Chapter 45


"People like to say that it's the journey that matters, not the destination. I would like to have a word with those people, because most of my journeys are either incredibly boring or involve some form of mortal peril."


All things considered, the travel time went smoothly. The four Leaf genin—or, three genin and one chuunin, now that Shikamaru had been promoted—moved at a pretty decent pace and covered a good amount of ground. With no civilian clients to bog them down, they had no reason to moderate their pace or keep to the ground, and just took to the trees for the most part. They didn't even encounter any bandits while traveling.

The only real hiccup came at the end of the first day, when they'd set up the tents.

A heavy silence fell over the four as they stared at the two freshly erected tents. Two tents, capable of holding two people each for a total of four. The exact number of people on this mission. Four teenagers who happened to be the same age.

Only one of whom happened to be a girl.

"Okay, how are we doing this?" Shikamaru sighed.

"You're the mission lead, you should decide," Sasuke scoffed.

"Yeah, well, usually on missions Ino would just bunk with Asuma-sensei, but here..." He glanced at Sakura, who squeaked and turned red.

"I am NOT sharing with you!" she sputtered, shaking her head violently. "I-I mean, no offense, but—I barely know you, and—and—!" She broke off with a sputter, her cheeks flushing even more pink.

"Yeah, figured as much," Shikamaru muttered. "So that leaves Masaru or Sasuke."

"Me?" Masaru gaped at Shikamaru in shock, his eyes wide, and the Nara snorted and rolled his eyes.

"Yeah. Logically, you're probably the best choice. She knows you."

"She knows Sasuke better!" Masaru protested quickly. Sasuke seized up at the reference, and darted a glance at Sakura who now looked even more pink, her green eyes growing wider by the second. Sparkles seemed to manifest around her, her mouth slowly opening. He could almost hear the thoughts running through her head: 'Me? Sharing a tent with Sasuke-kun!?'

"No," he declared briskly. "Just. No." He was not sharing a tent with a potential fan girl if he could help it.

"Fine, we'll just take shifts," Shikamaru sighed, and when the others looked at him curiously he elaborated, "Someone needs be on watch anyway. If Sakura has last shift, she can have her own tent while the rest of us switch places in the other one. Then whoever has the third shift can sleep in her tent." The suggestion caused the others to slowly relax, relieved to have found a solution. Then something else occurred to them.

"Why didn't you suggest that before?" Sakura asked, narrowing her eyes. Shikamaru just shrugged.

"Didn't feel like it."

Luckily for him, Sakura had yet to master infusing chakra into her punches, but his stomach would still have a pretty bad bruise by the next morning.


"Akari-chan, I-I'm sorry..." Hinata's shoulders shook as tears pricked her eyes, her hands wringing the hem of her shirt. "F-father, the elders—th-they, they said—"

"Forget what they said, Hinata!" Akari cut in, and Hinata physically recoiled in shock, taking a step back as if she'd been slapped.

"A-Akari-ch-chan?" she stuttered.

"What good have your clan elders ever done for you?" Akari snapped. "They're just putting all this pressure on you and not letting you decide anything for yourself!"

"B-but, th-that's... Th-they're adults, a-and... a-and..."

"Because they're adults, they know better than you?" Akari sniped bitterly. "Is that it? That's just garbage and you know it! I mean, do you really think it's bad being friends with me!?" Her vision blurred as she shouted, Hinata's stunned face growing foggy and indistinct through the haze of tears clouding her eyes.

"A-Akari-chan, th-that's not—"

"I need to go," Akari cut in, her voice thick and wet. "I'm sorry. Goodbye, Hinata."

White flames encroached the path around her as she turned and fled, the edges of the scene smoldering and dissolving like edges on a piece of paper paper lit afire. As the dense forest gave way to a black void Masaru stood in silent contemplation, watching Akari's form vanish into the swiftly spreading ring of white flames.

