A corpse, Naruto decided, wasn't anything pleasant to look at. It didn't make him sick but there was something incredibly sad in the lifeless body sprawled against a tree. The dead was an old man if his grey hair and beard were any indication. His head had been covered by a straw hat that had been cleaved in two. Whatever weapon had mangled the hat had shattered the poor man's skull and spilt blood all over his grey sleeveless top.
The broken frame of a pair of glasses was at the dead man's feet.
Kurenai had searched for anything to identify the man but failed to find any paper. Which meant that either the deceased had been an illegal immigrant or, given the massive wound on his head, he had been assassinated and whoever was responsible didn't want anyone to be able to track the man's identity.
Naruto looked at the smashed bottle of sake the man had grasped, maybe in an attempt to defend his life. The blond could smell the alcohol mixed with the metallic stench of blood as he kneeled next to the body. The bottle was all glass and had probably contained cheap stuff as the fine rice wine was often kept in lacquered terracotta jugs. The label was torn and soaked but a fine print immediately attracted Naruto's gaze.
"Made in Wave Country," the blond muttered before he turned towards Kurenai. "Sensei," he called, showing her the piece of paper. The red-eyed jounin immediately saw what the Uzumaki wanted her to see.
"Well done, Naruto. Shino, Kiba, anything?"
The Inuzuka, looking a bit green, threw a questioning gaze at his impassible teammate who nodded minutely and stepped forth.
"Ninja did this, my allies are formal. There are residual traces of chakra being used to stick to the threes around."
Kiba nodded. "I smell steel, of good quality and the sweat of at least two men. They went south."
"Anything your eyes could see, Hinata?"
The Hyuuga girl, looking just as green as the Inuzuka boy, shook her head. "S-sorry sensei. No-nothing Shino-san and Kiba-san didn't already s-said." The girl hesitated, pushing her index fingers against each other before she stuttered further. "I-I th-think h-he…" She swallowed thickly. "He d-died at least three hours ago."
Kurenai smiled reassuringly. "Good job all." The jounin got up and sighed. "Now observe. This is the sealing procedure when dealing with a body." She explained as she pulled out a scroll which she unfurled, revealing esoteric markings that Naruto slowly deciphered. Next to him, the genins of Team Kurenai looked at the scroll with dull eyes, evidently incapable of comprehending it.
"We call them body scrolls, we use them to carry the bodies that we have the opportunity to recover from a battle," the jounin explained, her voice cold as ice. "It is more complex than a standard storage tag and made to preserve the body as much as possible. You'll be required to carry at least three of these scrolls at all time once you reach chuunin rank and know how to use them. Look closely."
The jounin placed the unfurled scroll across the dead man's belly and ran through five hand signs slowly as she leaked a bit of her chakra.
With the sickening sound of something being horribly splintered, the body was distorted in an impossible flux of butchered space-time fabric before it disappeared in the scroll, the large empty circle in the middle of the fuinjutsu formula suddenly filled up with the kanji for death. Kurenai rolled the scroll without a word.
Naruto shuddered. He couldn't help but see himself having to do just that to the corpse of a teammate. The heavy gaze the jounin gave them all told the blond Kurenai had done that at least once.
"We will drop this to the nearest outpost and continue our patrol."
There were a few seconds of silence before Kiba broke it in a furious exclamation. "What?! Sensei, we can't! We have to find the bastards who did that!"
Naruto silenced himself. He had been a hairbreadth away from saying just that before the simple truth of the situation had settled.
Whoever had done it was at least a two-men team who had three hours on any pursuers. No one from team Kurenai could tell how truly proficient the assassins were and lastly, and most importantly according to Ibiki-sensei, it just wasn't their mission.
The parameters for a patrol included dealing with any bandits they could find while sweeping the various checkpoints of their itinerary but certainly not running after shinobi assassins, especially when the patrolling team was made of genins. If an investigation was created, it would be given to more competent shinobi.
A sudden cold invaded Naruto's heart as he realized something he hadn't even envisioned at first but that his rational mind slowly imposed to him.
For all he knew, Konoha had ordered the death of that man.
No, he corrected immediately. It made no sense. If Konoha had ordered that man's death, they would have taken the body in a mortuary scroll. Or not, as there could be something deeper to whatever operation it was that Naruto wasn't seeing. But why would Konoha murder a man coming from Wave Country? As Ibiki has taught him, the blond ran through various possible scenarios.
Konoha murdered that man, on request or as a part of some national security scheme and the executors had left his corpse here for a patrol to discover for some unknown reason. That was a scenario Naruto's heart refused to acknowledge but the blond had to face reality.
Konohagakure no Sato was a village of ninja.
Another possibility was that someone had paid at least two foreign ninjas to kill the old man. But for what reason? And again, why leave the corpse behind to be discovered?
