Chapter 47
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Yumiko shrugged. "Sensei invited me. What else?"
Tatsuya squinted at her for a moment before nodding curtly and stood beside her. A peaceful silence stretched between them until Yumiko broke it.
"Did you think you were the only one invited?" She arched an eyebrow at him.
He glanced sidelong at her and shook his head once. "No...just a bit surprised, I suppose."
Yumiko gave a soft snort of acknowledgment, and they lapsed back into silence. Tatsuya checked his watch surreptitiously. Tsubasa was already fifteen minutes late. 'What, is she trying to pull a Kakashi on us?' he thought with faint annoyance.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than a swirl of leaves, Tsubasa's appeared before them.
He noticed she wore her expressionless black mask today, shrouding her face so only her eyes were visible beneath the mask.
"Let's go." Tsubasa's voice was clipped, cold.
'So she hasn't shown Yumiko her true persona, and is still keeping the act of cold personality' Tatsuya mused with a nod of acknowledgment.
"Yes, Sensei!" Yumiko saluted sharply, expression uncharacteristically serious.
'She's really taking this mission to heart,' he thought as they fell into step behind Tsubasa's form.
A few minutes into their journey, exiting Konoha's gates, Yumiko broke the silence. "Ne, Tatsuya...did Sensei tell you where exactly we're headed?"
He arched a brow at her. "You agreed to go without even knowing the mission details?"
Pink tinged her cheeks as she averted her eyes. "Well, I was just excited for my first real mission, you know?" Her voice dropped to a mumble. "And you know how intimidating Sensei can be...I got too nervous to ask questions."
"I see, " Tatsuya nodded in understanding. Tsubasa's icy front could certainly put even a jōnin on edge when you didn't know her well.
"Fair enough. Do you remember learning about the Land of Whirlpools in the academy?" Tatsuya asked.
"You mean Uzushiogakure - the village of the Uzumaki clan before they went extinct?" Yumiko asked.
"Correct." He gave her an approving nod."But currently, the popular name for the territory would be Land of Waves."
"And that's our destination from what I know, though the mission parameters are still unclear to me as well. However, I have some of my own deductions about what exactly it is."
"So, fill me in!" She nudged him eagerly. "Don't leave me hanging with just that tiny snippet."
Tatsuya smirked at her impatience. "Well, if you had asked your Sensei in the first place instead of just blindly agreeing…"
He held up a hand as she started to protest. "Just kidding. From what I know, we'll be doing some investigation. Possible eliminations too, so...be prepared if you haven't seen much blood yet."
Yumiko pouted at him. "Hey, I'm not some naive girl who's never seen blood. I've witnessed much worse, remember?"
"..Okay, my bad. I'm sorry," he quickly apologized, recalling that she had witnessed the Uchiha massacre firsthand. It was quite stupid of him to ask whether she was prepared for blood or not. She had likely seen more blood and gore than most people in the world.
"Don't worry, your apology is accepted." Yumiko patted his back once, as she wasn't really offended by him.
"They continued chatting for a while, exchanging small talk as Tatsuya shared bits of information he deduced while the dense jungle passed them by. Eventually, Tsubasa's cold voice sliced through their conversation, interrupting their dialogue.
Maybe because she heard how eager Yumiko was, she decided to just give that info to her. "Our main mission is actually to eliminate some Mist ninja," she said.
Her words immediately snapped Yumiko's attention, but her sensei's masked face betrayed no emotion.
"Mist forces have recently started interfering in the political affairs of the Land of Waves," she stated flatly.
Yumiko's eyes went wide. "But wouldn't that risk causing a war between the Leaf and Mist?"
But Tatsuya answered instead with a smirk. "No, It won't. We'd just be killing some rogue ninja's, while helping our ally nation. Nothing that should implicate the official Mist village."
"Correct," Tsubasa nodded, an edge entering her typically frigid tone. "After all, the ninja working in influencing Wave's politics, wouldn't wear their original headband. Most of them would try to appear as rogues."
Yumiko pondered this for a moment. "So as long as we carry out the mission on Wave territory, there won't be any fallout?"
"Are you dense?" Tatsuya reached over to smack the back of her head. "Learn some subtlety."
"You jerk!" Yumiko moved to retaliate, but caught herself when she remembered her sensei's presence. Instead, she settled for shooting Tatsuya a venomous glare, which he returned with that insufferable smirk.
