Here we go again, dear readers! Next chapter is here and hot off the frontal lobe! Actually, that sounds gross and inaccurate… grossly inaccurate…?
Eh, whatever, I stand by what I type. Usually.
Let's see how this plays out, who wants this info on our dear Shinobi squad? Will there be fighting? Death? Destruction? GROTESQUE EXPLOSIONS!?
Sorry, channeled Mr. Torgue there for a second.
…Borderlands is awesome, fight me if you disagree.
Anyways this is going on too long, let's get it started.
I don't own Naruto, rights to that character and story go to Masashi Kishimoto. Nor do I own Solo Leveling (Otherwise known as Na Honjaman Lebel-eob) that one goes to light novel author Chu-Gong.
Without further ado, let's get on with the show!
XxXxXxX
Chapter 9
A Mission Gone Wrong
It hadn't taken long for Naruto to get to the room his teacher shared with Hinata. A few quick words and the whole of team 8 was in the room to discuss these dire circumstances. The 5 were seated around the low table of the living area. The genin were silently watching Kurenai as she read through the file that Naruto had procured just an hour prior.
A brief explanation to the other genin upon arrival was all the talking there was for several minutes. The young preteens exchanged troubled looks at the news, waiting impatiently for their leader's plan of action. Naruto's leg was bouncing as he sat cross-legged, his mind running through the possibilities the situation could go through.
The rest of the genin were in similar positions, Hinata nervously pressing her index fingers together while she gazed worriedly out the window. Shino had a frown on his face as he looked at the insect on his finger, having sent a few of his hive out to gather information at the jonin's request.
Shikamaru was sitting in his thinking pose, his fingertips pressed together as he sat cross-legged with his eyes closed. He had assumed the position quickly after they had organized in the room, a furrowed look upon his brow as he went through dozens of plans with what information they had at their disposal.
Naruto glanced around to the darkened corner of the room; the shadowy figures were shifting about in unease. They were offering reassurance to the boy, ready to assist their young shade with his mission. He nodded thankfully to them, understanding they weren't alone in this.
His team had back up ready and willing.
"Alright guys, I've read through the file."
At Kurenai's comment, the genin immediately looked towards the woman in impatient interest.
"So, what are we gonna do, Kurenai-sensei?" Naruto started off.
"After reading through this information, I can see we really have a problem. There's some stuff in here that shouldn't be public knowledge." The genin had a troubled look on their faces at that.
"We need to be careful now, the odds are the man Naruto got this file from knows it has been taken by now. But we can get ahead of the ball on this one, we just have to be smart about it.
"So, here's what we need to do…"
The genin listened intently to the jonin's plan, brows furrowed at the situation.
XxXxXxX
Kyoshi
Later that night
Elsewhere in the dark alleys of the city Team 8 had arrived in, a shadowy figure darted around in constant search. Stopping to observe it's surrounding in the southern residential areas of the city, it looked around in search of its target.
The creature was a shadowling, a small pitch-black figure only a foot tall. An imp-like figure, it was short and squat with spindly limbs and light greyish eyes. It had been summoned by its shadowy brethren who were accompanying the newest Shadow Contract holder. The young shade was in potential danger and the clan was called to help the boy out.
As such this shadowling was out, one of a nearly half a dozen who had heeded the call and was searching for the humans that were targeting the Uzumaki and his team. Given a description of the human they were looking for, it had set out ready to serve the clan.
Not seeing any people around it, the shadowling dashed out of the alley to the dark streets of the city. Using the unique movement technique of the clan, it flitted from shadow to shadow with each step. Now on the other side of the neighborhood it had been searching, it once more stopped to look around.
Its hours of searching had finally paid off as it spotted a male human that matched the description given by its clanmates. Taking a moment to mentally connect to the elder shades that guarded Naruto, it projected its thoughts to them.
Target found…
Establishing a connection, the shadowling's eye glowed faintly as the elder shade gazed through its vision. Confirming the target, the shadowling received praise from its senpai and further orders.