"Why did you show me that?" he asked softly. A flash of color flickered in the corner of his eye as the phantom echo of his sister stepping next to him, her ethereal form bright and glowing against the vast nothingness that surrounded them.

"Who knows?" she commented lightly, giving a lazy shrug. Strands of brown hair fell in her face as she tilted her head, half hiding the hollowed socket where her right eye should be. "Maybe I'm just worried about her. Nata-chan's always been so sensitive, hasn't she?"

Masaru didn't respond right away, just did his best to ignore the black, black blood oozing down her cheek and drip onto her shirt. "Aren't you mad at her?" he wondered quietly, thoughtfully. "She abandoned you, all because her family told her to."

"Maybe a little, but I don't think I'm that mad at her," Akari mused, extending her hand towards the fire. Wisps of white embers danced towards her, circling her open palm and morphing into a flower. Broad white petals extended from the long oval body, the fringe-like rims flickering and fluttering in an imaginary breeze like wind ruffling feathers, and the tip of the body curled like a bird's beak.

The wings fluttered and the bird-flower flew from her hand, gliding towards Masaru. His head turned automatically to follow it as it circled him, his eyes trained on the wispy trail of ghostly embers left in its wake. Without thinking he reached out his hand and the fiery phantom glided towards it, but just as it neared his index finger it vanished, extinguishing itself midair and dissipating into nothingness.

"You know what I think?" Akari chirped, drawing his attention, and he turned his head back to her and she smiled. Her lips pulled back to reveal black-stained teeth, her lone eye sparking viciously with death and pain. Chills ran down his spine, his breath catching in his throat at the coldness of her expression.

"I think you're more angry at the Hyuuga clan than her."

Masaru's eyes snapped open with a small gasp caught on his lips, the air tinted pale blue by the early morning light seeping through the fabric. For a moment he felt paralyzed as he stared at the unfamiliar canvas ceiling, panic quickly rising in his chest, but then he heard the rustle of fabric next to him. Rolling his head on its side, he found himself staring at the back of an unfamiliar head of black hair.

No, not unfamiliar, he realized as the person rolled over. Shikamaru lazily peeked open a single eye, peering at him sleepily. "Masaru?" he mumbled, so soft Masaru couldn't hear, so how did he know what he was saying—"Your eyes're red..."

Blinking, Masaru suddenly noticed the feeling of chakra pooled around his eyes, and after a moment he forced it away. The world slowly lost some of its clarity as he willed the Sharingan to fade, at which point he sat up and buried the heels of his palms against his eyes. "Sorry," he muttered softly. Distantly he heard Shikamaru yawn and sit up, mumbling something indistinct before raising his voice slightly.

"What time's't? the other boy slurred sleepily, and Masaru shrugged, not pulling his hands away. He felt more than heard Shikamaru crawl towards the opening of the tent. "Tch, not even sunrise... What woke you up?"

"Just... a dream." Colors danced behind Masaru's eyelids now, and he pressed a little harder before pulling his hands away. Dreaming of Akari always filled him with such bittersweet feelings, but those feelings had no place on a mission. Pushing off the blankets, he groped blindly for the pile of clothes he'd set out the night before and started peeling off his shirt to change, only to freeze and slowly move his hands away.

"Something wrong?" Shikamaru asked behind him, and Masaru shrugged, offering him a shaky smile.

"Ah, no, I'm just... kinda cold," he lied. "It happens in the morning when I first wake up sometimes, I'll wait a few minutes." Shikamaru raised an eyebrow, clearly not buying a word, but after a long moment he finally nodded, much to Masaru's relief.

"Alright. I'm gonna check on the others, it's pretty close to when we're supposed to wake up anyway." With that he crawled out of the tent, and only when the flap fell back into place did Masaru release a slow, shaky breath, peeling off his shirt. He smiled bitterly at the jagged scar cutting through the center of his stomach, small and pink and rough around the edges from where steel had twisted and yanked out.

