After Lord Sixth excused the newly assembled Team Hokage, Hanasaku remained still where she previously stood, observing her superior with an awkward glare. The Sixth took a couple of moments to notice this, the three genin who were on their way to leaving the office also turned back and froze in observation of how this will play out.
It was no secret that Chestnut Hanasaku and Lord Sixth – Ogame Okoto did not get along. Some thought it was because Ogame occupied the seat, which Hanasaku previously held. After all, while Chestnut Hanasaku was not quite the textbook definition of a leader figure or even of a responsible adult, she was clearly displaying signs of growth and improving at both areas during her time as the head of the village.
Those that knew Hanasaku at all from a closer distance were aware that it was not the case at all – the woman disliked the politics and micromanaging every aspect of the village. Leadership suited her ill and she was just temporarily holding the seat as per the original arrangement with the Council. Showing no ambitions of desire to prolong her stay in it.
Hanasaku's differences with Lord Sixth hailed from the woman's tremendous love that could have been compared to an actual family that she showed to her students and Sixth's strict, by the book decisions in terms of their growth as well as the very confrontational manner in which the two settled their disagreements in the past. Tensions were burning up as if the glares represented even a single percent of their owners' strength, they'd have long since made the world that held them collapse in on itself.
"Will there be something else?" The Sixth finally spoke up, murdering the living hell out of the awkward and creepy silence that could have been compared to the cold war while anyone around these two would have felt like citizens of bickering world leaders. Almost accepting the fact that these differences might cause their own utter annihilation and the sick sense of cosmic irony.
"Drats, I forgot again…" Hanasaku snorted before pulling out her little book and flipping through several pages, her eyes slowly shifted through the paper. The woman's fingers ran through the lines at the pace of someone who has recently mastered the rocket science of reading but was not quite confident in their mastery yet.
"It was very mindful of you to attribute us a specialist required for this assignment," Hanasaku exclaimed in a polite yet forced manner before bowing half of her body in a submissive manner. "As expected from a leader such as Lord Sixth!" she added, while secretly glancing at the still open book in her left hand.
Lord Sixth blinked a couple of times. Over his time serving as Black Ops he had seen more than his fair share of all kinds of things this world had to offer but this genuinely confused him. He was a master of reading the environment and tracking any sort of killing intent in a fellow person but this woman displayed none.
"I apologize, Lord Sixth, sensei is just reading a book about improving her skills as a mentor. She's just learning…" Kiyomi grabbed her mentor by the collar and dragged her out of the office with a blush on her cheeks.
"I… I see…" Lord Sixth babbled before clearing his throat and returning to his work.
"Ugh… I hate the goddamned Uchiha. Those snobby brats thinking they're so much better than everyone!" Kiyomi grunted while Team Hokage worked on leaving the Administration building.
"I dunno, their faces are usually so bland. I don't think they're thinking about that much at all. Maybe they're just kinda returded or something?" Meiko pondered, twisting her lower jaw as her head was working overtime.
"Do you mean "retarded"?" Waiso tried to fix Meiko's flaws in thinking, walking into what he did not yet know was an impossible task.
"Too late, newbie! I refuse to call them anything other than "returded" from now on, those little turds!" Kiyomi laughed out.
"Speaking this way of the dead is not nice, you guys…" Waiso whined out before fixing his glasses that were slipping off his already quite oversized, in proportion to his body, head.
"That's right… I was wondering what you two were doing wrong… Nice call, newbie!" Hanasaku lifted her finger up in her own personal eureka moment.
"What is… With this team?" Waiso breathed out moaning to himself silently, but not quietly enough for it to not be vocal.
"But Ai Yuri-chan-san-sama-sensei is an Uchiha, and a Jinchuuriki, and a Rinnegan user. She's okay though, right?" Meiko shouted out in surprise that remembering these crucial details brought her.
"Obviously! Ai Yuri-san-sama-sensei is obviously awesome!" Kiyomi pouted while crossing her hands over her chest at the mere implication of her friend that the Yamanaka meant ill about the sacred child who was too kind for this world.
"How long do you think it will be until we clash with the enemy?" Kiyomi wondered, stretching out longing for a good training session already. The team had not yet even left the village but by that time it could have been too late. It may have been wise to devise a plan long before clashing with the enemy and Chestnut Hanasaku was not the kind of leader to worry about these sort of things.
"If they are where Lord Sixth claimed them to be… Quite some time. It might take us a day if we travel at this pace before we even reach a roadside inn on Typhoo road, another six hours of the trip before we reach the Fire Temple, shouldn't be too far away from there." Waiso informed the team, feeling proud of his ability to be of assistance.
"Wow, you're pretty smart!" Meiko smacked the new member of the team on their back, knocking their glasses on the ground. Something that appeared to trouble the little fellow but he just hunched over and picked them up instead of making a bigger fuss. The young man cleaned them on his Konoha High uniform before putting them back on with the small crack intact. Despite looking a little peeved by the careless action of his teammate, the little guy did not voice his dislike for Meiko's actions in any way except the social cues, which, obviously flew over the heads of everyone but Kiyomi.
