6 There's Always More To It
The Yamataki Cell Continues on the Path of Training.
"How many missions does that make?" Naeko wondered, setting her pack down with a sigh and plopping down on the bench with her cup of cold tea. "I swear, Master Takeshi is trying to crush us."
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," Kotori replied smoothly, also sitting down, but reaching to adjust a binding on her sandal. Sensing the hand descending to hit her in the back of the head, she countered with a smooth strike to the bottom of the tea cup, sending the beverage splashing all over Naeko. "In answer to your question, ten D-rank missions, most of them within the past two weeks."
Hiding a smile at Kotori's actions, Taiki commented, "I know it does seem cruel of him to work us like this, but we are getting a lot of valuable practice."
"How is hauling wood and guarding crops valuable practice?" the black-haired girl protested, taking a sip of what remained of her tea. "Courier duty, guarding minor officials… none of that has helped me improve one bit."
"If you need me to explain that to you, Naeko, then you haven't learned a thing and I really should just send you back to the academy." In what had become his trademark appearance, Takeshi flickered into view like an afterimage becoming solid, bearing a scroll that the genin trio recognized with a collective groan as another mission assignment. "A farmer friend of mine passed a bit of wisdom on to me, and it is this: Some land is naturally fertile, taking what seed you give it and bringing forth a bountiful crop, but most of the time the land needs work in order to make it useful. The work usually involves removing all of the rocks from the soil, working in fertilizer to enrich it, and aerating it to bring in the life-giving oxygen. I am sure you three will pardon me for saying so, but all of my efforts are only to turn you into the fruitful earth that is a well-trained team, and lately I've been busting my ass to take all of the rocks out. So it might seem like I'm being cruel…"
"…But we'll thank you later," Kotori grumbled, massaging a kink in her neck and once again ignoring the flat stare her uncle gave her. "Spare us the awkward analogy the next time, Master, and get to the point. Metaphor is wasted on some of us."
"You display a talent for stating the obvious, Kotori," Takeshi remarked, unrolling the scroll to read it to his subordinates. "I have here before me something that I had to fight to get for you, and that is your first C-rank mission. This one was marked as a priority task, which is the reason I snapped it up now instead of giving you time to rest. If we can pull this one off, which you will, you will be rewarded handsomely… well, better than the pittances you've been getting recently. The request comes from one scholar here in our territory, Akegata by last name, and he's a collector of rare manuscripts. It seems that one of his most recent acquisitions has been delayed in its transit from our neighboring Grass domain, and he wants us to track it down and bring it back to him. He fears that someone else has sensed its value and has stolen it for themselves, and much as he hates spending funds in addition to what he's already put out, he feels that this is a worthwhile expenditure. Once we've finished this, he's also willing to extend the hospitality of his home to us for a week, and from what I understand it's not that bad of a place…"
"Sounds like another D-rank, dressed up to look more appealing," Naeko groused, gulping down the last of her beverage.
"Well, I'm not saying you have to go," said Takeshi in a reasonable tone with a smile that the three genin had learned not to trust. "However, if you do stay behind, you'll spend your time studying and training on your own to a regimen that I prescribe, and I will assign someone to make sure you stick to it. The same goes for you two as well," the jounin added, looking inquiringly at Taiki and Kotori. "I'm not going to let anyone rest while the other two are working. Any takers?"
"I'll go," Kotori answered, shrugging. "It can't be that bad."
"Well, if she's going, then I will too," Taiki agreed. "I won't let any of my teammates go it alone."
Making a disgusted noise, Naeko rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll go, but you have to promise to let us rest after this is done, Master."
"I make no promises that I cannot keep, Naeko," was the jounin's cool reply. "All right. I'll give you fifteen minutes to gather up fresh supplies, then meet me back here and be ready to travel."
