A/N: Yay! Chapter 8! And to make some of you happy we are now adding history of the characters...at least family information...mostly Kazura's this chapter, you see Herenu and Yoshiko's families, but they aren't as prominant as Kazura's. So yeah...I might be slower from now on, I've hit the end of what I've written, chapter nine's almost done, and chapter 10's planned so I'll be here but slower. And I would loooove to thank everyone who's reviewed, and (as per revewer comment) I've hired a really really picky beta reader :D So this should be fairly gramatically correct! Also! (Yes again...) I'm gonna re-post chapters 1, 2, and 3 to make them more 'mysterious.' I handed my first chapter to one of my teachers and she said that it could be more hooking if we made more mystery to it. So the three figures have melted to one who could be mistaken as Kakashi and the other's will be simmilarly reduced...and Aoba will be there more...he's gonna tie the chapters together :D so I sugest reading them when I post them. So I'll quit yapping and let you read. Enjoy!
Chapter Eight – Mission
Yoshiko stood against the main gate to Konoha waiting for her teammates to get there. Herenu was probably still dodging her family on her way out of the Tairoru compound, and Kazura was probably waiting for her outside those gates, listening to the chaos inside. She thought back to the conversation that they had had with the Hokage yesterday.
"I have found a mission for you three. I'm sure your fellow shinobi are going to be disappointed that it is short, but it is all I have for you three troublemakers..." He handed Herenu a scroll. "Inside are the details of your mission. You leave tomorrow. That is all."
Herenu opened and held the scroll at a level at which both of her teammates could read along. They were to go to a small village, a day away from Konoha, which had recently fallen prey to attacks. The attacking people behaved like ninja, but didn't wear any distinguishing marks; their strength was about that of a chuunin. They were to stop the attacks and learn the identities of those who were involved. In short—a B-rank mission.
Kazura had made a funny noise of disbelief and surprise, but made no comment when asked about it.
So now Yoshiko was standing around wondering if Kazura knew anything about the village, and what the two of them were doing taking so long— they should have been here already, where were they?
Kazura was getting Herenu there as fast as possible. Herenu had not come and waited for Kazura at her house, which meant she was running behind—something that happened more often than Herenu liked to admit.
Kazura walked into the chaos that always surrounds the Tairoru Household. In some ways it reminded her of a battlefield (sometimes it WAS a battlefield—with about twenty four people living in the same house things got tense at times.) The courtyard was, for the most part, clean and organized but there were various toys spread about the yard, (kunai and other weapons occasionally were found too) but as this was the younger children's favorite play place those were few and far between.
She dodged a game of ninja, and continued on into the main house where Herenu lived. She knocked and entered.
"Hi! It's just me!" She said loudly so Herenu's nephew, Jofunu, wouldn't practice his ambushing skills on her again.
Too late.
A net dropped down from above. Kazura used a replacement jutsu with a teddy bear, and snuck up behind Jofunu and started tickling him.
"Hey stop that Darth Vader!" The eight year old said trying to get out of the tickle.
"I'm not Darth Vader, and I'm not stopping until you tell me what I need to know!" She said in a mock evil voice.
"Never!" Jofunu cried heroically.
Kazura started tickling harder; she debated on summoning Iquris the flying squirrel to come and help, but decided against it. Besides Jofunu trying to run away if she stopped for a second, he was turning a wonderful shade of red.
"Tell me where Herenu is, and what you did with her!" She said.
Jofunu squirmed and said through his laughter, "I don't know! I've been setting up traps this morning!"
Kazura sighed and looked over at her teddy. "All right, I believe you. Go check on the other traps." She released him, watching him scamper away from her before giving a sigh and turning away.
As she walked away from the entryway, she heard Jofunu getting his net ready for the next unfortunate person to walk by.
She paused at the kitchen and looked in (Herenu is easily distracted by food). No Herenu, just her mom, Mary.
"Have you seen Herenu? We have a mission today."
