"What? I'm on a mission outside the village. You really expecting me to submit a report right now?
Okay, fine, whatever. There's a road leading towards the villages main gate. It is a well used dirt road that can be hard to travel if there's strong rain. To either side of the road are lots of trees, not to say that the village and road are completely surrounded by forests. The village isn't known to be the "Village hidden in the leaf" for nothing. Surprise, huh?
And currently am I traveling at that road, away from the village. There, happy now?"
- C
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A Tale of two Sisters - Chapter 26: How to create a filler chapter, step 1: write about every character that appeared so far and avoid the main ones
Asuma stood on a training field, waiting for his genin team. It was quite early in the morning and the air was still fresh, his breath visible whenever he exhaled. In one hand was he holding a cigarette from which he inhaled from time to time. In the other hand was he holding the piece of paper he wrote the day before as bet for their gambling. "I'll start to train my genin properly, huh?" he mused to himself, reading the few words over and over again. "Well, I suppose that it would be bad if they died out there because of a lack of training. Still..."
Raising his head was he watching his first genin appear and put the paper back into a pocket. He wasn't surprised that Ino was the first to show up, considering that she always was in high spirits and lively, willing to do what is needed. Or so he heard from Inoichi who was talking about his daughter whenever possible. Just that, taking a closer look at the girl, she didn't seemed that lively at all. He discarded that thought at first, thinking that she just gave up trying to get her friends to train, but the words from his friend the day before came back to mind, seeing her now.
"Morning Ino." he started and gave her a slight wave, but she wasn't really reacting to that. He shook his head slightly to get his thoughts clear. 'Well, guess they were right when they said that this is part of my responsibility as well now...' he thought to himself before focusing back on the girl. "Care to talk about it?" he asked.
"Talk about what...?" she asked back, looking at her sensei with slight confusion written all over her face.
"See, I was talking with your father recently..." Asuma started, but got interrupted by Ino.
"You mean you two went drinking." she stated bluntly with a monotone voice.
"So? We are adults, there's nothing wrong with that." he shook his head. "Anyway, I talked to him and he pointed out that as your sensei am I partially responsible for your well-being. I'll ask again. Care to talk about what you saw inside the minds of your friends?"
Ino kept quiet for some moments, pondering the question before shaking her head. "Not really... I mean, you don't know how a mind works like my father... so I don't see you being able to help..."
"You could at least try and see if you are right with that statement. Have a little trust in your sensei." Asuma reasoned back to the girl. He was aware that he really should care more for his genin.
"Doubtful..." Ino shook her head before sighing. "I mean, what do you want to do? I got threaten to be made a pet..." she spoke without thinking too much about it, though a small blush entered her face unnoticed.
Raising an eyebrow was it now Asuma's turn to stay quiet for some moments, pondering his answer. "Well, I suppose it shouldn't be surprising that the two got a kinky side to them. Considering their situation and all... plausible that Hanabi would have these kind of thoughts."
"Hanabi-chan? You mean because she is owning her sister as a slave?" Ino let out a dry laugh. "I suppose I could understand it if it was her..." she shook her head slowly. "But it was Hinata-chan who threated me. Her mind was... scary. Like, totally."
"Hinata?" Asuma was looking at Ino in disbelief, even forgetting to keep his cigarette in hand, dropping it to the ground. "You are telling me that the shy and quiet girl that is always following her sister around was... threatening you?"
Nodding slightly was Ino looking around, fearing that someone might hear what she has to say next. "She may be quiet in general, but that's just the surface. Her personality is currently by far the more dangerous one from the two of them. Though that's also because Hanabi-chan is trapped inside past events that caused several trauma to her."
"I... see..." Asuma said slowly, thinking over the informations he just got. It was one thing being informed that a girl enslaved her sister, but it was a completely different thing to learn details about them.
"Told you that you wouldn't be able to help me." Ino stated matter of factly while crossing her arms over her chest, looking at Asuma's reaction with caution.
That however brought a grin on Asuma's face, confusing the girl. "Well, it is true that I'm no expert of the mind like your father, who is helping you currently, right? Though I think I did help you. Right now are you way less stressed and concerned compared to the time you arrived here."
"I suppose..." she answered thoughtfully, slowly nodding her head.
"Alright. Now that this is settled and the rest of the team not yet here... You wanted to know how to improve with your Fire Style, right?"
That brought a spark into Ino's eye, looking at her sensei in disbelief. "You feeling sick? Are you just offering to help me train?"
"It was recently pointed out to me that it will be my responsibility if the three of you die out there or might end with another bad fate. So I suppose I should take this whole sensei thing a bit more serious and teach you how to survive." Asuma shrugged during his reply, speaking calm and neutral.
She was trying to hold the laughter back, but she failed. Bursting out into laughter was Ino holding her stomach and needed some moments to settle down, during which Asuma wasn't reacting at all. When she was finally able to form a coherent sentence again was she trying to tease her sensei. "Did you really just said 'another bad fate'? Why aren't you saying that C was drinking together with you? I mean, my best friends enslaved each other and I'm involved with C because of them. And I know what happened to them in the past. 'Another bad fate'... Just name it, that I could end as slave as well!" there was slight anger crawling up her body. It wasn't about what could happen to her. It was about her sensei being unwilling to speak to her with facts.
