After several hours of traveling, Sasuke came up upon a small village a decent distance from the compound. He always stopped here for a good meal. It was a good change of pace from the trash he was usually served. Sasuke looked around for a bit before picking a small tea shop. He sat down on one of the outside benches and ordered some green tea and red bean buns. While he waited, he pulled out his bingo book and flipped through the targets once again.

Surprisingly, most of the targets all lived in the same location: the leaf village. Although, this made Sasuke somewhat wary. Orochimaru had to have known that some of his clansman lived in that village. Sasuke pondered this for quite a while. If he approached the Uchiha police station he could prove himself to be an Uchiha simply by showing his sharingan, and if he explained his situation he could easily get assistance from several powerful ninja, possibly even more given Orochimaru's history with the village. However, returning to the compound and attempting a surprise attack would likely fail. Orochimaru would be expecting a reckless plan like that, as hinted by the cursed mark activation earlier. In fact, Orochimaru might even be expecting a well calculated attack as well. The snake was cunning and smart. Sasuke had to think of the best way to handle the situation without letting Orochimaru on.

Sasuke couldn't cause a commotion. He had to find people he could trust. People who had connections. With those connections, he could reveal small tips that wouldn't obviously lead back to him. And with those tips, the leaf village could make moves against Orochimaru without him getting involved. The one person Sasuke could think of was his older brother, Itachi.

Sasuke remembered his brother well. He was a high ranking officer at one point, and was looking to join the ANBU Black Ops of the leaf village. Unfortunately before that could happen, Sasuke had been kidnapped. That might've thrown a wrench in those plans, but it was the best bet Sasuke had.

Sasuke took a sip of the tea that had been brought to his table while he was deep in thought. The major issue would be Sasuke's targets. Considering Orochimaru clearly didn't trust him with this mission, he was likely to send Kabuto or some other goon to check his progress. As a result, if it was discovered that Sasuke abandoned the mission, Orochimaru could kill him without even being nearby. Kabuto could also take the targets in on his own, thus ruining the reason Sasuke was attempting to defect and save them in the first place.

Sasuke let out a frustrated sigh and tossed the book onto the table next to his plate. He took a bite of one of the red bean buns. The only way he could get through this mission would be to "capture" his targets. He'd have to approach random strangers and somehow convince them, for their own safety, to leave the village and go on the run with him. Like that would ever work.

Sasuke let out a pitiful huff of a laugh. He would end up getting reported and taken into custody before he could even bother to say a single word to any of the targets. Sasuke had some suspicions that several of them may be more important than some random ninja from the village. But at this point there was no other option. Sasuke was tired of sitting around and playing the waiting game. It was time to make some moves.

He finished up his breakfast and left his money for his meal on the plate. He grabbed the bingo book and shoved it into his pocket. As he made for the village exit, Sasuke stopped by a small shop and spotted some brochures. Hoping to find a map, Sasuke searched through them and found what he was looking for. He quickly glanced over it, noting how far he was from both the leaf village and the sand village. The leaf village was closer.

Sasuke made a mental note of the general direction he needed to go in, and put the map back with the rest of the brochures. The leaf village was actually a pretty long distance from the small village he was currently in. Sasuke estimated it would take him about a week if he was traveling at a consistent speed, and luckily there were several other small villages on the way, so he wouldn't have to worry about bandits attacking him in the middle of the night. The village hidden in the sand would take even longer. It was surrounded by desserts that suffered from frequent sandstorms.

Sasuke had left the small village, now making his way through the forest again. He'd never been to the leaf village, so he had no idea what the security was like. He needed to gather some information from the smaller villages on the way. From there he needed to determine where the police station was and where his targets resided, though he knew no one would tell a random stranger the specific address of a person, even if they knew them.

At that moment, Sasuke realized why Kabuto mentioned it would be a longer mission. Sasuke couldn't imagine the great leaf village was anything less than a massive city. Itachi told him stories of how big the village was, but he'd long forgotten about them. Orochimaru knew this as well, which was why he activated the curse mark. To keep Sasuke from straying to far from the objective. Orochimaru wanted him back as soon a possible. Sasuke smirked at the concept. It would be a painful journey, but he planned to make Orochimaru wait as long as he could.