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Two days of the journey had passed without incident, the quartet moving in silence for the most part and each lost in their own thoughts that none cared to share with another. It was on the third night as they prepared to sleep that Kotori finally voiced one common question that all had been pondering.
A pale summer moon peered down from the sky and shone its light between the trees, a light more inclined to softer activities that in spite of its usual inspirational properties did nothing to enhance the mood that had fallen over the genin cell from Konoha. Taiki had given up on trying to escape the advances of Naeko, who had lain down next to him with a triumphant smile on her face as she drifted off into slumber, unaware of the thoughtful consideration the boy gave to the other female trainee who'd chosen a high tree branch as her resting place for the night. Takeshi for his part had taken his vest off and pillowed it under his head as he considered the small bits of information he'd been able to glean from the few people they'd encountered thus far on their trip, frowning in frustration as he realized truly how little they had to work with. Much as I hate to admit it, maybe I really have gotten them in over their heads. Their success rests on me more than ever before.
A noise next to him startled him awake from his almost-doze, and he found himself palming a knife for use if needed before he realized that it was only Kotori. "Damnit, don't sneak up on me like that. I would have slit your throat…"
"I highly doubt it, Uncle." Kotori sank down onto her haunches in an attitude of silent alertness that the jounin found unnerving in its intensity. "It seems that you are having a crisis of conscience, am I correct?"
A grudging smile. "I guess you could be. So, to what do I owe the honor of a direct audience from my niece?"
"The familiarity does not become you. It's long since rusted from lack of use, and now would not be the time to revive it." The girl's eyes flicked up to one of the treetops to catch a flurry of movement, recognized it only as a quarrel of night birds, and resumed their watching in a manner that Takeshi found oddly feline. "But I return to the original topic. You fear you've given us more than we can handle, that there is more to this seemingly simple tasking than the wording implies. Am I off base in presuming such notions?"
"No, not at all. Why, are you thinking the same thing?"
Kotori nodded once. "To some extent. But, as you've told us many times before, there is always more to a thing than what originally meets the eye. Sleep for now, and I'll do the thinking for you. Deal?"
This time the smile was genuine, albeit small. "Maybe I'm just as tired as the rest of you…" Closing his eyes with a deep inhalation and release of breath, the jounin drifted off into sleep like the other two members of the cell.
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"No, sorry. I haven't any idea what you're talking about." The older man, an innkeeper of sorts in a settlement too small to be called a village, shrugged apologetically after listening to Takeshi's explanation. "However, I do get a lot of quick stop-overs like yourselves who drop in every now and then for a bath and a meal, and they might have news. If you'd like, I'll let you stay free of charge for a few days and you might hear something…"
Takeshi winced. Another delay? "I'm sorry sir, but we really must be headed out. I'll pay you for your hospitality now, of course, but this really is a time-sensitive mission."
The jounin's act of dismissal was ended by a small, discreet throat-clearing from Naeko. "If I may say something, Master?" A patient nod to this. "Perhaps we really should consider it. We've had no other useful leads…"
The wince turned into a sly grin. "One might almost accuse you of having an ulterior motive, but for once I guess I'll have to agree with you. We've been traveling hard, and this might be just what we need to refresh ourselves and get a new angle."
"Excellent!" The innkeeper clapped his hands together in anticipation. "I don't have much, but what I have is yours. Let me show you to where you'll be staying…"
"All right, here's the deal," Takeshi told the trio of trainees as they sat down to eat dinner. "Get what rest you can now, because we're starting our surveillance at an hour before dawn tomorrow before anyone has a chance to move in. Then one of us will remain here while the other three scope out the land and see what you can find. The others will report back in periodically and if we've found nothing by the end of the day, we'll do it again tomorrow and cast our nets a little wider. Any questions, comments, or concerns?"
"Sounds like a plan to me," Naeko said around a yawn. "Just let me get some sleep."
"Good enough for me," Taiki added with an echoing yawn. "What about you, Kotori?"