"No I haven't, she should still be in her room. Here: take these." Mary handed Kazura three bags. "These are some cookies that I just baked; I know Herenu likes sneaking out of her window to avoid people. Have a safe trip!"
"We will. Thanks for the cookies, Mary."
Kazura left the kitchen and headed up to Herenu's room, where she found her digging through drawers frantically.
"What's up?" She asked, beginning her usual perusal of the knickknack and what knots collection Herenu had.
"I misplaced my music. Roxi wanted me to accompany her, when I get back, in a performance and that was the music for that…I was hoping to go over it while we were away."
Kazura abandoned her scrutiny of a jade elephant and started looking too. Together they quickly found it and slipped out the window, bypassing the rest of the household.
Kazura and Herenu finally showed up at the gates, Kazura munching on a cookie she had pulled form a bag. Herenu tossed a similar bag to Yoshiko.
"A gift from Mom. She wishes us a safe trip, and to speed us on our way she gave us food." She grinned.
"Huh? Food? I want some!" Naruto said coming out from behind the gate (he had seen Herenu and Kazura and had quickly planned a sneak attack, however food was a distraction).
"NO!" Trinity Six said, Kazura stuffed her cookies in her pack, Herenu hid hers behind her back and Yoshiko sent Naruto a stony look.
"Ya'll are mean…" He said folding his arms and pouting. He then noticed the packs on their backs. "Hey! Where are you three going?"
"We have a mission. Don't worry! We'll be back to see your fight!" Herenu said fluffing his hair.
"We wouldn't miss this for the world." Yoshiko said smiling at Naruto, who squirmed under her gaze.
'Creepy…'
"But we'd better be heading off if we want to get back in time!" Kazura said. "Till next time twerp!"
Trinity Six waved and started off on their mission, leaving Naruto behind with a feeling of dread that didn't vanish until he remembered that he had to train, and ran off to do so.
It took less than a day to reach Kutzu. Trinity Six checked in with their client, the village leader Kemushi, who explained the details of their mission.
"They attack at night mainly, after everyone has gone to bed. They come in and destroy things causing general mayhem and then leave."
"Do they take anything?" Kazura asked.
"No…but no one's sure why they are attacking our village."
"We were told that they are ninja. Is that true?" Herenu asked.
"Yes, it's been reported that they used hand signs. Our messenger described this to the Hokage, and he confirmed that the attackers are ninja and that he would send someone to help us. I didn't realize that it would be your team, Kazura. I would like your aid in putting an end to these ninja." Kemushi stood up. "I assume you'll be staying with your mother, and I trust you still know the way."
Kazura nodded and also stood up. "Yes we will. It's been nice seeing you again, Great-Uncle."
Kemushi smiled at his niece and Trinity Six left to go drop their stuff in their rooms before finding food and planning their course of action. Kemushi's smile turned from one of affection, to that of amusement as the door closed behind them. He chuckled slightly; those ninjas had no idea what they had gotten themselves into.
The Carpenter Quarter was impressive, twice the size of Herenu's family's main entrance. Hanging lanterns decorated the large set of stairs that led into the Night Building. Lights decorated the walkway, and the craftsmanship was a stunning work of dragons, and intricate calligraphy that merged several languages.
A woman of advanced years greeted them at the bottom of the stairs. Her kimono was elaborately decorated. Kazura introduced them to her great grandmother.
"Are you hungry?"
Kazura leaned over to Yoshiko and Herenu, a slightly panicked look on her face, "Run!"
They turned to take a different route to their rooms, and ran face first into three of Kazura's cousins: Korin, Paka, and Kiiton. Korin and Paka were big (over 6 feet), and quite broad chested, with lots of muscles that came in handy when guarding their mother's merchant business. Kiiton, on the other hand, while just as tall as his brothers, was thin and helped his mother in trading and figures. The fact that Yoshiko stood an inch taller than them didn't stop them from hugging their cousin—and the rest of her team.
