In the firsthand experience of Team 10 over the course of their rookie year as shinobi, it was clear from the things they'd seen or dealt with since graduating that no one ever explained to them exactly what they'd be facing out in the world itself.
From the barbarous and treacherous nature of Momochi Zabuza, to the litany of incredible kekkei genkai of all kinds in the world, to demon containers such as Gaara or Fuu; the past year had been an internship in the insanity that truly sat out beyond the gates of Konoha… and within it as well on second thought.
And another example of that insanity was right below the three youngsters, although this was insanity of their own creation… or at least the creation of one of them.
"Oh my Kami…" Ino said, on her knees as she felt around on the large, rusty red cranium of the toad that they were all sitting atop. From up there she could see all the way from the training field area of the village to the actual village portion of Konoha. It was quite a view, "Goldie-kun, you might have overdone it a bit on this one."
"How?" Naruto replied, almost as dumbfounded as the others at the sheer size of the toad he had called upon, "You all said to summon the boss. I summoned him. You can't say anything now. It wasn't like the strongest toad summon was going to be 'Kichi's size or anything like that."
"Jiraiya get out here!" The titanic toad bellowed, with the sheer force of his voice on its own enough to knock Naruto and Shikamaru down to their backsides on the amphibian's head, "I told you years ago that the next time you pulled a summon-and-dash on me as one of your stupid jokes I would squash you flat!"
Putting aside the thought that a summon-and-dash sounded like a completely awesome prank to pull if he could come up with a funny enough place to do it, Naruto felt it was time to introduce himself to this force of nature, "Uh hey!" Naruto shouted loudly to make sure he got the toad's attention, which he did when he found a long studded tongue completely engulf him as it wrapped around him, eventually holding him out in front of the large toad, "Bleh! What's the big idea?"
Now that he was able to get a frontal view of the toad, Naruto saw that it wore a blue jacket vest and bandages around its torso and had red markings on its head and around its eyes. It also didn't seem too pleased to be holding onto Naruto. Not one bit, "What does a kid like you think you're doing standing on my head?"
"Oh." Naruto said lamely as he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, "Well when I summoned you… I don't really know where else I would have wound up. I mean, you're huge… sir." Maybe flattering the toad would keep Naruto from getting chucked from there to the Hokage Tower?
The toad stared Naruto down before breaking out into laughter, "Bwahahahaha! Ah, that's actually a good one for once Jiraiya. I have to give you credit for this one… trying to get me to believe that a pipsqueak like this summoned me all on his own."
"Oi! I just haven't hit my growth spurt yet you jerk! It's easy to talk about me being little when you're like a million feet tall!" Naruto snapped at the toad as he remained seated on its tongue lest he fall a very uncomfortable height of at least ten stories to whatever lay below, "And I did summon you. Ero-sensei isn't anywhere near here."
"I let you get away with standing on my head before kid, but I won't have you lie to me." The oversized toad said gruffly, "I'm Gamabunta, the Chief Toad of Mount Myouboku. To think that I would be at the beck and call of someone like you is laughable."
"But I did summon you!" Naruto stressed desperately, "And my teammates are on your head too, you didn't say jack about that!"
"What?"
"Damn you to hell Naruto…" Shikamaru grumbled before noticing that Gamabunta had finally figured the presence of both him and Ino out, "Hi. And if it actually matters, he really did summon you."
Gamabunta was about to let the two chunin on his head have it until Gamakichi appeared from over Naruto's shoulder to add his own input, "He really did summon you pops! This is the new guy, Naruto. I told him to do it so he could meet you."
Now feeling self-conscious, Naruto started to sweat a bit when Gamabunta gave him a long, hard look. This was not the place to be, facing down a pissed off, grumpy-looking toad summon that just so happened to be the boss. When he first signed the contract Jiraiya didn't tell him that some of the toads could be pissy. Gama was totally cool, Gamakichi was a bit of a brat but he was still a great guy/toad, and Gamakichi's brother Gamatatsu was a bit vacant but he was nice.
"So what do you say?" Naruto offered weakly, "Partners?" He saw Gamabunta narrow his eyes at him and he quickly backtracked, "I mean, you're the man! Big time toad boss, A-number one!"
Still Gamabunta remained silent as he looked Naruto over, "Hm… You're too young to share a drink with properly. But I suppose I could take you on as an underling anyway since Gamakichi seems to have taken a bit of a shine to you." Naruto took that moment to grin at the little orange toad on his shoulder in thanks for simply existing at that point in time, "You can play with the new kid some other time Gamakichi. I've been wondering where you've been disappearing to every now and again. Come on, we're going home."
"Fine…" Gamakichi sounded rather depressed about having to leave, but when his dad was the boss and dwarfed him by ten-thousand times there really wasn't much of a choice in the matter, "I'll see you later Boss. We should hang out again soon." The small toad said before disappearing in a puff of smoke.
Nodding to himself at seeing his son obey his orders, Gamabunta turned his attention back to Naruto, "Don't summon me for anything troublesome in the future, and tell Jiraiya that we'll be having a talk in his choice of who signed the contract." Naruto nodded dumbly in response, much to Gamabunta's satisfaction, "Good."
And with that he also disappeared in a puff of smoke, albeit one much larger than the one Gamakichi left in. This had a few problems of its own. Namely that all of Team 10 were still at least one hundred feet off of the ground with nothing underneath them.
"…Troublesome!" Team 10 all fell and wound up crashing through the treetops, more or less (luckily) hitting every branch on the way down with all three kids crash-landing in a heap on the ground, "Ow…" Shikamaru said, body racked with pain.
Ino, who landed in the most favorable manner of the three with the two boys to break a good portion of her fall, crawled away first, "Ugh… Goldie-kun your summons really don't treat you like with respect or anything." He was also thirteen years old, so that might have had something to do with it as well.
"I'd settle for being equals, but no they don't really." Naruto said as Shikamaru got away from him after the fall. Thank goodness for the thick, leafy, bountiful trees of Konoha because that fall had the potential to be way worse than it actually was, "How's that for a morning meeting?"
Crawling himself into a sitting position against the tree, Shikamaru picked some twigs and stray leaves from his hair and vest, "Remind me to never sign a summon contract if that's what happens." He had no idea that summon creatures could be so moody.
"Fuck that hurt." Instead of sitting down somewhere, Naruto rolled directly onto his stomach to get some relief after landing smack-dab on his back, "All of this summoning stuff is cool, but it's freaking hurting my kidneys." Seriously, Gama threw him right against a tree earlier and he hit the sweet spot right against the tree trunk, and moments ago Ino landed on him with a knee or elbow or something with bone. He then grunted as he felt Ino lay across his back, "Get off Ino-chan. Go mess with Shikamaru."
"Kiss my ass. That stupid drop hurt." Ino whined, refusing to move from her place, "And it's your fault, so deal with it… blonde teddy." She finished, smiling as she shut her eyes and seemed ready to take a nap on the spot.
"Seriously, get off." Trying to shake Ino off failed as she just wrapped her arms stubbornly around Naruto's torso to hold him down, "Damn it. Shika, get her off before someone comes around here and sees this." No response, "Shika?" Naruto managed to turn his head enough to see Shikamaru asleep against the tree, "…Fine." He eventually conceded, shutting his eyes and using his arms as a pillow for his head.
