The people surrounding the man on the terrace were discussing something while looking at the papers in their hands. One of them looked at the man and said "Master Jiro we have already helped Moji's faction a lot till now but we haven't got any results."
Another man beside him nodded and said "Yes and we don't even know if giving all those resources to them has any advantage to us. The blood mist might end up becoming a problem for us in the end."
The man named Jiro who was the emissary of the hidden stone sent to aid Moji in becoming the next Mizukage looked at his subordinates and said "Yes I know the investment has already exceeded our expectations but stopping is not an option now. If we go back empty-handed, Lord Tsuchikage will vaporize our bodies with his particle style."
Everyone gulped when they heard that. Jiro then looked at the man to his left and asked "Have Moji been making any movements?"
The man nodded and said "Recently he did have his right-hand man Hari attack a village in the bloodline clan's vicinity but that's all I know about it."
"Any reason it caught your attention?" Jiro asked with a hint of anger. He thought that his subordinate was just wasting his time. Small skirmishes in civilian villages were a regular occurrence.
The man nodded and said "Hari himself organized the attack and the ones carrying it out were his own squadmates. I don't know why he needed Anbu to attack a small village and we heard that the only damage they did was burn down a house."
Jiro frowned as he heard this "Go and find out why he performed this attack. He is not such a big idiot to waste the Anbu strength he has on civilians."
The man sighed in relief seeing that Jiro had taken interest in this attack.
"When are the caravans arriving?" Jiro asked to which the man looked at him and said "They should have reached here this morning but had to take a detour because they needed a few more supplies." Jiro smiled as he heard that and said "That's what you are going to write in the report." To which the man nodded.
"What about the loss we suffered at sea? Do you know what happened?" Jiro asked his subordinates and everyone started looking at each other.
Jiro looked at them in anger and scowled "So many ships and shinobis from our village along with 100 pirates just vanished at sea? Do you expect me to believe that?"
"No..No Jiro-sama…the thing is." one of his subordinates hesitated when Jiro stepped forward and held the man by his color and said with bloodshot eyes "I am already getting grilled for that incident. We had so many people whom we groomed for so many years on that ship and there was no chance of defeat in that battle then why the hell did Wu and the Terumi siblings arrive unscathed?"
Seeing that no one was answering his question he threw the subordinate aside and said "By having people like you with me I have already doomed myself." He then stormed off the terrace and went inside the building.
Yami was listening to all this from the bottom of the building. He didn't disguise himself like a hidden stone shinobi but like a laborer who was in his mid-thirties. His job here was to empty the caravans that come from the hidden stone in the storage room.
"Hey you…why are you dwindling here? I will cut your pay for 2 hours if you don't start working within 10 seconds." One of the stone shinobi guards called out seeing Yami stand leaning on the building.
"Coming." Yami shouted and went to the caravans and started lifting the boxes. The first few boxes were square in shape and Yami could smell fruits and herbs from them. He kept all those boxes in the warehouses behind the offices. After those boxes were done transporting the boxes which were at the end of the caravan were a bit different. They were more secure and seemed heavy. At first, Yami thought it was a weapon but while he was transporting it, it smelled like chemicals.
'I don't think anyone will notice if I open it and take a peek.' Yami thought as he placed the box in the warehouse. After finishing everything, he saw that there were 5 such boxes in the warehouse.
Yami hid in the warehouse and created a shadow clone who transformed into the laborer he was and had him go out of the warehouse, take his daily wage and leave with the rest of the porters.
As night arrived, the door of the warehouse closed and Yami could hear the guards assigned near the warehouse had increased threefold.
He tried to hear what was going on which his enhanced senses but he only heard the guards talking to each other about mundane things. Nothing could benefit him in determining what the goal of the hidden stone was.
After the surroundings became a little quiet, Yami came out from hiding and stood in front of one of those boxes. The lid of the box was tightly shut with nails and wrapped around with a cloth. Yami removed the cloth carefully and proceeded to remove the nails one by one. He made sure to not make any noise and not damage the wood around the nail. He didn't want to leave any trace of him being here.
After a few minutes, he was able to pull out the 12 nails that were hammered into the lid. 'These people are way too careful to transport simple supplies. I wonder if this is some like chemical weapon created by the hidden stone.' Yami thought and took off the lid. He saw 10 jars kept inside the box and properly packed with grass and other materials so they don't touch each other.
Yami saw one small piece of white tape which sealed the jars along with the lid. The smell of chemicals became even more strong when the lid was opened. Yami then noticed a few drops of dried blood on the grass that was in the box. He picked up one jar and his eyes widened as he saw what was inside.
It was a heart. And it didn't look like an animal's heart but a human's. The thing that shocked Yami the most was that the heart was still beating.
Yami was totally confused as to what was a human heart doing in a jar and how was it still beating. 'Why don't I hear the heartbeats from this? In fact, when I carried the box here, I should have been able to hear the heartbeats of at least one of these hearts."
Yami broke the white tape from the lid and before he could do something the lid popped with a loud sound. Yami could now hear the heartbeats but there were also screams. Loud and painful screams of a man coming from the heart. As the sound of screams spread throughout the warehouse, the guards that were standing outside became alert.
'I thought the tape was only a silencing seal that kept others from hearing the sound of a beating heart but seems like it was to keep the sounds of screams inside the jar. Yami looked around for the lid and the tape attached to it but he saw that the lid had fallen to his side the tape was burnt black now. This meant that the seal was no longer going to work.
'That's why these assholes didn't put these boxes in a storage scroll. It wasn't to save money but because the scroll doesn't store living things.' Yami gritted his teeth as the screams coming from the heart were gathering people from the warehouse and even the scream itself had become irritating for Yami.
He quickly pulled out a kunai from his pocket and stabbed it in the heart. The screams increased for a second or two but it then started becoming quiet.
But it was already too late as almost the entire camp had gathered around the warehouse including Jiro. Yami could hear Jiro's voice shouting at their men from the outside.
"WHO THE FUCK IS INSIDE?" Jiro lost his cool as he shouted.
"No…No lord Jiro me and my men were standing here the whole time. How can someone go inside?" a guard said with hesitation.
"Urghhh…you all are idiots." Jiro said and looked at his man and said "Let's just hope it is not what we think it is. Go in with your men." Jiro said and the man along with 5 hooded figures went ahead to open the doors of the warehouse.
Jiro then looked at the guards standing outside curious to see what was inside and said "Stop standing here like idiots and go search the entire camp. This could also be a distraction."
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