Simply smiling back at Ino was Asuma calmly answering. "And now please use your Fire Style jutsu."
Being confused by that sudden change of topic was Ino looking at Asuma dumbstruck for a moment, before doing as told and going through the handsigns. "Fire Style: Flame." she mumbled, concentrating to form the little flame abover her hand. Just that it wasn't as little as usual and that it formed a bit faster compared to the other times she was training with it. "What the..."
"There is a reason why they say that fire would represent anger and rage. I'm not saying that it would be wise to let your anger overcome you within a battle. In fact will this only lead to you making mistakes and dying faster. But it is a valid way of training the Fire Style." Asuma explained, the smile still on his face. "Though, reaching your goal of creating multiple ones will still be hard to achieve."
Finally smiling back was Ino nodding. "At least do I now know how to train more effective. Thank you, Asuma-sensei."
And with that was she starting to test her jutsu a bit for now, while both of them still waited for the rest of the team to appear. The thoughts clouding Ino's mind, at least for now, gone. 'Heh, who said I would be unable to train a genin team?' Asuma thought to himself while watching Ino train, his hand sliding into his pocket and unconscious grabbing the piece of paper.
Konoha T&I
"That got to be a joke..." Inoichi stated in disbelief, watching the chunin delivering a cage containing two prisoner. It was less the fact that they brought prisoners for interrogation, that was something that actually happened quite often with bandits in the close surrounding of the village or spies of other villages trying to get informations about Konoha. What shocked him was the way the prisoners were delivered. Konoha wasn't using cages for transportation for them being too hard to move around in a situation they couldn't loose any time, leaving him to ponder about who the owner of that cage was and why it was delivered to them.
Walking over to Inoichi was Kotetsu giving him a wave. "Morning! There was a strange fellow at the main gate this morning, having this cage on a cart. We were suspicious about him, sure, but C passed the gate some minutes later and gave us orders to bring it here."
He couldn't help but to facepalm. "Why am I not surprised that C is somehow involved in that situation?" he asked nobody in particular, simply searching for a way to voice his disbelief. "Okay, fine. So we got some interrogation to do, I get it. Are there any more informations for us? Did he say anything else than just to bring that cage here?"
"Well..." Kotetsu started, not exactly sure how to word it. "He seemed to know something, but he wasn't telling us a word. All he said was that the bounty for these two shall be reserved for Spooky's team upon returning." he shrugged.
"Bounty?" Inoichi asked back, getting a nod from Kotetsu. He had two options and he knew it. The first would be searching the archives to find the identity of these shinobi and to look their bounty up. The second however... "Anko! Get over here!" he shouted, his voice echoing through the building. He wasn't happy about having to deal with her that morning, not after their gambling the day before with her panties on the line, but she was the best source for that kind of information he had at hand - and it would be much quicker than searching the archives.
Not even two minutes later was Anko walking down a hallway, anger clearly written across her face. She was as pleased as Inoichi to deal with the other and ready to give him a piece of her mind. However, after getting closer and getting a look at the cage was she bursting out into laughter, her anger quickly forgotten. "Don't tell me..." she started between heavy breaths, trying to calm down. "...that C went back into the capture business. He hadn't told me." the last part was spoken with a touch of disappointment.
"From what I understand was he not involved. He said, however, to reserve the bounty for these two for Spooky's team upon return." Inoichi explained while shaking his head. He wasn't understanding his co-worker at times, which was even harder for him to understand, considering that he was a master of understanding the mind in general. "So, if you would be so kind?" he asked, looking at Anko.
Shrugging her shoulders was Anko stepping close to the cage, checking out the two figures inside. Raising an eyebrow was she turning around to look at Inoichi and Kotetsu. "Spooky's team?" she asked, getting a nod from both before letting out an approving whistle. "Well, that's impressive. What we got here are B-ranked missing nins from Kiri, commonly known as the Demon Brothers. They are worth a decent amount" she shrugged. "The more intresting part is that they are listed as subordinates of the Demon from the Mist, also known as..."
"Zabuza Momochi." a heavily scarred man wearing a black trenchcoat, that just happened to pass the scene, finished for Anko. "Still trying to impress others with the fact that you know every shinobi listed in our bingo book?"
"Not really. He asked for it, actually." was Anko's simple reply to that question.
"I see. Alright, show's over. Inoichi, get this cage out of my hallway and start looking into their minds for informations. Anko..." he paused a moment, looking at the woman before shaking his head. "Do whatever you want. I know that you won't listen to my orders anyway. So, which team managed to capture them?"
"From what I understand was it Kakashi's team." Kotetsu provided, watching the T&I staff walking deeper into the building, dragging the heavy cage with them.
"Huh, surprising. A just created genin team beat two B-ranked shinobi? Seems like we would have some promising genin this year. That's good to know." the scarred man pondered aloud before shifting his attention back on Kotetsu. "Still standing here? I do believe that you got a gate to guard?"
