Laying Down a Plan:
"Man Hitomi, that Genjutsu, was insane!" said Hayato, suppressing his still fading pain with a nervous laugh. The team had been walking for hours, and Hayato was the first to say anything, besides Jiro, who had explained the situation to their sensei. It had taken a while for the tension to die down.
"Yes, my father's technique was-"
"I think he's talking about yours," Jiro interjected. "And I don't mean the Sharingan."
"Yes," she sighed, "I didn't mean to reveal it in such a way. I had been working on it for a while, and after our performance against Masato-sensei, I realized that I needed to become stronger, so I worked hard, and then…"
The mentioned Jonin walked well ahead of the group, this was about to become personal, not something he was good at being.
"Man, that was…intense. I was particularly impressed by the realism of the red hot chain whips."
Hayato shuddered. "My favorite part was the thumbscrews in the eyes…"
"Listen guys, I'm sorry, I wasn't myself! I didn't mean to-"
"I was impressed."
At Jiro's words, Hitomi descended into a stunned silence. Who was this man, who could endure hell, and come out smiling at her? And who was she, to have failed so miserably? Was he the same Jiro? Was she the same Hitomi?
"It's just," he tried to speak, but found the words leaving his mind. "I'm impressed, at your ability to improve. It must be the blood of the Uchiha."
She smiled, it was meant to be a compliment. And it was. "Don't forget, you have the blood too."
"Yes, but my blood is only half, impure…"
He clutched at his heart.
"And the other half is like mine." Hayato tried to lighten the mood with his voice. It didn't help. "If you have the blood of both, maybe the blood is better than pure."
"No, I'm not an Uchiha, or a Hyuga. I'm something else."
He reached towards the memories in his mind, ones of the face unscarred by the fate of a Shinobi. A woman who had for years been the only one to love him. His mother who was not his mother, but loved him all the same.
"I'm not an Uchiha, or a Hyuga. I'm a Kimura!"
XXX
"Hayato was in the lead, scouting ahead with his Byakugan. Hitomi was placed a little farther back, for little other reason than to keep her separate from Hayato. Masato and Jiro were in the back, talking in low whispers for privacy.
"Ok," said Jiro, "it seems to be my job to analyze the situation and come with a strategy, but from what I know of you, you might be able to help. What do we know about the team's abilities?"
Masato collected the data in his head. "Well, Hitomi is a brilliant Genjutsuist with Sharingan of the second level. You and Hayato are both Taijutsuists, each with Byakugan. You are faster and have more stamina than Hayato, but have no training in Jyuken. And, that's about all I got."
"Actually, I consider myself more of a Ninjutsuist. After all, my specialty is my Long Arm Jutsu, and like Hitomi, I also have a new technique."
"A new Ninjutsu?"
"Yes, it was almost ready yesterday, and I might have been able to pull it off if I tried really hard, and had no other choice. Then again, it would have made no difference."
"Then it's an elemental Jutsu?"
"Yes and a good one at that. But let's not spoil the surprise. Now then, our immediate problem is infiltrating the facility. This gives rise to two more problems, finding it, and actually remaining undetected." Jiro paused to think, jumping in a steady pace as he did so.
"Ok, I got it. The biggest problem is the color of our eyes; Hayato and I stand out like sore thumbs. Sore thumbs that scream Konoha Ninja. So we need a solution."
"Just use Transformation Jutsu."
"No, we need to hide our use of the Byakugan while we're in the base, and that won't be easy with what I have in mind."
"So what do you propose?"
XXX
About an hour later, Jiro and the others stopped to make a camp. He called for their attention, and immediately there was silence.
"Ok, we need to know how to find this place, and we need to hide our Byakugan while there. The first part is simple; we disguise ourselves as normal civilians, refugees heading for the boarder, after we penetrate deep enough into Rice territory. They should find us, and take use to their hide out of their own free will."