Some scars held too many bad memories to show anyone.

When he crawled out in a fresh set of clothes he found Sakura crouched next to a smoldering campfire, not surprising since she'd had the last watch. She perked up and waved at him, smiling softly. "I made breakfast," she called quietly, gesturing to a ration bar laying atop its unfolded wrapper, and Masaru smiled as he joined her and picked it up. Missions usually didn't give them leeway for actual food, but sometimes they could roast the ration bars for a warmer breakfast.

Sasuke and Shikamaru soon joined them, the latter having apparently gone off to wake their final member, and the group fell into a companionable silence as they munched on the toasted ration bars. After a few minutes they finished up, and then took a few minutes to pack up their campsite before heading out, hoping to arrive at the town by nightfall. They made some more idle chitchat for a couple hours, before turning their conversation to the mission.

"Sakura should take point when buying the fan," Shikamaru commented. "She can has the most experience with civilians, and she also knows the most about Mito anyway. I get the feeling she'd be the most likely to recognize the fan as real, with some sort of supernatural fangirl instinct or something."

"I'd argue, but you're probably right," Sakura muttered with a pout. The others eyed her warily before silently moving away from her, and she frowned. "Hey, don't look at me like that! I'd recognize it because there were archival photos of Mito with her fans. None of them were in color, but they had pretty distinct patterns that I should be able to recognize."

"That's still kinda creepy," Masaru muttered quietly, and looked away innocently when she glared at him.

"You said there's another objective," Sasuke said to Shikamaru, ignoring the exchange. "The bandits. Tell us about them." Shikamaru sighed, clearly unenthused about the new topic, but nevertheless launched into a brief overview of the situation.

"There's not much information on them. They're pretty small time and usually go after individual travelers or smaller groups, and they keep moving around the country. They also tend to avoid anyone traveling with ninja, even genin." The last bit of information got some raised eyebrows from the others. Bandits usually overestimated their abilities when faced with young genin, so the fact they avoided them anyway suggested one or more of the members had at least some ninja background. Not much, but enough to recognize that even a child could be a threat.

"Interesting," Sasuke said carefully. "Any distinct patterns?"

"Not really," Shikamaru replied with a shrug. "They're smart enough to avoid big targets so they won't get reported to Konoha, and they're constantly moving around instead of staying in one place. The only reason Konoha knows about them is because some victims from two incidents happened to meet while waiting to request an escort and realized the bandits had similar features, and reported it. From there we managed to find similar reports from various areas over the past five years."

"Five years?" Sakura repeated, not bothering to hide her shock. "That's—how have they operated that long?" For his part Masaru just gaped at Shikamaru, and even Sasuke seemed a bit stunned by the new information. Most groups tended to disband within a single year because, well, they were thieves. They weren't exactly trustworthy, even within their own ranks.

"Yeah, well, like I said, they're smarter than most. They're quiet enough to avoid becoming high-priority targets, but they're good enough that there's a standing order to catch them if we see them. The most recent reports place them in an area near the town we're heading to, so it wouldn't be a stretch for them to show up there."

Shikamaru shrugged and then fell silent, letting the others stew over this new information. Every word he said only made this group seem even more out of the ordinary. Masaru frowned as he mulled over the information, carefully filing it away. It might not be their primary mission, but catching them would probably be for the better. The rest of the trip proceeded in relative silence after that, only stopping twice to take a break and then to get dinner at a roadside café.

True to their predictions, they arrived at their destination by nightfall, the sun just starting to set in the horizon. The town didn't particularly stand out from other towns Masaru had visited on past missions; it was decently sized, maybe a bit on the small side, and had signs advertising a small shrine that seemed more designed to cater to visitors and locals. Clearly it had been built as a passing point for people traveling to Tea Country, judging by the number of hotels and inns, but otherwise it had no particularly outstanding features to make someone go out of their way to specifically visit it.