Feeling a shiver run down his spine was Kotetsu quickly nodding and left the building, leaving the head of T&I to his own thoughts.
Makeshift camp near the road towards Wave
Hanabi yawned loudly and rubbed her eyes. To say she was tired would be a total understatement. Not only was her chakra not yet back to full capacity after she suffered from chakra exhaustion during the fight with the demon brothers, her body also had no real time to rest after she got woken in the middle of the night by Kakashi to take the second guard that he could rest a bit.
She was of course complaining, arguing that she needed to rest and that she wouldn't be able to do much in that state, that she would be a bad choice as guard. Kakashi only gave her a disapproving look before shaking his head. "And you think that it would be different for Hinata or Naruto? I decided to wake you for two reasons. One, I want you to take responsibility and learn to handle it. And two, even if you are going to rest a bit by closing your eyes are you still able to watch the surrounding. I haven't forgotten your rare skills with your Byakugan. Just don't fall asleep!" he warned her before simply heading over to his sleeping place, not giving the girl any time to protest further.
And here she was, barely able to keep herself awake, watching the rest of the group getting up. It was early in the morning and she was awake for four or five hours by now, having kept an eye on the surroundings. Luckily did nothing happen during the night, during her guard. And she managed to stay awake the whole time, though she had tried to rest her eyes a bit by closing them. It wasn't helping much that her Byakugan activated itself pretty quickly once she started to relax.
She did understand Kakashi's reasons why he woke her up to stay guard, realizing that her eyes were useful for such duty, still, she wished she could have rested her body. Rubbing her eyes again was a voice bringing her out of her thoughts. "Hey, Hanabi-chan, everything okay with you?"
Looking up to see who was talking were her eyes landing on Naruto who was standing before her, watching her with worry. When did he come near? "Uhm, yeah, I guess..." she yawned again. "Just super tired for taking the night guard... and not fully recovered yet I guess..."
"Oh, I see." Naruto nodded slightly, still watching his friend. "Hinata-chan and Tazuna are preparing the breakfast now. And if you want can I carry you a bit once we leave, that way could you rest a bit more?" he offered her with an honest smile on his face.
"Breakfast sounds good..." Hanabi answered quietly, rubbing one of her eyes with her hand again. "And thanks for the offer, but it's okay, really. Though..." she stopped a moment to ponder and looked over at her sister. "How's she doing? The injury healing already?"
Raising an eyebrow was Naruto looking at Hanabi with a slightly confused expression. "Why aren't you asking her yourself?" he asked carefully. "She's your sister after all."
"...and I'm responsible for her anyway..." Hanabi added quietly and nodded, pushing herself up from the ground. "Thanks for caring about me." she gave Naruto an honest smile back, while walking past him to speak to her sister.
"I believe that fight was good for her. Her behaviour changed a bit, didn't it?" Kakashi spoke up stepping next to Naruto. He was listening into their conversation from slightly aside, trying to judge how his genin felt after their encounter with the brothers.
Naruto shook his head slightly. "She's just totally spent and tired. Wait a bit til she's recovered and mention that you tricked us into believeing you died and she'll try to attack you again." he replied in explanation, informing his sensei about what he knew of his friend, when suddenly he got hit by one of the things he just spoke out himself. Turning towards Kakashi was he looking at him in slight anger, his voice loud enough that the others were able to hear him as well. "That reminds me, how the hell did you do that? We saw you being killed right in front of us!"
Realizing that he suddenly got all eyes on him, curious ones from Hinata and Tazuna, angry ones from Hanabi and Naruto, was he giving them a shrug as answer. "Was a simple genjutsu. I expected an ambush, that's why I did preparations. Can come in handy and even save your life." he had a smile on his face while talking.
"How about you teach us instead of just saying that it's such a great thing?" Hanabi shot back, her exhaustion and tiredness partially forgotten.
"How about doing your chakra control excersises as told first? While I must say that you are pretty quick with your brain was your performance in the fight questionable. You did exhaust your chakra way too fast again. Something I warned you about, didn't I?" Kakashi answered the girl who let her head hang slightly. She knew he was right, but she wasn't willing to admit it to him.
"Though I was kinda impressed by you, Hinata. Even with that injury of yours were you able to keep your focus and chakra flow on a working level. But you really need to learn to use more than just existing water sources. There wasn't any left for you to use and you won't be able to use better Water Style jutsu if you aren't able to draw water out from the earth or air." he continued, deciding to tell his team now what he realized watching their fight.
Hinata nodded slightly. "Yeah, I know. I came to the same conclusion when I saw the puddle being emptied..." she said quietly. "If we had to fight longer... I doubt that we would still be alive..."
She decided that both of them needed a bit of comfort right now and pulled her little sister into a hug. Hanabi was a bit surprised by that action, but let her sister do that without complaining, being thankful for that contact and the warmth of her body.
Ignoring that scene was Kakashi shrugging. "Well, I would have interfered before that would have happened. But I wanted to see how the three of you would handle yourself in such a situation." he turned towards Naruto. "I already told you yesterday that you risked our client being killed by leaving his side. Though, nice use of the shadow clones all things considered. And that last move, that was intresting. What exactly have you done?"