Well done….
Follow and observe…
Feeling the connection being cut, the shadowling nodded to itself as it darted out once more to follow the middle-aged man. The man had a somewhat angry look on his face as he moved swiftly through the darkened streets. He was grumbling irately to himself as he glanced around, unknowing of the new follower he had gained.
"How the hell did I lose that file? Just one minute to take a leak and it vanished, that rat bastard subordinate of mine didn't even see anyone show up," his muttering echoed lightly in the alleys around him.
No doubt his boss was going to be incredibly upset about this mistake, there was no telling what he was going to do to the man. As such, he was quickly making his way over to the hideout to get the information put together once again. His boys were smart enough to record their findings in duplicate after the last time somebody lost important information.
Poor Toshi, the pathetic bastard hasn't been heard from since.
A harried twenty minutes later and he found himself at a large homestead. A somewhat secluded location on the southernmost area of the residential districts, this was one of several hideouts his organization had set up.
Taking a moment to double check his surroundings, the man gazed sharply around him in dutiful observance. Seeing nothing and no one out of place, he unlocked the front wooden gates and quickly made his way through. The gates made a resounding thud behind him, unseen seals activating for a moment before fading once more.
Special security measures his boss had obtained some time ago, anyone without proper counter seals or clearance would be paralyzed and an alarm would blare loudly. No one would be sneaking in over the stone walls with these in effect.
Unfortunately for the man and his organization, the shadowling easily slipped passed the warding seals. No chakra to speak of, it was entirely invisible to the seals and their security measures.
The shadowling looked around, making note of the layout of the homestead it had arrived on. A rather large property, a dozen acres at least in size. It had a large mansion of sorts in the center of the property, several stories high in the western styles of building. Several warehouses and sheds dotted the property as well, storage locations for various goods and equipment used by the organization.
The well-kept lawn and rather scenic landscape would lead one to believe a rather rich merchant or even a noble lived here, drawing admiring looks towards its idyllic beauty. The shadowy creature could see and even sense a few lifeforms around the property, mostly humans with a few animals interspersed about as well.
A majority were in the large mansion, with a few in the other warehouses on the property. It tilted its head quizzically when it could faintly feel the life energy of others underground. Too large to be burrowing animals, its curiosity was peaked as it once more followed the man to the mansion.
A brief and hushed conversation with the man on guard duty and the midboss was quickly ushered inside the mansion. A faint frown on the shadowling's face showed its displeasure at its situation, the mansion was very well lit, and it wouldn't be capable to maintain corporal from if it entered the abode.
Deciding to do its best to follow the man, it dashed from shadow to shadow of the windows and crept along to keep the man in view. Eventually, he had arrived in the topmost room of the mansion, the attic that held numerous files and other important documents that were needed.
Gazing into the circular skylight cut into the high wall, the shadowling watched as the man quickly grabbed several documents and recreated the file, he had lost earlier that night. The man had just barely finished as the door opened, banging loudly against the wall and making him jump.
Entering the room was another human, a male as well. Somewhat tall in stature, he was dressed like one would expect of a mercenary shinobi. Dark formfitting clothes, a long-sleeved shirt under a dark grey flak vest and dark pants. He had one of the shiny metal headbands shinobi favored nowadays, an image of three sideways oblong ovals upon it with a large scratch marring its surface.
The new figure's white hair was short and spiked backward, his cold grey eyes regarding the mid-boss in front of him with a cold fury. A narrowed look on his tanned face, he moved to the man's position quickly before standing over the man like a looming god.
"Where have you been, Noboru? The information I requested was to arrive some time ago."
Shaking slightly at the shinobi's cold gaze, the criminal cowered as he held out his newly remade file.
"S-sorry Machii-sama! I had come up to d-double check the information, to m-make sure its w-was everything we h-had!"
Regarding the man with a suspicious eye, the now named Machii grabbed the file roughly from the man and began to look through it. Thumbing through the file, he nodded to himself as he quickly skimmed its contents. Frowning as he reached the section that had details of the blonde genin, he gave the man a rather scathing glare.