Team 10 had to be the laziest collective team that Konoha had to offer. And for the most part they seemed to be okay with that.
XxX
(Sometime Later – Elsewhere in Konoha)
As he stood crouched on a roof with a great vantage point, Jiraiya chuckled lecherously with a telescope up to one of his eyes as he spied right into a woman's side of the hot springs, "Kami, I love this village so much. You just don't get this quality of open-air peeping anywhere else in the world."
"Should I be worried about you passing these pervert trait on down the line or what?"
Upon hearing the voice of his female teammate behind him, Jiraiya still didn't lower his spying glass. If she hadn't outright punted him into the hot springs yet then she probably wasn't going to, "No, and if you're talking about the brat he has enough pervert in him without me trying to do anything. You should see the first jutsu he 'made' Tsunade-hime. It's a thing of beauty."
"He summoned Gamabunta not too long ago." Tsunade informed him, "I'm guessing that you're the one responsible for that since you're the only one that can call on the moody frog."
"Toad actually. You know that." Jiraiya corrected, "And yes I did. I figured if anyone had a right to sign it would be him." It was then that he put the scope up and turned to face her, "So to what do I owe the pleasure of basking in your luscious presence?"
"I will hurt you, you know." Tsunade informed him after his last comment, "Don't get too fresh jackass. I was wondering when you planned on setting out again." She noticed the frown on Jiraiya's face and smirked, "Oh come on. You had to know that I wasn't going to stay here forever. There's no reason."
"You could take over for Sarutobi-sensei." Jiraiya offered, getting Tsunade to roll her light brown eyes at him, "He can't do this forever you know. You're the best choice to take over."
Letting out a laugh at the thought of being Hokage herself, Tsunade placed her hands on her hips to respond, "You're saying the same thing that Sarutobi-sensei's been saying since I've shown up. There's nothing you can say to me that I didn't already expect out of you all before I even came here. I want my money, and when I get it I'll be gone. I'm trying to synch it up for whenever you leave just for old time's sake, but there's no need for it I guess."
Two months had passed since Tsunade's return after the chunin exams final round and it still didn't seem like things were any closer to keeping her there. Shizune did a few things for the hospital and even took a mission or two in the meantime, but Tsunade simply didn't take part in anything one way or the other.
All of this was driving Jiraiya to drinking… more than usual… like more than the amount that it takes to be fun.
"There's no one else that can really do it." Jiraiya said, still barking up that tree.
And still, Tsunade didn't wish to budge on the matter one bit, "Let one of the younger shinobi do it. There's got to be someone out there good enough to take the title. Like Kakashi, he's got the reputation, the references, and he's that good."
"No he's not." Jiraiya replied without missing a beat on that measure, "Sensei could more than likely still put Kakashi down, Sharingan or not. That whole 'thousand jutsu' thing doesn't mean anything when it comes to Sarutobi-sensei. I'm not too sure about his large-scale leadership chops either. He's good at leading teams, but… and other than him there isn't really anyone else close."
"Then you do it if you care about it so much." Tsunade snapped, tired of the conversation. She was sick of the same old song and dance. Hearing about why she should be Hokage, about how Sarutobi didn't have that much time as leader left, "If age was such a problem then you should be taking this conversation to that old lawn gnome Onoki. Now tell me when you're leaving or I'll just leave when the last bit of cash is dropped into my account."
He wasn't meant to be Hokage, Jiraiya knew that much. He had his own roles to play, and supreme leader was not one of those roles. Tsunade had no such role, she was merely drifting about, and she could fill that spot. She knew that she was. He knew that she was. Everyone else did as well.
But one had to realize that dealing with a Tsunade that was set in her ways was like engaging in trench warfare; you know what you're getting, that it'll be nasty business, and the most you can do is dig yourself in and prepare to butt heads until either one side or the other breaks down.
"I'll tell you when Tsunade-hime, but I still think you should consider it."
"You can keep running this topic into the ground if you want to Jiraiya. You're going to get the same thing every single time from me." Tsunade said as she left Jiraiya alone once again. And for once he didn't particularly feel like peeping anymore.
But he would gut it out and do so anyway. He had a responsibility to his legions of loyal fans.
XxX
(A Few Days Later – Mission Assignment Desk)
Naruto, Shikamaru, and Ino walked into the office and right up to the first open desk that they could find, ready to get the whole show back on the road. At least Naruto and Ino were. Shikamaru had to be dragged from his home and more or less abducted to take a mission.
But it had been more or less a month since they had worked together, with each member being busy with their own work, training and whatnot more often than before, so none of them were really against taking another mission together.
Marching right up to the desk with a confident grin, Naruto opened his mouth to ask for a mission the level that he wished it to be, which would have been B-rank if Ino and Shikamaru didn't beat him to the punch as she placed her hand over his mouth and Shikamaru spoke for the three of them, "A C-rank mission if you've got any."
With a smile and a nod as Ino continued to hold Naruto's mouth shut, the man behind the desk handed Shikamaru a mission scroll with a 'C' on it that he looked over before sighing and deciding that it was good enough for them, handing it off to Ino to look over herself.
As the mission had been accepted, a sizeable satchel was handed to Shikamaru that actually had the Nara Clan symbol on it, "Hey." Shikamaru said to the mission supply guy as he put the satchel in his backpack with his other supplies, "So is this job something you get in a rotation system or do you apply for it?" He had been looking for possible easy detail jobs in the village for a ninja of at least chunin rank and this seemed right up his alley.
Before he could get an answer he found his ear grabbed by Ino as she dragged both him and Naruto out of the room and outside.
Finally getting her to let go of them, Naruto took the scroll from Ino to read over it himself, "You guys suck. I wanted to try another B-rank mission now that we know what can happen. All we've done for the last month is C-ranks."
"And this is going to be another one." Shikamaru said as he waited for Naruto to read over their orders so they could prepare to leave, "Are we taking it, or am I just heading back home to get some sleep?"
"We're taking it." Naruto confirmed, knowing that the act of going to switch out missions even if he had a problem with it himself was too troublesome for Shikamaru. It wasn't actually a bad mission at all as he was getting used to them by then, "So are we ready to go?"
Everyone nodded until Ino reached at her arm-warmers and noticed something off, "Whoops. I didn't bring my needle launchers. Can we swing by the shop really quick? I have some stashed there in case I get called out on an emergency."
"Airhead." Shikamaru remarked, ducking out of the way of a punch directed at his head, "Fine. Let's go. I guess we can't have Ino missing a weapon in case we get jumped or something."
XxX
(Yamanaka Flowers)
"So Takigakure huh?" Naruto said, checking over his own equipment so that he didn't go in half-cocked the way Ino was almost about to, "I've never been up there before. This should be fun right?"
"Fun like a hernia." Shikamaru replied, and by now Naruto was used to his friend's attitude about most things; that he didn't really care for them if they took any personal effort from him. That was okay, both he and Ino had enough enthusiasm for most things to cover for him, "You seem happier than usual."
"I do?" Naruto asked, blinking curiously at Shikamaru's observation, "How can you tell?"
"You haven't stopped moving since we started hanging out in front of the shop." It seemed obvious to Shikamaru to keep a tab on one's own physical motion at all times since it was too much of a waste to move for no reason, but Naruto always had energy to burn so it was a moot point on that front, "What's up with you?"