Maybe the culprit didn't have the necessary equipment. Looking at the sealing scroll, he knew it was a difficult fuinjutsu formula so it wasn't excluded the assassins simply didn't have a mortuary scroll, to begin with.
But then, why not use a simple Katon jutsu to burn the evidence to ash? Or maybe a Doton jutsu to sink the corpse in the soil? Because they didn't know any, supplied a part of his mind.
Suna, Kiri or Kumo. The blond shook his head. No. The lack of a mortuary scroll was a strong hint towards the involvement of missing-nins and the evidence left behind meant genins or clumsy chuunins maybe. Or two bloodthirsty jounin-level shinobi who simply didn't care. So the assassins weren't affiliated to any village, opting to serve themselves and the highest bidder. The worst kind of mercenary, the most dangerous.
"There is something really bad going on in Wave." He muttered. The country had apparently been taken over by the Gato Corporation and now, Wave denizens were being killed in the Land of Fire. The boy knew the Hokage had ordered the matter to be investigated but it didn't calm his nerves. Who knew what the people of Wave were enduring right now?
He turned to Kurenai ready to plead his case and support Kiba but the red-eyed jounin send him a glare that silenced him.
"Our mission," she strained, her voice cold as ice and grating as shattered glass, is to patrol sector s-13 and report to Jetan outpost and come back to Konoha through patrol route s-14. It is a C-rank mission fit for genins, to teach them the joys of patrol assignment but most importantly, to enforce discipline. We will not stray from our mission. Is. That. Clear?" She asked with murder in her eyes.
Kiba swallowed noisily, Shino nodded minutely and Hinata looked down fearfully. Naruto glared back before he sighed. He couldn't save everyone. He wouldn't save everyone. Mission, teammates and Konoha before the people of Wave. Duty above all. Feeling disgusted with himself and everything that had to do with the shinobi life, he nodded.
Dragging their feet and silence, Team Kurenai made way to Jetan outpost.
The outpost was one of many spread across Fire Country. While the land was smaller in superficies than the countries of Earth or Wind, it still took something like an entire month for a walking civilian to cross it from west to east. Hence, the outposts were places, small military forts, where a good number of ninjas were stationed under a jounin commander, who had the responsibility to meet the demand of various clients who, as a result, didn't have to walk all the way to Konoha or send a message. This also had the effect of keeping Konoha more or less "hidden", at least from the common folk.
Patrol missions from Konoha to one or more outpost and back were something of a weekly occurrence, most of the times used as an opportunity to bring the jounin commander updated orders, the pay of his men and any other thing that the officer would need or alternatively, bring back his reports to the Hokage Tower.
Most of the time, the ninjas in those outposts were used to police the roads and various territories of importance as part of the country defensive strategy. They were different from the border fortress in size and in that they were entirely under Konoha's command.
The Daimyo's minister of the left had no influence nor any of his men in station here.
The Jetan outpost bore the name of the small village it overlooked; a simple place inhabited by peasants who worked the earth and took care of cattle. This southern part of Fire Country was called the "Bald Plain" as it was almost devoid of trees in comparison to the rest of the land and its soil was rich and carved by numerous streams and rivers. It had attracted the cupidity of Wind and Earth on many occasions, three of which had turned into bloody wars.
Naruto looked down from the last hill at the seemingly endless expanse of land geometrically divided in large rectangles, some of good, solid earth covered with green grass and the rest gorged with water and rice plants. It had a body of its own to the blond who had only known the gigantic trees surrounding Konoha and covering the majority of the country. The south was truly deserving of its second nickname: "the Granary".
Slightly above, Jetan outpost was looming over the village lower in the plain; a strange outgrowth of stone walls and watchtowers covered in grey tiles, overwatching much more modest but more elegant wooden houses. Naruto looked back down again. Children were playing in the streets of the little village while adults were mostly busying themselves either in the paddies or at home, cooking dinner, fixing clothes, making hats and whatnot. It seemed like an arduous yet simple life and many had a smile on their face.
The Uzumaki wondered how it was for the people in Wave right now. Were they smiling like those folks down there?
What about him? Was he smiling as he lived the life of a shinobi? The blond shook his head. He couldn't save everyone but then, what use was it if he couldn't even help those who needed him truly?
The Land of Fire was at peace with a truckload of available shinobi while something was happening to Wave Country where there was no ninja to intervene.
Without a word but with his mouth full of ash, he followed Team Kurenai as they went up to the dreary-looking walls and the dark towers of the outpost.
Kurenai disappeared somewhere, probably to see the outpost commander and Naruto and the others were invited to the refectory where they were served a jug of water and something supposedly edible.
Jetan outpost was honestly a run-down place and all genins of Team Kurenai plus Naruto dreaded the day they would be stationed in such a place when their apprenticeship under their jounin-sensei would end. It was apparently a classic type of assignment according to a team of genins four years older than them.
