Chapter Twelve
"Utatane-sama." I greeted the woman sitting behind the desk, bowing deeply as her position on the council dictated I do. In front of the older woman was Neji Hyuuga and Tenten, both looking just as confused as I felt. "How may I be of service?"
"Ah, Ren. We've been waiting." Koharu said, looking my black clothes and my face paint over carefully. "I have a mission for you, and since Rock Lee is currently unable to perform his duties, Team Gai need another member to supplement their squad."
"If that is what you wish, Utatane-sama." I replied respectfully, keeping my voice as emotionless as possible and staring at a spot just to the left of the councilor's head. I was restraining myself because what I truly wanted to do was scream that Neji and Tenten were not Akari and Rafu, that I would rather work alone for the rest of my life than have other teammates who would try to replace them. The rational side of me knew that they were not trying to replace anyone; I was a shinobi, I needed to work with others to complete the mission. I just had to put my personal feelings aside.
I caught the scroll she threw at me deftly, opening it and reading over a few lines to see that we would be leaving first thing tomorrow morning. I tucked the scroll into my pouch, waiting to read it until I was alone, and glanced over at Tenten and Neji who had remained silent thus far. I'm sure Neji had asked if I was sane enough to be on missions currently; I saw how he was tensing his jaw, position defensive, and everything else just screamed uncomfortable. Tenten was much the same, although there were sympathetic looks mixed in as well that I ignored.
They could think what they want; I had passed my psych evaluation with Inoichi-san and been declared fit for duty. I still had to see him regularly, but I could hand a simple C-rank mission without anyone having to worry about me.
"It is an escort mission." Councilor Utatane said, her wizened eyes looking at all of us shrewdly for a moment, evaluating as she paused. She obviously chose not to commit on the tension and continued speaking about the mission. "We need you to escort a Monk to a port near The Land of Waves where he will be picking up an artifact from a temple and taking it back home with him to the Capital. We do not have a jounin to send with you because of the invasion and with how many shinobi we have lost, they are picking up more missions than ever. I trust you to accomplish this quickly and efficiently, Neji will be acting team leader."
Her last words were a dismissal, so the three of us turned and walked out of the office with no further comment. I started to walk away from the other genin beside me but Tenten put her arm out, stopping me, and I turned to face her.
"I'm sorry about your team, Ren." Tenten said sincerely
"Thank you." I replied, my response robotic by this point after so many apologies. "We are to meet at the gate at the first light, correct?"
"Yes." Neji replied, analyzing me carefully. "Do I have any cause to worry that you may be emotionally unstable?"
"No." I said flatly
With that said, I turned and walked away, going to my apartment to make sure my mission bag was still ready to go. I mechanically checked the explosion tags, made sure I had arrows in my quiver, kunai, shuriken, ninja wire, and ration bars. We should be able to hunt, but it was always smart to prepare for the worst. Even though the trip would take a week, I packed for two; Takeshi sensei had drilled into us that the worst was more likely to happen than anything else.
After that I waited, watching out my window as I saw all of the civilians walking past, doing errands or rushing off to do other things. I wasn't sure how I should be feeling; Inoichi-san said that it was normal to feel despondent, to want to throw yourself into work, but the important thing was to remember to live. To not just be on auto pilot and going through the motions, but to actually live; but how could I do that the same way I had before? I wasn't very sociable to start with, so who did I have to talk too? Even thinking about Akari's parents hurt, Takeshi-sensei was in as bad of a place as I was, and I had known Shikamaru and his friends for a month and a half.
Not to mention, it wasn't their responsibility to make me feel better. It wasn't their fault I was so angry all of the time, it wasn't their responsibility that I kept seeing them die over and over again whenever I closed my eyes. I have never viewed my eyes as a curse more in this moment simply for that torture alone; when it showed me how they died. Akari was distracted, Rafu took a hit for her.. Akari was always so hot headed, she saw Rafu go down and she just lost it. I should have been there. I should have saved them both.
I absentmindedly ate something just before I saw the sky begin to lighten up. I was shocked, when had it even gotten dark outside? I couldn't be like this on the mission. I needed to focus, to concentrate. Lives were at stake. It wasn't healthy, it wasn't right, and it wasn't permanent but I forced my feelings down into a tight ball and shoved it into a corner. I could do this.
