I don't own solo leveling or Naruto
...
"Y-Yeah..."
...
"I'm home." Itachi entered through the front door of his apartment taking off his shoes in the process. He wiped some sweat off his brow indicating that he had just got back from his morning run.
"Morning Ita. How was your morning run?" Izumi yawned out loud. She wasn't really a morning person so it was difficult for her to wake up so early in the morning, but her son didn't seem to have that problem. He was usually up around the early hours of the to start his day with training or whatever he did as a hunter.
"How did you sleep?" Itachi asked. "Pretty well actually, but I'm still tired though," Izumi replied scratching her itchy bed hair.
"Do you happen to know anyone by the name of Onikawa?" Izumi said to him out of nowhere. "Yeah, why?" Itachi rose a brow at the sudden question. 'Why would she be asking about a branch head of the Hunter Association,' Itachi wondered.
"Well, he tried calling you this morning. It's the reason I'm awake right now to be honest," Izumi grumbled unhappily whilst sipping on her black coffee.
"It must be pretty important if he's contacting me this early," he just commented, absentmindedly walking over to the landline in the hallway to get back to the branch head.
...
"I'm glad you were available on such short notice. To be honest, what I'm doing is very unconventional and frowned upon, but it can't be helped. Most of our high ranked agents are spread very thin around the country," the square glasses man explained to Itachi. They were making their way through the long, spacious halls of the Monitoring building.
"What is going on exactly?" Itachi asked. They stopped at the parking lot behind the building Itachi's eyes spotting an all black prisoner transport bus at the very far end of the parking area.
"This is a rehabilitation mission. It's not very common, but it does happen that the number of hunters in a certain area diminish to the point where the Association has to step in and clear the gate ourselves, but since we don't have the manpower to afford an official attack force we use other means to fulfill the head count requirements. The way we do this is by using prisoners that used to be hunters to enter the gate with one or two very powerful agents in our ranks," Onikawa explained.
"I see...but wouldn't it be safer for your agents to monitor the gate from the outside instead of heading inside with the prisoners and risking their lives with dangerous and unstable individuals," Itachi asked.
"That's true, but due to our agreement with the government the services of criminals in the dungeons is seen as 'serving time' as well there by reducing their sentence. We as the Monitoring Division determine that by their performance in the raid and seeing if they are truly deserving of a sentence reduction," Onikawa answered his question.
"So you want me to monitor them for you, I imagine?" Itachi stated very plainly. Onikawa had thge decency to look sheepish, "I'm sorry, but like I said our resources are spread too thin. We don't want anymore dungeon breaks to occur, besides I've heard good things about you from both Mai and Shin. You have the makings of the perfect agent despite your age."
"Hn..." Itachi just grunted, watching Onikawa signal for the bus to leave the parking lot. Itachi gave him a questioning look. "Don't worry you'll meet them at the gate. They are unstable criminals after all, every precaution is necessary," The neatly dressed man told the stoic teen.
"I suppose." Something on that bus was giving him an uneasy feeling and he didn't like one bit.
...
"What?! Why should we be raiding with some criminals!"
"The Association is definitely on something if they think we'll just go along with this!"
Itachi arrived just outside the fence of the Roppongi District Museum. He was met with the scene of two hunters arguing very animatedly with a blue haired woman in the characteristic black suit of the Association.
'She must be my informant that Onikawa mentioned...' Itachi saw the faces of most of the prisoners twisted in amusement at the argument going on in front of them.
—Note—
Informants are C or D-rank Association agents that analyze the magical flow of a newly appeared gate and send that information to the Monitoring Division that then assign a rank to the gate.
They also have Mobile Offices outside the gate to calculate the price of mana crystals and essence stones that come out of the dungeon after the raid team has cleared it.
—Note—
"Hello. Are you perhaps Kumo Anzu?" Itachi asked politely cutting the one sided shouting match between the woman and the hunters short. The short woman turned her head around to quickly face Itachi. He saw she had a small beauty mark on her right cheek with an alluring brown eyed gaze.
"Y-Yes?" she answered uncertainly.
"My name is Uchiha Itachi. I was sent here by Branch Head Onikawa to lead this Rehabilitation Mission." Itachi told her.
She formed a perfect O with her mouth before saying, "Oh! You must be Mr. Shin's last minute replacement. Thank goodness! You arrived right on time—waut aren't you a little to young to be leading this mission?" Anzu stopped her loud rumbling analyzing Itachi's form and noticing he was a teenager at first glance.
He just rise a brow at the question and said, "Are you going to question your chain of command? Besides, I'm more than powerful enough to deal with everyone here," he let his mana presence leak slightly to show his superiority to everyone in the vicinity.
"O-Of course not! I understand what you're saying completely! Let me guide you to the station and brief you on everything else on," Anzu nervously said, guiding the stoic teenager to the white Mobile Office across the street.
"...Hn"
As they walked away from rest one thing was clear to hunters and criminals alike, watching the retreating form of Itachi and that was...
'That guy's really strong!'