Yordalar looked… Underwhelming more than anything else. Just a bunch of scattered homes and necessities, a featureless mass of straw, wood, fur and anything else that could have just been taken, placed under one's armpit and carried off to another place. Knowing her own upbringing, Mana felt like it should have seemed fascinating and familiar on a deeper level than she could comprehend. Her very genetics were supposed to call out to this place but… There was nothing.
"You are no locals." A man of thick proportions and black, downside crescent mustache declared with a bland face. At the moment of him uttering these words, it was unclear if he wanted to hug the group or try to kill them. "Got some food cooking, please, come over and rest."
"That's surprising curiosity for total strangers." Kiyomi signaled through the mental link.
"We are wearing Konoha headbands, they may want to get on our good side what with our village being Fire Lord's pride, tool, and blade," Mana replied.
"I could use some food…" Meiko stated something that surprised absolutely no one.
"We could all use a little stop." Hanshin breathed in and out with some depth to the degree to which his chest moved.
The entire family attended this early lunch. Yordalar men appeared to dress not too differently from the women, fancy, long coats that looked more like sophisticated bathrobes than what you'd dress up with for a momentous occasion which these people very much treated this as.
"Aww, tight! They're cooking meat and shrooms underground!" Meiko yelled out loudly, instead of using the mental link, even though the thought was worded to be more of a general observation than something meant to address the family with.
"It's an ancient way of cooking, one that even our own ancestors used before the time of villages and more sizeable establishments. It was said to make food extremely succulent although I have not had the chance to compare the two methods." Mana explained, she was not quite sure which side of her knew this – the historian or the self-declared cooking aficionado.
"Look at you acting like you know the first thing about cooking." Kiyomi squinted at the magician.
"Nah, Mana used to be really bad at it but she's gotten better." Meiko smiled.
"I've had some training shortly before ruining Kiyomi's wedding…" Mana chuckled.
"Those Uchiha… They didn't know anything about the foreign spies in Yordalar. It appears they were just looking to be a pain in Konoha's ass." Hanshin interrupted the banter. Even if the magician could see as well as feel the dismay and disappointment from Kiyomi and Meiko's side, she could sort of understand it. The three of them were friends that shared tons of common history. Hanshin was familiar with or cared about just about none of it.
"It's not like we had plenty of chances interrogating them." Mana shrugged, supporting her superior's decision to talk business while politely participating the early noon festivities of the family of Yordalar locals. Judging from pillars of smoke in the distance it was not an alien concept in Yordalar, in fact, it may just have been a tradition to eat this way at this hour.
"Not like they gave us any. Someone like those guys would have been too much hassle to interrogate." Kiyomi pointed out.
"So what do we do now? Our only questionable lead got busted up and turned out to be pointless…" Meiko dug into a piece of poultry pulled out from underground by the family patriarch and handed down to his family as well as the quartet of ninja, as if they were his own family.
Mana turned at the family with a hint of worry in her eyes. These six didn't strike the magician as the overly interested type in the confidential information that they were discussing while completely ignoring the mental link just for the sake of not looking weird and impolite. The family was engaged in their own conversations, in fact, there was not a single topic being discussed but it appeared like every single member ranging from the six-year-old boy had something to share with the family.
Just when Mana thought she was enjoying the idyllic view, even had a chance to smile while the fostering need to protect this little spark of domestic magic rose in her chest, the little one approached Hanshin and casually started telling the man about his problems. Mana did not need to know too much about the special jounin to know this was a bad idea from the kid's part, his somber chakra signature flared up. Whatever emotion the man was feeling, it was powerful.
Without much care of the social implications and the need for a quiet place to stay low and discuss a further plan of action, Hanshin reached out for a piece of white cloth that was right under the boy's feet and was used to cover up the fiery hole in which the meat was being prepared. With a swift yank, Hanshin pulled on the cloth and tossed it at the other side, making the child fall over while the white cloth floated to the other side and landed with a puff which raised a considerable mouthful of dust all over the yard.
"I'm afraid I'll have to ask you four to leave." The chubby man who still had the polite and warm eyes he had when he invited the four in and the robust facial hair that would have appeared almost hilarious had the context not been as antonymous to the feeling as it got declared after a lingering moment of silence and discomforting stares.
"We do need to stay on the good side of these people, just for the record…" Mana expressed her frustration after the four found themselves outside the domicile they've been invited to so graciously before and glared over plain dirt as far as the eyes could see.
"The child was inconveniencing Hanshin." The special jounin closed his eyes, placed his hands into his pockets and shrugged as if the situation was a completely blameless one in his eyes.
"That was some really good chicken…" Meiko lamented.
"That's it, he's officially banned from the mental link again! I wonder how much of thinking to himself it will take before he'll notice nobody's listening…" Kiyomi grumped before her irritation turned to chuckle into her own fist.