"We can pick up the pace then…" Kiyomi looked at the team leader who was beginning to feel excited about the opportunity to dash to the next end of the planet in an instant and show off her speed but then pulled out her book and started rapidly browsing through the pages.
"As the team leader, I should show initiative and be assertive, but willing to listen to the team's opinions! What do you guys think?" Hanasaku wondered.
"I think that's how team leader should be, yeah, your book is kind of on point. Those books sometimes have pretty smart stuff in them, don't you think, Kiyomi?" Meiko nodded with confidence.
"She meant about picking up the pace, I believe…" Waiso mumbled while butting two of his fingers shyly, knowing that he had to fix his teammate but afraid of being punched or otherwise roughed up by the redhead's shows of affection after.
"Oh… Yeah, full speed ahead!" Meiko pointed her fist onward.
"The team means all of us. What do you think, Waiso?" Kiyomi smiled at the new team member. She kind of felt bad about how the little fellow had not yet properly eased into the team and its dynamics and did not have the day of just socializing and getting to know them better. His mind must have been blown already and here Meiko was roughing him up while the tremendous expectations were still weighing his shoulders down… If Kiyomi could give the little guy some say in something, or at least create the illusion that such was the case, maybe he'd feel a little bit better.
"Ummm… I think it's a very bad idea. The enemy was skilled enough to take down an intermediate Uchiha ninja with a team of genin, they are either plentiful in numbers or highly skilled individuals. The main danger right now is that they will leave the Fire Country borders, after which point we will not be able to pursue them further. That being said, they will not be foolish enough to move fast either. They have a dead body on their hands and they are missing ninja with the entire world being after them, they cannot possibly afford to raise the noise that traveling at high velocity would create. They will also want to pawn the Uchiha off in a black market hotspot somewhere so they are also tied to schedules and unidentified third parties. That leaves the only credible threat – being unable to best the enemy and take over the body – our mission objective. Given how we do not know the abilities of our opponents, it would be wise to exercise caution and not waste chakra needlessly speeding. We should maintain our current pace. We have a good two days before the body is pawned off, three before they leave the country by my calculations based on experience and teachings in the operations of black market bounty facilities."
The trio just kept on staring in surprise at the face of the young man who appeared to be growing bolder and bolder with each passing sentence, going into great detail about his reasoning behind every statement and voicing multiple possibilities of possible action plans before settling on one favorite and explaining his reasoning behind that.
"You may just be smarter than Mana! That was awesome!" Meiko grinned before roughing the little nerd kid by messing up his thick and greasy hair some more. While the newbie did not appreciate the gesture, looking terrified for his well-being all the way through, his petrified smile afterward betrayed that he did perceive it as Meiko's way of showing appreciation.
"Okay, as the team leader who is showing initiative, I have decided to do what Waiso said we should do!" Hanasaku nodded with confidence as if it was her plan all along.
Given that the team was moving at a casual, for a team of ninja, pace, they reached an inn before it got dark. Roadside inns were quite a common business practice for small-time civilians living outside of the bigger settlements of the ninja villages. Whether the inn owner provided service to nukenin and other shady figures that needed a safe roof to hide their head under, or a legitimate establishment, it was a way for a civilian to both be useful and make a living out there.
Some countries, Konoha included, even had deals with the innkeepers that a ninja village or some other country-related institution would compensate for any troublesome ninja related activity that would end up demolishing their inn.
"Shall we move through the night or stay here?" Hanasaku yawned. It was clear that she had no preference and that she could have probably solved this entire matter in mere moments but the woman preferred to work on her social and mentor skills and still had to train the next generation instead of solving all of its problems herself.
"I would advise staying here." Waiso cleared his throat. "Given that we do not know the enemy or their abilities and have ample time, it would be wiser to rest well and give it time to coordinate our strategies."
"If we run into a tough situation Hanasaku-sensei will solve it for us anyway…" Kiyomi shook her hand with indifference. "I would very much like to train a little bit so stopping would be nice."
"I also have abilities I want to brush up on." Meiko nodded. "Given how Hanasaku-sensei is with us in this mission, I can't help it but look at it as a training assignment rather than a life-or-death situation where rushing would give us anything. May as well use that extra time we have."
"That was an intelligent and well put together argument, Meiko, I am thoroughly impressed." Waiso looked at the blacksmith with surprise.
"Meiko's not some kind of an idiot jock. She's just intelligent at a very select and narrow array of things." Kiyomi smiled.
The Konoha quartet entered the inn only to be greeted by a rough and rowdy view of a band of mercenaries having chosen it as their pit stop for the evening. Likely overnight. While the noise and potential trouble were certainly unpleasant, it did not appear judging from everyone's faces that anyone had particular trouble with it.
A sound of glass smashing into someone's face, with the unlucky mercenary falling down with their chair due to the surprise of the impact more than its force or the damage it did, alarm the group. The fallen mercenary picked themselves off of the floor, soaked in beer before laughing out and making his friends cheer over the fact that their unlucky pal was not knocked out cold by having a large mug smashed in their face.