I picked my mission bag up and slipped out the door, unconsciously reaching a hand out to try the lock. I set a few traps around the inside of the door and the window so that anyone looking to break in wouldn't have an easy time of it. I put the bag on my back and walked towards the gate, the silence in the village oddly peaceful. It was just waking up, birds beginning to sing, and people were waking up to continue the reconstruction of the village. A lot of the wreckage was cleared out already, the blood and weapons gone. There were still holes in walls, parts of buildings that had chunks missing, and a small portion of the wall was being fixed, but we were mending. If only it was that easy to mend myself, I thought.
Neji was already at the gate, which honestly didn't surprise me at all, and Tenten arrived two minutes after I did. The monk, Yaigo, was a large man without any hair left on his head. He had a wagon full of equipment and one horse pulling it. Yaigo was jovial enough, told us good morning when he arrived, and without further ado we headed out. We took up a three man position; Neji in the back, with myself and Tenten on either side of the man. I allowed Tenten to do most of the talking, and there was a lot of it considering we were going the civilian pace even if the man was riding in a wagon.
When we stopped to make camp it had only just gotten dark. Neji made sure that the area was clear with his Byakugan. I began to set the fire pit up so that Tenten could begin hunting for food. Normally we would not risk a fire but since we were so close to the Village, we figured it would be safe enough. Once we had skinned the three rabbits that Tenten had caught, we roasted them over the fire and I quietly listened as Yaigo spoke about how beautiful the temple was that had the relic we were going to be transporting. I think he was uncomfortable with how silent Neji and I were, which indirectly led to Tenten being more silent than usual I guessed, and so he talked to fill the silence about what he knew. I pretended to pay attention, constantly scanning the surroundings, but nothing was out here except for the four of us.
"I will take the first watch." I volunteered, casting my eyes around the forest. I hadn't gotten any sleep last night, and even though I was tired, I couldn't sleep. I wasn't exhausted yet because of the civilian pace and I was hoping after a few hours of watch I might be able to get a couple of hours of sleep.
"Alright. I will take second, Tenten you will take third." Neji decided, taking the least desirable shift for himself. I could understand it, from a leader's perspective, but I hoped he wouldn't always do so. The best option was to rotate shifts, that was what we used to do.
The others got settled fairly quickly and their breathing faded into the background with the sounds of the forest around us. I flipped a kunai in my hand, eyes constantly scanning, and turning on my Sakimonagan every ten minutes or so to make sure nothing was coming our way. My chakra sense wasn't that great, but thankfully my dojutsu almost made up for that as far as knowing when someone was waiting in ambush. Most of the time, I'd get a weird feeling or if I was sleeping, I would unconsciously activate it. That was what had happened in the Chunin exam's, when I dreamed about the ambush on our team.
It wasn't too long before I woke Neji up and went to lay down on my own sleeping pallet, barely a word exchanged between the two of us. I slept fitfully, dreams filled with visions of Akari and Rafu being stabbed by Sound Shinobi. I woke up gasping, Tenten's startled face in front of me and her hand just beginning to outstretch to tap me lightly and wake me up. Growing up as ninja, we knew not to wake one another up or startle each other too bad unless you knew the person very well and they knew they were in a safe environment. I shrugged off the sympathetic look she gave me, wiped the sweat off of my face, and packed up my gear so that I was ready to go. The next few days were much of the same, traveling and constantly looking out, but even Yaigo was silent most of the time now.
"Yaigo-san, what is it that we are getting, exactly?" I asked him, my curiosity getting the better of me. I felt Neji's gaze on the back of my head like a spotlight. He had been skirting what it actually was when we had originally asked, and so none of us pressed the issue, but considering we were within a day's reach of the village I wanted to know how likely we were to be targeted. "Is it valuable?"
Yaigo sighed, looking resigned, and began to tell us about the object with reverence in his voice. "We call it the Tear of Mahira, the goddess whom we worship, and it rests at the temple by the ocean. Every four years, two of us must bear the Tear to the main temple to complete an ancient ritual that's purpose is known only to the children of Mahira."
"Where is the other person?" Tenten asked, breaking the small silence Yaigo's sentence had induced.
"The bearer awaits us at the Temple by the sea and will accompany us on the second part of our journey." Yaigo replied
"Do you suspect someone will attempt to take it?" I asked, eyes narrowing in contemplation at how much danger we should expect to find.
"I do not believe so." Yaigo replied, looking for all the world relaxed. "It is merely a precaution that we hire Shinobi. We have ran into bandits in the past on the road, and since we can spare no more of our own, we hire outside help."
