The early morning news of the dock battle spread faster than the sun could rise. Before even the first yellow rays peaked out over the ocean’s horizon a crowd gathered at the shores edge to see the damage. Some collectors even scavenged parts of the sunken smuggler vessel in some hopes the lost cargo might have clung to one of the pieces. Camp Monog's very existence bred chaos, but in the months since its founding the distant island hadn't spawned anything quite as spectacular as outright clashes between nations. Sure, a bit of espionage and thievery here and there, but for two generals to go at it! The so called Isle of Ash just kept on putting out surprises.

Jinchi’s miraculous appearance and the subsequent settling of its unknown land naturally bred tensions among the nations of the world. Landmasses simply didn't appear out of nowhere. Even the strongest jutsus in recorded history couldn't replicate a feat as ridiculous as making an island disappear (or reappear!). Every nation with any degree of influence drew the same conclusion; some powerful, unknown technology must have been the cause of the incident.

And, naturally, the power to make large chunks of land vanish into nothingness was a weapon everyone wanted to have (or more importantly, wanted everyone else to not have). So began the dumping of kindling onto the bonfire of the island of Jinchi. All it needed was a spark, then the real fireworks would begin.

“Okay, okay, of course, everyone knows that.” Far opposite of the scene of last nights altercation stood Ringo and Hajime, scaring off and sweeping up the nastiness left behind by the local sea lion population. “I read the newspapers too, Ringo. You don't have to talk down to me.”

“Well- ugh.” Ringo spat as she heaved her mop over the side of the pier along with a pile of filth. No ships were being allowed to dock that morning, which meant instead of fun immigration duties, cadets had to perform the janitorial ones. “Sir, with all due respect, we were told not to talk about it in public. Our superiors will get Gekko back, I'm sure of it!”

“Right.” Hajime leaned up against his own mop and closed his eyes. The early morning sun felt great, especially since neither he nor his teammate got any sleep the previous night “And we can't just throw all the Garion bums out into the ocean because that would start a war. I understand completely.” He nodded, satisfied at having reached a conclusion that everyone else already understood hours ago.

“Not just Garion, Sir.” Ringo stopped her vicious scrubbing for a second to gaze out across the blue horizon, mostly to eyeball a departing flock of seagulls which was about to fly over their position. “Metsina Agents keep slipping past our patrols and robbing Annitou of its rightful property...and the Fenshingiri jungle camps have been causing problems as well. We have no friends out here.”

“Not true!” Hajime shot a winning smile and pointed his gross mop at Ringo. “Gekko is our friend! And you're my friend! We're all friends!”

As animal filth dripped from the boy's cleaning tool Ringo only regarded him with a deadpan stare. The silence went on for a little too long, punctuated only by the sound of the liquid falling from the soggy head of the mop. “Comrades,” Ringo eventually relented. “We're comrades.”

“We're comrades!” Hajime twirled his mop with expert precision, laying if across his shoulders as he usually did his spear. “And together we'll make it through this- oh, nuts.” The boy's flitting attention shifted away from the moment and towards something in the distance. “Go get the port authorities, Ringo, there's a ship coming!

-

A small panic ensued as the Metsina branded vessel requested access to Camp Monog's only port. Obviously the ship claimed to be private and only carried food for barter and trading. Every ship that passed this way claimed the same thing, so that the Annitou Navy couldn't catch them and force them away. To add to the troubles Annitou's customs office, due to the previous night's events, were quite short staffed. “And that's why you have kids inspecting your boat.” An Annitou Agent lowered his clipboard slightly to look at the groggy captain straight in the face. “If you don't like it, you can turn your ship around and head back the way you came. Metsina's only two weeks of travel out, right?”

“I hear you, I hear you. Fine, fine. Men, men!” The captain turned and bellowed back to his crew. “Don't hassle these youngins! Let 'em do their job!” He turned back around to the two Annitou 'inspectors', and to the suspicious amount of animal waste decorating their boots. “Well, there you have it. Your...soldiers can get to it, then.”