Scratching the back of his head was Naruto giving him a weak smile. "I have no idea. I was frustrated and angry and when I saw the opening did I simply concentrate and attacked. Tell you, I was as surprised as that guy when the tip of my staff started to smolder his clothes and burn his skin on contact."
"Meaning you have no clue what you were actually doing..." Kakashi finished for Naruto, shaking his head.
"It's not his fault!" Hinata spoke up, more loudly than usual, slight anger in her voice. "We were fighting for our lives. You can't blame him for not having payed attention on what he did!"
"You know, girl, some may say that it's only the result that is important. But if you don't know how you reached that result, is it really a good result then?" Tazuna deciding to enter the discussion after just listening and doing the last preparations for their breakfast. "If I build a house but in the end don't know how I did that and can't repeat it, could you count that finished house as achievement?" he gave Hinata a warm smile before adressing all of them. "Okay, I think you discussed enough. Food is ready. The sooner we leave the better."
Kakashi nodded at that, keeping silent. He would have a lot more opportunities to lecture his genin. For now was Tazuna right, they should depart soon. He knew that staying too long at one place would be risky. Especially after they were already ambushed and attacked. If there were more of them... or if the one having ordered the attack would appear... he shook his head to clear his mind, joining the others for some food.
Some distance away were two figures standing on a branch of a tree, watching the group with interest. "Well, if this isn't the famous Copycat. And you say he wasn't even involved in the loss of the brothers?" one of them spoke up. It was a slender male wearing dark blue clothing and bandages covering his lower face, a pretty big sword strapped on his back.
"Indeed." the other person replied. It was a feminine voice with a soothing tune to it, belonging to a teen with black hair long enough to reach between the shoulder blades. "I watched them from a safe distance, as you ordered. The brothers did loose to the boy and the two girls only."
"And you said that you know them? I've never seen them before and it would be new to me that you had friends." the first asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Not exactly knowing them..." the teen spoke hesitantly, looking up to the adult. "But I've seen them before. I helped to capture them when we were paying off our debt to this Organization, Zabuza-sama."
"I see. But in that case do I wonder why they are part of a shinobi team from Konoha." Zabuza nodded slightly, a small smirk crossing over his face. His focus was now completely on the teen beside him who was running it's fingers over the collar around it's neck.
"I would like to know as well. I'm sure that they would be good slaves and am surprised to meet them again, here of all places, as shinobi." the teen smiled slightly. "I really wonder what happened. And I would like to tell them what they are missing, Zabuza-sama."
Zabuza let out a dry laugh. "Yeah, I guessed as much. Maybe you'll get a chance to talk to them, but don't count on it." he waited for the nod from the teen before he continued. "Anyway, let's leave for now. There's no point in attacking them now. They are most likely on high alert anyway after the brothers attack. Come on, Haku. We are done here for now."
"As you wish, Zabuza-sama." the teen confirmed and followed it's master towards the land of Waves, to do whatever planning they needed to do or to do whatever the master wished for.
Konoha, some side streets
Kiba growled loudly while he was down on all fours, darting through some narrow streets. His partner Akamaru was right next to him, both of them focused on their target, the cat Tora. Tora was well known inside the village for giving every genin team a hard time trying to catch her. And the stories and rumours around her do partially reach back to the founding of the village, which would make you ponder what this cat actually might be, if some would think about it.
These thoughts weren't crossing Kiba's mind though. All he was focused on was catching that stupid cat to finish this stupid D-rank mission. His mind was clouded with anger, the encounter with C in the Hokage office the day before still fresh in his mind. Not only got Hanabi and her team a high ranked mission, no, C also had to threat them to go hunting Tora again the next day, and here he was, doing exactly that.
"Why do we have to do this stupid mission anyway?" he barked into his earpiece, following Tora around the next corner, willing to end this mission as quick as possible.
"Because it was assigned to us by the Hokage and it isn't our right to question that decision." Shino's neutral voice came back. "And I believe that this has somehow to do with your incompetence in keeping secrets and starting a commotion on the day of assignments." he added with the same neutral voice, that let Kiba growl in frustration. "Anyway, my insects are at key points of the side streets. No matter the way she's running, she'll end up at them and get her chakra drained that we can catch her."
"Yeah, so better hurry up and either catch her or hunt her into the bugs. I got better things to do than hunting that cat down over and over." Sakura's voice was heard through the earpiece.
"How about you help us with that instead of just waiting at one exit on the main street?" Kiba asked angry, rounding another corner just to realize that he lost sight of Tora. "Damned, where did she go?" he grumbled, sniffing the air to get her trail again. Akamaru did the same and both realized that they somehow managed to pass Tora and that the cat was running back towards the entry she used to enter the side streets in the first place.
"What's wrong this time?" Kurenai asked sighing, fearing that her team was about to fail that easy mission. "And could you please stop all this discussing? You do realize that these D-rank missions are for testing and increasing your teamwork, right?"