Checking into the inn went fine for the most part, aside from a brief squabble with the innkeeper. "So you're here about bandits?" The old innkeeper looked at them in surprise. "You're so young to be hunting bandits down though!"

The group of genin resisted the urge to groan at the old woman's patronizing look. None of them pointed out that Shikamaru happened to be a chuunin, or that Masaru had already killed three men, two of them quite violently. For all their skill and training they were still barely thirteen—hell, Shikamaru would be twelve for another month—and that made them children in the eyes of most civilians.

"We're just gathering information," Sakura assured her smoothly. "The likelihood of us having to actually fight them is very low. Now can you please rent us two rooms?" The elderly matron pursed her lips, peering at them thoughtfully.

"Well, I don't know. The rooms house two people at most, and there's no way to fit an extra bed in one, but splitting you across three rooms seems like such a waste of space. There's a nice young girl staying here alone right now, maybe we can convince her to share with you?"

It took a moment to realize she was talking about how to split the boys from Sakura, making them all groan under their breath. Another annoying civilian quirk... which is what they would have said if they hadn't dealt with that exact issue the previous night. "We'll be fine," Shikamaru offered tightly. "We're professionals, we won't let hormones get in the way." The others grunted, trying their best to look stoic and serious despite the rush of embarrassment flaring in both Masaru and Sakura. They'd already agreed to just have someone take turns sleeping on the floor in the boys' room, but something told them that this woman probably wouldn't approve of that plan either.

Still, the old woman flittered about giving them rooms. "You say that, but you're teenagers. Teenage boys get so worked up around a pretty girl, if any of you share a room—"

"But Sasuke's gay," Masaru interrupted, blinking up at her innocently. "He doesn't like girls."

The others leveled him with stunned looks at the sudden declaration and Sasuke looked slightly homicidal, but Masaru ignored them and kept staring at the old innkeeper with the perfect look of innocence. The elderly woman blinked slowly, the gears in her brain seeming to slowly turn as she processed this, and after a long moment mutely turned around to retrieve two sets of keys.

"Why did you say that?" Sasuke hissed under his breath once they all went upstairs and safely out of earshot.

"Did you want to waste two hours trying to argue with an old lady we won't suddenly have sex with Sakura just because we're unsupervised?" Masaru whispered back, perfectly deadpan, and Shikamaru snorted.

"Yeah, no, too much work," he decided. "This is faster." Sasuke glared at him, but Shikamaru just ignored him.

"It might have worked too well," Sakura whispered with a grimace. "She slipped me a note with directions to a lingerie store and told me to 'show him to the light'." Everyone winced and shuddered at that. Old ladies had a way of killing teenagers' sex drives, even ones that didn't exist.


When morning rolled around, the group went out to breakfast to discuss their plans for the day. They sat around a table, Sakura and Masaru on one side and Sasuke and Shikamaru on the other. The pink-haired girl eagerly eyed the plate of pancakes the waitress set in front of her, her mouth salivating in anticipation of the sugary goodness, and snatched a bottle of syrup as the others started discussing the bandits. Since the bandit search was meant to be mainly a cover and secondary objective, they made no effort to hide their discussion of it.

"Are there any physical traits we can use to identify them?" Sasuke asked while poking at his scrambled eggs.

"Kind of," Shikamaru hedged. "They usually wear disguises, but there's at least three with consistent descriptions. The two most common are a man in his mid to late twenties with brown hair, tan skin and a cross-shaped scar on his left hand, and a man of similar age with green eyes and a scarf pulled over his head to hide most of his features. Sometimes there's also a man with sunglasses, dark hair and a hood, but not always."

Sakura glanced up from her pancakes at that, still holding the bottle over them to liberally douse them in maple syrup. "Do you think they have a rotating roster?"

"It's pretty likely. These guys are smart enough to move a lot, and know to avoid ninja. The profile put together by Intelligence suggests they probably have another job to supplement it, since they don't go after big groups."

