Disclaimer: The end isn't near, just close.
Our team immediately left the zone as soon as Karin detected incoming shinobis, not giving Suigetsu time to give his honest opinion about me getting the legendary swords. Leaving the mining town our focus was to arrive at the nearest bounty outpost connected to the black market, despite being connected with the shady side of the world it didn't need to be hidden or worry about attacks, as Karin explained me the black market wasn't exactly illegal in the sense that cities and village consider illegal operations but more like a free market for the shinobi villages.
Is a whole underground business with no allegiance, auctioning bodies and secrets to the best bidder and since every village benefited from its business, nobody checked or tried to stop them.
Besides, it was the only source for income to rogue bounty hunters like Kakuzu.
Karin was the one to guide us towards the nearest outpost and when we arrived, I noticed how simple it looked, like a small room that a common property guard would use. When we passed the door, a man dressed like a surgeon greeted us, without saying much, Karin handed him the scroll that contained Chojuro's corpse. He inspected the scroll for a moment before opening the metal door behind him, signaling us to enter with him.
Everyone followed without saying anything but I had my doubts, after the little encounter with Jiraiya I believe I had gotten a bit paranoid so I grabbed the hilt of the Kiba blades as I followed them inside when I noticed a set of stairs leading to an underground room.
When I reached the bottom, a disgusting stench of rotting flesh invaded my nostrils, I resisted the urge to gag.
It had a few lights barely illuminating the whole room, only a large metal table had many lamps that the man soon turned them on and soon after he activates the storage scroll, revealing Chojuro's corpse.
It was very convenient that time was stopped inside one of those storage scrolls or we would have been greeted by a rotting corpse.
The fake surgeon analyzed every inch of the corpse that he could possibly see with his eyes on the superficial level, only then he pulled out a catalog where he turned page after page until he found the one he was looking for and closed his catalog.
Everything was done silently without uttering a word to any of us, he slowly walked towards the wall of a room, slightly disappearing from our sight thank to the dark environment of the underground room only to appear with a suitcase which he promptly opened showing us its contents filled with stacks of money.
Karin quickly counted the money before closing the case and grabbing it.
The transaction was done and there was no reason for us to remain in that room anymore, and I was the first to leave, fresh air which I badly needed after enduring that much time down there greeted me.
Immediately I took a deep breath trying to forget that horrible stench.
Karin came out pinching her nose followed by a very silent Juugo. "Ugh, they should at least use chloroform or anything to stop the smell."
I had to silently agree with her, even some cheap incense would have worked.
"Did you expect the smell of flowers inside a cemetery?" Suigetsu was the last to arrive, but that didn't stop him from direct his snarky remarks towards her.
She turned to face him. "I worked in worse places and it didn't smell like this."
I didn't know what she was referring but the attitude she showed at the facility massacre was enough to believe her words.
Even Juugo agreed with her with a simple nod.
"I want to get some frozen yogurt again." Suigetsu spoke but my attention shifted to Karin.
"Karin any signatures of interest?" I asked.
She focused for a couple of seconds before shaking her head. "I can't feel any."
Her response made me think of what to do, but it was clear that there was one thing left to do before I could finally focus in my training to adapt and even increase my strength.
"Let's go to Tanzaku gai then, however, we hunt for any bounty that may cross our paths." I turned to Karin. "I hope you already know which heads frequent the area." That was the current plan, but practicing against shinobi's was still in my priority list, and since she was technically the brain of our group memorizing a couple of faces wouldn't be that difficult for her.
"I do know some but I don't think they will be around any longer, it wouldn't be logical to let your enemies your location." Karin commented as she went to check the book again.
I walked a couple of steps before I unsheathed one of the Kiba blades and checked its design; I didn't have the time before and the rain didn't help much but now it was different circumstances.
But just as I was checking on its design a hand quickly grabbed my shoulder pulling me back.
"So Sasuke!" It was no other but Suigetsu wearing a very wide grin on his face trying to pull me closer as if we were best buddy since forever who could share their warmth.
