Rin's mission was to infiltrate Yamainu for the long-term with many small tasks to complete. One of those tasks was to check if the smuggling route was still undiscovered and intact. So she had to investigate the new owner of the shop it was built under.

That was when she saw the hiring notice posted.

She knew something was different about the boy ever since she was first interviewed by him. He reminded her of those young geniuses who matured a little too fast. But it made sense to her after she investigated the Umezaki sibling's past.

The mother died giving birth to Zai and the two siblings were abandoned shortly after by an alcoholic father, leaving them with a debt. They suffered through a life of hardship after that as Azu raised Zai on her own. If it wasn't for the help of their neighbours she probably wouldn't have made it.

At the age of 6, Zai had an accident and suffered retrograde amnesia as a result. Shortly after, he had a life threatening run-in with members of the Matsumoto-gumi and bears in the forest outside of town. The Matsumoto-gumi men had been coming in to replenish their lost numbers after Kamitani Tomonobu's purge when they refused to pay his forced "loan to the lord"—essentially a loan that would never be repaid.

Through the debt, Zai had somehow made a connection with one of the trainees of the Yamaguchi-gumi at the time, Ryota.

Rin couldn't find out much other than the two have a sort of give-and-take relationship and their positions have gone up dramatically by using the other.

She had been recently thinking about quitting her job at the restaurant because the people showing up at restaurant were beginning to become more dangerous and high profile. She didn't think she could maintain her cover for long under their scrutiny.

She had looked into Zai's samurai police friends and found that they were from the Miyoshi family. Although the Miyoshi family's standing in town used to be unremarkable, not long ago they had married their daughter to the Chief of the Samurai Police. Zai was also connected to the heir of the Sakamoto Clan.

Even if it was part of their training, Rin didn't like the way the random samurai that patroned the restaurant scrutinized her. But it was the servants of that man named Saburosuke that especially unnerved her every time they visited.

Somehow, Zai had secured an ice deal before she had been hired but Rin knew how hard it was to get access to a commodity like that.

After investigating the little family run ice shop, she found that other than an empty warehouse in the Uegawa district under Gohei's name, they had no incoming shipments from out of town, so she had no clue where all the ice was coming from. Today, after her work was done for the day, she planned to approach them as an acquaintance to find out more information.

"Transformation Technique."

Rin changed from the appearance of a pretty young teenager with long silky hair to a taller and earnest looking young woman with tanner skin and her hair tied back.

"Big Sister Azu! Good afternoon." A little boy greeted her as she walked into the shop.

"Good afternoon, Hakuhyou. Where are your parents?"

"Mom went out to the market to buy some groceries, while dad and uncle went out on deliveries."

"I see, so you're tending to the shop all alone?" Rin in the appearance of Azu asked.

"They'll be back soon."

"Hey, I've always been curious. Where exactly do you get your ice from?"

"Sorry, Big Sister Azu, I can't tell you. Mom and Dad made my promise to keep it a secret."

'Is it a trade secret they're trying to keep hidden? Or is it something else...?' She thought.

"That's alright. I came by because we were running a little low on ice. Do you think I can get a box?"

"Sure." The boy went into the backroom and Rin followed after him.

She was then taken into the basement where they stored their ice. The temperature was extremely low down there, even lower than the basement of the restaurant.

"You're not cold down here?" She asked the boy as she shivered.

"Nope." The boy pointed at the boxes in the corner filled with ice. "You can take one of those.

Rin examined the basement as she made her way to the box of ice. There was nothing down here out of place other than boxes of ice.

'Where are they getting it from?' She wondered.

It was almost as if the ice was appearing out of thin air.

Soon after, they returned to the first floor and ran into Rahyou.

"Uncle Rahyou, you're back."

"Yeah, I need to grab another...who's this, Hakuhyou?"

'Did Azu not know this man?' Rin wondered. 'That can't be, they should know each other."

"Are you playing a game? It's Big Sister Azu."

'Something is not right here...' Rin's warning bells were going off.

"You're not miss Azu, who the hell are you?" He said as he scrutinized her.

