"Dog, when will Crow be back," Hare asked?
Dog replied calmly, "He should be back in two days. It may be three if chooses to do something stupid." Dog continued his work, analyzing enemy movements and deciding how to respond to them.
Hare got bored and walked over to the ANBU common room. Although the Leaf Village had over a hundred and fifty ANBU, only thirty were ever in the village at any point. Naruto looked for any ANBU that he was friends with. There were twelve people in the room. Spotting Fox, he walked over and called over to him, and called out, "Yo Fox. Can I join you."
Fox looked over, and shrugged his shoulders, "Why not. Were not betting anything right now." Fox, along with Cat, Skunk, Frog, and Flower were playing a game of poker.
The rest of the table let out a deep breath. Naruto proceeded to win fifteen hands in a row. The rest of the players proceeded to kick him out. Since there was no money involved, Fox didn't care.
"Jeez, what to do," Naruto said out loud. "Ah, I Know," he exclaimed. He quickly got out of his uniform, and left the ANBU headquarters. Finding his favorite stand, Ichiraku Ramen. The blond jumped onto a seat and called out, "Gramps, can I get two bowls of Miso Ramen?"
A man came out from the back and smiled upon looking at Naruto. "Sure thing Naruto, coming right up."
Only a few minutes later, Naruto's ramen was served. Naruto proceeded to eat another five bowls. After paying for his food, Naruto thanked the man and continued walking. As he did so, he said to himself, "Today is so boring. Don't have guard duty, village patrol, Crow is on his mission, I've been kicked from poker." Naruto paused for a moment, before exclaiming, "I'll just get a mission!"
Naruto ran to the Fire shadow tower rapidly, before running back to ANBU Headquarters, and changing back into uniform and mask. Then, he ran back towards the Fire Shadow Tower. Going through the ANBU entrance, and seeing nobody other than the Hokage and ANBU, jumped in. "Hey gramps, is there a mission I can do," Naruto asked.
Five sighs could be heard, one from 'gramps,' and the others from various parts of the room. "I suppose Naruto, we have catching Tora, painting fences..." the Shadow began before being interrupted.
"Nah gramps, I'll take a short C rank or B rank mission. Got any of those?" Naruto stated.
The Fire Shadow muttered something under his breath along the lines of "cheeky ANBU," before pulling out a scroll from his desk. "Here Naruto," Sarutobi said, "You are steal a set of documents that have great potential for monetary value. Mission details are in the scroll."
"Thanks gramps," Naruto stated before exiting though the secret exit entrance. It resembled a doggy door. Naruto quickly arrived at ANBU Headquarters before he unfurled the scroll. Glancing at it, he said to himself, "So I have to steal financial records from some guy that does heavy trade with Cloud, but bodyguards weren't available due Cloud consolidating their forces from the Tenrou incident. Perfect."
Naruto packed a two day bag, and headed out. Exiting at the secret ANBU exit for the village, he quickly started tree jumping to his target location. A loud noise was heard as he ran through the trees. "Oops, forgot to suppress the sound," Naruto said to himself. Suddenly, the noise quieted down dramatically. "Ahh, thats better," Naruto stated.
After six and a half hours of running, Naruto finally reached his destination, with a slights signs of being tired. "That was a good run," he said to himself. Naruto started hopping through the roofs of the village.
Noodles country is the same as ever. The mission was to steal documents from a Tarin Toroski. Currently only has Samurai guarding him. They won't be an issue. It would be best not to harm them. The trading outpost should be a few more blocks down.
After a few short minutes, Naruto found the Trading Guild area. Where most bulk traders did their work.
Toroski is residing on Sweeping Grass street. That is two streets down. One street. This street. He is at the Crooked Ram Inn. The documents are either there, or at his work place. He is on the window room facing the street, second floor, third from the right.
It's a nice looking inn.
The Inn was red, and had a depiction of a tilted rams head on the walls face. It was several stories tall, and fifteen windows wide. Naruto, or Hare, jumped to the window of his target. Not detecting anyone inside, he cast a small illusion on the window.
Hare then opened the window, and entered. Everyone else only saw a closed window the entire time.
Naruto searched the room, carefully checking and then opening several drawers and brief cases.
These are the documents. Trade reports. Strange, it seems that cloud is increasing their imports of iron and seal capable paper. What are they planning? Preparing for a possible war to break out as a result of the Tenrou incident? Most likely. I need to make a copy of these.
Naruto pulled out a single scroll, and unfurled it, showing a complicated seal. He then formed the ram and sign, muttering "Release," caused four more scrolls to appear from it in a small cloud of smoke. He then took the papers, and went through several hand signs before muttering, "Message transcription Technique." As a result, the information on the paper were copied onto the scrolls.
After several more minutes of searching, and finding nothing else of use, Naruto left.