Feeling that he had been caught, there wasn't any sense in keeping it under wraps anymore, "It's Taki Shika." Naruto said as if that explained everything. Shikamaru gestured for him to continue and Naruto rolled his eyes before speaking with more enthusiasm than before, "Fuu's from Taki. Maybe if we have some time we can see how she's doing after the exams and everything."
Now that was something Shikamaru had neglected to remember and he went wide eyed upon hearing Naruto's reason for being excited to be heading to Takigakure, "Fuu? You mean the girl that almost ripped your head off during the exams? Why would you be happy to go see her? She was meaner than all hell."
"She's not that bad." Yeah, Fuu kind of was that bad. But she was a jinchuuriki like him, and by the end he was certain that they had established some sort of rapport between them at the end of the exams. Better than Gaara. At least Fuu didn't turn into an all-out Nanabi form… if she could even do that, "Why not? It's not like we know anyone else from that village."
"Because we're not from that village." Stated Shikamaru. While Konoha and Taki might have been loosely aligned that didn't mean that their ninja were really friends with one another, "Think about it like this Naruto. We're allies with Suna and Taki, so that just means that we have our eyes on them and they have their eyes on us. Villages that we don't have alliances with, we aren't looking their way because we're busy looking at our 'allies'. Does that make sense?"
"That's stupid."
"That's because you're stupid."
"…You're stupid."
"No I'm not."
"I know…"
"Ah there you two are!" The upbeat and foppish sounding voice directed Naruto and Shikamaru's attention towards the same attendant of the daimyo that had dropped the news over to them on the offer of a job. Still apparently dressed in fine clothes on the dollar of the daimyo, he walked up to Shikamaru with a smile on his face, "I must say, it is difficult to find you ninja types. But I'm just here to follow up on the confirmation from your Hokage that you two will be accepting the job offer?"
Both Naruto and Shikamaru looked at each other before Shikamaru answered the man, "That's right. We're both in. Looking forward to it." He said in sort of a mumble, not actually looking forward to the new assignment at all, "Ah, when do we report by the way?"
"Well that's also the reason I've come to inform the Hokage of the request for your arrival." The attendant said, seeming like there was nothing that could really irk the man. He just seemed like an inherently bright person. Probably why he was the one to do the legwork for the court's affairs like this, "Since you've both accepted with plenty of time to spare you two have three months before your presence is requested. I hope that's not a problem."
"No, it's not." Naruto said with a smile, the demeanor of the man from the capitol rather infectious from his point of view. He liked people like this guy, "We'll definitely be there."
"Splendid!" Clapping happily, the man placed a hand on both Naruto and Shikamaru's shoulders, "I'm looking forward to seeing how you two get results when you begin. Well, it's off to the capitol for me. I'll be in touch with you both soon. Goodbye!" Naruto waved at the man as he walked away, heading probably towards a gate that would take him out of the village and back towards the capitol city.
Three months. Huh. Well now that there was a definite time-span as to when they would have to leave it felt real. It was quite different to just talk about doing something. But after making a commitment and realizing that one would then have to follow through with the obligation, it was a strange feeling, like a mix of a hollow and a fuzzy scraping feeling in their bellies. It was hard to explain.
And as they saw Ino come out of the shop with a smile on her face as she adjusted her arm-warmers back into place they both felt a sinking feeling to go along with it, "Sorry that took so long. One of the others working their shift moved them from the front behind the counter to somewhere in the storeroom. So are we ready to go now?"
"Yeah." Shikamaru said before swallowing a lump in his throat, "Hey, we've got something to tell you." Oh, he was not looking forward to the reaction he was about to get once he told Ino about what Naruto and he had just been talking about, but it couldn't be put off any longer. Now that their future job was no longer just talk it had to be brought forward to the light.
"Well it can wait until we're on the road can't it?" Grabbing Naruto and Shikamaru's wrists, Ino started pulling them towards the northern gate before they could say anything else, "Talk and walk, you know? We've got a two day trip to the border and we're late."
Sharing uneasy looks between them, both Naruto and Shikamaru knew that this was going to be one long trip.
XxX
(Meanwhile – Cha no Kuni – Degarashi Port)
It was not a good place to be at the moment. Degarashi Port had seemed to transform over the course of the month into a town under the control of Gato Corporation. They had bought up all of the open dockside property and had bought out some smaller businesses with prime real estate elsewhere in town.
On the surface to the untrained eye it didn't look like much had changed, but to one that could see beyond there were too many signs to count. The people didn't even seem to regard the rivalry between the Wasabi and Wagarashi organizations any longer as the major going-on in the area. Even the two families themselves didn't seem to register their own feud any longer. As a matter of fact, many of the Wagarashi members could be found strung out on drugs outside of buildings and properties that were known Gato Corporation holdings.
Damn it, it was like a cancer.
And the Otogakure ninja that could be found freely around the town were another thing as well. Gato couldn't have had deep pockets enough that he was willing to part with the money to afford upwards of one-hundred and fifty ninja to run security for him. But then again it was probably a hard learned lesson from the way things fell apart in Nami no Kuni.
"This place used to be so nice." Asuma said as he breathed out the smoke from his cigarette. He was transformed into a non-descript merchant-looking man that lacked his normal features altogether as he sat in a café, "…Well, nicer than it is now at least."
In the seat across from him sat Kurenai, only her eyes weren't so distinct, nor were her clothes, and she was Henged with shorter black hair. Not big stretches from their normal physical traits, but it was done so that they wouldn't particularly stick out or make it seem as if they were trying too hard, "It's kind of scary, how fast things changed here." She said to Asuma as she took a sip of coffee, "You reported that there was only one warehouse under their name. One month later and they might as well let Gato rename this town altogether."
"I heard he was planning on moving to an island not too far from here." Asuma said with a smirk at how their information gathering mission had been going, "He's been getting some liberties by greasing the palms of the minister of the Cha no Kuni Daimyo. Got to love all of that money."
"Not really that important in the grand scheme of things Asuma." Kurenai chided him quietly, "What about that ninja that put your kids in the hospital?"
" It was a kunoichi actually."
"Whatever… it's a general term." She grumbled in return, getting Asuma's smirk to widen. If they weren't in a public place she might have had to sock him one out of principle, "Didn't she take on all three of them and Naruto when he was using the 'you-know-what?'" Kurenai mused, and they had actually snuck about to see the site where the fight had taken place. It was part of the extra land that Gato had bought up, in addition to the entire stretch of street that was ruined during Asuma's fight against the three Fuuma Clan members, "Is she here?"
"I couldn't tell you. I never saw her." Asuma felt a little bit of a burning anger in him when he thought of how close Team 10 had come to being killed by Guren, and he had never even gotten so much as a look at her. She wasn't a widely known shinobi as a description from the others bore no fruit, "But apparently they were barely able to touch her." From the looks of the docks after he had gotten his team to safety, that in of itself was something completely alarming.
With this nasty news of Orochimaru having some sort of tie to Otogakure with the knowledge of his branding of Sasuke with the Cursed Seal somehow, this was getting exceedingly more important. They had to come back to Konoha with something concrete. The only thing keeping this A-rank mission from being S-rank was that the confidentiality of this mission was not paramount. Asuma and Kurenai just figured that they would learn more if no one knew anything, even of their presence.