"Immediately!" Hanshin unexpectedly declared, pointing a finger at Kiyomi's direction. The blonde did get a little flustered over the fact that the special jounin managed to directly answer her thoughts despite being excluded from the mental link. "That's right. Hanshin can read your thoughts even while outside your mind, that's because they're that obvious!" the man uttered looking extremely proud of himself.
"Hmmm… I wonder where we could find some foreign spies…" Meiko hummed out while looking at the clear, blue sky. "Can't you just sense them out?" the redhead turned at Mana.
"Sure, if I knew what the foreign spy's chakra signature was, that is to say, if I had met them before…" the magician sighed. "In any case, we could find the spies by mimicking their train of thought. We know what they're trying to do, we don't exactly know which country or village they are benefiting but we know they are here and they're looking to spite Konoha."
"For all we knew, that family could have been all spies and fed us poisoned meat…" Kiyomi pointed out.
"I don't think so, they should look somewhat different from the locals and… Well…" Mana did not want to finish that thought but her eyes lingered on a chubby woman with an unusual amount of budding facial hair on her top lip.
"Hanshin doubts that the spies are lurking in the shadows. For their goals to succeed they need to sway the local big cheese." Hanshin voiced his thoughts, turning to the team with half of his body while energetically gesticulating with his right arm as he spoke.
"I actually agree." Mana nodded. "They're likely to be more easy to find than we think if they're rubbing around the important Yordalar figures."
"Salty beans, get your salted beans here! All for free!" a suspiciously similar man of thick and powerful stature promoted his odd business model of granting his wares free of charge to whoever took it from his hands.
Little by little, Mana was beginning to understand why there would be merit in getting these people under one's wing. Whatever treasures they had, whatever services they offered, these people were just so damned nice and generous that they were willing to give their livelihood away to the first stranger they met. Just about anyone crossing one's path on the street was the next guest in the family dinner and it did not look like these people lived poorly at all.
"So you've noticed?" Hanshin mumbled.
"Yeah. For a bunch of wanderers, hunters, and soldiers, these guys have it pretty well here. Enough lavish meats and spices to just give away, fruits of all sides of the world plentiful enough to give away…" Mana replied.
"Hmmm… Dese awen't hawf bad…" Meiko observed with a mouthful of salted beans. "I expected something countryside and raw but… These seem like a pretty sophisticated and well-seasoned snack."
"I can't believe you took it like that…" Kiyomi squinted at the blacksmith. "You do know you don't have to eat for months before your body actually needs some food, right? Hell, with chakra augmentation you could probably last years… "
"Maybe, but I got a little bit of that meat and got all fired up and tempted, now I've got to stuff myself up, it's too bad to bear," Meiko complained.
"Get out of here, you goat-fucker!" a grey-haired giant hooted out before swinging his massive ax at Hanshin out of nowhere, just as the group was passing the main square of the settlement.
The ax slammed into the ground like a meteor. The tremendous force of impact sent ruptures and quakes at the surrounding area, shaking the feeble structures of Yordalar to their core. The attack was too sudden and definitely too powerful to be that of a civilian. That was why neither one of the ninja managed to react in time, as well as the fact that nobody was expecting a random Yordalaran giant just passing by with a massive log on their shoulder just throw their wood in the air and try to split the Earth into two with their ax like that.
The giant trembled. Even while his boulder-sized muscles tensed as hard as they could, what was under his ax would simply not budge and Hanshin soon emerged from under the blade with his palm blocking the strike and absorbing the force. Even without any of his chakra armor abilities, through simple strength and endurance physical augmentations alone, Hanshin managed to stop that world-splitting strike from just an average Yordalaran strongman.
"Kiyomi, please include Hanshin-san on the link now!" Mana instantly asked of her friend but it was too late even when she thought of it.
"You'd think Mr. Readyourthoughts would know what we're thinking because he's just that cool but…" Kiyomi remarked flippantly before including the special jounin on the link.
Mana raced to warn the man not to engage this local. "Please, Hanshin-san, you must not hurt this local, we desperately need to not stand out and be in good terms with Yordalarans."
It fell on deaf ears, however, Hanshin leaped forward and threw a combination of strikes at the strongman. Even if the special jounin was not even trying, purposefully holding back his chakra armor technique so that he did not utterly murder this superpowered civilian, the fact that he was pushed this hard in his rank by a civilian showed remarkable military potential from Yordalarans. Yet another benefit to those capable of getting these generous wanderers on their side.
Hanshin and the mighty Yordalaran traded blows like equals. Punching each other without bothering to block or dodge, just two men trying to down the other but doing nothing but gathering bruises in the end. The fact that the special jounin did not choose to kill this civilian on the spot showed remarkable restraint but just that was not enough… Things were already out of control.
