Chapter 37

When Mizushima woke he didn't have a complete recollection of what happened. He knew he was arguing with me about something, then he knew he went unconscious. Before he could speculate Kansen filled in the details, saying one of the bandits got free and attacked him. Once he was out we killed them without hesitation, but that I had insisted that we should still bury them as they had been soldiers of our country since we couldn't move without Mizushima anyway.

We showed him where the grabs were, fourteen freshly dug mounds with simple markers. This didn't please Mizushima Hei, but the drivers confirmed that was what happened, but he accepted it since in his mind the problem was gone and we moved on.

The truth was that we after putting a knockout tag on Mizushima to make sure he stayed unconscious and storing him in his wagon we lined up the drivers and Kiriko made an illusion of Kansen slitting the throats of each of the tied up ninja. It wasn't pleasant to see, one because Kiriko had to do it, and because she either knew, or could imagine exactly what that would have looked like. Then we pushed them away to do inventory while he and Hiroshi moved the bodies to make graves.

None of them questioned that when we finished there was none of their blood on the ground, or at least they didn't open their mouth to say so.

Once the mounds were made me and Hiroshi switched places as he took care of the drivers. It was around this time that they were coming around that Kansen interrogated the fourteen of them. I was back up as, well I'm not sure which cop I was, but I had a sword and they were still tied up.

We found out that they were all that was left of that garrison and they had been in hiding for the last eight months. They were scraping along by taking mercenary work for dark villages.

A dark village was a village that wasn't under the jurisdiction of any of the great families. Before the Kaguya clan was wiped out, it was also the term for any village that was raided by them because the damage was usually so extensive it was more profitable to just cut the losses of whatever family had domain in it then to spend the effort to rebuild it. It was a hard existence because as far as the land of water it didn't exist anymore and traders who did go there usually only did so to feed off the desperation of townsfolk. There were rumors it was also where criminals and rogue ninja would hide out, and that it was a den of corruption. Whether that was true or not, I could see why they were here. It was entirely likely that most the bandits were doing similar jobs because they needed the supplies.

I looked at Kansen and did the air bubble jutsu. It was a pain to do as tired as I was, but I could manage it for a short time, even if I couldn't do it as well as Kiriko or Hiroshi. I held a hand to my mouth so they wouldn't see my lips.

"What do we do with them?"

I looked at him a little confused. Truth was there was a lot of maybes.

"Well if you insist that we do not kill them, which considering our efforts I expect you will, and we cannot bring them back to the village because it will be much the same result, we may only have the option to release them."

"Yeah but.."
I hadn't really thought this through, they could do some serious harm.

"We can't exactly control them, they might."

"They might do this again, almost certainly. You forced this situation Ume-chan, so it is now your call as to their fate. Killing them was the simplest solution to this."

I grimaced, I didn't like it, that it was indeed simpler, but the fact that it wasn't the only one was at least comforting in it's own right. I looked at them again. Could I trust them? Maybe not entirely, but it wasn't exactly like they were going for true damage. The way they attacked us could have been much worse. They could have thrown rocks at the caravan, they could have invisibly killed all the drivers and taken the goods, they could have set the wooden carts on fire, or shocked us from a distance. Instead they did a sneak and take, even when we cleared the fog they weren't aiming for killing when they fought us. Well they might not have aimed to kill because murdering as opposed just to stealing would put a higher priority on their capture, but overall they didn't escalate this to a situation where killing was the only option. They knew better than to just kill, which meant that even if there was a repeated instance they were lower risk.

I just couldn't bring myself to kill them when I considered that. Instead I headed back I sprinted back to camp and returned about twenty seconds later with a storage scroll. I unsealed and out of it dropped four boxes of field rations. I resealed the last one but put the other ones next to them.

"You know what these are right?"

They didn't know what to say, maybe they were expecting the worse but Senichi spoke, maybe he recognized me, or was more comfortable with it since I was smaller than him.

"That's at least several weeks worth of food."

"More if you stretch it, it tastes bad, but it's good enough for you. Take it and go."
I stepped forward and used my sword before pausing.
"Don't try to attack me, because he can and will deal with you even if you think you can take me out."

I cut the rope and they slowly stood up. They were staring at us for a few moments. One of them stepped forward and picked up the three boxes, before rejoining the group. There was a pause as they just stood there confused, but one of the older ones decided to put his hands together and do a bow. It was a low one that was given to someone of higher status to you.
"Arigato shinobi-sama."

The rest of them followed suit, all bowing to both me and Kansen.
"Just go, get the hell out of here and stop trying to raid caravans."

They finished their bows and jumped away at a speed that suggested if we decided to change our minds that they would at least have a head start.

We made it to the Mizushima compound without incident, which of course we didn't see past the gates. Once all the caravan was inside, they closed and Mizushima presented us with a scroll with his seal that we were supposed to return to the office at Kirigakure to finish our mission.

This was it, that was the end of our C-Rank mission. Thankfully it wasn't some big massive plot, maybe my perception was just skewed by what happened in the show, but it seemed like every time team 7 left the village something weird, dangerous, or potentially world ending happened to them.

I shouldn't have held that type of expectation here, but it still nagged my mind that it hadn't happened like that.

It took about a day and a half at ninja speed to get back to Kirigakure, and only that slow because we had to take two different ships to get to the island. We were stopped at the gate, had our IDs checked then had to check into the mission desk to turn in our mission complete scroll and got our mission report paperwork.