They had noticed many Oto ninja drifting in and eventually boarding Gato's ships to set out across the ocean. Had he really hired this new village to keep Gato Corporation's entire infrastructure secure, right down to every last transport ship? If only they had known where the ships were going, but that would have to be next. They had to keep another incident like Nami no Kuni from happening. There was no danger of that happening here. The people kept their full autonomy and other than the filtering in of drugs that would have to be ended at some point, the corporation seemed to be leaving people alone.
Once again, a hard lesson learned that he was seemingly not willing to repeat. The losses he incurred monetarily when he lost his entire foothold in Nami no Kuni was obviously not equal to the gains that he got from oppressing them. He would rather settle for just peddling his drugs and use this as a jumping point for heading out across the ocean, possibly to locate another place where he could actually get away with more illicit things. And with Otogakure shinobi on the payroll there was a much better chance that he could do so more freely.
"The next ship isn't planning to stop here for another week." Kurenai said, bringing up the information on the shipping schedule that they had managed to filch, "Should we just report back to the village now?"
Shaking his head in method to answering her question, Asuma figured that they had a lot of decent information, but as long as they didn't have a definite destination for most of these ships that seemed to be coming in and going out like clockwork they didn't have enough of anything to make an actual fuss over with the exception that one of their teams got pieced apart in this town one month ago and the fact that it was now teeming with foreign shinobi, but those shinobi seemed to be under contract to Gato Corporation.
"We shouldn't just hang around for a week waiting for a chance to get more, but we can't just leave either." Asuma said as he finished off his cigarette and put the butt out in the ashtray at their table, "I'm for staying, at least for another day or two. What do you think? Your opinion counts too."
While she could see where Asuma was coming from, they had obtained enough disconcerting information to warrant a follow-up mission at a later point. Kurenai did not have a habit of overreaching during her missions and this would be another example of such, "I think we should just go now while we're free and clear. I've got a team to get back to anyway."
"What, you don't like spending time away from the village with me?" Asuma asked with a grin on his face as he reached for another cigarette while he waited for Kurenai to finish her coffee, "Just the two of us? That's really disappointing Kurenai."
"I like it just fine." She replied with a ghost of a smile on her lips, "But I'd rather it be doing something relaxing instead of this. Still, I have my own responsibilities with overseeing the training and missions of the kids. We can't all have our whole team advance on their first try."
Flattery would get you nowhere… with most people. But Asuma was not most people and Kurenai wasn't the average woman to him, thus Asuma acquiesced to her desire to leave. It wasn't just his life he would be playing with in this instance. It would be hers as well. And he wasn't about to do that, "Alright. We'll head back home. But you definitely owe me."
"Name what you want."
"…I'm sure we can work that out on the road back."
XxX
(Konohagakure no Sato – A Few Blocks from the Northern Gate)
Well this whole thing about telling Ino wasn't going very well. Every time Shikamaru tried to speak up on the matter, Ino told him to stop trying to get them to procrastinate anymore; that they had lost time to make up for. And Naruto couldn't say anything because Ino had somehow switched to dragging Naruto down the street by the back of his headband that was tied around his neck, this led to him being more or less strangled for the last ten minutes on their way out of town.
"I can't believe we're this late getting out of town." Ino whined as she continued to drag her teammates along, "Sakura's always talking about how this kind of thing keeps happening with Team 7's sensei and I laughed at it. It's really not funny when it's us!" And the fact that it was her fault that they were late to leave as well was pretty embarrassing. If they actually had a client they needed to meet upon leaving it would have been positively mortifying.
In this instance, the mission required them to head to Takigakure in order to transport some ingredient from the Nara Clan's stores that had been requested for some medicinal concoction. They weren't really a known village for their medical practices though… and the ingredient was more for something added into military rations pills.
Whatever. It was purchased and was prepared for transport, and they were the ones meant to take it out. It wasn't like it was a transaction that hadn't been made hundreds of times before either. There wasn't really any need to scrutinize it from Shikamaru's viewpoint.
Speaking of Shikamaru's viewpoint, "I think you're choking Naruto to death Ino." Shikamaru commented as he could see Naruto's flailing about begin to get less spirited as they continued to be dragged, "You could at least let go of his headband. It's right around his throat."
Paying her fellow blonde attention at this point as she wondered why he of all people had been so silent, Ino gasped and let go of her grip on the back of Naruto's headband, freeing him to stumble out, coughing and gasping for breath, "Sorry Goldie-kun. Are you alright?" She asked before laughing sheepishly when being fixed with a bit of a glare from Naruto, "My bad."
With the sweet, sweet oxygen filling his lungs freely once more, Naruto took some well-deserved deep breaths and finally got his vision from seeing double, "I'm good. Yeah. I'm definitely good. Let's roll you guys."
"You sure?" Naruto's eyes were still darting around rapidly, though that might have been his brain adjusting to having air once again. This was the next to last person that needed his brain cells to die via oxygen deprivation of any sort.
"Yeah, let's go." Well he knew himself better than anyone else, and that was all that mattered to Team 10.
The sounds of a shamisen being played directed their attention to the roof of a nearby dango shop where they saw a girl with said instrument sitting demurely with her eyes seemingly closed and a smile on her face. She had long dark hair in a ponytail with a large light green bow tied at the bottom end of it. She wore an ornate dark green kimono with dark brown and black designs on it. On her feet she wore black sandals with dark green painted nails.
After continuing to play, and upon realizing that she now had not only Team 10's attention, but the attention of everyone in the vicinity, the girl stopped and stood up. She was at least three years older than the younger ninja on the street and around her waist she wore a white sash with the kanji for fire emblazoned on it. Without even opening her eyes or dropping her pleasant smile she looked right at Naruto and Shikamaru.
She seemed to stare for so long that Ino began to feel that there was something up, "Can we help you?" Ino asked the older girl on the rooftop that seemed to be sizing her teammates up, "We were on our way out of town on a mission."
"Oh I'm sorry." The girl's voice was absolutely melodious as if it were an instrument in of itself, and she had yet to open her eyes for one moment at all, "I was just curious you see. I've been doing my job for four years and it's been quite a while since anyone else has joined our little group. We couldn't wait for the point where you two were actually supposed to show up, so we decided to accompany Nobuyuki-san when he came to confirm your acceptance."
"Nobuyuki…" Naruto said, squinting his eyes so that they were closed much like the girl on the rooftop, "Who's that?"
"That would be the older man wearing the robes that you two spoke to outside of the flower shop." The girl explained, never dropping her smile for a second as she turned her attention to Naruto to speak to him, "But then again where are my manners? It's nice to meet you two Nara Shikamaru… Uzumaki Naruto. My name is Suzukuro Kotoko." She turned her head around as if she were searching for something before eventually giving up, "Sadao-kun is around here somewhere. Oh he'll turn up eventually."
"Why are you just here to talk to Shika and Goldie-kun?" Ino asked, "That's really weird."
"Weird?" There wasn't anything weird about Kotoko's actions at all as far as she was concerned. Shrugging off Ino's comment she strummed a few more notes out on her shamisen and spoke again, "Now what in the world would be strange about coming to meet two people that are about to join your team? It just seems smart to me."