After two years under a jounin's command, a team integrated the ranks of the regular military, their learning period over and done with. More often than not, they were placed under the lead of a chuunin officer.
Naruto forced himself to eat his plate. It wasn't tasting succulent but it was hot and spicy enough to taste like something in the first place. Field rations were decent but they got old fast.
"U-uhm, Na-naruto-kun?"
The blond turned to face the meek address and smiled lightly. "Yes, Hinata?"
"S-something is b-bothering you."
It wasn't a question and the blond sighed. He hadn't made it a secret and the girl had a special pair of eyes so it wasn't a wonder she had noticed. Naruto looked at his nearly finished food.
"I'm just thinking of the dude we found."
Hinata nodded. There was nothing to say to that.
"I know there is something wrong going on in Wave right now and I have the feeling we're doing nothing to prevent it," Naruto explained, playing with the broth of his stew. "It's… We're ninjas!" The blond exclaimed suddenly with anger, startling Hinata. "We can do so many things but do we go out of our way to help those in need?!" The boy scoffed. "Not if it isn't profitable." He concluded bitterly.
"Konoha is our home. It is logical we seek her safety and betterment." Shino intervened.
Naruto shook his head. "Her safety yes. But her betterment? No Shino. That's just greed at this point. Konoha is rich, it's prosperous. Have you ever seen anyone in the streets in the village?" To that, the Aburame shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly. Naruto suddenly took a sombre look on his face. "Is it perfect? Probably not but we could spare. Give a bit of what we have so much and that others don't have at all."
"No service is ever rendered freely, Naruto-san. I fail to see the logic of your reasoning," answered Shino. Kiba nodded, supporting his teammate and looking at Naruto as if the blond had gone mad. The blond could tell it was clan-bred logic that prevailed here. Shinobi "didn't set foot outside the village without being paid" after all, as the Hokage had put it. The village, it was all that mattered.
"Agreed," interjected the Inuzuka. "I don't like leaving whoever killed that dude run free but aiding Wave? Why would we do that?"
"Because we're decent human beings?" Naruto asked in response. "Because if we don't, the Will of Fire doesn't mean shit. I've always been told we were better than Iwa. Better than Kumo." The blond smiled crookedly. "But we aren't, are we?"
Having said that, the boy gave the three members of Team Kurenai a nod of his head. "I apologize, it seems I soured the atmosphere. I'll be outside."
The outpost had a little courtyard and Naruto found a seat out of the way, his mind churning as he looked at the evening sky.
Why had he become a ninja? The Hokage had told him, when he was little and alone, that it would be the best way to gain the attention he wanted. The attention he needed. Loneliness was a poison to life: having no one to go home to, no one to talk to, no one to confide to, no one to say it was okay to fail, no one to compliment his success, no one to just be there with him. It was akin to a physical burden, one that grew over time until he had nearly been unable to muster the strength to get up. Worse was being ostracised at all time, actively being avoided: people refusing to talk to him, to listen to him, to see him were like as many knives piercing his flesh. Being a ninja, the Hokage even, was intended to be the cure to all that.
If he were the Hokage, the people of Konoha would not be able to ignore him anymore. That's what he had imagined when the old man had regaled him with tales of the powerful shinobi of old and the leaders of Konoha.
He couldn't have left, he now knew that, as the Hokage would have brought him back every time. He didn't think he could have survived alone anyway, not without the skills he had obtained now. Yet maybe life would have been easier in a place where he wasn't universally despised? Maybe people would have taken him in even?
Naruto smiled bitterly. In the end, his motivation had been selfish. He wasn't even like these proud clan heirs of Team Kurenai, who no doubt had grand dreams of protecting their clan and the village. His plan had been solely driven by his personal wish: to be too important to ignore. Maybe it had even been bratty in a way: if he was stuck in a village that ignored him, he would make them see him, as a revenge of a sort.
Naruto didn't care about the village. His clone had been right on that point. How could he care for a place where he was met with nothing but fear and hate?
The blond shuddered. It wasn't true anymore. He had Asuma, Konohamaru, the old man even if the Kage was two-faced and someone Naruto now was wary of, at least a bit. He had Ibiki-sensei. He guessed he got along alright with Team Gai, Shikamaru, Choji, Hinata and even Kiba when the Inuzuka wasn't being overly competitive.
Whatever the case, he who had been in marge of the Konoha society had seen how those people cared for each other. That, plus the stories of how the village was better than Iwa and Kumo and Kiri, had given the blond the belief that Konoha held power to share it. Or at least, to protect those who couldn't. That maybe, just maybe, being a ninja was about rescuing princesses and countries. That is was about doing good with their abilities.
It apparently wasn't.
AN: I know. Video games, lack of inspiration, you name it. Mainly video games though and reading whatever is new on this site.
Still not exactly Wave. What would you do if you had power? Leave a review?