"We've missed you so much cuz!" They said, smothering them in happiness.
"Missed—you—too!" Kazura choked out.
"Boys! Let them go! They need to breathe if you want them to stick around." Heather, the boys' mother, said from behind Trinity Six. She smiled at them once they got out of the double embrace. "You must be hungry so come on in, we've made a feast for ya'll to enjoy now that you've returned at last."
"But we've got to plan for our mission…" Kazura started.
No one listened. Missions with unknown ninja with unknown agendas could wait till later—after Trinity Six had eaten everything that Kazura's family shoved down their throats.
Five courses and five hours later, Trinity six escaped from the Kuroshoshi clan's clutches, and went into the rooms that had been prepared for them. Their ears were ringing from all the chatter that they had just endured. They learned about how the crops were doing, and how they got that well. They also heard about how everyone and their pets were doing, and Kazura's mom got onto them about not taking their vitamins. They also learned how the food was prepared, and why it was prepared that way, and who's favorite which dish was who's, and about halfway through the meal (about the time Trinity Six tried to sneak off), Kazura's grandma started yelling at them about being a ninja, and how it 'wasn't a woman's place' to do that and on and on and on. They heard all that plus much, much, much more.
Their rooms were small with not much decoration, just some paintings of landscapes, tables with pen and paper, chairs, a bed, and neon colored doors (Kazura's mother had painted them in anticipation of them visiting, after hearing from the Hokage what the three had done to their doors in Konoha.)
"At last! We can plan!" Kazura said happily collapsing on her bed.
Yoshiko looked out the window. "It's almost dark; I was hoping to get some information by now so we can set up our traps. But no matter how much I asked about them, your family just changed the topic."
Herenu nodded in agreement. "We'll just have to go in blind tonight, and get a feel for them ourselves; hopefully we can get this over with quickly. I love your family Kazura, but they're just too much at times. How did you become so normal??" Herenu asked, turning to Kazura, and closed her mouth when she saw Kazura was sleeping.
She sighed and looked to Yoshiko who smiled, and they sat down and started mapping out their plans for the night over Kazura's head.
Everyone in town was woken up the next day by a loud bang in the town square.
Trinity Six was the first at the site, as they had designed all their traps to make noise, so they would be woken up, and would be able to act instantly. What they saw disappointed them. Instead of catching one of the rogue ninja, they had caught Kazura's cousin Suki—who was yelling and screaming to be let down.
"Sheesh! Calm down! You're not hurt!" Kazura said pulling out a kunai and cutting down the net that he was in.
"Yes I am! See this!" He said showing a small cut on his arm. "I'm going to die!"
"No your not." Kazura said grabbing his arm and running her hand along the cuts diminutive length. It immediately healed.
"Wooooow!!!" Suki was impressed. "Can you teach me to do that?"
"Uh…no…it takes years to learn how to do that." Kazura released his arm.
"But you learned it in Konoha right?"
"Yeah…but it takes several years for most ninja's to learn that."
Kazura began to skirt around him, but Suki performed his mega-death grip on her arm. She frowned in irritation (and to hide the fact that the sudden loss of circulation in her arm hurt).
"I'm going to learn how to do that!"
"Uh…you should talk to your mom about traveling to Konoha to learn that." The moment it came out of Kazura's mouth she regretted it. Suki's mom happened to be the overpowering controlling type.
"No! I'm going to learn it from you!"
Kazura opened her mouth to try to get out of the situation she had gotten into. Vivi would arrive at any minute when she learned that it was Suki who had been the one in the trap, and she didn't want to be around when that happened. Fortunately, Yoshiko also felt the danger brewing, and (with the help of Herenu) prided Suki off Kazura's arm, and quickly left with the excuse of checking traps.
