Ino climbed the steppes of the apartment complex; Kumo's seeds were stuffed in a brown paper bag and clutched in her hands. Her mission had been rather rough and had lasted a few more days than expected. She had been assigned another simple escort mission that had gone terribly wrong, the particular client in question failed to mention he had a small bounty on his head. The price had attracted several shinobi, after several easy missions her guard had relaxed but it was her assigned Genin that had paid the price.
The young man had gotten reckless and mistook the enemy as a common bandit; he was currently in the hospital recovering from his injuries. The other Genin had asked to be assigned to a new squad not that she could blame them after everything that had just happened.
She stopped at the room number Hinata had given her and knocked. Five days since he had come in asking about his seeds and it was only the day after she had come back that they arrived. Her mother told her he had come in asking about the seeds once since she had left and had insisted she bring the seeds to him as an apology for the excessive tardiness of his order. The idea of visiting the new mystery guy wasn't her idea of how to spend the afternoon. The door opened as she knocked and she caught the distinctive smell of sawdust emanating from the room.
"Kumo?" she called letting the door swing open revealing the empty room to her. She stepped in and heard the sound of the shower through the bathroom door. She sighed and decided she might as well wait for him to come out and pay for his order. His room was pretty bare bones with hardly any furniture except a chest of drawers, bed, table and chair. The table was a small steel workbench where various tools were laid out along with various pieces of wood and metal laid out taking shape. Next to the table a wood and metal puppet hung from the back by a hook. The puppet was shaped like a man dressed from head to toe in heavy steel lamellar armor with a katana and wakizashi tucked into the belt like a samurai.
A link of bamboo trailed to the floor forming a prehensile tail, as she looked at the puppets unfinished face she recognized the face of a monkey. Various pieces and armor plates were missing from the unfinished puppet and lay scattered on the workbench with the woodworking tools and various weapons to be concealed within the wooden doll.
The sound of running water stopped in the bathroom and a second later the door opened, Kumo clutched a tanto in his hands and lowered it seeing her. A black shirt and pants clung to his wet skin as he eyed her through the dark goggles, she wondered if he had showered with them on but seeing that the leather cap was dry she assumed he removed it to shower.
"So it's you" he said returning the knife to its sheath.
"Uh… yeah" she said holding the bag up, "Your seeds finally came in and I thought I'd deliver them since they took so long to arrive."
"I see" he said nodding and moving to his bed taking his wallet and pulling out the appropriate amount of money to hand to her.
"So you're a puppet user?" she asked him looking again at the unfinished puppet hanging against the wall.
Kumo nodded looking at the mechanical automaton, "Yes… I've been designing a new one to use."
"He doesn't look half bad." She complimented.
"Thank you" he said stepping forward and handing her the money picking up a wooden hand from the table and attaching it to the puppets left hand.
"Is that scorpion you carry on your back a puppet too?" she asked watching him fiddle with the dolls joints testing them and checking the hidden weapons.
"Yes… it was my first one." He continued to fit tiny pieces into the wooden arm. She watched him work for a long while in silence before he spoke up.
"Is something wrong?" he asked not looking away from the puppet.
"N… uh… well yeah." She had been ready to say no but had stopped herself, feeling that she'd accomplish nothing by lying.
"My mission didn't go very well, it was a complete failure and one of my Genin almost got himself killed and now I've lost my squad all because I let my guard down." She explained letting everything out sitting down on the bed feeling rather frustrated.
"Sorry" he said fitting a small metal pin into the puppets wrist.
"It's not your fault" she sighed, "I should be the one who's sorry laying all of this on you, it's not very professional of me."
Kumo turned away from his puppet faced her grapping a screwdriver off the table. "I don't mind, I know how it feels to lose people to lowered defenses."
"What happened to you?" she asked.
He didn't say anything for a while and continued to work on his puppet as if he was thinking of an appropriate response to the question.
"Can you hand me that spool of wire?" he asked pointing to the spool on the table next to his bed. She picked up the wire and walked across the room to him kneeling and down handing it to him. He slipped the spool into the puppets forearm and closing a trap door.
She was about to leave thinking he wasn't going to answer her when we spoke up.
"I trusted people I shouldn't have and others paid the consequences." He explained testing the movements of the puppets fingers.
"That's really vague you know." She said giving him a wry smile.
"Sorry" he apologized, "but it's the most I can say."
"Is that why you hide your face?" she asked hugging her knees to her chest.
"Partially" he said turning away from the puppet finished with the left arm, he leaned against the wall and grabbed his pipe off of his work bench pulling a bag of tobacco from his pocket and packing it into the bowl and lighting it.
"Dose the smoke bother you?" he asked rethinking his decision to have a smoke.
Ino shook her head, "Its fine I'm used to it ever since I met my sensei. He'd smoke three packs a day." Kumo nodded and continued smoking his pipe leaning against the wall.
"Was Nenshō hurt by what happened?" she asked deciding she might as well ask questions while she could.
"Yes" he said letting out a cloud of grey smoke, "He agreed to trust my judgment and took a risk."
"He doesn't seem to blame you for It." she said "Unlike my squad."
They sat together in silence for a while doing just sitting on the floor together the only sound being there breathing and Kumo taking draws off his pipe.
"This little heart to heart hasn't been very reassuring." She said hugging her knee's tighter to herself.