"Is this really the extent of your people's information gathering skills?"
At his question the man began to sweat a little, fear creeping in his mind, "I-is there something m-missing?"
Frowning at the man's ignorance, Machii faced the folder toward the wary man. Opened on the page detailing one Uzumaki Naruto, he could see a few pages of what little information they could gather on the boy in the day that they had.
"This boy's information is severely lacking compared to the others, several notable abilities are missing from his dossier as well. We expect better from our associates, Noboru. Are you so willing to disappoint us?"
Eyes widening at the shinobi's words and subtle threat, Noboru immediately bowed to the irate shinobi in deference.
"Of course not! We do our b-best with every assignment we are given! Please, just another day and my men can get the information you desire!" his pleads echoed in the silent room as the shadowling observed the interaction.
These humans were quite confusing, no doubt the shinobi was more than good enough to find this information on his own. Why did he delegate it to these mundane thugs? It could only watch on in silent contemplation as the tow continued their discussion.
"Very well then, they are reported to be staying in this city two more days. I want every last detail on all of them before they leave, every jutsu, fighting style, and ninja tool they carry. If I don't know what they had for breakfast that morning, I will be back, and you will regret it."
With his piece said, the shinobi left the fearful man alone and left the room. Shaking in both residual fear and impotent rage, the man could only glare in futility at the ground as his mind raced at the situation.
Above in the hidden alcove of the window, the shadowling watched everything play out in interest. Its gaze on the lone human in the room, the shadow creature couldn't truly understand the situation. Humans were so odd, why let this fool gather information if you were capable of doing it better yourself?
Human are stupid…
Watching for a few more minutes as the man stomped his feet in silent rage, throwing a small tantrum like a child in his anger. Deciding it had seen enough, the young shadowling sunk into the darkness of the night. Now in the Shadow Plane, it soon left the property and rested for the time being. Maintaining a corporeal from away from the shadows was a taxing effort, in the morning it would find the Uzumaki to report its findings.
Things really got more interesting after this boy signed the Contract.
XxXxXxX
The young Shadow Lord was walking through the village in the morning light, his clients in front of him chatting happily as they walked through the city for some window shopping. He and Shino were on guard duty this airy morning, the others of Team 8 working on the plan that they had come up with late last night.
Deigning to err on the side of caution, Kurenai decided to keep their clients out of the loop for the time being. They weren't the ones being targeted just yet, the shinobi still needed to gather information before they worry the women. As such the jonin had taken Shikamaru and Hinata with her to go check on their former client, the merchant that had tagged along the trip.
There was some information that was in the file on their team that could only come from someone who had been close to the team on the way to Kyoshi. Their schedule, the team's destinations, even the possible inns they were set to stay at over the next 2 weeks. They needed to check on the man's situation, he was the only one who could have told someone about such information.
Refocusing on the task at hand, Naruto looked ahead to see his clients stopping at a stall ahead of them. The two had an interest in the shiny baubles the merchant had laid out on his table, uniquely crafted and colorful glass figurines. They could see various animals and even the standard symbols for many of the shinobi villages. The Konoha leaf swirl, Suna's hourglass, and even Iwagakure's stones each on small platforms in appropriate colors for their countries.
"Oh, aren't these the cutest little things?" Tsuya cooed out, grabbing one that was a resembled a sleeping rabbit.
"Such exquisite craftsmanship, we really should get a few!" Midori called out; her artistic eye gleaming as she looked over the intricately detailed glass figurines.
"I see you have an eye for quality, miss! Yes, these are the finest hand made glass figures in the city! The artist is- "
Naruto soon tuned the man out as he went on in his little salesman spiel, his attention drawn to his left as the shadows called out to him.
Important… information…
Shadowling… coming…
Quirking an eyebrow at the odd word, Naruto turned his gaze to a shaded alleyway in interest. He switched the perspective of his unique eye to peek through the shadows under his hood as he saw a short, squat creature waving animatedly at him from the darkness.
