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It's another one of Itto's stupid ideas, of course.
"Ayato told me he heard about it in Fontaine," he tells Shinobu, effusive in his excitement. "You line up some cool guys and auction off hangouts with them to their fans. It's a perfect way to make some money for the gang! Who wouldn't spend big Mora for a hangout with Arataki 'The One and Oni' Itto?"
Frankly, Shinobu can't imagine who would. But at least he'd come to her before he set up another public event without looking into laws and licensing first. She'll only shoot him down if it's too expensive to run.
"It's your job to find other 'cool guys' for this," she warns him.
"Don't worry! I can find plenty." He gives her a thumbs-up. "Everyone who hangs with me is super cool! Except the losers I beat beetle battling, and I won't ask them."
Shinobu leaves him to it.
***
"As long as you describe it as selling services, it should pass muster," Sara tells her. "You'll need a license from the Kanjou Commission, and I'll ensure there's a member of the Tenryou Commission present for security, but you don't need a license from us as long as you use a pre-authorized venue."
"Thanks." The Kanjou Commission licenses don't cost too much, and Shinobu will make Itto earn back the loss if they can't make it back on whatever 'cool guys' he digs up. She doesn't expect him to earn them more than pocket mora. Unless they advertise it in the beetle-battling crowd.
That's not a bad idea, actually. She'll get the other three on that as soon as she gets back with the Gang.
Sara nods. "I would advise you describe what each 'hangout' will look like ahead of time, so that it's clear what's being offered. Both legally and for personal safety's sake."
"You mean, if someone thinks the Boss is raring to go for anything other than beetle battling."
The face Sara makes at that is pretty close to the one Shinobu made the first time she saw someone pinch Itto's ass. Fortunately he'd decided it was an invitation to a beetle battle, which had demonstrated his immaturity well enough that Shinobu hadn't had to intervene, but Shinobu still gags a little when she thinks of it.
"That seems unlikely," Sara says, with the fervency of hope rather than of conviction. "My concern had been that someone might think they've bid on the right to," she clears her throat, a little red in the face, "make you take off your mask."
"Don't worry," Shinobu tells her. "I'm running this thing. I'm not going to be up for auction."
***
"Hey, Shinobu! I know you've got a lot on your plate, so I'll do the auctioneering for your auction," Itto tells her breezily the day before the auction itself.
He's done better than she'd expected: he's lined up not only himself, but Thoma, Grandmaster Hanakado's surprisingly attractive and easy-going older brother, and Akira's unsurprisingly attractive and waspish sister. Shinobu had liked her immediately.
"What auction? I said I'd run this, not that I'd participate."
"Come on!" He gives her the big sad idiot bull eyes. "We need five people! Genta painted five spots on the sign to put names in, because I was going to talk Ayato into joining us, but he said he was too busy. I think he's shy."
Shinobu bites down on the reflexive horror of having Lord Kamisato--who had put a word in her ear very early on about never dropping that title around Itto--in the lineup for their extremely amateur 'hangout auction.' The disaster was already averted, so she'll save her sanity and pretend it was never a possibility in the first place.
"No."
Itto picks up Ushi, who also gives her big sad idiot bull eyes. "Please? I bet you'll make almost as much money as I will! Everyone who's anyone would want to hang out with you."
"No."
"Aw, man." He turns away, Ushi under his arm, and pats the little bull sadly. "I guess we'll have to see if Thoma really does have an in with Ayato like he said he did."
Shinobu can feel a vein throbbing in her forehead. "Fine," she tells him. "But I'm writing you a script for my introduction. I don't need to know what you'd say about me."
***
Not that he sticks to the script. Shinobu elbows him in the solar plexus every time he goes too far afield and starts rambling nonsense. At least he remembers to tell everyone that her 'service' for this auction is consulting. It only takes another elbow and stomping on his foot for him to wrap up his praise and actually start the auction itself. He'd better not expect her to introduce him with even half that much aggrandizing.
There's only a few bidders--Shinobu wasn't going to advertise this farce to her regular clients--but her heart sinks as she sees who one of them is. Her mother just keeps bidding as the others drop out. Hoping for time to lecture Shinobu uninterrupted, no doubt.
Her mother calls out her last bid, unsurprisingly low, and looks around triumphantly as the few other bidders go silent. Shinobu grinds her teeth as Itto, also taking in the silence, grins and begins to raise his hand dramatically. Before he can open his big mouth, though, someone else calls out a number.
It's substantially more than her mother had offered. Shinobu follows the familiar voice to the edge of the crowd. Sara stands beside the Doushin she'd assigned as security.
"Aaaand gone to the Tengu General!" Itto crows before Shinobu's mother can even react. "Whoo-hoo! Way to go, Shinobu! You owe me a rematch, Kujou," he adds at volume. "Let's do it after this, no bidding required, just good old oni-to-tengu- ow!"
Dragging him to the side of the stage, Shinobu hisses, "Shut up," then goes back to the podium and begins her own prepared patter.
Most of the bidders on Itto are other onikabuto battlers, but they're outbid immediately by a child in a mujina costume who names a shocking amount. More shockingly, she's able to pay it afterwards.
"It's from Lord Kamisato," she whispers to Shinobu, leaning in, then dashes away and vanishes into the shadows as a ninja should before Itto can come around the stage.
If the head of the Yashiro Commission wants to spend an obscene amount of money to beetle-battle with Itto, Shinobu isn't going to stop him. She is, however, going to invest this instead of letting Itto get his hands on it. Just as soon as she's talked to her own high bidder.
***
"Thanks," Shinobu tells Sara, once she's finished organizing the breakdown of the venue and found her lurking in the back. "I didn't know you knew what my mother looked like-"
"I didn't know that she was your mother. I only saw that she was a shrine maiden, and I thought that perhaps Guuji Yae had... questionable designs in mind."
Shinobu has met the Guuji exactly once, well after she'd quit the shrine, when Mayuki had uncomfortably introduced them. She'd been full of questions that had left Shinobu just as uncomfortable, as much as the way she said them as for the questions themselves, and Shinobu doesn't shake easily. She's all the more grateful for Sara's intervention if that's what her friend had suspected.
"Thanks," Shinobu says again, heartfelt. "I can return the money-"
"No, keep it," Sara says hastily. She's blushing again, which Shinobu has rarely seen. "I do have a matter to consult you on. In a sense. I've been studying how to cook more complex meals, and wanted to try several from our preferred izakaya. Since you know more than I do, I was hoping that you could taste-test them for me. If you are willing to come to my home to do so."
Shinobu looks again at the blush. Thinks about it, and the earlier conversation, and Sara's worry. Then she shakes her head and digs out Sara's bag of mora.
"Take the money back. I'm not going to have you worry that I only took the mask off because you paid."
Technically, she'd have to anyway in order to eat the food. But she sees Sara's eyes go wide as she catches Shinobu's meaning, and smiles. Maybe this wasn't all that stupid of an idea after all. At least by Arataki standards.