Hayato nodded, most of the plan was straightforward. However, he still had a few questions. "Wait, why would they capture use? Don't they only capture unsupervised children?"
"Yes, so Masato will be separated from the main group."
Masato's eyes widened at this prospect. But before he could object, Hayato continued, "But won't they recognize use as Shinobi?"
"Not if we hide our eyes. While Hitomi should be perfectly fine on her own, we aren't so lucky. We could use Transformation Jutsu to hide our eyes, but that would not help us hide the fact that we are using Byakugan when we need to do so in order to complete our mission. So instead, we will wear blindfolds."
"What!"
Jiro produced two bands of cloth that looked like they were meant to be wrapped around open wounds, probably procured from his medical kit. "If we wrap these around our heads, maybe add some fake blood, and spin a small tale, we should be able to convince them that we were injured in the war. That way we can hide our eyes and still use Byakugan."
"Hold on," interrupted Masato. "Who said anything about letting you three go in alone? I forbid it!"
"But, Masato-sensei-"
"No, I will hear none of it! Did you even stop to think that the Bingo Book alone has dozens of Jonin level ninja unaccounted for?"
"Yes, but you have a different job to do on this mission. Your job is to provide a distraction." Jiro produced a map of the world. "We will enter the target area through the neighboring country to the left." He traced the path he spoke of with his finger. "The country isn't a Shinobi nation of note, and we are also on good terms with them, so we should not encounter any interference. Once we have made all traces of connection to Konoha and our mission incomprehensible in this manner, we will proceed to head back towards the country we entered from. This is when we plan on being captured, and according to our limited data, it is the spot where most captures took place, meaning this is area here," he traced a square area with his finger, "is the place we will most likely be captured."
"So we get captured," sighed Hitomi. "Then what?"
"Hold on, I'll get to that. Firstly, Masato is to separate from the main group well before this, as we enter the country of rice. He is to use his ninja art of stealth training to hide his presence as he follows the group. Once we are captured, sensei will follow use, hidden in the shadows, and record the coordinates of our location on his map. He will then estimate the time it would take him to reach the base from Konoha, and shall remain idle until a day less than that same amount of time has passed."
"I get, so you want me to play the part of an independent ninja mission, unrelated to you three, why?"
"Simple, you're the distraction. The ninja, if there is one, should be suspecting Konoha to take interest by now. You are to attack the enemy base, but do try to lose, ok? I want you to use no more than two elements, three tops, in order to look like an average Jonin. Then I want you to attack them, several times over the course of three days. And I want you to let yourself be driven back each time, but try not to be to obvious. On the first day of your attack, we will begin gathering information, or at least that will be when we start using Byakugan. At that point I should become obvious that we could not have been involved, because it took you a day less than it should have to find them if we had been involved, and that's if they assumed that we had some way of instantly communicating with Konoha. On the fourth day, we grab the girl, and return her to her parents, and you come in to destroy the base with your full fury, Masato. If there are more bases, we'll, hopefully, find out before then, and then we'll report to the Hokage. Mission, successfully completed."
Masato had to admit, despite next to no knowledge of the enemy, Jiro's plan should work, and with minimal risk to the Genin.
"Okay then," said Masato, "we should be able to reach the boarder between the two countries in five days. We were allowed seven days for travel, fourteen days for achieving the mission goals, and another seven days to get back to Konoha. We should be done within less than a month."
Hayato didn't like that. "A month!"
"Yes a month, you going to cry about it. We start now, Genin, lets get moving!"
XXX
A/N: Well, that was very, wordy, lots of explanation, and no action. Still, now that that's out of the way, we can get on with the mission.
By the way, this early update marks a special occasion. My family and I are going on a short road trip, and I will not be able to update on Friday. So this is a replacement for that update. Expect the scedual to go back to normal by next week.
Next time on Heritage, the team has seven days to get to the country, and they make it in five. What do you think they should do with the final five days? Well, I know what they're going to do…