"Stop messing with the locals Kotoko."
Letting out a small laugh, Kotoko jumped down from the roof and landed right at the side of someone who was walking out, chewing on a stick of dango as he did so. He had short, brown hair with a white streak in it and a pair of small sunglasses over his eyes. He was slightly older than Kotoko and stood a head taller than Shikamaru and wore what looked like black monk's clothing as well as an identical sash to Kotoko's around his waist; white with the kanji for fire on it.
"I wasn't doing anything bad Sadao-kun. I was just here to meet the new guys." Kotoko put a hand on his shoulder and pointed over at Naruto and Shikamaru, "See? They're right there."
"No…" Sadou said in a deadpan voice as if the answer were obvious, "I don't see anything… ever." After a moment though his sunglasses-clad eyes turned towards the two aforementioned Konoha shinobi and his face seemed to take on one of consideration, "Naruto and Shikamaru. Got it. I'll remember that." With that, he turned to head down the street only to be grabbed around the arm by Kotoko, "Problem?"
Shaking Sadou's arm, Kotoko pointed at the two male members of Team 10, "Wait, we're not going to test them or anything? When I first showed up at the capitol I almost got a total beatdown."
Sadou shook his head in the negative, "Well we're not at the capitol. We're in their village. Part of the guardsmen or not, it doesn't matter. We can't just start something just for that. It's not really in good taste either. Noboyuki-san would be upset as well and we don't need anything negative trickling up any further than him do we? So say goodbye to the new guys. We'll see them again soon enough."
"Bye new guys!" Kotoko said, waving at Naruto and Shikamaru while walking away with Sadou, "Hope you don't get yourselves killed on whatever mission you're doing! We need more recruits because we aren't anywhere near twelve strong yet!"
Both Naruto and Shikamaru felt a cold, deathly shadow hover over the two of them, and it wasn't exactly Ino… yet anyway. It was merely the prospect of having to explain why exactly all of this had just occurred, as it would definitely not slip her notice that after a short while into the run-in with the strange pair of shinobi neither of them were very confused the way that she was.
XxX
(A Short While Later – Roads of Hi no Kuni)
"So." The two males of the team flinched when they heard the sharpness of Ino's tone. This was not going to be a fun trip. Not at all, "Is anyone going to tell just what the hell all of that was about back in the village? Or am I just supposed to be the odd man out here."
"You're a girl Ino-chan."
"I know that smartass, it was a figure of speech!" Ino snapped back at Naruto, bringing the team to a halt on the sunbathed forest path, "Just what was that back there? You two didn't say anything. What was all of that stuff about you two being recruits or whatever. Who were those people?"
Well it was time to let the chips fall as they may as far as breaking the news went. Not the place for it, but Ino was stubborn enough that she wouldn't let the topic sit, "You saw the sashes that they both had on didn't you?" Shikamaru asked the glaring Ino, getting a stiff nod from her, "Who else has one like that?"
"Asuma-sensei." That much was easy. It was a marker of Asuma's past before his return to Konoha. He wore it prominently despite the fact that it had been ten years since his incarnation of the Twelve Guardian Ninja had met its end with the exception of two members; Asuma and a man that Asuma never particularly spoke of named Chiriku, "So?"
This time Naruto spoke up, answering her question in his own way, "Well… I guess in a few months me and Shikamaru are going to be getting some sashes just like those." He saw Ino's eyes widen and her jaw hang slightly open and he flinched at the sight, "…Yeah, you've got it Ino-chan. It's exactly what they're saying. It's exactly what you're probably thinking right now."
Lifting a hand to point at Naruto and then at Shikamaru, Ino's face seemed to express her own shock at what they were(n't) telling her, "Are you two dopes telling me you're leaving? How-? When-?" She didn't even know what to ask them first, "I don't-. Why would you go?"
"It's not going to be forever Ino-chan!" Naruto was quick to make that point first and foremost. He was insistent on that being a factor the entire time; that he would get to return, that he was not going to be working as a guardsman forever, "It was just supposed to be for a couple of years. It wouldn't be that long."
That did not leave Ino feeling any easier than before, "A couple of years? We haven't even been ninja for a full year yet! It's not even January!" She shouted back at the pair of them, "And you're both going? You both got invited to go and you're both taking it? What the fuck?" She didn't want to blatantly say it aloud, but what about her? Just what was she supposed to do? She thought they were supposed to stick together.
How were they just going to leave? And why didn't they bring this up to her when they were making the decision in the first place? The first she was hearing about it was when the decision was already made and two of the other ninja guardsmen came to Konoha to check them out firsthand.
Trying to salvage the situation, Shikamaru was very grateful that at least this wasn't going down in public. She had a right to be upset, but trying to calm her down in front of people would not have been fun, "It's not for three months. That's when we leave."
It was what she had been afraid of after the exams ended, the team breaking up. Ino thought that bullet had been dodged. Yes, sometimes they worked apart, but they still trained together and did other things together all the time, "That's no time at all." Ino said quietly, "Three months isn't long at all. You're telling me that by the end of January you're both going to be gone? And that's that?"
"I was going to be leaving one way or another Ino-chan." Naruto said with a shrug, deciding that he was all in from this point, "Ero-sensei was going to get me to go with him on a trip to personally train me anyway. And then the daimyo offered me and Shikamaru this job and it fell into place to do that instead. Ero-sensei convinced me to take it, and Shika decided to come with me since he wasn't going to let me do it by myself."
"Someone has to make sure he doesn't blow himself up."
"Fuck you Shika."
"Fuck both of you!" Ino yelled at both of them, interrupting any banter that was about to occur. Now was not the time. She was far from pleased, and there was nothing about the situation that she could really take much solace in, "You're both leaving me by myself on some buddy-buddy guy bullshit! What about me? Did I fit into this equation at all, or is it because I'm not the strongest? What is it? I know that Shikamaru is smart, and I know that Naruto is a jinchuuriki and he's only going to get stronger. I am the weakest one out of you guys but-."
That was all that either of them wanted to hear as far as that train of thought meant, "If you say you're weak then I'm going to have to ask you to tell Ino to come out from where she's really hiding." Shikamaru said, cutting her off from continuing on, "Don't make it this way. This isn't about you at all."
And right when he said that he could tell that something had gone wrong in translation. That didn't come out the right way. Even Naruto visibly flinched. If he knew that Shikamaru had said something stupid then it really must have been bad.
"Oh, I can definitely tell that much." Ino said frostily, turning her back on Shikamaru and walking down the path away from the two of them, "Come on. I want to get a decent ways there before it gets dark."
"Ino-chan wait." Naruto tried to grab a hold of her arm only for her to rip it out of her grasp, "There's a pretty good reason why. Can't we just-?"
"I don't want to hear anything else about it you have to say." She replied, her arms shaking by her side before she stalked off down the road again, "I thought we were close. But if this was going to happen then I guess we should have just split off after the chunin exams after all huh?" The sound of her footsteps crunching leaves beneath her feet and the birds were the most audible thing around at that point, "…It would have saved you guys the trouble of ditching me later." No longer seeing fit to walk, she took off into the trees to begin moving faster.
It couldn't possibly go this bad could it? She didn't actually mean that. All they had to do was give her some time and then she would let them finish explaining why they were going. Ino was a smart and reasonable girl, and she was strong enough to deal without them. Everything would shake out properly in the end.
