Chapter 24.

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Mina shared his sentiments.

She had headed straight over to the section of the wall where she could see the wires were headed and where she gathered the communications tower would be the moment she had finished speaking to Kakuzu and Hidan. But the only problem—at least for now, anyway—had been getting inside the village from there. She hadn’t just wanted to scale the walls and climb inside, knowing that someone would spot her; even if, by some miracle, it wasn’t someone nearby, considering the height of the wall, no doubt ninjas placed further away would be able to see her too. So that idea was out the window immediately.

But she had to get in somehow, and had kicked herself several times at how she was wasting time in shutting down the building and helping out the Akatsuki with finishing the mission. Why she hadn’t begun planning this part of her ‘mission’ earlier she didn’t know, but now she was left in the lurch, and she had to come up with something quickly. She could turn herself invisible—but what if they had something that would sense her chakra? Then Mina might as well have just climbed up the wall the normal way in complete view of everyone in the village. True, she had a vague idea of the building and the area around it, but she didn’t know everything. There was no telling what might be waiting on the other side. But the ninjas from the group had to have gotten in somewhere; they couldn’t have had to walk all the way round all the time.

Then glancing down at the ground, she remembered the path that Kakuzu had pointed out, and quickly changing her path, Mina found it once more and continued along it, smirking in triumph as she eventually found it led up to the wall again; but this time with a change. This time there was clearly a line that marked a door of some kind—where the stone could move back in the right circumstances. Naturally, those hadn’t been completed and the ‘door’ remained shut—but it didn’t matter to Mina. If she could get Sunagakure gates to open in a weakened state, then she could definitely get these to open now. So building up her chakra in her hands, she stepped forward and up to the wall, placing her hands on the stone and forcing her chakra into it, willing the slabs to move to the side.

It barely took a second before they did so, swiftly shifting to disappearing into the gaps in the wall, leaving a small tunnel for Mina to pass through. She did so quickly, turning invisible immediately and dashing across the street. The further into the village she got, the more she recognised the area, and following her memories and the wires she spotted, seeing that there weren’t as many ninjas as she had thought, she soon found the tower, heading straight towards it. Just like before Mina used her abilities to bypass any doors or security measures that were in her way, slipping into the building unnoticed and taking out all the ninja within.

She couldn’t risk being interrupted while working.

Though she didn’t know the outlay of the tower, Mina first spent her time searching for anything that could act as a map; that way she would know where she could head to shut this whole place down. To make sure that nothing would hinder the others work at taking down the group—Mina got the feeling they were taking down the main hideout. By destroying the tower nothing would get in their way. The group could receive no back up; they wouldn’t know anyone was coming or try to gather a force to stop them from leaving when they’d crushed the hideout. But in order to do that, Mina had to find the very core of the building. Just cutting a few wires; blowing a few things up here and there and lashing out wherever wasn’t good enough. She wanted to be thorough enough to be certain that her job was complete—and she knew she could do so when she discovered plans on the next ninja she killed.

Opening up the scroll, Mina flicked her eyes over it quickly, discovering a room on the ground floor that served as a core for the entire building, knowing instantly that that was where she needed to go. No doubt that was where she would be able to shut everything down. Although she didn’t know what she would have to do when she got there, considering it was the most important room in the tower, there would probably be more ninja around, and either they would have plans, or a little intimidation would be in order. Either way, Mina was certain she could get what she wanted, and as such she sprinted off in the direction of the core, going as fast as she could. She wanted to shut this place down as fast as was possible. That way there was no risk of anything happening to the others.

To Sasori.

So Mina went onwards, discovering the ninja guarding the doors to the core room and easily taking them down. Luckily for her, they had plans of how it worked, clearly being a little too complicated for these idiots to remember off hand. But it meant that Mina wouldn’t have to waste time interrogating them, and she passed through the doors into the room, narrowing her eyes at what she saw.

The generator—a huge metal sphere bigger than Mina was—was located at the centre of the room, acting as a battery for all the electrical features of the building, whether lights or the wires and communication itself. When Mina destroyed it, she’d destroy the building completely. But because it supplied the wires with electricity, powering the communication lines, it needed to be constantly working, and therefore constantly powered. In order to do that, the group had created a sort of dynamo (you know, like the torches you power up yourself) function, with metal beams connected from the generator to grooves in the walls which made them spin around the generator to make a constant motion to power it and keep the lines powered. That way they could always send a message from one hideout to the other, regardless of what time it was.

But Mina couldn’t let it continue. She had to shut down the generator—and do it fast. Tucking the plans of the machine into her cloak, she observed the way the metal beams span around for a few moments, noting their speed, before hesitating no longer. Jumping forward, she landed on one, darting down its length, pausing only to duck to avoid another as it swung overhead. Once it was clear, she continued on, jumping from beam to beam, timing her jumps carefully and always making sure she was aware of her surroundings: if Mina wasn’t careful and didn’t pay attention, she could be crushed between two of those beams as they swung past each other, and that wasn’t a fate she wanted to end up with.

Determined to finish her mission, however, Mina persevered, and eventually reached the generator, leaping across the last gap until she was on top of the generator. It was here that she pulled out the plans once more, following them until she reached a specific panel in the sphere, lifting it up and peering down inside. Wires connected themselves all over, fuses and electrical gear of all kind having been carefully pieced together to create this generator. But it didn’t matter anymore as Mina reached down and yanked apart the wires, pulling aside the panels from each side until she saw what she wanted:

The core within the core. The place where the power gathered within the generator. This was what she really needed to take care of. Raising her hand, Mina gathered her chakra as she aimed it at the core, focusing solely on it, everything else falling away as she focused on this one thing. Then knowing that her power was at it’s peak, she released, smirking in triumph as it exploded instantly upon impact, immediately dodging out the way to avoid the explosion. It was clear it had worked; automatically other explosions sounded off, things slowing down and shutting off, sparks firing as the building began to go dark—Mina had completed her mission.

But things weren’t over yet. Suddenly things began to shake; the explosions getting louder and more numerous. Mina realised that with that action everything was falling apart—and tensing as she heard an ear-splitting grinding noise, she knew that the same was happening to this room, and that meant only one thing:

The metal beams were about to start moving again.   

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