A wild stone flew at Mana's side, hitting her in the back of the head, the magician just looked back nonchalantly at the angry mob that was responsible. A handful of apples and tomatoes were thrown at Meiko's direction but the crafty young lady caught most of them by the handfuls and started chowing down on them on the spot. Looking almost thankful to the murderous, enraged mob.
"Is this… A mob?" Kiyomi couldn't believe how fast things were escalating. "A Yordalaran mob!? The people that invite passers-by for family brunch?"
"We need to get out of here, regroup and think this through!" Mana grumbled, turning around and facing the rushing mob that looked just about ready to beat the crap out of the Konoha party of ninja. The magician's body flickered while she danced and weaved around the crowd faster than they could perceive, Kiyomi and Meiko kept up with the magician with ease. Once the trio regrouped on a nearby straw roof, they noticed a single member of their group missing.
"None may call Hanshin goat-fucker!" the high-ranking ninja was still pounding at his colossal brute of an opponent while simultaneously using his chakra armor to deflect incoming fruits, vegetables, rocks, and forks.
"Goat-fucker!" the ax-wielding giant persisted, having dropped his man-sized chopping tool aside for the sake of good old fisticuffing.
"You'll pay for that!" Hanshin threw a barrage more of blows at his opponent's direction.
"Goat-fucker, goat-fucker, goat-fucker, how could you break a kid's heart like that and trip him over!?" the man yelled out in utter disdain.
"That's right, you Konoha folk disrespect our generosity!" random people from the mob started outraging.
"That's not true!" Meiko showed herself. "I took all of the free, salted beans that the man was giving away!"
"You mean you STOLE them!" a voice from the crowd yelled before lobbing a cleaver at Meiko's direction, one that the blacksmith easily deflected with a forearm smack. "You took them from the stand, not what he was giving away…"
"Isn't that the same thing?" Meiko's face soured while she squinted at the raging mob.
"Where are you hiding the little rascal that destroyed the Kannabi Bridge, show her to us!" voices from the crowd were growing unruly.
"That's right, we want to pay her back for ruining our chances to ever crossing into the Land of Fire forests." More and more voices joined in.
"How do they know about that?" Kiyomi turned to Mana.
"Never mind that, I wonder what they have on Mana…" Meiko pondered while leaning out of the way of the thick storm of weaponry, cutlery, and food flying at her. By now the Yordalarans have grown out of control enough to rush the building that the young women were hiding out on by simply leaping at the rooftops with a single bound.
"It doesn't matter. It's the spies." Mana concluded. "They must have known we were coming. They set us up."
The crowd was beginning to grow unruly. Mana had to separate from the rest of her team to properly avoid every single one of the well-fed and pissed Yordalaran civilian with a fork or a torch. It appeared that the generosity and politeness of these people went the other way around at just the same amount of extreme when the scales were tipped.
"Lose them, I'll track you down afterward, someone please get Hanshin-sensei out of here!" Mana was beginning to lose her cool. A pair of times she found her hands out of her pockets, clutched and ready to swing back.
The Yordalaran mob was at that uncomfortable danger level where they were too strong to underestimate and hold back too much around, but they could have died from the first serious punch thrown as well. Dealing with them was a pain, luckily for Mana, she had a particular skill at evading people she didn't want touching her.
Using her palms to push those that missed their attacks off-balance, or into the way of other rushing members of the raging mob, Mana managed to trip and trap the whole bunch in a human cluster of tripping and fallen Yordalarans which gave her a brief second to get away. Luckily enough, that was just what she did, pressing her back against a straw roof, Mana listened in on the mob's further actions, just in case one of the spies was present and revealed themselves.
Mana's gaze sharpened, she sensed something amongst the crowd. A large chakra signature unlike those of the surrounding people. Yordalarans were naturally immensely strong, that was to say, they had a remarkable physical aspect of chakra, however, their spiritual chakra element was not quite up to par. That separated the way their chakra felt compared to an actual ninja – to a sensor of any skill, these people would have felt just the same as a normal civilian. Not this one signature…
It was smaller than Mana's still, even after her brief scuffle with the Red Hawks and the moderate workout of avoiding getting her butt thrown out of Yordalar by force. Regardless, the magician managed to resist the temptation to peek through at the owner of the signature, she'd have instantly revealed herself and risked to be forced to hurt someone. It did not matter if she lost this person now, now that she's sensed this signature, she'd be able to identify it the second time it comes within her range.
This was no normal ninja either. One's personal features often defined one's chakra, the signature of a killer that enjoyed their handiwork would have been black as tar, the chakra of an exalted wise man or just an all-around warm person would have glowed golden, this man's was blood red. Someone with such a repugnant stench to their chakra would not have been the brains of the operation which suggested to Mana that this was no mere spying operation. The spies had some muscle behind them as well. The muscle that mixed into the crowd and tried to do a little bit more than the Yordalarans who just tried to force the Konoha ninja out of their home. These ninja were looking to cause a little "accident".
Things were getting pretty rowdy in Yordalar…