Time to search his workplace. There may be more useful information there. Exit through the window. Good thing there were no enemy ninjas. My caster illusions can only affect civilians, and stupid samurai.
After several minutes of running, Naruto arrived at the Traders Den, the main building for large scale trading in Noodle.
We didn't know which room that Tarin was using as his temporary office. Crap. Ninjas. Hmmm. They seem to only be a genin team. However, highly possible that a Jonin is present. I pray that he is not a sensor. The genin are fifteen yards. Need to get closer. Hmm, they seem to be from lightning. I hate bad intelligence.
Naruto crept closer to them, completely invisible to their sight, smell, and hearing.
"Why did we have to stay here while Gari-sensei goes back to Cloud," a blond girl complained.
Good. The Jonin isn't here. This makes my job a lot easier.
"Naname, it is because Leaf killed one of our ninjas. During a peace conference at that. Sure, Leaf gave us the killer, but it still may lead to war. Gari-sensei is needed for the Jonin conferences to decide what to do about the Leaf's actions," A blond boy replied.
It seems like they weren't told their ninja tried to kidnap one of Leaf's clan heirs. The guy totally deserved it. Not that they will ever learn that information. These kids will help lead me to where Tarin is. Why am I calling them kids? I'm younger than them.
Moments later, a man walked out from a room. "I'm almost done for today. I have one more meeting. However, as it is the evening hour, we decided to get a quick dinner first."
Tarin
Several more people left the room that the man was in.
Tarin didn't bring anything out with him. Neither did any of the other men.
"Can two of you guard the room, while another comes with us," Tarin requested.
Naname, the blond girl of the genin team then spoke, "Certainly, Rashi, go with them. Bring us back something to eat when you're done," she commanded the third member of the team, a dark skinned boy with gray hair.
"Sure Naname," he replied, before following the group of men.
Two genin. As easy it would be to knock them out, with surprise on my side, I don't need them knowing I was here. This room has no window. It will be difficult to make entry. This room was designed to make it more difficult for ninjas to enter. A large amount of small vents as opposed to a single large one.
Any distraction I make will only distract one of them to investigate. One will always stand watch. I need one of them to go to the bathroom. Ahh, I can disguise myself as a trader, and then give them tainted water. It will force at least one to the restroom, while I can create a distraction for the other.
Naruto silently left the building, and upon finding an alleyway, created a shadow clone of himself. The clone then transformed itself into an unique looking trader. Made unique buy his particularly large nose.
The clone then got a tray with some cups of water, and brought it to the real Naruto. Hare then pulled out his scroll, and unfurled it slightly more than last time. With a quick ram seal, he then had nine different vials showing. Each marked denoting what was in it.
Picking the one marked 'Delayed tasteless laxative,' he put it into one of the two cups. Resealing the vials, he put the scroll away. The clone then walked off to the two genin. Naruto created another Shadow clone, that looked like a beggar. After half an hour, Hare was notified by his dispelled clone that its mission was complete.
The beggar version of Naruto was already in place, and created some commotion. Naruto, observed the final genin leave the door to investiagate. Thankfully, a civilians weak punches couldn't dispel a shadow clone.
Naruto quickly entered the room, and unsealed his earlier scrolls. He indiscrimately started copying the documents with his message transcription technique. He filled the first two scrolls, and put some effort into the final one. After placing all the documents exactly the way they were, including the subtle amounts of dust on various papers to detect treachery, he hid in the corner of the room.
I can't escape at this point. The second genin is already back, and the female is on her way. I will just have to wait. I can get more information listening to the final meeting anyways.
After another half hour, Tarin and his group reentered the room. After checking the papers, and being satisfied nothing had happened, they continued their meeting, with several new faces in the room.
"Next item on the agenda is the purchase of straw for cattle." Tarin began. " Lightning country is increasing their requested amounts, as well as Fire country. There will be a meeting discussing trade deals between the two countries in two weeks. Currently, Lightning has the better deal, their initial offer being 630 ryo per ton while Fire is offering 580 per ton. Fire is extremely likely to match that price, and likely beat it. Their economy is better off. However, trading with lightning will increase our influence, which opens the door for us getting better future prices, and reduced cost on missions from cloud."
Another trader put in his input, "Depending on how much Fire beats lightning, we should give lightning anywhere from a thirty to forty percent share on our next export, while giving Fire an fifteen to twenty five percent share. Divide the rest amongst the other nations based off of demand. That way, we can maintain strong trade with both countries, and still get better deals from Cloud."
The meeting continued, with the traders debating the best initial proportions for trade. Hare did not personally find much of the information relevant, but someone in Leaf would probably consider it invaluable.
The meeting ended an hour later, and the tradesmen left, taking all their documents with them. Naruto left another three hours later, when noone was in the building.
"Mission complete," Naruto said to himself. He then started an easy jog back to Leaf, completely unnoticed.