Unlike the vague figures that accompanied him around in his day-to-day life, this one had a defined form. Its grey eyes looked up at him, watching him curiously. Looking around to check his surroundings, he noticed Shino was preoccupied with the clients and their negotiations with the merchant.
Taking advantage of the distraction, he quickly made his way over to the shadows and knelt down before the shadowling.
"What's up?" he asked quietly.
Bouncing on its feet, the shadowling did its best to report to the boy as the shadows translated in quiet whispers. Nodding along as it informed him of the man it had seen just last night, his face took a concerned look at the knowledge of a shinobi in the mix. He frowned to himself as the shadowling finished its report.
A missing-nin was in the city as well? Things just kept getting worse, didn't they?
Focusing some of his shadowy energy to his palm, he held it out towards the small creature and allowed it to feed off the energy as a reward. "Thanks a lot, little guy. This is super helpful."
A happy trill from the shadowling was his answer as the shadowy imp soon vanished from sight, its job done for now. Standing up once more, Naruto returned to his clients just as they had finished their transactions with the merchant. Seeing Shino loaded up with several bags in each hand, Naruto could only watch in confusion as the women handed him several more bags to carry as well.
Just how much did these two buy?
"Alright, let's get going Naruto-kun, Shino-kun!" At Midori's happy call, the two soon walked off once more. Exchanging a look with the bug user, Naruto silently spread his shadow beneath the two of them. Setting their bags into the shadowy storage space, Shino nodded gratefully at the Uzumaki before they both followed after their clients.
Hopefully, they would be fine until they could meet up with their sensei, so the Uzumaki could let her know just how much more troublesome things were getting.
XxXxXxX
Market District
While the two boys were with the clients, Kurenai and her other two genin made their way to see the merchant that had previously been traveling with them. Arriving at the man's business, they entered the general store and looked around to find him. It was a medium sized building, with a great many wares from numerous places and countries spread throughout.
Heading to the front counter, they soon found a young woman doing some last-minute organization of the wares. Turning to greet her new customers, the attendant looked surprised to see the shinobi before her.
Giving them a courteous bow, she quickly moved behind the counter, "Good morning! How can I help you this morning?"
Giving a polite bow of her head in greeting, Kurenai regarded the young woman before her, "Good morning, we're looking for Mori-san. I need to ask him a few questions concerning something that has come up. Is he in?"
Giving the woman an apologetic look, the attendant could only shake her head.
"I'm sorry, but I haven't seen Mori-san since before closing time yesterday. He left a note for me to lock up last night and hasn't been in today."
Frowning at this information, Kurenai decided to ask the young woman some questions, "Has anyone else been in to talk to Mori-san? Since we dropped him off yesterday?"
Tilting her head in thought, the young woman took a few moments to think. Suddenly nodding her head, she spoke up, "Yes, around 3 some men from the local union showed up to speak to Mori-san. I don't know what about, but they left after an hour. Mori-san left a half hour after that, and that's the last time I saw him."
Narrowing her eyes at this new information, Kurenai thanked the young woman and lead her team out of the store. Turning down the road, they entered an alleyway a block from the store.
"Hinata, check the store to make sure Mori-san isn't hiding inside."
Nodding at her sensei's request, Hinata went thought a few handsigns and activated her doujutsu, the Byakugan. Shifting her perspective to a greyish-blue tinted spectrum, she gazed back toward the store for any chakra signatures in the building. A few minutes of through searching later and the genin deactivated her unique bloodline.
Giving her sensei a frown, she shook her head negatively, "No one else is in the s-store, sensei."
Frowning at the young kunoichi's report, Kurenai could only gaze back at the store in trepidation. 'Mori-san vanishing right after men come by to talk to him, did he run away? Or was he forced? If only I had a summons, I could send word to Hokage-sama for backup…'
Taking a deep breath to stead her growing anxiety over the situation, Kurenai looked back at her worried genin with a reassuring smile.