With a nod the Agent sent Hajime and Ringo off to inventory the ship's contents. With any luck, this Metsina ship would be telling the truth, and wouldn't be full of weapons or drugs or the devil knew what else that awful little country tried smuggling in on a regular basis.

“Oranges!” Ringo howled back, the wooden walls of the ship's cargo hold amplifying her already loud voice. “Twenty-eight crates! Tobacco! Fifty barrels!” Grunting she used her crowbar to pry open the top case on the next pile. “Jars of red...slug...things! Eight cases!”

As Hajime took notes in the inventory log, another harsh but recognizably feminine voice shouted out from somewhere above them.

"THEY'RE PEPPERS!"

“You gotta stop doing that.” Up in the galley with the other sailors and patiently awaiting their release was a young, rather well-kept (by sailing standards) teenager. He stood shorter than most of the other sailors but wasn't the youngest on board by far. It was just unfortunate he also happened to be the 'prettiest' on the crew list, as voted by the majority of the Metsina sailors shortly after they had left dock. “We're trying to, you know, not draw attention.”

“It'll take those idiots longer if they don't record our cargo right.” These words came out with a dead serious tone. This grave and solemn declaratoin was undercut somewhat by the mouthful of dry biscuit crumbs from which it originated. “You've never dealt with Annitou nitwits before, have you Yuu?" She took a heavy swallow and chased it with a dark liquid from a small gourd at her hip. "They'll bury us in paperwork if we give them the chance.”

“Right, right.” Yuu sighed and pushed his own meager breakfast around on his wooden plate. “I apologize, Esteemed Agent Hana. Not everyone can be as worldly and experienced as you.”

Acting as if she didn't hear, Hana continued stuffing the stale bread into her mouth and nodded with satisfaction. “Thank you, Cadet Yuu. I'm sure with time and practice you too can-" Ringo's voice screamed something incorrect and Hana's face twisted with frustration. "For crying out loud. IT'S CINNAMON! THE SPICE!”

Back below decks Ringo squinted down at the bag of powder and sniffed it again. Her eyes narrowed. “Right down gunpowder anyway, Sir!”

-

Finally, in the afternoon, the Annitou port authority granted permission for the Metsina ship to lay anchor. Just as quickly the paperwork got lost, as tended to happen when priorities were elsewhere.

“Hell of a situation to float into, isn’t it?” Yuu yawned as rejoined with Hana elsewhere on the pier. The two left separately when disembarking, as to not draw any suspicon. “I was hoping we’d be able to dock when it was quieter. I guess you can’t expect hair-triggers like Annitou and Garion to not start a tantrum at the drop of a hat.”

Leaning over the railing of a staircase leading to Camp Monog, Hana allowed herself a small smile. “No, this is perfect.” She quickly finished writing something onto a small slip of paper, then roughly jammed it back into a satchel at her hip. “We will continue the mission. I don’t want to hang around and wait for those imbecils to cool off. They’ll be too distracted now to care about our dinky vessel making landfall. They didn't even have anyone but those kids running inspection his morning. Annitou must really be strained on resources.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” Yuu tried to smile back at Hana, but when she saw the boy acting so casually a scowl returned to her face. The response was a bit disappointing, but Hana certainly shouldered more of a burden than himself. “Is boss better than Agent? How about 'supreme leader'? Would that make you feel good?”

“Should I call you Baby Yuu, then?” Hana eased up a bit on the stern look, as the banter reminded her a bit of their early academy days. “Or would that hurt your feelings?”

“Ow!” Yuu mocked a flinch, then went right back to his usual docile expression. “It hurts enough knowing I couldn’t get promoted before you. Even if I get one after this job-”

“You will.”

“Yeah, well,” Yuu tucked his long black hair back to tie it off in preparation for potential hostile encounters once they hit the mainland. Despite the two teenagers dressing like sailors for this job, neither his well-groomed head nor Hana's (actually shorter) hair blended in really well with the seedier appearances that seemed to be in fashion on Jinchi. “Even if I do, you still beat me across that finish line. We’ll have to race to see who gets to be general next, eh?”