"Sorry, I don't know what I'm supposed to say in situations like this." He explained pulling the ashtray from the table and emptying the ashes of his pipe.
She shook her head and stood up, "That's fine I shouldn't be expecting comfort from people I hardly know. Besides it was enough just to talk about it… thanks for listening."
"Don't mention it." He said standing up setting his pipe on the work bench.
She nodded and headed for the door, "I'll see you around Kumo." With that she left closing the door behind her leaving Kumo to his work.
Tusnade eyed Kumo and Nenshō from across her desk hands folded in front of her face. "I have a mission for all of you." She explained letting them hang on her words, "Each of you have a B rank that needs to be completed, I was hoping to observe you awhile longer before sending you on anything higher than the D ranks I've been giving you lately but we're short staffed at the moment and D ranks are a waist of your skills." Nenshō smirked at her comment while Kumo folded his arms waiting for her to continue.
"Since we're short staffed I'm assigning you each a single Chūnin to act as your leaders, I know we usually have four man squads for missions but you should be more than qualified for a B rank."
"Enough flattery" chuckled Nenshō, "what's our mission?'
Tusnade shot him an icy stair and didn't bother to speak until Nenshō broke his gaze with her. "Kumo" she started, "A group of rebels have sprung up in the Land of Mountains and have been raiding local villages. We've been hired to locate their base of operations and report on their current movements."
Kumo nodded, "It shall be done,"
"But let me make something very clear" said Tusnade, "you are only to only observe and report the rebels movements and locate their base but you're not to engage them unless attacked, if you are attacked I expect you to retreat and signal for backup you're not allowed to take on the base without the Feudal Lords backing. Understood?"
Kumo nodded, Tusnade turned to the eagerly waiting Nenshō and spoke.
"I have an escort mission for you Nenshō; a merchant has requested to be escorted to the Land of Stone."
Nenshō frowned, "An escort?" he said, "Kumo gets to track rebels through the mountains and I'm expected to watch some business man walk down the road."
Tusnade sighed, "This business man has a million Ryō bounty on his head and was attacked a week ago by unidentified shinobi who managed to hospitalize one of our Genin. So don't let your guard down."
Nenshō smirked, "Why do I get the feeling you're hoping I'll be the next to get hospitalized?" he said chuckling.
"I've never been that lucky." She said with a sigh.
"So why's this guy is got a bounty anyways?" he asked pulling a smoke from his pack.
"One" said Tusnade, "if you light that in here I'll have your guts for garters."
Nenshō sighed sliding the thin cigarette back into the pack, "Why would an old bat like you need garters anyways?" he muttered to himself.
"What was that!?" growled Tusnade a large vein popping from her forehead.
"Nothing" said Nenshō, "But why's this guy have a bounty on his head anyways?"
"He didn't inform us until after words but it seems the bounty was posted by a rival company wanting to monopolize in the Land of Stone."
"Well then I'll be on my guard, who am I assigned to?" he asked.
"Your Chūnin leaders have already been assigned to you." She said, "Send them in."
The door to the Hokage's office opened and in walked in Hinata and Ino Yamanaka. "Hinata Hyūga" said Tusnade "is going to be leading you Nenshō… is that a problem?"
Nenshō shook his head, "That's fine with me those eyes of hers will be helpful."
"Guess that leaves me in charge of you Kumo" said Ino receiving a nod from Kumo.
"You leave tommarow morning" Tusnade finished, "dismissed."
Everyone shuffled quietly out the room except Ino Yamanaka. Tusnade turned to the blond. "Is something wrong Ino?" she asked.
"If I'm going to be working with Kumo then I'm going to need to see his file, I hardly know the guy."
"Do you have some sort of issue with him? Hinata explained to me that you've been asking her about him."
Ino shook her head, "There's nothing wrong personally" she explained, "he's an alright guy if a bit quiet, I just don't feel comfortable working with someone who's abilities I hardly know. I don't even know what he looks like under his mask."
"That never bothered you with Kakashi." She said.
"That was different" Ino argued, "it's fine working with him and the ANBU members I know their qualified for whatever we're going up against… but Kumo's a Genin who I've only known for two weeks now."
Tusnade sighed and opened the drawer on her desk handing her the manila envelope. Ino took it and opened the contents looking at a photo of Kumo staring up at her face still covered with the leather cap and goggles.
"Is this a joke?" he asked dropping the file onto the desk, "this file has more black ink in it than one of Sai's drawings the only things that aren't blacked out are his name and age even his place of birth is blacked out… I though he was born in Konoha."
"As far as your concerned he was born in Konoha" said Tusnade picking up the file, "and don't over exaggerate how much has been blacked out, it says here he's a water type as well as a genjutsu user, he's a designated long range puppet master. And there's a good list of Jutsus he's able to perform including the water clone Jutsu."
"What about his Kekkei Genkais?" asked Ino, "There are two black lines under that section, his parents and teachers are blacked out too."
"Listen Ino Kumo and Nenshō's backgrounds are both on a need to know basis and you don't need to know, everything that's relevant to you is in that file for you two read, for security reasons both of them wish to keep certain information about themselves secret to most people only a handful of people in this village know everything about them."
"What if they choose to divulge this information to me? What then." She asked folding her arms.
"Then that's your choice but they'll have to inform me of this decision to let you into their confidence… is that all?"
Ino turned and sighed, "yeah that's all."