"What an uncivilized bunch…" Waiso shook his head, mumbling to himself.
"Mercenaries. Every day might be their last so they make it their duty to act like it." Kiyomi shrugged her shoulders. Her own experience with the bunch was almost entirely unpleasant as whenever she approached these people she had to fight one or a bunch of them. Even when the mission demanded to hire a mercenary, somehow it all blew up in her face.
"Do you have rooms?" Hanasaku asked the man behind the bar. The man nodded. He then pulled out a thick and messy book and scribbled something in it.
"Will all of you need your own separate rooms?" the man behind the bar raised an eyebrow.
"Nah, we'll make do with one." Hanasaku shook her head. "Shit, I forgot to consult my team…" she then smacked herself across the forehead.
"It's fine. We'll raise less noise that way. With a little luck, these guys won't even notice we're here." Kiyomi shook her head voicing her own thoughts.
"Actually… Maybe it would not be decent for all of us to… Stick to one room…" Waiso blushed, dragging his feet across the floor.
"Relax, no need to be shy!" Meiko smacked her teammate across the back again, due to the little one being all flustered during the moment of impact, the geeky youth tumbled over himself with surprisingly elastic movement before smacking into the wooden wall and sticking off of it from the top down like a chunk of goop. This appeared to make the mercenaries laugh.
"Did you see how the guy stuck off from the wall, like a maple leaf covered with shit…" whichever one of the muscle-heads could not help but smack his thigh in laughter.
Waiso picked himself off the floor and dusted his uniform off, fixed his glasses and wiped the trickling blood from his nose. Oddly enough, the blood running from his nose did not appear to behave like normal human blood, dripping and running without control. It was slimy and almost runny-nose-like.
"Don't laugh at my teammate or I'll kick your ass." Meiko casually threw it out at the mercenary band.
"So much for not being noticed by a bunch of mercenaries…" Kiyomi shook her head, covering her eyes in embarrassment.
"Kick our ass, you say?" a towering strongman took up from his chair. While he was sitting, surrounded by his men the man appeared to look like he was standing and therefore standing out of the group. The revelation that he was actually sitting made Meiko's eyes widen in excitement and amazement to how well-built this mercenary was. He was so massive that he did not appear to wear any flak jackets or usual mercenary body armor for there was none that would fit him and he may not have afforded to have some custom made.
The rest of his runt from the litter flock just booed in encouragement like rabid bulls, sensing blood and seeing stars in the air. The scent of alcohol filled the room even more than it was already reeking of as they opened their rotten mouths.
"How about I kick your ass and then strip that fancy armor off of you? I'm sure that the black market would fetch a fine price for some custom ninja-quality shit." The man rumbled. His sticky, long beard shook like a sheathed sword all in unison when his mouth moved.
"Do we really have time for this?" Kiyomi raised her eyebrows while looking at Hanasaku, trying to appeal to the woman's newly discovered sense of mentor mentality.
"No, this is fine. What was that you were saying about a black market deal? Is one of the big shot dealers within our borders? Where will they open shop?" Waiso ran up to the massive man, grabbing him by the belt in an attempt to extract some information. A lazy backhanded smack sent the young man slamming at another wall, this time the one by the door to the outside making the poor geek repeat his oddball sticking and landing routine and an odd way of bleeding from his busted nose.
"Come on, Waiso. Defend yourself!" Meiko pouted crossing her arms over her chest. "You can't just let them bully you around and make fun of you like that. How strong exactly are you? What are your abilities? We're your team, this will be a good opportunity to show us what you can do."
"Well…" Waiso slurred his speech as he was still seeing stars while he wiped the crimson goo that was oddly drooping but not dripping from his strangely still intact nose. "I can identify and defuse odd traps and seals on and typically placed around a dead body…"
"Oh no…" Meiko gasped. "You mean to say you're mighty weak!?"
"Well… That's quite emasculating when you put it that way but… I like to think of myself as useful in very niche areas," Waiso raised his index finger as if making a very valid point.
"Oh well… At least you can take a hit pretty well." Meiko shook her head as if disappointed by the reveal of the mystery about her friend's abilities before raising an angry glare at the giant of the mercenary band. "Initially I wanted to kick your ass just because you made fun of my friend Waiso. If you know something Waiso wants to know, now I'll have to force you to tell him that too!" she growled.
"No, Meiko, he knows about the black market dealer. The one that might buy the Uchiha body close to the border. These men are also heading there with a business of their own. You want to know what they know as well – it's our mission objective!" Waiso corrected the blacksmith.
"Oh… Well then, you'll tell all of us about that dealer." Meiko exclaimed in a self-doubting manner, checking her tough-speech with Waiso every pair of words while the puny Sin Eater kept on confirming Meiko's words. "Is it fine with you, old man?" The blacksmith turned to the man behind the bar who booked their rooms.
"Just take it outside…" he shrugged. The man looked used to these sorts of engagements happening around these parts.