"She tricked us and is running back towards her entry point." Kiba answered with raising anger in his voice, already following the cat again.
"Can't you do anything right?" Sakura asked annoyed, before realization hit her. "Wait... that's my direction. I don't want to get scratched all over my body again by that cat..."
"You sure that you want to be a kunoichi?" Shino asked with his still neutral voice. Though if somebody would watch him right now would they see a rare emotional move by him raising an eyebrow. "I'm directing my bugs to encircle her, should she change directions again."
"I'm more suited to be a kunoichi than this stupid Hinata. I mean, really, a slave to her own younger sister? How stupid can one be?" she shot back, her temper clouding her mind.
"All right, that's enough you three!" Kurenai nearly shouted, letting her three genin flinch by the sudden loud voice in their ears. "It's not your role to judge the Hyuga girls. Now concentrate on catching Tora. You already showed that you can't really work together. Don't make it worse by also failing your mission."
"What did I do?!" Kiba asked, getting closer to the fleeing cat. "Sakura was the one bringing it up!"
"You really have to ask? Who was the one telling secrets in public, making the life of the Hyuga sisters harder?" Shino asked calmly.
"Whatever! Sakura, be ready, we are near your position. Don't you dare let Tora get away!"
Waiting for the cat to pass the last corner was Sakura ready to catch her. She wasn't looking forward to it, really not wanting to get attacked by the cat like she was the day before, but there wasn't much she could do about it at all. Better to get this over with and to forget it right after. True to Kiba's words was Tora soon passing to last corner, aiming for the main street to get away. A small grin entered her face while she started moving towards the cat, willing to catch her.
Tora however was lucky this time, because Kiba was nearly close enough to catch her, meaning that he too shot around the corner quickly after the cat. His eyes went wide when he saw the pink haird girl in front of him coming straight at him. But he had way too much momentum to change anything, the collision not avoidable from his side. Sakura on the other side was too focused on the cat to even notice Kiba behind it, resulting in the two crashing into each other while Tora managed to get past Sakura, already seeing her escape.
"OUCH! Can't you be more careful and watch where you are running?" Sakura grunted out in pain, giving a punch on Kiba's head who was laying atop the girl, having hit her head first straight into the stomach.
"HEY!" Kiba shouted, glaring at the girl after receiving the punch. "What was that for? You knew I was right behind the cat. Why weren't you paying attention?"
"And what about you?" Sakura shot back, real anger now in her voice, one of her eyes twitching. "You aren't paying attention at all. Move your hands, or..." she threated in a low hiss, confusing the boy atop her.
Looking down was he trying to figure out what the girl could mean, checking where his hands were right now. His eyes went wide, quickly followed by a smirk, when he realized that he was supporting his body by having placed two hands on the girls breasts. The whole thing was taking too long in Sakura's opinion and she was already preparing to give him another, this time even stronger, punch, when suddenly Kiba took advantage of this situation and instead of moving his hands away was he giving her breasts a grope.
He barely registered the fist aiming for his head nor the impact of it at the side of it, knocking him out instantly and being strong enough to also throw him off the girls body and at the wall of the building nearby. Sakura was furious while pushing her body off the ground. "Asshole..." she hissed out, watching his body in annoyance before turning around to face the main street, realizing that their target, the cat Tora, was already far away, having escaped. Letting out a growl was she soon sighing, figuring that they failed their mission completely.
Having watched and supervised the whole situation was Kurenai shaking her head, mumuring to herself. "What have I gotten myself into with this team? Their teamwork is basicly non-existent, and both Kiba and Sakura have too much of a temper to actually get along. I got way too much work ahead of me with these two..."
"I would advise locking them up in a room for a day or two and see how they turn out afterwards. Either will they kill each other or make up, Kurenai-sensei." Shino said in his usual neutral and calm voice while approaching their sensei. The bug user was a strange image to everyone seeing him right now. A small white puppy, Akamaru, was trotting happyly at his side, knowing that he performed way better than his partner Kiba. Even stranger was the fact the Shino was carrying Tora in his arms, the cat letting him stroke her fur, not trying to resist at all.
Blinking her eyes twice was Kurenai shaking her head, watching her genin with slight disbelief. "Well, I'm glad to see that in the end you fulfilled the mission, but..." she started, looking at the cat one more time before focusing on Shino. "How have you done that?"
Shino was shrugging slightly. "Tora is pretty smart. After the two crashed was Akamaru still chasing her, right towards my bugs. And when she realized that she got caught, trapped between dog and bugs with no way of escape left, was she admitting defeat this time and simply stopped running, waiting for me to get her."
"That's the first time I'm hearing about something like that happening." Kurenai admitted curious, pondering about the cat.
"She is going to escape again eventually, considering that she is feared by genin since forever. It's not surprising that she can admit defeat and give up, avoiding to get hurt this time. There will always be a next time for her anyway." Shino concluded logically, getting a low purr from the cat that somehow sounded like a confirmation.