Changing tracks, she asked, "But how did the situation even get this bad in Wave, that Mist are trying to affect the politics of Wave?"
Tsubasa considered this for a moment before responding. "It's not an issue of recent times, but it has been simmering for a long time. Mist has always tried to control the Waves, but it became especially serious after the Uzumaki Clan's annihilation."
'Uzumaki…huh,' Yumiko thought about the bright blonde in her class. His name was Uzumaki too.
"Before its destruction," Tsubasa continued, "the Uzumaki mainly controlled the Land of Waves and were solely responsible for its protection."
"And due to their immense power and influence, the Mist Village was never able to make headway on their long-standing desire to claim Wave's territory for themselves," Tsubasa stated.
Tatsuya continued her explanation."But that all changed eighteen years ago, during the Third Shinobi World War with the Uzumaki's destruction."
"After they were wiped out, Wave was left defenseless," Tatsuya went on. "An easy target for Mist to finally conquer and control that territory they always coveted. But the Daimyo quickly joined hands with Konoha as their ally and became a proxy of us due to our... historical ties with the Uzumaki."
'Heh, if only the Wave Daimyo of that time knew Konoha had a hand in the Uzumaki's destruction too,' he thought with an inward shake of his head. 'I wonder what his face would have been when he rushed to ally with us as the Uzumaki's friend.'
Yumiko frowned in confusion. "But then why is Mist still able to interfere there so freely, with Leaf being an ally to Wave?"
Both Tatsuya and Tsubasa went silent. Tatsuya cut his eyes towards Tsubasa for a moment, but she gave no reaction. So with a sigh, he spoke up.
"It's quite simple, it has happened because of our village's own negligence, to be frank."
"Negligence? Did we not have a good relationship with Wave as its ally?" Yumiko asked.
{Stupid girl.} an unbidden voice with a hint of hidden rage, sneered in Yumiko's mind.
Tatsuya said, "Well, I wouldn't put too much stock in that 'ally' label. It only sounds nice on the ears nowadays."
His jaw ticked. "The truth is, since Uzushio's fall, Wave's situation has been on a steady downhill decline that only accelerates more each year."
"Konoha was only able to protect it during the war, since Wave was being used by us as a base to counter Mist. But once the war was over, they were actually left devastated on a big scale, even most of their coasts were ruined, stopping their meager maritime trade."
"Let me guess…we didn't actually help them rebuild after the war, did we?" Realisation dawned on Yumiko's face.
"We did provide them with..." Tsubasa began dryly.
"... empty promises and flowery words," Tatsuya finished with biting sarcasm.
Yumiko's shoulders slumped as she pieced it together. "So we basically abandoned Wave to fend for themselves."
Tsubasa sighed. "From Konoha's perspective, we were quite devastated ourselves, after the war - both economically and militarily too so we can't really offer any meaningful aid."
"Yes, we're clearly so devastated all these years later," Tatsuya scoffed. "That we still haven't been able to build even a mere bridge connecting Wave to our mainland."
{Kukuku…I like him ....He is not corrupted by the Will of Fire.} Echoed in Yumiko's mind.
"With their economy in tatters, a quarter of the population struggled to even put food on the table," he went on. "It was an easy vulnerability tha Mist has been exploiting to gradually subvert Wave's politics from within."
"An accurate but sad deduction," Tsubasa acknowledged with a cold nod. "Especially now, with the current Wave Daimyo on his deathbed, the political infighting and power vacuum has become...muddied."
Comprehension flickered in Yumiko's eyes. "I'm guessing one faction supports renewed ties to Konoha, while another wants to hand it over to Mist?"
Tatsuya smirked, ruffling her hair patronizingly. "Well, well - it seems there are some brain cells rattling around in that empty little head after all."
Yumiko swatted his hand away with a glare. "Stop messing up my hair, jerk." Though she couldn't deny his calloused touch felt...surprisingly gentle and good.
"Indeed," Tsubasa confirmed. "The current Daimyo's younger brother backs reconnecting with the Leaf. But our main problem is that the legitimate heir and son leans heavily towards an alliance with Mist."
'Oh! That's interesting, so the uncle's not the scheming villain trying to usurp the rightful heir for once,' Tatsuya mused. That certainly bucked the typical trope.
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