said, cracking his neck. "It almost makes me sad we gotta give 'em back. I'm sure they'd all grow up to be some right beauties."
"They're like, ten years old now, and I'm not gonna wait that long," the kidnapper said.
"…Don't tell me you're a pedophile because I'll kill you right now," the Caravan master snapped.
"Shit, no, that's one way to get killed real fast. Konoha gets pissed when you kill their genin, but if you rape 'em, they're gonna declare war on your ass," the man said, shaking his head. "If these brats are anywhere near as important as you say, then we'd be pretty much asking for the God of Shinobi to come and smear us on the grass."
"Whatever happens today, you will not walk out of this unharmed. If you put her down right now, you will live," Vita warned, her grip on Graf Eisen tightening.
"Oh, yeah?" the man said, tightening his grip on her arms and touching the knife to the unblemished skin of her neck. "We're gonna walk right out, with this here brat with us. And you, jounin-chan, are going to drop that hammer, and give it to us. We'll treat it nice and good, and if you're lucky, Konoha will pay the ransom and then you'll get them back. That sound good to ya?"
"I've got a better idea. Let her go, I will be your hostage instead," Vita said. "Unlike her, there's a bounty on my head. Ten million Ryo alive, put on by Orochimaru himself," Vita said, her teeth grinding as she tried to reign in her temper.
"No… no… no replacements," Naruko said, weakly, her eyes screwing shut as she seemed to regain some degree of awareness, her terror seemingly passing.
"It's better that way."
"I said no!" Naruko said, with a lot more force. "I… I can take care of this… I won't let it happen again…"
"Huh? The hells you talking about?" the man said, turning to her.
"Never again!" Naruko yelled.
Nanoha could've sworn… at that moment, she saw Naruko's eyes flash red for an instant.
The man lost his grip as the girl in front of him surged with strength. He lunged forward to recapture her, knowing that he would be history if he didn't…
"Pierce through," eight blades of red light appeared in the small space between them at Naruko's shout, and the man took a moment to widen his eyes as they began to move towards him. The combined momentum made the blades sink into his flesh, and their more potent momentum made them carry him off into the air.
The caravan master blinked as he saw Naruko hit the ground, panting and clearly exhausted. And the jounin they'd meant to trick into capture… was now floating behind him.
"Ah… Ah… shit…"
"We're never, EVER going on a mission again! I'll stick to hunting high rank bounties!" Vita said.
Nanoha sighed weakly. "That was… a lot more intense than I thought it'd be. It's nothing like training," she said, shaking her head. "Naruko-chan, are you alright? You looked pretty bad there…"
"I'm fine!" Naruko chirped. "Anyway, we got here early, but the others should be home already."
"I… think I envy your stomach, Naruko-chan," Nanoha said, given how hers was unsettled after having seen what the Bloody Daggers did to a human body.
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, Naruko had all the accuracy of a potato, so she hadn't hit anything important and the man had survived. He'd never walk again, but he'd survived. Were she honest, Nanoha wasn't terribly sympathetic. She was more sympathetic of the girl who'd accidentally done the damage in a fit of panic over having her life threatened.
Particularly because Naruko was a civilian being betrayed by a false client who'd apparently set up some sort of ransom racket.
Nanoha surprised herself when she thought about how little sympathy she afforded to the men (and one girl) who'd tried to assault her and her new friends. Maybe it was because of the lethal threat that the man represented, or maybe it was because she thought he got what he deserved for his actions, but ultimately, she couldn't bring herself to feel bad about the man being crippled from the waist down.
She might have thought Fate would find it weird, but when she revealed the sort of man who'd done that, well, she seemed perhaps even less sympathetic, and Chrono had flat out explained to her that it was okay to be unsympathetic to criminals in certain instances, as she made her daily report to the Asura that night. She hadn't detained someone who didn't know better, or who didn't have any other option. The caravan was wealthy enough to be fully stocked, and most of it was clean anyway. The people in on it were all doing it out of greed, not because of necessity.
It was… actually her first brush with someone who was actually legitimately a bad person, and not someone who was good and misguided or doing bad things for reasons that were wholly understandable to her, such as love or desperation. She could say, it was actually her first brush with someone who wasn't crazed in any way, and just plain evil.
And… she was glad she was actually taking the course she was. Joining the TSAB was for the best… and she'd be proud she was putting this sort of scum out of everyone's life.
As they went to sleep, Nanoha asked Fate to hold her through the night. If only because the two blonds were fairly similar, and Nanoha didn't want to think she'd almost lost her newest friend this soon after making it.