"True enough. Brings up the question what exactly she is anyway though." Kurenai was smiling slightly. At least one of her genin was reliable and not like the other two. "Well, could you please get your teammates that we can report back to the Hokage? And I'll consider your proposal about locking them up together and see what's going to happen."
Nodding in confirmation was Shino heading over to where a still angry Sakura was cursing at a blacked out Kiba. He was wondering how he could wake him up without using the girl or the cat to do it violently.
Somewhere unknown
"Could you please repeat that?" a woman asked, raising her eyebrow at the messenger having brought her the latest news from outside their operation area.
"As you wish." the messenger bowed slightly. "We completed the scouting of the land of Waves as ordered, to judge the events there, just as you ordered. As it turned out is a local thug trying to be active in the same businesses as us, which is slightly annoying, considering that we don't like competition. He got a lot of bandits and mercenaries on his paylist to do his dirty work, giving us the opportunity to weaken him by simply buying some of them."
"How come we haven't noticed that yet?" the woman asked more to herself than anyone else. "Competition that close to our area of operation... Do you got numbers on the amount of merchandise he is handling?"
The messenger hesitated a moment before shaking his head. "I'm sorry, but we were unable to get our hands on these informations. In fact have we lost two scouts that were trying to get his lists. All we know is that he is busy on the black market and also selling the same merchandise we do."
"I... see..." the woman answered, a slight twitch in her eye. "Fine, you are dismissed." she watched the messenger leave, her thoughts already working on a solution for this new problem.
A sturdy man was watching her, waiting some moments before speaking up. "So, what now? Hostile takeover?"
"Yeah, maybe..." the female nodded. "J, I want you to travel to the land of Waves and judge the situation there yourself. You got free rule on how you want to solve it, just get this annoyance away from us."
A grin entered the mans face. "Aw, so nice of you to consider my fun." he spoke slightly cheerful, before changing his expression back to professional. "So, any progress yet with the guest you took in?"
"Not yet, no. The boy is pretty stuborn. If he isn't giving us informations about Konoha soon am I considering handling him like I would any other merchandise." she stated neutrally and shrugged.
"Huh, you sure?" the man asked surprised. "He's pretty agressive from what I saw. That action could get some of our men killed. And I'm not sure if there would be someone willing to buy him..."
"Don't worry about that. There are always people intrested in every kind of merchandise, let this be my worry. Now go. The sooner we got the situation in Waves solved, the better." she waved her second in command off, watching him leave the room, before heading to another room inside the hideout herself, to talk once more to the boy they picked up recently...
Road towards the land of Waves
"...we are being followed..." Hanabi said quietly, but still loud enough for the others to hear. The group was already on their way towards their destination after finishing breakfast with Naruto carrying the young girl on his back, to give her the chance to rest a little more after having taken the night watch. His hands were holding her in place by supporting her legs while Hanabi had her arms loosely wrapped around Naruto's neck, her eyes closed to relax. That however resulted in her Byakugan to activate itself and she was kinda scanning the area, having spotted a figure that was closing in on them from the same direction they were coming from.
Kakashi, who was walking next to Naruto, was alarmed by that information. "Maybe some more detailed informations?" he asked the girl. "I'm not to fond of having to deal with even more missing nins. The two from yesterday are enough already."
"Right, because you was the one fighting them..." Hanabi said with sarcasm in her voice before shifting slightly on Naruto's back, straightening up and opening her eyes, focusing on her Byakugan completely now. "Just one person... following along the road out of the direction Konoha is located." she said, her sight focused in the distance. "He isn't trying to hide at all... no headband either, but surely a shinobi. Is racing through the trees..." a long yawn escaped her lips, her tiredness claiming some tribute, deactivating her Byakugan in the process.
Having listened into the conversion and seeing that her sister was too tired to provide more informations was Hinata activating her Byakugan, searching for the person herself. It wasn't long before she found him, a smirk crossing her face. "Nothing to worry about. It's just C following us." she said with a tune in her voice Kakashi wasn't really able to place and Hanabi wasn't realizing. The girl just wasn't sure whether she wanted to meet C right now or not, the recent events between him and the girls still fresh in her mind and there wasn't any time for them yet to speak about it. A meeting might be awkward now.
"Considering that he wasn't leaving the village at all over the last three years am I totally worried." Kakashi replied before adressing Tazuna. "Hey, mind if we take a little break? There's a messenger following us. Might be better to hear what he has for us."
"Can't hurt, huh?" Tazuna nodded slightly. "I mean, after what happened yesterday and all..." and with that was the group stopping, waiting for C to catch up to them.
Around 10 minutes later was C reaching the group that had stopped on a small patch of grass next to the road, surrounded by trees in all directions. Hanabi was half sitting half lieing in the shadow of a tree, her head rested on Hinata's lap who gently comforted her sister by running her hand through her hair. Naruto was sitting cross legged on a tree stump nearby, watching the girls with different emotions. One of it was jealous, imagining both himself being the one with his head on Hinata's lap and also the other way around, Hinata's head on his lap. Another emotion was slight anger about the fact that she was her sisters slave. She had no other choice but to comfort her little sister.