So why did the two of them feel like crap?
"Come on Naruto…" Shikamaru said as he began walking ahead as well, "We can't just let her go ahead by herself like that."
Nodding in agreement, both Naruto and Shikamaru took off hot on Ino's trail, grateful that at least she wasn't trying to do something outlandish like outrun them, "Shikamaru, she's going to let us tell her the rest of why we're doing this isn't she?" He didn't want to lose a friend over this. Especially not one as dear as Ino.
For once, Shikamaru didn't really have an answer for him. Women were dangerous and mysterious as far as he was concerned, and this one was sufficiently provoked and emotional all by their doing, "I hope so. I really do."
XxX
(Two Days Later – Vicinity of Takigakure Territory)
Ino could seriously hold a grudge. It had to be obvious to them… because she had managed to keep an attraction to Uchiha Sasuke for well over five years while he showed no interest to the fairer sex and their affections for him. So two days was not going to be enough to allow her time to cool down, especially since she had to see them for every waking second of every day until then.
Instead of yelling or being outright rude to them, Ino was merely quiet instead. Deathly quiet. She would not make eye contact with either of them, but when either Naruto or Shikamaru weren't looking they could feel her glaring into the backs of their heads.
That wasn't even the worst thing about it though. On the first day after Ino took off away from them they finally managed to catch up to her and get ahead of her enough to move as a group again, but when they looked at her they saw her eyes were red and puffy. It didn't show on her face in any other way, and she didn't let even a single sniffle escape from that point forward, but she was hurt.
Shikamaru was visibly rattled by the whole thing as he had more or less had Ino in his life for as long as he could remember. While she always hadn't been as close as say someone like Chouji she was still closer than most anyone else. He had never legitimately been on Ino's bad side before, and he wished that she would actually start yelling at them. He would have preferred that over the silence she had been giving them.
Naruto took it worse than him, clearly. Any attempt to get Ino to talk, or even to acknowledge them beyond short, terse sentences on what to possibly look out for met with no success. He had never made anyone mad enough to stop being friends with him before. After he had formed his friendships he managed to keep them no matter what, but one of his closest ones seemed to be on the rocks to say the least. If this was what it was going to be like from one of his best friends then did he even want to leave? What if others took it just as badly or washed their hands of him altogether? It wouldn't be worth it at all. Not for a few years to prepare for a nameless, faceless foe, and not for the boost towards becoming Hokage.
But there was still work to do. Personal social messes aside, they were still in the field… and more importantly they still had no idea where Takigakure was supposed to be. Nobody outside of that village did. It was absolutely absurd how a village that had been around since the days of the original Hokage still had no outsider that knew of its location; the most prevalent reason that despite being surrounded on at least three sides by countries with other shinobi villages they had never been successfully invaded.
So they were traversing around the general location of a 30 km radius of where Takigakure was supposed to be, looking for any sign of the place. Even using Naruto's exorbitant amount of clones bore no fruit. But it had never been invaded, so just using numbers to search obviously wasn't the answer.
Moving throughout a heavily forested area that was not visitor friendly, Naruto used his machete for what it was originally meant to be used for; clear-cutting a path, "Damn this place is wildery. What's with all of the overgrowth? I know that this place isn't into commerce like Konoha is because Shiho-chan made me learn that crap, but still…"
"Taki really doesn't need people finding that place." Shikamaru said as he and Ino followed behind Naruto as he cleared the way, "The one advantage they've always had in wars is that battles were fought on their terms since no one could ever really bring the fight to their doorstep. Guerilla warfare stuff, you know? I guess they have contacts in places for people to bring jobs to them and for requests like what we're doing to go out."
This had been going on ever since they had arrived in that region of the country and had been hacking their way through the hard to traverse terrain. Eventually they came to a stop in a place with less overgrowth, at least less enough for them to take a break.
Since the entrance seemed to be nowhere in sight, it seemed like a good time for a short snack to restore energy prior to heading out again, "This is dumb." Naruto said as he bit into an onigiri prepared for a quick meal, "It's like they don't even want this crap. What are we bringing them anyway?"
Reaching into his bag, Shikamaru pulled out the satchel with his clan symbol on it to show the others, "I looked in it earlier. It's got powder from the horns of the deer in my clan and a lot of herbs, stuff that people can't get around here. They're the base for energy stuff."
"Why don't they just buy military rations pills from us and be done with it then?" Naruto asked, getting a shrug from Shikamaru and a turning up of the nose from Ino that got him to frown deeply. He actually wished she'd just hit them and cheer up already. This was miserable, "Hey, we're not lost are we?" He didn't think that he could easily find their way out and back to Konoha if it came to that. It would take a lot of running around.
But that was not to be necessary as Shikamaru shook his head, "No, I remember the way we took to get this far. I know how to backtrack us out. I get why you're asking that though. This is more trouble than it's worth. Going back home seems like the right option right now." Maybe then they'd do something productive instead of making the Konoha ninja team run around all over the place for nothing.
The rustling of leaves got their attention and interrupted the snack and conversation at that moment. Naruto polished off the rest of his rice ball and held his machete up, prepared to fight as Shikamaru jumped up with shuriken at the ready and Ino had senbon prepared to throw.
"There's no need to attack anyone."
From the brush walked a man with a sky-blue flak vest and a Takigakure headband, calmly striding forward, even though this did nothing to take away the feeling of an ambush that Team 10 felt.
His eyes looked the young group over before he spoke up again, "There's really no need to be so defensive. We've been keeping a decent distance from you until we were able to determine that you hadn't located our village. A security measure. We're not here to fight."
"We?" Ino said defensively only for other Takigakure ninja to pop up all over the area. Huh, so that ambush vibe wasn't too off. They were surrounded if nothing else, "Well we're not here to fight either. We're just here to give you your stupid raw materials and go home."
Meanwhile Naruto felt totally embarrassed. If he had been on his game he would have been routinely feeling out to see if anyone was around. But he had been exacerbated by the terrain, he had been hungry, and he had been eating lunch. Just his luck that they caught him right then. That certainly didn't make him look very good. He would have liked to blame it on the whole Ino thing throwing him off of his game.
But on this occasion at least there were no negative repercussions outside of a little bit of tension as Shikamaru held out the parcel that they had been transporting, "So I'm guessing that you're not going to let us stop off at your village before we go home."
"That's right." The apparent leader of the Taki squad said as he took the goods from the young chunin holding them, "I'm sure you understand. We can't necessarily break our security protocol, even if you three have no ill intent, and I'm not claiming that you do. Even with the powers of that one." He said, shooting a short glance towards Naruto.
Naruto was about to ask what the man knew about any of his powers, but he then remembered that the chunin exams had been shown in many places and lots of people had seen the participants. No team fought more matches than his own and Naruto hadn't been very discreet with his use of the Kyuubi's chakra in the final two rounds.
And from what he already knew about how jinchuuriki were looked upon it was quite evident that in this place sentiment for people like him wasn't exactly on the upswing the way that he could at least say it was in Konoha. Making the whole village look like world-beaters on a major stage would do that for you.
It was no skin off of his nose really. They could have been ruder about it, but it just went to show that the outlook of a hidden village didn't translate over to a hidden village's 'ally'. Well that was another damper on what was already a bummer of a trip.
