Chapter 273: The Abnormality of Seagull City
The next moment, both of their figures vanished simultaneously. At that same time, Kojirō, who had completed a lap around the nearby dark alleys, discovered something very strange.
"Something's wrong, meow! Very wrong!"
Kojirō shook his head. In a normal town, you wouldn't expect cats to be everywhere, but it shouldn't be the case that after searching for so long, he couldn't find a single cat hair.
And he wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but Kojirō felt the eyes of the humans were very peculiar. When they saw him, their expressions held a look of pleasant surprise...the same kind of look a starving kitten has when it discovers a mouse.
Unfortunately, Kojirō was currently conducting a "secret investigation," so it wasn't wise to interact with these strange humans. Consequently, he decisively fled every time they approached.
It was precisely because of this that Kojirō failed to notice the frustrated, exasperated looks on those people's faces after he "escaped."
"Meow!?"
Just as Kojirō was wondering why he couldn't find any of his own kind in Seagull City, he turned a corner and came face-to-face with a black cat emerging from a rat hole.
"Yo, finally found a cat..."
Kojirō greeted the black cat happily in cat-speak. Just as he was about to ask his fellow feline about the situation in Seagull City, the black cat hurriedly covered his mouth.
"Meow your head! Hide, quickly!"
The black cat had first been startled by this excessively fat orange cat, then hurriedly looked around. After confirming there were no humans in sight, it tried to drag Kojirō into the rat hole with it.
"Wait a minute, meow! This hole is too small, I can't fit, meow!"
Kojirō tried to squeeze into the rat hole, but forget his impossibly stout body...even his round, massive head plugged the entrance so tightly that not even a sliver of him could get in.
"Idiot, idiot, idiot! How did you eat yourself this fat, meow!"
The black cat instinctively looked at Kojirō's belly, which almost dragged on the ground. It felt like a mental critical hit. "If any other cat had even half your weight, they would have been caught and eaten by those two-legged beasts long ago, meow," it said, sounding utterly incredulous.
"Eaten? These two-legged beasts eat cats?!"
Kojirō's eyes widened involuntarily. The expression on his furry face was exceptionally distorted, as if he had heard something world-shattering. "How evil! Lord Ikeizumi was right! Seagull City...no! The Land of Water is a land of deep sin, meow!"
"What's so strange about that? When those two-legged beasts are starving, they'll even fight a cat for a rat!"
The black cat had a look of "seen-it-all," finding Kojirō a bit overly dramatic. "Find a place to hide first. Otherwise, a cat as fat as you will definitely cause a commotion if the two-legged beasts spot you."
While Kojirō was fearfully following the black cat to find a hiding spot, Biwa Jūzō followed the route in his memory and arrived at a dilapidated, muddy district.
However, before he could reach the location of the black market, his path was blocked by a man with long green hair and shark-like teeth.
"Oh? I thought someone was spying, but it's just you..."
The man crossed his arms and glanced at the scratch on Jūzō's forehead protector. His hostile eyes softened slightly. "Did you also choose to defect because you couldn't stand those annoying pests, Biwa Jūzō?"
"...Kurosuki Raiga. So you've been hiding here all along."
Jūzō instinctively gripped the hilt of the Kubikiribōchō. He thought he understood the reason why Seagull City had decayed into this state, but remembering Izumi's previous instructions, he didn't act rashly.
As fellow members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, Jūzō had no absolute certainty of taking down Raiga. If they had a major fallout here, the commotion would only make the investigation more difficult.
The underground black market of Seagull City had persisted under the Mist's nose for so many years. Even if there were Mist shinobi colluding with them, it proved how high the vigilance of these "water rats" was.
If Jūzō started a fight with Raiga, the people running the black market might immediately pack up the money and run, only returning once the heat died down.
"I have a decent relationship with the Funaya family. Why don't you come along? Yūjirō will definitely welcome you."
Raiga didn't mind the slight hostility Jūzō displayed; Mist shinobi were mostly accustomed to drawing blades at a moment's notice and treating life cheaply.
Especially since they were former Mist elites and members of the Seven Swordsmen, the fact that Jūzō only held his hilt and didn't slash him on the spot was already a very restrained performance.
"I haven't decided yet. Let me think about it."
Within a few sentences, Jūzō realized that Raiga's information source was likely flawed; otherwise, he wouldn't be unaware that Jūzō had actually defected much earlier. Raiga thought he was a freshly minted rogue.
"Oh, well, remember to come find me once you've thought it through."
Raiga didn't suspect anything. Compared to the other former members of the Seven Swordsmen, he and Jūzō got along reasonably well as former colleagues. Of course, they weren't "close"...it was just that Raiga's relationship with everyone else was so much worse that his relationship with Jūzō seemed "not too bad" by comparison.
After briefly brushing Raiga off, Jūzō didn't attempt to continue infiltrating for intel. Since Raiga could find him, it meant the black market people had already sensed something was off.
In this situation, a rash infiltration would only alert the enemy. It was better to pretend to leave to lower their guard. Besides, Izumi and that ninja cat were also collecting information. Shinobi was not a profession meant only for solo play; often, one must...and can only...choose to trust their teammates.
Compared to Kojirō and Jūzō, whose investigation tasks weren't going smoothly, Izumi's investigation was surprisingly successful.
This wasn't because she was superior to Jūzō in terms of shinobi skills, but purely due to the grace of Uchiha Ikeizumi.
The ability to see every crime a target had committed was a straight-up "bug" when it came to gathering intelligence.
Against good people or ordinary civilians, the effect wasn't as obvious, but almost everyone operating an underground black market had a red name and a maxed-out sin level. All Izumi had to do was follow a certain Red Name's trail and trace the vine to the melon. Without much effort, she had mapped out the entire situation of Seagull City's underground black market.
By the time the two humans and the cat reunited, Izumi's face had become very grim. The notebook in her hand was filled with a dense list of various crimes.