An idea suddenly occurred to Masaru and he groaned loudly, prompting the others to look at him curiously. "Another job, like a traveling merchant caravan?" he suggested wryly, and almost immediately the others groaned in unison.

"Dammit, with our luck that's a good possibility," Sasuke grumbled sullenly. Next to him Shikamaru remained silent, staring intently at his food as he mulled over it.

"It's a good theory, but it's probably not the same one," he finally decided, and speared his omelet with a fork. "That caravan has a known schedule, and it doesn't match up with the confirmed reports we have of these guys. But some sort of migratory job is a pretty likely bet."

"Gives us somewhere to start at least," Sakura offered. "We can ask around if there are any wandering merchants or tradesmen."

"Is it okay if I use part of today to train?" Masaru asked feebly. "I'm not good with people."

"That might be a problem since the whole point of this mission is to talk to people," Shikamaru responded dryly, making Masaru sag dejectedly. Sakura offered him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder while Shikamaru continued, "Sakura, Masaru, you two go ask guests at the hotels if they've encountered any bandits. You can start with the inn we're staying at."

"Sounds good," Sakura agreed lightly, voraciously digging into her pancakes.

"Sasuke, you and I will canvas the local businesses and ask the locals," Shikamaru continued, and the Uchiha grunted in acknowledgment. "It's about eight now so we'll reconvene at the inn in five hours, at one. Any objections?" The others just grunted or shook their heads, too busy eating to respond vocally, and after a moment Shikamaru nodded. "Alright. Let's finish breakfast and roll out."

The others nodded and took their time finishing their meal, splitting up in three opposite directions. It wasn't the most glamorous mission and not even their main objective, but it was a mission.

It didn't take long for Sakura to develop some misgivings though.

"Okay, that was too easy," she mumbled darkly as she and Masaru ascended the stairs, squeezing the handrail as she went up. As per Shikamaru's orders, they'd gone back to the inn and started their investigation by asking the innkeeper. Sakura had not expected the elderly woman to have any knowledge of the bandits, pinning her as the type who'd never left the town, and sure enough she'd been right. But the woman had been more than happy to make a list of the current guests.

The ease she'd given it away made Sakura feel kind of sick. Hotels in or even just near Konoha would never give up that sort of information so easily, it could be disastrous. It wasn't just a shinobi thing, either, it seemed like basic etiquette not to disclose who's staying at a hotel. She sincerely hoped the old woman was an outlier and not the norm in this town, even if it would make their job easier.

"There's four other guests," Masaru commented as he trailed behind her, busy skimming the list. "Room one has a has a honeymooning couple in their twenties, Shigure and Enkomei. Room three has a traveling writer passing through town named Sengawa, middle-aged, but he left earlier this morning. And room four has a single girl, Yuzu, about our age and here while her friends handle some business outside town."

Sakura hummed, considering the options. Sengawa might fit the potential profile of the thieves having some sort of supplementary job, especially since writing usually didn't generate much profit. Technically, the others might qualify too, but a honeymooning couple and a teenage girl sounded like they'd fit the victim profile more. "We'll start with room four," she decided.

"Why not room one?" Masaru asked curiously. "It's closer to the stairs, isn't it?" Sakura paused, twisting her head to offer him a sly smile over her shoulder.

"Yeah, but that's the honeymooners. They're probably sleeping now." Masaru looked at her in confusion, but Sakura didn't bother elaborating and just continued strolling forward. Seeing as the honeymooning couple had an empty room next to them, she figured it was a safe bet that the innkeeper expected them to need a bit more privacy than other guests, for... reasons.