They spent the rest of the day trying, and failing, to get information about the attacking ninja from Kazura's family, but they refused to talk about it. Instead they asked them about every aspect of life in Konoha, and poor Yoshiko got dragged into a five hour discussion on cooking herbs. It seemed that as she knew how to use herbs to make poisons and antidotes that they thought that she would know how to cook with them. No. That would be Kazura and Herenu. She was trapped - all but tied to a chair - in a room with lots of chatty women who knew what they were talking about, and assumed that she did too. Five hours into this conversation, one of the women's children came in and said that they were hungry.
"Oh! I'm sorry Yoshi—do you mind if we call you that?—but you must be hungry! Why don't you come eat with us, and we can continue this enlightening conversation."
"Oh, I'm sorry I can't do that. I promised Farah that I'd eat with her today. I should be heading over there."
"All right! Have fun! Come back later and we'll continue this!"
'Yeah right!' Yoshiko thought to herself as she escaped. 'Note to self: avoid those ladies at all cost!'
That night they got little sleep, as the ninja attacked again, and (the words during that actually make it a bit too choppy ) the entire town seemed bent on "helping" them.
"Suki! Go home!" Kazura said spying her shadow behind her again. "This is no place for an eight year old!"
"I can handle myself! I've been practicing all day!" He said doing a jump kick and landing on his face. "See! I can do it!"
Kazura got a 'you've gotta be joking' look on her face. "I see…go home and you can practice more."
"No! The entire town is up helping you I want to help too!"
Trinity Six looked at each other. This was not happening. They finally get to go after the ninja, and the town decides to "help".
A loud bang was heard in the town square again. Trinity Six turned that direction, jumping up onto rooftops to quicken their pace.
Kazura turned to Suki one last time before leaving. "Go home!" Then they vanished, leaving Suki to run along on the ground.
The reached the town square in seconds, and found the ninja standing by their empty trap.
"At last Trinity Six is here! Now we can pay you back for what you did to us back in the rock country!"
They looked at each other confused. "We met you in the rock country?" Herenu asked.
"Yes! Don't you remember? You beat the crap out of us!" The first one said.
One of the other ninja slugged him. "No they did not! We underestimated them! We're back to prove ourselves!"
"Why…?" Herenu asked.
Their response was drowned out by a roar from Kazura's family. It turned out that they weren't quite as helpless as they had thought. Those ninja got the crap beat out of them again... By women and old men.
Yoshiko and Herenu looked on in awe.
"Wow…I didn't know your family was this good, Kazura…" Herenu said watching the scene in front of her.
"I thought that these guys must've been super powerful for my family to request aid, but evidently not…"
The next morning, (just an hour after they got done beating up those ninja) Kazura's family threw a big celebration breakfast over their triumph over the rogue ninja.
Several hours into the breakfast Kazura turned to her mother and asked, "So if you could take care of those ninja yourselves why did you request help from the village?"
"Oh I didn't request help, sweetie, I requested that you came home for a while."
"What!?" Trinity Six fell out of their chairs in shock, twitching on the floor.
Kazura's grandmother stood up pointing the all knowing finger at them. "I KNEW IT! They're not feeding you at that Konoha place! You're staying here until you have enough fat on you to last a year!"
# (Week 1)
Trinity Six was bored. And when they get bored that normally meant bad things for the rest of the world. And they decided to relieve their boredom by a drawing contest. But the problem was they needed paper to draw on—and pens. So they went down to The Merchant Quarter, and found what they needed there.
"Perfect! Plenty of pens and paper!" Herenu said happily sitting down and pulling some towards herself. "What's the first item to draw?"
When Swana came into the records room she got a big surprise. Everything had been drawn all over! It would take days, if not weeks to fix this! She started flipping though the books trying to see if she could figure out who had done it. No luck. Maybe one of the children? No. That drawing was too good to be a child's. And that one was good enough to BE a child's. She had no idea what to do, beyond getting some people to help her copy the records.
# (Week 2)
"Hey, can I borrow this?" Kazura asked her uncle holding up some carpentry tools.
Joruji looked up from his newest project, making chairs. Evidently Kazura and her friends were practicing and some got broken. "Sure, just put them back when you're done ok?"