"What are you talking about, Mister Rahyou? It's me, Azu." Rin said.

"Still pretending? I guess we'll find out the hard way." Rahyou said as he flexed his large muscles. "Stand back, Hakuhyou."

The temperature in the room dropped sharply, mist began appearing around them as they gathered around Rahyou's fist, forming into an ice gauntlet. Rin's pupils shrunk when she saw that, she dropped the box of ice in her hands and leapt backwards just as Rahyou rushed in.

'He's fast! I can't dodge him.' She thought as she quickly wove the seals for the Body Replacement Technique. She finished the seals when the ice gauntlet was barely an inch away from her.

*BOOM*

The box of ice that she had dropped just earlier and swapped places with shattered into countless wood and ice bits, but the technique was a success as Rin appeared behind Rahyou and closer to the exit.

Rin ran for the door as she tossed the bell that usually hung on her sash at Rahyou, invoking a sound-based illusion technique to aid her escape.

'Just my luck. I had to run into such a powerful ninja and an ice release at that.' Rin thought as she dashed across the roof tops of the town.

'It seems my cover is blown. What is an ice release user even doing hiding out in this little town? I'll have to move over to passive surveillance now and have Zuki infiltrate the town even if blending in isn't his specialty. With his hearing, he might be able to pick up a lot more information than I could.'

She made it to the restaurant and once she deemed it was clear, she snuck into the second floor through the window and left a goodbye note in one of the rooms.

"Meow." A white cat was standing by the entrance of the room.

"I'm going to miss you, Kin. Wish you could have met my little sister." Rin knelt down and gave the white cat a final pat on the head before leaving. "Though she might get a little jealous with how beautiful your fur is."

'It's a shame...'

If she was being truthful, she enjoyed her time at that restaurant.

'I'm going to miss the food too.'

Once she was out of town she headed northeast towards the mountains. When Rin arrived at the hideout, she found that there was fighting going on and what looked like members of the Yamaguchi-gumi were charging into the entrance.

'What's going on here?'

She went around to a hidden passageway that required her to scale a cliff wall. The passageway led to deeper inside the hideout, the rooms that were reserved for ninjas, and their Lord, once he visited in the future. Once inside, she deactivated the traps as she made her way to the hidden passage leading to the outer hideout.

The door slid open and she ended up in an office, where she heard the sounds of fighting just outside. Taking a peek, she found a kid throwing a punch and knocking out Zuki.

'How did he lose to a kid?'

Rin soon found out it was Zai. Even though Zuki was only an scouting specialist, he was still a genin like her, she didn't think Zai was strong enough to defeat him on his own. Or that his connection to the Yamaguchi-gumi was this deep.

'Was I wrong in my assessment?'

"I just want to live my life on my own terms."

"Live on your own terms..."

'Ah, I see. He's not doing this for the Yamaguchi-gumi. He's doing this for himself. And for Azu.'

After she reset the traps to buy time, Rin cleaned out some of the more important things and sealed them into storage scrolls before she left the hideout with Zuki.

'If only those Matsumoto-gumi idiots didn't keep screwing up. Then we wouldn't have had to take them into the hideout. They were suppose to be helping us, not the other way around. ' Rin rubbed her forehead in frustration. 'It seems like our mission has become much more difficult with the hideout being exposed. Especially with those Shinrin-kai goons digging around.'

Once Rin found a hidden cave to put Zuki down, she went back to the hideout to see if she could gather information. She arrived just as the three genin that were sent to deliver some more medical equipment for the lab started making a mess out front and tore through the Yamaguchi-gumi men.

The Yamaguchi-gumi men started to retreat and those bloodthirsty genin chased after them, only to be led into a trap.

*BOOM*

'What a mess..." Rin muttered.

Losing the hideout was still fine. The hideout was only just set-up recently and was still barebones, plus Rin had already secured anything important.

Losing three genin at this time was a bit of a setback. They were short on manpower, especially with most of their people working on establishing the village back north.

This was suppose to be a simple infiltration and observation mission.

'How am I going to explain this to Lord Orochimaru?'