Fun.

I did mine while I was in the waiting room at the hospital to finally have my arm looked after. I didn't envy whoever had to read this, when I write with my primary hand it's a little sloppy but readable, writing with my left hand though, they might have to send it to the intelligence division to decipher it. I might have waited until it healed, but they were always as soon as possible for mission reports not as soon as practical.

The nurse who went over my arm inquired quickly as to when this happened, when I said it was the beginning at the mission she was shocked. She snatched the report from my hand and quickly skimmed it. I guess my chicken scratch wasn't the worse she'd seen because she was startled when she figured out that I had fought like this.

"Are you saying your arm was in this condition only after the fall and didn't worsen?"

"That's what Kiriko said, she said it was multiple fractures how long will that take to heal?"

"About two weeks, but how did you keep it from worsening with this much movement?"

"I don't know, I just pushed chakra into it to keep it still whenever it hurt. It was a pain to do, but kept everything still."

After that she actually stared at me for a few seconds. It was a little uncomfortable and I was the first to turn away.
"Alright, well I'll get you a proper splint for this, which is what you should have done in the first place and you'll have to lay down while they start the jutsu to jumpstart the healing process."

She left in a hurry as I laid down I pushed chakra into my ears to listen in.

"-ek and a half, I read the mission report. She did active work without a splint like that."

The nurse was gossiping.

"How did she not hurt herself."

The nurse whispered lower.

"She says she put chakra in it, I think she means she held it in place with chakra, while she was fighting."

The other nurse paused.
"Her, she can't be older than nine, what are they teaching at the academy to have that level of control. Also, why the hell isn't she in the medical program."

The other nurse whispered.

"She's a swordsman in combat company, they never draw from combat company."

My nurse replied.

"That's a pity, well we need to see to that break."

It was about a week after I turned in my report that I was called into the evaluation office. The EO office was where someone was sent if there is something questionable in a report or there has been a complaint. I was somewhat worried that something in the four separate reports didn't match up, particularly the one with Kansen. Sure he seemed to cooperate but I didn't know if that was because Hiroshi was friendly with me or because he was just making a play of cooperating before he could make his report.

It was a windowless room where I came to a desk which had, not surprisingly, a Kishi sitting behind it. Kishi Sato, who's desk was covered in reports but in particular a very nice scroll. If I squinted I could see the seal of the Mizushima half broken on it.

Oh shit, maybe the Mizushima figured out what we did.

"Ume-san,"

Kishi Sato said, his voice was calm as he looked at the message. He was maybe in his early twenties with a shaved head. He had some of the normal features associated with the Kishi, intelligent dark eyes and sharp features. Though not as sharp as beak nose from the academy. His chin shape and ears were different from Hiroshi or beak nose, but the eyes were always similiar.

"Approximately seven hours ago, I received a complaint report from a Mizushima Hei about a C-Rank mission you were a part of, would you like to explain."

I looked at him and calmed down. He wanted me to talk, to say more than I meant. He probably knew I was nervous.

"My mission report outlines the perimeters of what was done."

Kishi Sato inclined his head.

"Yes, what little that could be read did give a description of events that compared well enough to the other three submitted. But what was your take on this, why do you think Mizushima is unhappy?"

I considered my answer carefully. This reminded me oddly of whenever I had to explain a customer complaint when I worked in retail. Well, this was a bit more serious.

"I believe he is upset about the delay in our travels caused by my actions during an instance of rockfall on a mountain trail."

Kishi Sato nodded.

"That was indeed in the report, though not the only grievance."

I let out a breath.
"I also used a jutsu to entertain several children in a small village we visited."

Kishi Sato leaned forward.
"Yes, were you aware of our policies on that Ume-san."

"No Kishi-sama, it was not something presented to me before that instance."

I said honestly.

The Kishi pinched his nose.
"Such things are usually covered after graduation, but considering the unique situation of the graduation of your class it is understandable that you were uninformed. But that is not all. Do you know what else might have gone wrong?"

I let out a breath. Here it was.

"I argued with Mizushima-sama about the treatment of bandits that raided our caravan."

"Yes, and said argument led to a distraction that they used to assault him."

He looked at the paper.

"Which seems to be absent from your report. You need to be more thorough with your reports Ume-san, you can't exclude your mistakes because such mistakes need to be logged in case they are to cause a bigger issue."

I nodded my eyes probably had some fear in them. But I doubt he knew what I was actually afraid of.

"Now, it also says at your insistence that graves were created for the executed bandits. Why was that?"

I turned away.
"I knew them, two of them. They were from my class, but they didn't make it through the assessment before graduation. It was the least I could do."

The Kishi looked at me trying to analyze my actions to how they lined up to the story before nodding.

"They made their own choices that resulted in their shame. But it is kind of you to treat them as such in their dishonor."

I kept my face turned from him so he may not see the way my jaw clenched at that.

"It's understandable because of your circumstances that you acted this way, still a complaint from the Mizushima cannot be ignored. So you have been assigned three months of janitorial service as punishment for your actions."

He reached into his desk and handed me a scroll.

"Please report to this location in a week after your arm has healed at nine am."

I took the scroll with my free arm trying to look solemn even though I was relieved. The Kishi looked at me before saying.
"You are dismissed."