“We both know it’ll be me again.” Hana’s face returned to its hardened, focused stare. “But what matters is completing the mission successfully. Just do what I say and we won’t have any issues.”

“Don't I do that for you normally anyway? I'll kill as many puppies as you order, Ma'am.” Yuu sighed, thankful for having at least pulled a fragment of humanity out of his partner. “We're not racing to see who can be a heartless asshole first.”

“Agent Hana,” she corrected him. “And I'm pretty sure I won that contest already as well.” Yuu almost bought it, but the look in her eyes suggested she wasn’t taking it seriously. At least, not yet.

As Hana predicted the infiltration proved exceedingly simple. Only a ghost crew of Annitou cadets patrolled Camp Monog's streets, and Hana and Yuu looked just like any number of the young shiphands that the smaller vessels tended to pick up at ports to help with loading and unloading. Undercover work didn’t get easier than this.

The pair split as soon as they gained entrance to the settlement. Hana disappeared somewhere into the business district and Yuu pretending to bungle his way into the camp's wet markets. Both were dressed in the common coveralls sailors in these parts wore and although Yuu stood a bit shorter than most, Jinchi was so full of oddballs and weirdos almost nobody took notice. Almost nobody.

“Aye, that’ll do her.” The vendor pocketed the Annitou currency as Yuu handed it over as best he could without making any physical contact. The shopkeeper beckoned to one of his helpers, who scuttled off to retrieve something from beneath a discolored tarp. He returned and slammed a small caged dog onto the dirty counter. The thing looked mangy and half wild, no doubt an import brought along to assist with hunts out in Jinchi’s wilds. “Guaranteed to be free of wastin’ disease and scurvy foot...” the shopkeep handed the iron cage over to Yuu. Yuu on the other hand kept glancing at the exit longingly. “No promises about red fever though, that bug takes weeks to show up.”

“Noted. Thank you for your hard work, sir.” Yuu put on his well practiced feigned-politeness smile. Even these seedy scumbags could be swayed with a little fake cordiality. The world was a tough place, so sometimes swallowing your pride is what it took to get things done. That was one of many common Metsina creeds, an ethos Hana embraced all too well.

“Oh, boyo, one thing.” The grizzled shopkeep flipped through a ledger and scribbled down something. “You got yourself a right pretty face, don’t ya? Along with that hair and your fine complexion...”

A thin shiver of suspicion ran down Yuu’s spine. “It's a fairly common look where I come from. My body isn’t for sale, if that was your next question.”

“Oh, ohoho, no, no,” the shopkeeper coughed. “Of course not. You just bear some resemblance to, well, you know. I'm sure you've heard it before.” The shopkeeper's gaze lingered a bit too long for Yuu's taste. “I spent some time in Metsina in my youth, boy. I'm sure you've heard this before, but, well, surely you understand what I mean...” The man gave a yellow grin. More than just Yuu's mood was beginning to sour.

“Someone might mistake you for someone important, if you aren’t careful.”

“I can't possibly imagine what you mean by that.” Yuu’s demeanor changed slightly to a more defensive one. This man’s intentions weren’t yet clear.

“Must be new to Jinchi then, eh?” The shopkeep tapped his pen on the wooden counter separating the two of them. “Usually, when one doesn’t want rumors spreading, they provide a bit of an incentive.” He rubbed two fingers together suggestively. “That knife cuts both ways, boy. A bit extra on top and-”

A brief but visible weight of relief lifted off Yuu’s shoulders, and he quickly tossed another couple Annitou coins to the blackmailing peddler. “You clearly aren't from Metsina. Don’t be so coy next time and just ask for the bribe.” Yuu turned to take his leave amid the cackling of the shopkeep. The man probably felt as though he'd pulled a fast one on the boy, but in his homeland such transactions occurred on the regular. Metsina operatives didn't call them bribes anyway. It was just called doing good business.