"We'll have one of our ninja escort you a safe distance away to ensure that you don't follow us back to the village's entrance." The man said before calling out to one of the ninja that had them surrounded, "Fuu. This is your mission. Make sure these Konoha ninja find their way to the border safely."
Hearing that Fuu was among the shinobi around them, Naruto's eyes lit up and a grin sprang to his face as he actually saw the green-haired jinchuuriki walk forward out of the crowd, "Fuu!" Naruto ran towards her, only to be stopped when she lifted her foot and planted the sole of her foot against his visage to stop him from getting any closer. That didn't stop him from speaking, albeit muffled with her foot stuck to his face, "How have you been doing?"
Pretty much everyone in the vicinity felt the urge to facepalm (and most did), Fuu included, although the most she did was raise an eyebrow with an uncomfortable look on her face, "I told you already kid. No freebie hugs." And with a shove of her leg, she pushed Naruto back way further than she actually intended to due to her unconscious strength as the sound of Naruto's body being shoved through brush and leaves and the like, "Oops."
It took a second or two, but Naruto came running back into the area with foliage in his hair and stuck between his goggles, still grinning, "I'm okay."
Fuu rolled her pink eyes and shook her head before turning her attention back to the captain of the squad, "I'll take care of getting these guys out of here. You all can go home. Tell Shibuki I'll be back soon." The captain nodded but left Fuu with a warning glance that she rolled her eyes at as the Taki squad vacated the area. When they were gone, Fuu stuck her middle finger up in the direction that she figured they had gone off in and turned back towards Team 10, "Hm. All got promotions I see. Good for you all."
"So how've you been?" Naruto asked the older female demon container, "It's been a while." It was nice to see Fuu's friendly (for the most part) face.
"It's been a while since I tenderized your face into a wall with my fist and you almost made me look soft in front of an entire arena?" Fuu returned before smirking when she saw Naruto balk at her recollection of their last run-in, "Yeah it has been. So what's up with you lot of runts?" She saw Naruto walk closer and held up a finger in warning, "Don't touch me. I kind of like you little guy, but the next time you try any of that hug me crap I'm chucking you over the tree line."
As Naruto slowly backed away from Fuu, grinning nervously, Shikamaru spoke up for the lot of them since Ino was still playing the silent game, "We've been better."
Interest danced in Fuu's orange orbs before just as quickly it was replaced by outright apathy, "Yeah… talk and move. We've got to follow the asshole brigade partway there. They're going in the same direction. I want to catch up to them just to mess with them a bit." She said as she motioned for the three to follow them, which they did.
XxX
"Fuu…" The captain said in an exasperated tone of voice once she and Team 10 had caught up to them, "What do you think you're doing?"
An innocent look was on Fuu's face as the squad glared at her for her transgression, but it was obvious that she knew exactly what she was doing to mess with the lot of them, "I was leading them away from the village." She said, trying to keep from snickering at the looks on their faces, "Unless you wanted me to lead them in the direction they were going in? But that was west. You don't want to drop them at Tsuchi no Kuni's border do you?"
"So you figured you would just take them home in the proper direction." The Taki captain said dryly, running his hand through his hair as he knew that Fuu was simply trying to razz them, and it was working from the looks of the others, "Just… take them in the direction of Konoha so that we can head the rest of the way to the entrance securely."
Fuu gave the man a salute with a smirk on her face before leading Naruto, Shikamaru, and Ino on again. Once they were safely out of earshot, Fuu began laughing to herself and spared a look back at the non-entertained faces of Taki's guests, "Oh what? I've got to take what I can get when it comes to this place." She said, swatting at an insect that had been buzzing around her face.
"Nothing's gotten any better?" Naruto asked her with a raised eyebrow, "I thought you were being nicer."
"I am being nicer." Fuu argued back, "I'm pretty sure Houki would be attached to my hip right now if he wasn't still a genin. He likes me way too much ever since I've been actually trying to talk to him." She let off a scoff and pointed back over her shoulder, "I've been less inclined to punt people that get too close to me by accident, and instead of just scaring everyone I'm lightening up. The only ones it seems to really be working on are kids though. Yesterday some little girl told me that I looked pretty. *laughs* Can you believe that?"
Her tone was somewhat derisive, but from the serene look on her face it seemed like that meant a lot to her, and that much put a smile on Naruto's face. Fuu really was a good person. A little rough around the edges, but that was just because of how she was brought up.
"Ow!"
Ino stopped jumping from branch to branch, getting the group to stop as she held her hand to her shoulder and moved it to show the crushed remains of an insect. Naruto jumped from his branch to Ino's and looked her over after her sudden cry of alarm, "Ino-chan are you okay?"
Almost forgetting she was mad at him for a moment once Ino looked up at Naruto's emotive blue eyes, she remembered that she was actually upset with him and Shikamaru and her tone turned frosty again, "I'm fine." She said before looking at the crushed remains of whatever she had slapped on her shoulder, "It was just a bee."
"Are we running near a hive of them or something?" Fuu asked with a hand on her hip, "Because I had to kill a few of them too just a while ago."
Taking the initiative, Naruto formed the ram seal to gather his chakra more efficiently and released it outward as a sensor technique, "Chakura Hankyouteii no Jutsu (Chakra Echolocation Jutsu)!" He then recoiled at the results of his scouting around, "I don't think it's a hive."
"Why not?" Shikamaru asked him before he got a good look through the trees and had to conclude the point, "Oh. Nevermind then."
There were countless bees just floating in the air, seeming to stare them all down and wait for them to make another move. Bees didn't do that. Not wild bees, but thinking of a concept of tame bees just freaked them all right the hell out.
"I hate bugs…" Fuu commented, getting a nod from Ino in agreement before Fuu seemed to hear a voice in her head, seemingly griping at her from the look on her face, "Yes that includes you too you bastard." She said, seeming to talk to herself. The Nanabi more than likely after they took a moment to think about it.
Still looking around with his brain moving at a hundred miles an hour, Shikamaru spoke up, "Should we… I don't know, run?"
As if to answer his question, from their stingers, the bees fired them forward at the four ninja, forcing them to drop down from their branches to evade and run away as the bees went after them in pursuit. But due to Naruto's own alarm upon sensing the full scope of the bees that had them surrounded he was unable to notice the man that had his presence cloaked, overseeing the scene.
The camouflage technique fell to reveal a man standing against the trunk of a tree. He was rather burly and had thick black hair that almost looked like devil horns. He had a full beard and a calm look in his eyes to go with a purple cloak that fell over his shoulders, with black pants and a black long-sleeves shirt underneath.
XxX
(With the Taki Squad)
The bodies of most of the ninja sent out to retrieve the package from Team 10 lay on the ground, motionless and swollen with many bee stings on their bodies. Many bees were still crawling over the corpses as if they were just a normal part of the landscape. Their bodies weren't even cold yet.
The captain of the squad though, sat immobilized against a tree with his body completely covered in beeswax that kept him from moving or being able to break free. He was alive and well, though that was entirely by design, "What do you want? You have the materials, you've killed my men. What are you here for?"