Knocking on the door to room four, she stepped back and waited for the girl to answer. Groggy mumbling sounded inside, the words either muffled by the wood or just already generally indistinct, and after a moment heard a voice call, "Hold on, frick." After a few moments the door opened, and a teenage girl peered at them through the crack, looking thoroughly unimpressed. "What do you want?" While she clearly hadn't been in bed, it was obvious she was still getting ready for the day. Her chin-length red hair was messy and only half-brushed, and she'd obviously thrown on a bathrobe at the last second.

"Sorry to disturb you," Sakura said with a small bow. Her eyes briefly lingered on the girl's bright hair before quickly moving to meet her gaze. "We're Leaf ninja investigating reports of a bandit group that's been moving around the country. The latest reports suggest they might be headed near this general area, so we're going around asking people if they've run into them."

"Bandits?" The redhead scoffed. "Sorry, can't help you. The only ones I ran into are dead."

Sakura paused and blinked. Well, that was blunt. "Um. Okay then. Well, have you maybe heard anything?"

"No. Bye." She slammed the door, and for a long moment Sakura and Masaru just stood in silence.

"This is going to be even worse than I thought, isn't it?" Sakura deadpanned.

"Yep," Masaru agreed, popping the 'p'. Sakura just sighed and then turned and stalked back towards room one, her shoulders already slumping.

"Come on, let's go to room one. Just... brace yourself, just in case."

"Brace myself for what?" Masaru asked as he trailed after her, and she smiled thinly as stopped in front of the door.

"You don't want to know," she replied, and knocked. A startled yelp sounded inside, followed by a feminine squeak and the thud of a body crashing to the floor. Her smile grew a little deader as the door flung open to reveal a frazzled looking male wearing no shirt and notably backwards sweatpants.

Yep, she thought dully as Masaru made a choking noise behind her.

This was going to be a very long day.


(Author's Note)

Not much to say about this chapter. Lots of interesting little bits of foreshadowing hidden throughout it though... Wonder if any of you picked up on it.

I actually did not plan to leave an A/N here, because I think they clutter the page (especially here on FF, since I can't really figure out a consistent way to make them look separate from the story), but an interesting thing happened: some of the reviews on the last chapter aren't showing up. Maybe it's because I updated the chapter right after posting it to insert the omake (which you should read if you haven't, it's just further proof I have a very dark sense of humor). I know from other people's A/Ns that messing with existing chapters can muck up reviews, it's the main reason I still haven't deleted that A/N about my laptop crashing. (Right now I'm thinking of going back and changing it to just be that promised omake detailing Team Jiraiya's Bell Test.) Luckily I got the reviews in emails though, so I'll just copy and paste them here!

Shinobi of the Hidden Leaf: "Ooh, I'm so excited! Mito Uzumaki's war fan? SO AWESOME! Mito is one of my favorite Naruto minor Naruto characters. So I'm super excited. :D

And well, as for how it will go... horribly, as always. Missions always go awry for Team 7. Now add another Uchiha on the list? Yeah, they are screwed. And do I smell a snake perhaps? I mean, two Uchiha is a pretty nice mousey treat." - Well Naruto seemed to account for 90% of the trouble due to main character status, so maybe they'll be fine?

Mr. Beaver Buttington: "An easier question would be "how many things WON'T go wrong?"" - Well I'm pretty sure the world won't end... probably.

May525: "Not really... But I'm hoping they'll meat Fu... Hehe." - Sadly, not yet. They're going in the opposite direction from her. But eventually they will!

For the record, I love reviews, but I usually try to respond to them in PMs rather than post replies in the author's notes to avoid making it seem cluttered. Though out of curiosity, would you guys prefer I respond to reviews in ANs in the future? Just wondering.

Also, one more thing: I have 195 reviews on here now. So as a little mini-contest, whoever posts Review 200 can get a say in my design of a very special OC. I can't say anything more without major spoilers, but just know that this OC has a pretty significant impact on the plot, even if their actual role isn't that big. (Also, yes, I do remember the Chuunin Exam prediction contest, but I've been pretty busy and haven't had time to go back and review the predictions.)