Without thinking it twice, I pushed him aside. "Get to the point."
It was difficult to hide my irritation towards his sudden buddy-buddy attitude, but for the moment I had to remain calm and composed.
"I can offer you some training." He suggested.
"I don't need training from somebody weaker than me." I arrogantly replied before I turned back to my last activity, the blade was surprisingly pretty to the eye.
"Your strength is relative to me since we never fought so you cannot use that excuse against me unless you defeat me in a fight." He placed himself in front of me and grabbed the hilt of his blade. "Wanna go for a round?"
His words ignited something, the desire to accept was increasing and so my attention.
"You never asked for a fight, why the sudden interest?" I went for the hilt of the Kiba as well, nobody was so sure of the sudden future after all.
Suigetsu dropped his shoulders along with his posture, releasing a long sigh, destroying the image and desire for a fight. "Can you really blame me? I have been shocked twice in a day, first the blades accepted that wimp and then you?"
"Are you calling me a wimp?" His words were practically a spit to my new innate pride as an Uchiha, quickly sending a wave of fire under my skin ready to burst.
Suigetsu quickly brought up both hands as he took a step back. "Of course not, you can easily instill fear on your enemies but your swordsmanship is lacking in techniques."
He made me think for a moment since it was true that I lacked kenjutsu techniques; it was an internal debacle if it was worth learning how to properly wield my weapon and look cool or remain with my very lax kenjutsu style.
"For the moment I don't have the need to learn styles since I will be using them to call a storm for my Kirin, that was the original purpose for their retrieval." I explained, with more pressing matter at hand giving me time to train a new subject wouldn't be efficient, it was much better to use my remaining time to polish and even improve what I already have at hand.
"So you might be asking me for lessons some point in the future."
"Perhaps."
He became like the cheshire cat with the iconic grin while he patted my back a couple of times until I pushed him away, he was getting ahead of himself.
Yet our time was interrupted as scalpels flew past us, impaling themselves on the ground.
"If you dare to start a fight in my ground, I will blacklist you all, kill yourselves away from here." Said the man dressed as a surgeon with the slight differences that his attire had some parts covered with fresh blood.
He promptly shut the door closed.
His sudden intervention left a metallic taste in my mouth for not delivering a proper retaliation to his arrogant attitude.
But at the same time my rational mind knew for a fact that if anything were to happen to his type, we would immediately be blacklisted and bounties would be put in our heads, they had that relative power in the shinobi world.
Enough to not be messed with.
Or at least that's what Karin told me.
"So Sasuke, wanna test your new swords in some bandits?" Suigetsu grinned again.
"I don't have time to waste with garbage, the Chunin exams are closing in and I still need Tsunade's pardon to operate freely inside the fire country." I walked away without glancing at him.
"Just saying." He was quick on his feet and was already besides me.
Karin didn't waste time and went for my arm to walk next to me, I didn't try to shake her off since we would be traveling at Shinobi speed it was more like out of charity to let her have her own moment of fun.
And finally Juugo was closely behind us, keeping his silence as always.
Jiraiya said that Tayuya would be the one waiting for me to bring all of Orochimaru's notes about Akatsuki, which was a good thing since I had more questions for her that I didn't have the chance to ask back at the inn.
She might even disclose something interesting.
And I wanted a new set of clothes.
AN: Lockdown extended for another month yay!
Despite being a guy who likes to be inside home reading and playing, I too feel the need to leave my house GODDAMMIT!
Well, thanks to the quarantine and economical hiatus my life project is gone, now I'm forced to start a new project since I cannot wait for things to return to normal.
To be honest is crushing to being told that your plans are worthless and you must start news ones from the scratch and without help since the other I had a lot of help and many connections to go through with it, unless there is a miracle and the scientist create the vaccine by the next month which is outright impossible.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and now let's see how much it takes to reach 1k because this rate is high and I'm very thankful for that support guys after all, what is a writer without an audience?