The redhead just shrugged and remained silent, finishing her bowl of rice and raising her arms in a feline stretch. Takeshi gave her a measuring look, which she brushed off just as easily as she had any of the others. Taking one last sip of her tea, she stood up and twisted her back from side to side, then walked out of the room, muttering something under her breath. "What's up with her?" Naeko wondered drowsily, feeling a leadenness descending into her limbs and mind.
"Dunno," Takeshi grumbled, also feeling sleepy. "She said something about going to talk to the cook right as she walked out."
"Why'd she do that? I thought the whole thing was pretty good. Filling, too…" Eyelids drooping, Taiki found himself propping his head up on his hands, then felt sleep wrapping its arms around him in a dark velvet embrace. Had he been conscious, he would have noticed the others also succumbing to the same lulling sensation.
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Crouching in the darkness just beyond the porch of the guest house, Kotori waited for the last light in the main house to go out before making her move, keeping herself on full alert for others that might be doing the same. With her vision muted by the darkness, the girl allowed her other senses to sharpen in compensation, ears twitching at an occasional rustle in the foliage, every particle of her aware of the fickle breeze that now and again teased her hair across her face and carried the occasional tang of woodsmoke and fading food smells from the kitchen. Adjusting to the dimness, her eyes picked out a shadow at the kitchen door, and she shrank back into her cover as whoever it was slid the door open and walked out with a sack in their hands. Taking out the trash for the night, I see, she mused, recognizing the innkeeper's daughter who also served as the cook for the guests.
The cook walked over to a pile of garbage kept a respectable distance from the house and emptied out the contents of the sack, eyes idly passing over the bushes where Kotori hid but not noticing anything different. Humming a small tune under her breath, she then began a slow walk back to the house, one hand in her pocket rattling something around. A random thought process placed this as the jingle of coins, and this was fed into all of the other processes streaming through the girl's mind like water through a filter. She waited until the cook was about five paces away, then darted out to pick through the latest additions to the refuse pile. All came out as normal, until her eye caught an odd twist of paper which she snatched up and darted back into the bushes to examine before the other girl found anything amiss.
A faint sniff of the paper, and Kotori's eyes watered. Drugs! Wait a moment… Another thought process pointed out that this same scent had permeated the stew that had been the main dish of the evening. Good thing that I don't like that kind of food. But the rest of them… She rolled her eyes as she realized the simple trap that the team had fallen into. All too easy. We all must have been really dull not to catch anything like that before it happened. But it's too late to worry about it now… I just have to cover their asses until they wake up. Palming a kunai in her hand, she ghosted up behind the other girl and snaked an iron-strong grip around her, pinning her captive's arms as she placed the knife against the cook's throat. "Don't struggle, don't scream," Kotori growled. "I have no problem with spilling a little bit of blood." She let the blade nick the tender neck skin and felt the cook shiver but remain silent. "Good idea. Now you will tell me what I need to know, or I'll carve you a new breathing hole. Nod if you understand me." A shaky nod, and Kotori continued. "Good. Now speak – tell me, who paid you to drug us and why?"
"I'm… I'm sorry," squeaked the captive girl. "You see how bad things are around here. We're so out of the way that it seems like no one cares about us. So when a group of strangers came from the Grass Country and offered good money for anyone willing to help them get rid of someone who was out to steal something of theirs, I agreed. My dad's not getting any younger, and he's been really sick lately. When I found out it was you they were after, I wanted to tell them no, but…"
"A deal's a deal," Kotori finished, frowning. "I'll let you live because you're being so cooperative, but if you tell anyone about this that'll change very quickly. Don't think I won't do it."
"Y-yes, ma'am." The cook let out a gasp of relief as she was released and the kunai retracted from her neck, and she dashed back to the safety of the main house. On a last impulse, she glanced back to see just who the stranger with the knife had been, but the yard was as empty as it had been when she'd come to empty out the garbage.