"I see." I replied, relaxing a little. It seemed simple enough; get the Tear, take it to the temple, and hightail it back to Konoha.
We traveled in silence for the rest of the day, only stopping for a quick break once, and I could smell the salt in the air before I saw the ocean for the first time. It was truly breathtaking; I could hear sea gull, calling out to one another as they circled the beach, and the Temple was an impressive structure that cut a picturesque image with the deep blue background where the sky met sea. The Temple itself was not quite large, maybe the size of the Academy, but it was made of sturdy stone and was up on a cliff with a winding path leading to it. The stone it was made out of was white and seemed from this distant smooth; the Temple had high walls and the only thing we could see was a spire poking out from the top of the wall.
"This is home." Yaigo said fondly, flicking the reins in his hand and beginning to hasten the pace we were going. I sped up to match his speed, faltering for a moment as I got an itching feeling on the back of my neck. I glanced back to Neji, doing the standard Konoha sign language to tell him that I felt as though something was off. I heard Neji quietly activate his Byakugan, and then felt as he jumped in front of the carriage quickly afterwards. I pulled my bow off my back and strung an arrow, eyes scanning the perimeter and waiting to hear what he saw.
"There are people fighting the monks in their." Neji told us quickly
"What?" Yaigo asked, anger and fear inflected in his voice.
"There are many bodies. We must enter with caution." Neji said, gesturing for us to move forward but at a slower rate. The Temple doors were busted open, we saw, as we rounded a corner from the winding path and finally got a look at what Neji must have seen. Two bodies were laying, blood pooled around them, and they had on the same robe-esque clothing Yaigo had on.
"No! Aniki! Kiesu!" Yaigo shouted, jumping from where he sat on the wagon with a devastated look on his face. He ran to the bodies, ignoring our warnings not to rush off without us, and fell to his knees beside them. The three of us took up defensive positions around him as he mourned his friends.
"Neji, where are they?" I asked impatiently, eyes darting to find anyone.
"There are four shinobi further inside the walls, and it looks like they are fighting with the monks. There is a fifth shinobi who is behind the monks lines, but they appear to be fighting the other shinobi with the monks." Neji replied
Yaigo lifted his head, a determined flash coming across his eyes. "We must get to the Tear. Yuna was a shinobi once, she is who was chosen to bear the Tear."
"Is there another way into the monastery?" Neji asked, his Byakugan activated. "It appears to be some kind of route in the back."
"Yes, there is another way to leave; they must be trying to leave but were caught before they could." Yaigo responded, looking as though he was ready to charge ahead.
"Tenten, you go with Yaigo around the back." Neji ordered, glancing over at his partner. "Get the monks out, and the Tear. Ren and I will distract the unknown shinobi while you escape."
"Alright." Tenten agreed, following behind Yaigo as he dashed out of the gate we were standing in and went around the side of the Temple.
"I'll lead the way; I'll do a frontal attack, you support with the bow. We should try to drag the fight away from them." Neji said to me as we walked up the stairs and opened a door that led to a large hallway, which branched off into three different ways and was made up of the same smooth, white stone as the rest of the building.
"Alright." I agreed, moving just behind Neji as he lead us confidently through the halls. I heard the fighting before I saw it; throughout the walk here, there were a few bodies scattered around with kunai and scorch marks on them.
We finally came upon the other ninja from the rear and Neji charged in with his Juuken, hitting one of the shinobi with a devastating blow to the lower back that almost made me wince. The shinobi crumpled to the floor and I knew he wasn't going to get back up after a hit like that. I strung an arrow, took aim, and fired on one of the ninja. It was a glancing blow, but got the attention off the monks as they realised they were being attacked from behind. I fired another one, and one of the ninja charged towards me as Neji engaged the other two. I saw lightning flare out from the enemies hand as he came at me and I ducked, swinging my bow across my back as I did, and activated my dojutsu.
I leaned back to avoid another hit, and kept evading his attacks as he sent out a rapid taijutsu combo. He was extraordinarily fast and I knew if it was a battle of stamina I might not win. I was two moves ahead of him though, swinging under the kunai he was holding in his hand to attempt to cut me and sweeping his leg out from under him. I glanced towards Neji and saw his fight was going alright, but I could tell he was tiring.
