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It took a bit, but soon enough Shikaku spotted his stalker. Or at least he assumed so. A girl was staring in his direction from down the road... Pretending not to notice, the boy instead began examining shop windows near her, always keeping the girl in the corner of his vision. He wasn't sure if he should leave, or go after her and find out why she was watching him... Why would anyone be watching him? Was she an assassin? But, who would send an assassin after him? Was he such an embarrassment to the village that they wanted him dead before he could make a fool of himself?

When the girl ducked out of his vision again, he almost panicked and ran, but was relieved to see she only seemed to be adjusting her shoes... Or pulling out a hidden weapon from them... Okay then. If she made a move in his direction, he would duck into the crowds and vanish. it was the only way to be sure of escape. After all, it had worked earlier. Right? Or... Was she with the boy from earlier and his escape hadn't been as clean as he'd thought? Crap.

He'd almost made up his mind to just run for it and try to lose the girl, when another, a woman, dropped from above right beside her. Curious, he delayed his escape, watching them carefully. The woman didn't seem to be working with the girl, but then... She was, dragging her towards him? Maybe it was safe. Maybe she was bringing her over to apologize for staring, like he'd seen mothers do to their kids in the past... Or maybe it was all a trick and she was just trying to get close enough without alerting him to make the kill.

Grabbing his bag and making sure he had everything on him, Shikaku rushed to leave his seat, but just a little too slow as he looked up to find the woman right in his face, staring at him. Then with a short statement she reached out and grabbed hold of him, yanking him up and dragging him away with strength he couldn't even begin to hope to match. Crap. Crap crap crap. This was worse than anything he had imagined. She wasn't an assassin, or even here about Timmy's stunt at the restaurant. She was an academy re-tester! They had decided his marks weren't really high enough and sent her to reevaluate him. How was he supposed to pass a reevaluation if the original testers had cheated the system to get him through in the first place?!

This had officially gone from best day ever, to worst day ever. Well, maybe they would at least refund him for the equipment he'd bought when they kicked him out of the forces.

[Exit]

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Once he was out of view of the jounin, though he was fully aware that the genin was still there, and the jounin likely following in hiding as well, Shikaku stopped and pulled the wad of bills, as well as his empty wallet, back out of his pocket. Folding up one of the bills in an unusual pattern that hid the numbers stamped on it, he stuck it in the wallet, then frowned, and looked back up at the girl. She HAD asked if he had a plan, and it'd be better to work with her than separately after all. "Yelena Aburame, right?" he spoke, truly acknowledging her personally for the first time. The likelihood that she was a part of the test, an enemy, was unlikely, so it wouldn't hurt to be open with her, where the jounin worried him. "Can you fill this with bugs?" and he held up the mostly empty wallet, holding it open for her to take.

While she did that, or refused, either way, Shikaku pulled his left hand glove, the one marking him as a shinobi of Kumogakure, off, and stuffed it in his pack. Quickly following that came his kunai holster, along with anything else that might mark him as a ninja, leaving only the metal glove and kunai he'd stuffed in it. Before he took that off, he drew all the ninja wire out of it, rolling it into a small ball and setting it aside. The barbed kunai went into his pocket where he could get a hold of it quickly, and the glove joined the rest of his gear in the bag.

With all of his gear removed, Shikaku looked like, well, what he pretty much was. A normal kid, though poor, having evidently raided his clothing from a ninja's dumpster. But that was a common look among the children in this area, so would likely go unnoticed, at least more so that walking in with weapons and shinobi symbol for all to see. Hopefully, he'd look an easy target to the pickpocket. With his "Disguise" completed, Shikaku looked to the girl again, to see if she'd added the bugs to his wallet, and rolled the bundle of wire in his hand as he waited.

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"Hum..." Shikaku hummed, hefting the bugged wallet and then opening it to look inside. "I was thinking more of a ton of bugs, so it was fatter and they'd jump out..." he explained, looking oddly at the meager two bugs in the wallet. Did she only have that many? Or was there a misunderstanding and she had a different idea than him? Regardless, he held out the wallet again, while thinking over her question. It was true, no thief would consider robbing a grubby looking kid, unless he was given the impression that they had a lot of money. Now, he could have done that by using the same disguise as he had to get into the restaurant, but he had a different idea here. One that had more flavor, and didn't require chakra. "I'm going to pick pockets." he said happily to answer the question. That was only partially true though. As a shinobi now, he couldn't get away with actually taking anything. But if he ran about playing the child pickpocket, subtle enough to fool regular people, but obvious to a real pickpocket, with a few bills hanging out his back pocket, why, he'd start to make a fine temptation to a more skilled thief fairly quick.

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The boy smiled as his wallet grew fatter and fatter with the bugs, giving it a happy squeeze when the last bug had entered. That would be perfect. The bugs, being of the shelled variety, didn't feel altogether different through the material than small coins.