"Let's take a look around the city for a bit, see if we can find Mori-san at his home. If we can't find anything in a few hours, we'll go meet up with Naruto and Shino back at the inn."
Nodding in agreement to their sensei's plan of action, the two dutifully followed behind the woman as they began their search for the missing merchant.
XxXxXxX
It was afternoon by the time everyone met back up at the inn. Naruto and Shino were mentally worn from the paranoia of potential enemies all morning, even as they had lunch with their merry clients. A few more shops and purchases and they eventually made their way to one of the scenic hills to get her painting started.
Several hours later they returned to the inn with no problems to speak of. Kurenai and her two genin didn't run into any notable problems either, aside from failing to find hide-nor-hair of the missing merchant. Allowing their clients to relax after a leisurely day around the town, Team 8 met back up in Kurenai's room to debrief.
"Alright, report you two."
The team turned to the Uzumaki and Aburame to hear their day's events. Turning to look at each other tiredly, Naruto let out a sigh as Shino began to speak.
"Our day went smoothly, despite the current situation. No problems arose in the course of our duties, our clients merely went shopping for much of the morning before we escorted the clients toward a location Midori-san wished to paint."
Picking up after the Aburame, Naruto started on his portion of the report, "Yeah, we didn't have much else going on this morning. No run-ins with whoever is looking into us or anything. Though I did find something out earlier…"
Giving the group a rundown on the info the shadowling had given him that morning, he saw as they all immediately had troubled looks on their faces. Kurenai was gazing at the tabletop with a furrowed look on her brow.
'Missing ninja are involved in this too?! We need to leave this city before they make a move on us. There's no telling what will happen if I can't handle the shinobi. It's way too early for these four to be in this situation.' Glancing toward the genin she saw their troubled looks as they gazed unsurely about the room.
Mission be damned, she was going to keep these kids safe no matter what.
"Oi, Naruto?"
Perking up at the sudden question, the boy turned to his Nara teammate, "What's up Shikamaru?"
"How did you find out about this information?"
Naruto gained a nervous look on his face, scratching the side of his head hesitantly as he averted his gaze from his teammate. Glancing at his sensei, Naruto weighed his options at the moment.
'I should have thought of this before, of course, someone would be curious about how I gathered this info… what do I do?' As if sensing the boy's inner turmoil at the situation, Kurenai cleared her throat to get the other's attention.
"We don't need to worry about that right now, so long as you can guarantee the information Naruto?"
At his confident nod, she continued, "For now I need to go inform the clients about the situation, we need to begin heading out from this city. Get everything prepared and inform the carriage driver, we'll be leaving out the eastern entrance to keep up the scheduled information these people have on us.
"Once we get a good distance away from Kyoshi, we'll head towards the closest friendly outpost to request reinforcements. With the possibility of enemy shinobi this mission is no longer C-rank, now its B-rank or even A-rank."
C-rank missions were to have little to no danger involved in them, typically bandits or animal attacks were the worst one could expect on such a mission. Even a single enemy shinobi added into the mix made this mission jump in ranking, something these rookie genin were vastly unprepared for.
Each of the genin understood this easily enough, no one strongly opposed to getting help when things were getting dangerously out of their league. Standing and saluting the jonin, the four quickly left the room to prepare for departure. Hinata went off in search of the driver, with the three boys packing up the various luggage they and the clients had.
Kurenai herself set out to have a talk with the clients, slightly apprehensive of the situation playing out on their first C-rank mission.
That 'First C-rank curse' superstition just had to come true, didn't it?
XxXxXxX
Decided to end it here, been a minute since I posted the last chapter, huh?
Sorry, life and a rather bad case of sleeping illness ruined me for a while. Anyways, what do you think? For once a team isn't going to continue a mission despite the danger, or to spite the danger rather.
Anyways, plot twists can be nice sometimes, at least I think so.
As always, feel free to tell me how it was. Reviews are nice to read, though I ended up having to rewrite this since my computer decided to seize on me. Might rewrite it or something if it's not so well received.
Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time.