Or had she? He wasn't too sure about it if he was honest. What he could say for sure was that he wasn't judging Hinata as a person because she was a slave. That was far beyond him, considering that he got hated by nearly the whole village for all of his life, just because he had a demon sealed inside of him. There was no order from Hanabi that she had to comfort her. Did that meant Hinata was doing it out of free will? But wasn't being a slave meaning that you weren't allowed to have a free will at all? He just couldn't grasp and understand the situation at all, which was a reason why he hated doing nothing. And sitting here to wait for C was exactly that, doing nothing, meaning his head got time to think about the girls and their situation. He sighed quietly.
Kakashi was talking to Tazuna, mainly about the events from the day before and some ideas for the next days, considering possibilities that might or might not happen during the mission. After all, there were already two missing nins trying to kill the carpenter. And if there were two of them could there also be more. He already had slight suspicions that Tazuna wasn't exactly honest about the mission parameters, but it wasn't enough proof that he could say it straight out. That and C submitted a report about the land of Waves, judging a mission in that direction as C-rank. And his informations were quite solid and reliable. But he was following them right now...
"Heya!" C spoke up upon reaching the group, giving them a wave while getting the attention of everyone. "You sure you should rest here in the open, visible for everyone that could have an intrest in you?"
"Yo!" Kakashi waved back at him. "We were actually just making a short rest while waiting for you. There was no reason in moving on, delaying your arrival." he shrugged.
"You were expecting me? But how..." he started before his eyes fell on the girls, a grin entering his face. "Right, I nearly forgot. So you are pretty careful now, after fighting the demon brothers, keeping an eye on your surroundings, huh?"
"Wait a moment." Tazuna spoke wary. "How comes that you know about that? That wasn't even 12 hours ago... It ain't really possible for you to know about that, unless you are involved in the incident!"
"..." C was looking at Tazuna with slight disbelief on his face before adressing Kakashi again. "I know that he's the villages client, but... think I could gag him and his unqualified speaking for now?"
"Well, 'fraid not, but kinda tempting." Kakashi pondered aloud.
"Unqualified..." Tazuna started before shaking his head. "I'm just speaking the truth!"
"Right... because there wasn't a 'special delivery' to the village of Konoha this morning. You know, the village from which I departed this morning as well in order to catch up to you." C rolled his eyes. "And it wasn't hard to figure out that you were fighting the demon brothers, considering that the delivery guy is on my paylist and the cage being used belongs to me. And there's just one exemplar I gave away, which is in the possession of the little one over there." That was enough for Tazuna to shut up, crossing his arms over his chest, still eyeing the newcomer warily.
"Reminds me, how the hell did you manage to get him to do the delivery? From the fragments he was speaking to himself did it sound like he ran into you, huh?" he asked curious, his focus shifting to the girls. A slight smirk entered his face as he took the image of the girls in. It looked super cute - in a totally kinky mistress and pet way. Just that he knew that the pet was currently petting the mistress and not the other way around.
Hanabi wasn't even trying to get up from her sisters lap, simply looking back at C from her position, an innocent smile on her lips. "I just asked him nicely to do it." she spoke with a dead serious voice.
Chuckling to himself was C shaking his head. "Yeah, right, you didn't. Not him. Was it really that embarassing?" he grinned at the girl who averted her eyes, a small blush entering her face. "Okay, I won't push it. But nice use of the cage anyway."
"So, are you going to tell us why you are here?" Kakashi asked, getting C's attention back to himself.
"Ah, right. See, we... I mean you got a big problem." C started cryptically.
"Really now?" Naruto decided to enter the conversation, giving C an annoyed look. "You think we didn't realize that ourselfs after being attacked by these two missing nins?"
"Well, no, I mean, yes, I mean..." C looked at Naruto before switching to Tazuna and finally settling for Kakashi. "See, Spooky, the brothers were just B-ranked missing nins. They aren't the big problem. It's the person they are working for."
Raising an eyebrow was Kakashi pondering his friend for a moment before sighing. "Okay, you are normally straight forward with your informations. So could you get to the point? I'm starting to get worried here..."
"Fine... I misjudged the situation. That Gato guy? Also hired missing nins, as you already found out. And the demon brothers are working for the Demon of the Mist. In addition are his areas of business pretty similiar to the ones of the Organization, meaning that they are either involved or will appear here very soon. You thought it was a C-rank mission? Well, I was wrong this time. It's an A-rank." C was pretty calm during his explanation. He was angry at the inside about himself for having made a mistake, but he wasn't showing it on the outside.
Finally pushing herself out of Hinata's lap was Hanabi sitting up straight, looking at C with slight fear on her face. "Wait, you are saying the Organization is involved? I... we... don't want to be captured by them again..." she said quietly, getting an agreeing nod from Hinata.
"An A-rank, huh? Kinda cool, I guess..." Naruto pondered aloud, a grin entering his face. "If we manage to pull that off will we be the best of the new genin teams, right?"
Kakashi raised his eyebrow. "The Demon? Really? That's bad news... Any word from the Hokage? And what about you? Staying to assist us?"