Taking the wire now, he uncoiled a couple feet of it, and stuffed it all into his front right pocket. For once, it was lucky that he had in fact stolen these pants from a dumpster, as he was able to easily run the end of the wire through a hole in the pocket, around his leg once, and out through a hole in the back right pocket, all without it being exposed on the outside. Running the end of the wire through a small hole in his wallet (Acquired the same way as his pants, thus also rather shoddy.), he twisted the end together with the line, creating a ring to hold the wallet. shoving the wallet into his back pocket, he then twisted the ball of wire in his front pocket, pulling all of the excess wire back into the coil. Now, if someone tried to pull his wallet, the wire would yank and catch on his leg. The wallet would likely break if they pulled hard, but he'd be well alerted to the theft in progress.

Looking up with a smile at the girl, he paused as she spoke again, and then sighed. "Amendment. I'm going to act like I'm picking pockets. You heard the re-tester. I'm not allowed to break laws." It was true, wasn't it? He couldn't do that sort of thing anymore. At least not unless he had Timmy to take the fall, and that certainly didn't include pickpocketing. But, he shouldn't need to, right? Being a ninja was dangerous and all, but ninja were well paid, got free housing at the apartments. All you had to worry about was keeping yourself fed and clothed. And alive. Obviously.

Patting his pockets to check his gear was all in place, wallet in the right rear, wire in the right front, kunai in the front left, Shikaku nodded to himself. He was ready to pull his first scam in the name of the village! "Ready?" he looked up to ensure the girl was as well. He hadn't actually included her in his plan beyond the bugs, but she'd probably have a better idea what she could or should do than he did anyways. And if not, he could include her on the fly so it wouldn't look odd that she was always near him, but not doing the same as him.

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Shikaku nodded his agreement with Yelena's summary. "Don't follow too close though." he added, frowning in thought for a short moment. "Too close and it'd be too obvious. Just keep me in view, where you can get close quick." He nodded to himself mostly at that, happy with that idea. He'd be able to use her as part of the act, as well as keeping her in range for backup. He wasn't sure he liked the idea of going against a possible ninja thief with just a medic for backup (Though as a sidenote, it could be convenient and avoid a trip to the hospital.), but if it really got out of hand then the ANBU would probably step in. These missions were little more than tests anyways. Any pickpocket that really caused trouble in Kumo could be caught in moments by a single ANBU. Using genin then, was just to test their skills... Combat skills... Crap.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Shikaku shot the medic a grin and darted out into the market streets, almost immediately colliding with an unfortunate passerby and knocking himself on his rear. "Heh, sorry about that." he shot a small smile to the man, pushing himself back to his feet and brushing the dust from his rear, miming slipping something into his pocket in the process. It was almost completely unlikely that the target would catch that, but Yelena would, since he'd warned her already.

"Come on Yel! I wanna show you something!" he called back cheerily once the pedestrian had wandered away, testing out a nickname for the girl, since, in his eyes anyways, that name was going to be hard to recall. But no, Yel didn't seem to work... Oh well, he'd have plenty of time to work on that. So, with that, he darted off again, weaving his way into the crowds and occasionally bumping into people, always keeping just a little ahead of his temporary accomplice.

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After awhile of running about with his fake thieving (Oh did he want to actually take some of the loot. It was just so easy right now, Yelena wouldn't notice the difference if he did it right, and he might even be able to hide it from ANBU, but... No. It wasn't worth it.) Shikaku paused, stopping on the sidewalk to catch his breath. It was frustrating now. He was wasting energy going to all this profitless work, and he didn't see any sign of the target. He'd recognized a few faces that he'd known as pickpockets months ago, but they weren't the ones. He knew it. Maybe they were in the wrong area then? Could it be that the target was a bit braver than the average pickpocket and had chosen a high risk zone? The re-tester had mentioned that the target was cocky, so it was possible.

Sure of this idea, Shikaku darted off again, bumping into a great many less people the further he went, choosing only the richest in appearance until he was deep in the seediest sector of the district, where he stopped his fake thieving entirely. It was dangerous here. Back in the main market merchants were easy pickings, and if you were caught, be it by ANBU or another thief, the worst you got was a light beating or a day or two in lock up. Here though? Here there were less ninja, and the thieves would kill. And the rich men walking the streets knew when they'd been pickpocketed, and they would kill too. No, that act was too risky for this area. But he knew one place he could work in that would be a bit safer, and had a high chance of revealing, if not their target, then another they could pass off for it.

"In here Na!" the boy chirped, waving her towards a dingy looking building as he tested out another nickname, basically ignoring her earlier choice of name. Na seemed okay. A lot better than Yel at any rate. Without waiting for her response, mostly because he had a feeling it'd be in the negative and he'd have to change plans, he darted inside the building, grinning to himself. It'd been awhile since he'd come here.

[Exit to Tha Mistah's Den!]

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