A bespectacled man with beady eyes and long blonde hair smirked down at the Taki captain. On his shoulders he had a light blue cloak with grey clothing beneath it, "We don't want your useless materials. It's pretty simple. All we want is the location to the entrance of Takigakure. That's all."
As if it were such a simple thing to hand over. That was right up there in vital information as far as the village's well-being went. The next thing to it would have been the Hero's Water, which was actually what the supplies from Konoha were meant to be added to in order to lessen the damage it did to one's lifespan.
This was worse than that though.
"Heh." The Taki captain chuckled darkly, knowing the severity of his situation. His men were cruelly wiped out by those bees that these people summoned before they were aware that it was a coordinated attack, "That's all you want?" He said sarcastically, "Well if you want to know how to get to Taki, I think the first thing you should do is just go to hell."
From another side of the trapped man, a kunoichi walked towards the Taki ninja and put the bottom of her foot on his head. She had short brown hair, red eye shadow, and wore a purple, red bordered short-skirt battle kimono with long sleeves and the shoulders out of them along with black gloves, a yellow bow around her waist, and purple leggings, "Hell huh? Listen up. Finding the location of your village would bring our clan quite a lot of lost respect back. Just because we know where it is doesn't mean we're going to attack it. It's just very significant information."
"A clan with no respect that uses bees to fight." The trapped captain said before something hit him as far as his train of thought went, "Wait, bees. You're that clan that got torched by the Aburame Clan when you tried attacking Konoha before; the Kamizuru Clan." He saw the anger in the pair's faces upon being reminded of their defeat from years ago, "And you're an Iwagakure clan. There's no way you won't attack us once you get the information on our village's location."
It had been Iwagakure's modus operandi to try taking down smaller villages to widen its influence. As an example, during the panic that had set off the Third Shinobi World War, Iwagakure tried to take advantage of it and quickly sack Kusagakure, only to find itself in a full scale battle of attrition with Konoha. From that point forward after the end of that war, the minor villages kept their eyes to the northwest to ensure nothing like that ever happened again.
"Listen, don't worry about it right now." The blonde man said, stooping down closer to the Taki ninja's level, "An attack won't happen yet if you give us the information. And we'll let you live. That gives you plenty of time to go back to your village and tell them what occurred here. Feel free to." Feel free because it wouldn't really matter if Takigakure was prepared or not. They simply did not have the manpower to prevent any aggressive actions from Iwagakure if it came to a full scale invasion.
So giving the exact location of the village to an enemy force like Iwagakure would result in Taki's destruction one way or another. They didn't have any shinobi on the level of a kage. Even with the Hero's Water being used by their strongest ninja they would not be able to match the might of a kage.
"An attack won't happen at all." The Taki captain said before gathering all of his willpower and focus. The two Iwa ninja got away from him in case he had an attack he could use while bound, but it was not an action that was meant to threaten them. In one motion, the man turned his own head to the left with enough force to break his own neck and effectively commit suicide before he could be properly interrogated and tortured for the information.
The Iwa kunoichi let out an angry growl and kicked at the deceased captive's dead body, "So this is it? When no one from this squad reports back it's going to be known that something's up." She said, realizing that the village wouldn't be letting anyone in or out once such an alert went up, "Jibachi. We can't return to the village with nothing. This is our chance to get things back to the way they used to be."
The blonde man Jibachi didn't seem to be too concerned with the turn of events. What had been seemingly a breakthrough in locating a thorn in Iwagakure's side had turned into this mess of things. A mission on the brink of being botched.
"It can't really be helped Suzumebachi." He said kneeling down to make sure that the man was truly dead instead of just faking it, "He's dead. So unless you can read a dead man's mind or interrogate a ghost I don't think we'll be finding anyone."
The woman Suzumebachi had a deep frown on her face until she remembered the last few people that their bees had been keeping watch over, "There was one more Taki ninja, the one that split off to lead the Konoha ninja away from the entrance."
A look of realization came over Jibachi's face, "Oh, the ones that Kurobachi tailed after to make sure they weren't trouble."
"Yes." Suzumebachi smirked, "This mission isn't hopeless yet. All we have to do is meet back up with him and take things from there."
Omake: Training Day 6
Team 7 hadn't seen much of Sasuke since he had gotten out of the hospital post Cursed Seal-branding. It was actually really nice to see him in good condition before they were to go with Kakashi on a C-rank mission to capture a pack of wolves killing off farm animals in a nearby village.
Still, Kakashi's warning from that morning stuck with Sakura and Chouji, "Now remember. Sasuke's been with Anko for more or less the entire month… without me there since I'm still claiming responsibility for you two. So if he comes back a little off just let it be for now. And definitely don't ask him about anything that he's been doing."
"Why?"
"First of all you would probably wish you hadn't if you did." Kakashi explained, finding this important enough to set his beloved book aside to explain this to them, "Second of all we don't need his mind wandering to whatever Anko's been subjecting him to for the last month. The boy has enough problems and this probably just gave him a few more to go along with them."
"Kakashi-sensei it couldn't have been that bad." Sakura said with her hands on her hips. And she potentially would have been correct if Anko were more normal, like her. Anko was not normal though, and the one short meeting that Sakura had seen Anko during the chunin exams for did not fully express this.
"Whatever you say Sakura." Dismissed Kakashi. If she was going to be like that then she'd just have to figure it out the hard way, "Oh, look. Here Sasuke comes now."
And just as he said, walking towards the gate in his usual attire with his chunin flak jacket on over it was Sasuke, hands in his pockets and looking as aloof as usual. And walking right there with him was Anko, just grinning away and waving at the rest of Team 7, "Hello Cyclops! Hello Cyclops-brats! What a wonderful day, isn't it Sasuke?" She asked, planting a hand on Sasuke's head and messing up his cool.
"Don't touch me." Sasuke grumbled out as Anko messed up his hair. The speed he walked away from her with on the way towards his teammates could have been construed as him sprinting away if one knew him well enough.
Chouji greeted Sasuke with a friendly smile and a wave, "Hey Sasuke. How've you been?"
Sasuke spared a glance at Anko who was waving cheerfully at him, this forced a momentary chill to go down his spine before he got his composure back, "Fine. What about you two though? I'd rather hear about that."
That was a strange sign. Sasuke actually wanted to hear about what his teammates had been doing. And he was doing all that he could to avoid looking at Anko for longer than two seconds.
"What did you do to him?" Kakashi finally asked Anko who seemed way too cheery for there to be nothing going on.
"I taught him the error of his ways Cyclops. That's all." Anko said, slipping behind Sasuke again before anyone else noticed, "And he learned that you don't need a seal of tainted power to beat someone's ass." She pat him on the shoulder despite Sasuke's growing ire at her presence.
"I am going to set you on fire one of these days." Threatened Sasuke to his superior as he glared up at her, Sharingan active. He just wished that her eyes were open so that maybe he could fuck with her head, but she was really good at never making eye contact with him. It was completely annoying, "Count on it."
"You aren't still mad that you almost had to Chidori your way out of that snake's belly are you? I made him spit you out."
Ongoing Stats (Out of 5)
Konohagakure Shinobi
Yuhi Kurenai
Ninjutsu: 4
Taijutsu: 4
Genjutsu: 5
Intelligence: 4
Strength: 2
Speed: 4
Stamina: 2
Hand-Seals: 4.5
Total Score: 29.5