Shrugging his shoulders was C's answer pretty vague. "Ah, well, I want to stay under the radar. If they learn I'm out here... might get complicated not just for me but all of us. Boss man said it's up to you whether or not you are going to continue the mission. And if yes am I supposed to get you some first hand informations from inside the country. Also he said I'm your expert for the Organization, but don't expect me to fight. Really don't want them to find out that I'm still alive and with Konoha now."
"I understand. What's your guess on the Organization?" Kakashi asked, his eye scanning the reactions of Tazuna.
"If it's their operation most likely some of the stronger members to supervise it. Worst case? They aren't involved but will show up for a hostile takeover or to get rid of the competition. In that case might we have to deal with Her or some of the other ones in lead. Probably J or maybe someone I don't know, if they replaced me." he shrugged at the end.
Tazuna was visibly gulping on all the informations he just got, sweat running down his face. He flinched slightly when Kakashi spoke to him. "Alright, when were you going to tell us that the situation is far worse in your country than you told us in the first place?"
"I... didn't knew about most of these things..." Tazuna said quietly, his eyes looking everywhere but at Kakashi. "I mean, okay, I heard that Gato had hired someone strong, but that's all. Really!"
Everyone kept silent for some time, thinking about different things. It was Kakashi who broke the silence. "Yo, C, got any informations on the Demon you could share?"
"Nothing worth mentioning I guess. The bingo book is stating the demon brothers affilated to him, but you already got rid of them. That's al-... wait a moment..." a thought flashed in the back of his mind. One that seemed somehow important, one he couldn't really grasp. "Wait... he was working for us, around three years ago. There was something... like... hmmm..."
"You know the Demon?" Kakashi asked, clearly showing intrest.
"Yup. He was indebted to us back then and worked it off." C nodded, thinking it over. "Right! He had a slave with him. A talented kid, able to use the Ice Style. Stuff like freezing mist and whatnot. Where's water could the kid create ice. And since there's water in the air..."
"An Ice Style user enslaved to the Demon? Most likely a surviving kid from the bloodline purge in Kiri. If it would only be the Demon... but now a talented kid with a bloodline? Difficult." Kakashi was thinking aloud, his mind being deep in thought.
Having listened into the conversation was Hanabi letting out a loud scream, when realization finally hit her, all eyes shifting to her, most of them filled with worry. "Being able to freeze the mist? Three years ago?" she spoke out loud, fear written all over her face and within her voice. "They captured us that way... Spooky, I don't want to continue this mission. I refuse, I decline. There's just no way!" she squeaked out, tears welling up in her eyes, the memories from that day coming back to her, the trauma from back then sneaking back into her mind.
"What's with her?" Tazuna asked worried, but was being ignored by everyone right now.
"Ah, yes, right, I remember." C hit his own forehead with the palm of his hand. "How could I forget our first meeting? You are right about that." he started to laugh, getting an angry glare from Hanabi that somehow looked cute, with the tears in her eyes.
Hinata was watching her sister with mixed feelings before pulling her close into a hug. Running her hands gently over her body to comfort her was her head focusing on Kakashi. "You think it would help her overcome the trauma if we continue?" she asked carefully.
Shrugging his shoulders was Kakashi's answer unexpected. "Well, we all have things on our minds. The question is just if we can learn to deal with them. I'm no expert on this topic, so, maybe yes, maybe not."
"If it might help Hanabi-chan would I say we continue." Naruto said determined and got a nod from Hinata to back him up.
Nodding as well was Kakashi adressing Tazuna. "Seems like you got lucky and we will continue our mission, even with the new informations available to us. But it will have consequences, just that you know." and turning to C was he adding. "Yo, hope you enjoy being out of the village now. Welcome to our circus group."
"Circus group?" C asked with skepticism in his voice.
"Yeah. Tazuna came up with it when we first met. We already have an orange clown, a brat, a lovey-dovey couple, a mistress and her slave, a cyclop, a ghost and with you also a slave trader and card trickster."
Thinking about it for a moment was C starting to grin. "Well, sounds like a hell of a show. And that old man is the director, huh?" he looked over to Tazuna who felt a shiver run down his spine. "But as said, don't expect me to get active. I'll keep to the background."
And with these words was the group starting to continue there way. Hanabi was wiping her tears away, quietly sobbing from time to time, not too fond of facing the Ice Style owner again. Hinata and Naruto were both supporting her at each of her side, trying to be there for her. C was getting the details so far from Kakashi and Tazuna followed with his head hanging, pondering about if hiring some shinobi to assist his bridge building was a wise idea or not.
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Authors Note: Heya, just wanted to inform you that I'm most likely going to reduce my writing a bit in the near future to focus on an important course I'm doing for my company. Gotta need to pass it and with that is it needing some more of my focus, getting priority.
If you haven't seen it yet: I posted a new "story" in which I'm putting alternate scenes from time to time, when I feel like writing them (I did mention that last chapter already, didn't I? Ah well, can't hurt). So far are there two scenes, one for chapter 19, one for chapter 25. Feel free to have a look, if you are intrested. I also added some informations on them about why I wrote them and what I thought there. Enjoy!