"Ok! Thanks!" Kazura said running off with the tools.
Joruji smiled, it was good seeing his niece get involved in the family trade.
A couple of hours later Kazura came back and put them up with a "Thank you!" Joruji just smiled and waved at her.
Trinity six slipped into one of the barns in the Agriculture Quarter, and opened all the doors in one of the stables to let some air blow over them while they made little figures of people back home.
"Oh look I'm Ebisu. Look out or I'll fry your brain with my superhuman powers." Herenu said dancing her figurine across the floor.
Kazura laughed, "Look! I just got done making Naruto!" She held up a twisted lump of wood with a couple of scratches on it. "Who'd you make, Yoshiko?"
She held up a perfect figurine of Kakashi.
"It looks good." Herenu said looking at it.
"Thanks. I think it's going to go on my bookshelf."
Kazura yawned, "Hmm…I think it's time to go back…I'm getting sleepy."
"Ok."
They picked up all their wood and wood shavings, and left the tools there on the floor with all the doors open. From what they heard later, all the animals that got loose were blamed on the Carpenter Quarter, with rumors of them—which couldn't be proven.
"Operation: Tool Time. Success."
# (Week 3)
"They've been at it for HOURS! How much longer can they go??" Paka asked his brother Korin.
"I don't know, they must be getting tired.", Sure enough it looked like it; Trinity Six was putting up the weapons and leaving.
"At last! We can practice!" Paka said, jumping up from the bench, going over to the weapons and opening their cases. When he didn't move, Korin peeked over Paka's shoulder at the stash. He imitated Paka's horrified look. All the weapons were duller than a blade of grass. It would take HOURS to sharpen them all back to useable quality.
"Man! Will your family EVER kick us out?? We only have four days till the Third Task and I want to be there!" Herenu said from her bed, where she was sprawled out on it staring at the ceiling wondering what else they could do to Kazura's family.
"I don't know if they will…they never would in the past, but I thought that if we were annoying enough that they would make us go. Looks like we just have to tell them that we need to leave." Kazura said sadly from the window seat in Herenu's room.
"We should do it soon. I'm going to die if someone else tries to force-feed us another five course meal." Yoshiko said from the desk where she was reading her book.
"We should tell them now!" Kazura said suddenly. "We'll tell them we have to go, then get our bags and go! We can be home before they shut the gates tonight if we hurry!"
"Alright!" They then ran off to find Farah.
When they found her in the main house in the Carpenter Quarter and told her, she was alright with it. "Stay here." She said and vanished into the parlor.
When she returned, she had Heather and Vivi in tow and the three of them carried Trinity Six's bags and several others.
"We got them all ready for your trip, and you have plenty of food to last you home and for a while after that. Have a safe trip!" Vivi said all but shoving them out the door and out of town.
As they left, Yoshiko activated the exploding seals they had put up in town square igniting the fireworks hidden around it, giving them a pretty sight as they left. They waved at Farah and the rest of the town until they were out of sight.
"MY GOSH! Did they have to give us soooo muuuuch foood???" Herenu asked leaning against a tree. "It's so heavy!"
Kazura shrugged. "Evidently, they never let anyone leave without stocking them up on food."
Herenu and Yoshiko just groaned.
An hour later Yoshiko spoke up. "I think I vaguely remember those ninja. You know, the ones that were in the village. They said we had met them in the Rock Country and I vaguely remember them."
"So they were telling the truth?" Herenu asked surprised. "Guess we better look into them."
They reached Konoha just an hour after the gates had closed for the day. Fortunately, they knew plenty of ways to sneak in. They stopped by Yoshiko's home, which was considerably smaller than Herenu and Kazura's, as Yoshiko just lived with her parents and brother. They dumped her food there, then dumped Herenu (and half of Kazura's food) off at Herenu's and then went to the Hokage's to report (and yell at him for tricking them.) They would tell Naruto they were back tomorrow.