I moved to my left as I felt my opponent lash out at me, giving a fierce yell as he did so, and I jumped before going into a roll and turning around to face him again with my Sakimonagan deactivated. He was a few feet from me, keeping a bit of distance, so in the blink of an eye I whipped my bow out and strung an arrow, my eyes narrowed in concentration before firing the shot. The ninja dodged the arrow easily, smirking at me as he advanced, only faltering when he heard one of Neji's opponents cry out. I smirked back before I sprinted towards him with chakra enhanced speed, using my bow as a bludgeon, and kicking out at him when he blocked it with his arms. He jumped back, throwing a couple of shuriken at me before doing a few quick hand signs. I activated my dojutsu again, trying to see what he was going to launch, but I was too late as I felt the lightning in my feet. My knees buckled and he launched at me, and I used a replacement jutsu to switch with some pedestal that was a little further down the hall we were in, closer to Neji.
"Guys, we're clear." Tenten called out, throwing a few of her weapons at one of the enemies facing Neji. I glanced back, seeing the guy I had been fighting running towards me, so I used my ground shockwave jutsu to make the earth shake under his feet, startling him as it cracked. I turned and ran to my team, pulling my bow off my back and sending an arrow back at the guy as I reached their side. As a unit, we began backing up into the room that led to the exit. The three shinobi who were standing, none of them with headbands on to identify them, were in the hall still, regrouped and facing us. I had an arrow strung, wondering which one of them I should aim for, when I glanced up and changed direction.
"Doton: Seismic Arrow!" I called, channeling my chakra into my bow and releasing it, feeling the string sing as the arrow was released. It hit above the door, causing it to cave in, and the three of us retreated out of the Temple.
"We need to get them far away from here." Neji ordered, glancing at the few monks still alive, Yaigo, and the first woman I had seen here who was wearing the same robes as them. This must have been Yuna, the one who was going to take the Tear to the Temple.
"..They came out of nowhere. We were defenseless." Yuna was saying, gesturing towards the injured monks to emphasize her point.
"We need to get moving." Neji said as we approached, Tenten and myself flanking him on either side. "They won't stop for long; only one of their comrades are down for now and they may wait until he is awake again to re-engage, but we need to use the time."
"They can't move!" Yaigo said, glancing over the injured monks.
"He's right, Yaigo." Yuna said, looking at us for the first time. "I think if I leave, with the Tear, they will be safe. That is what they are after."
"I will come with you." Yaigo said, eyes focused on Yuna,
"You have to stay here with the others, my friend." Yuna said calmly, placing a hand on his shoulder and looking at us warily as she said the next part. "We will move faster without you. I will not be alone."
"We need to leave now." Neji said again, byakugan still activated as he kept an eye out for our enemies.
Yuna said goodbye to Yaigo, and glancing back one more time before we left the beach where we had spilled out onto, the four of us sprinted down the beach, heading south. Yuna directed us, saying we would have to go down the beach for half an hour before there was a forest nearby we could use to travel in. Yuna was silent for the most part, and I did a quick visual scan to make sure she wasn't hurt; she was bleeding from a minor wound on her arm, but it was nothing serious, so I didn't mention it. We came upon the forest that she mentioned soon and we traveled by jumping tree's for a few hours, trying to put as much distance between us and the enemy as we could. With any luck, they wouldn't have a tracker and we could lose them. None of us were that optimistic, it came with being shinobi, but it would be quite lucky if that was the case. The problem was that they knew where we were going with it, so they could potentially set an ambush up, if they got their faster since we did have to go the longer route to avoid another confrontation and try to lure them from the monks.
When it got too dark to see clearly, we made a cold camp. There was no fire, just the four of us with our pallets in a circle. Yuna volunteered to help with watch, but Neji told her to sleep because she would need it. She looked as though she was going to argue, but Neji pretty much stared her down until the protests died on her lips and she nodded, laying down on her pallet. I got the second shift this time, Neji the last, and Tenten the first. I had forgotten I got the crappy shift tonight, Neji ended up doing it on a cycle, and I groaned a little bit at the thought of waking up and then having to go back to sleep only to be woken again. Not the shift you wanted after a battle and traveling all day at high speed; My chakra was pretty low. I ate a ration bar and laid down, attempting to get as much sleep as I could before my shift came up.
A/N: This was a struggle to write.. I hope everyone likes where this goes. It took me longer than I expected to come up with a mission for them to do, but this is something that needs to happen. Let me know how you like it :)