Capítulo 11: Chapter 11 : Shadowy Port Quest
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. The only thing I own is a bag of ideas and a bit of inspiration.
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'Are we there yet?' questioned a slurred voice, sounding like it had just woken up from hibernation.
Normally, it would have annoyed anyone to walk in the scorching sun while a pig slept soundly in a carriage, waking up only to ask the same question every 45 minutes.
But the people who were walking in the sun were no ordinary people—they were trained shinobi from the 'Shinobi Corps' who had been in these kinds of situations and worse.
Most of them had already sacrificed their dreams of ever becoming chunin till they reached their mid-thirties.
This had granted them a high level of patience and a dismissive attitude towards life and its troubles.
But what was surprising to Toru, the leader of this squad was their youngest squad mate.
'Something is definitely, wrong with this kid.' thought Toru as he looked at the accused person.
Ren continued to look at a particular tree as if he had never seen something so interesting before. His eyes had a look of extreme focus and were unblinking.
Now Toru isn't a medi-nin or someone who has medical experience with kids or something. But he had a son, Kotaro.
Who was almost 12, the same age as Ren here. But Toru was willing to bet his fuma shuriken that Kotaro had never acted like this.
"Hey, Kiyoshi, you okay?" asked Toru in a little low voice as he thought that Ren was sick, his Dad instincts flaring up.
"..." But Ren remained unresponsive as he continued to stare into the greenery.
"Kiyoshi Ren." This time he put a bit of gruff into it making, Ren blink his eyes twice and then turn towards him slowly.
"Yes, Sir?" asked Ren in a bit of a confused tone as he made sure to add 'Sir' at the last second.
"Do you need a break?" while this question was a bit caring, the tone in which Toru asked the question made it as if it was a confirmation of sorts, seeking to know Ren's competency
"No sir, I don't. " replied Ren in a casual tone and looked away returning to look at the direction he had been staring for a while.
"...Right"
Toru looked at Ren one last time before he turned away to check on his other subordinates to make sure they were doing their tasks properly.
'Damn it, I missed it.' Thought Ren lamenting his moment of distraction.
Ren currently had his chakra sense active and was concentrating heavily on one direction, this increased his range further 50 meters (154 feet in Freedom units) in that particular direction.
'Oh, he is going to interrogate them now.' thought Ren curiously as he looked at the man, or so he thought who had been tailing them.
An hour ago a group of thieves or worse bandits had tried to ambush them. But when they got close, suddenly they were attacked by the man who had been following them, let's call that man shadow for now.
Shadow had annihilated them within minutes and that too without any noise before they even realised they had been down on a few members.
Ren had been watching Shadow as he had nothing else to do but was disturbed to his annoyance, by the team leader.
'Genjutsu sure is scary.' thought Ren as he looked at the bandits who were crying out of sheer terror or pain due to the genjutsu placed on them.
One by one all of them died as Shadow collected info from them breaking their minds in the process and then killing them the next second as soon as their worth ran out.
But looking at the bandits did not even evoke a single speck of pity or compassion in Ren's heart.
'Those who kill or hurt someone should be prepared to die themselves.' thought Ren with disgust as he himself had a bad experience with bandits.
The only family that he had left was dead because of bandits. So Ren was quite sure that he wouldn't even hesitate to kill a bandit, even enjoy it maybe.
Such thoughts were fleeting thoughts in his consciousness, some might say that hatred is more self-destructive than it is worth keeping.
But Ren did not care about that hatred or those who spoke about it right now. He had to grow stronger for himself and that was all that mattered.
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Shadow or 'Weasel' was having a fairly normal day, he guarded the merchant's carriage which to all appearances was weakly guarded by genin-level ninjas.
This made smaller bandit groups avoid them and some foolish bandit groups try their luck, only to get put 6 feet under the ground before even reaching their target.
'But their movements are unnatural. Most of the bandit groups are relocating.' Thought Weasel as he just killed another bandit after draining the info out of him.
He turned to the last bandit alive and then started questioning him, of course even this was done by the use of genjutsu and the questioning was happening inside the bandit's own mind.
Weasel looked into the bandit's eye as his Sharingan moved hypnotically, breaking his meagre mental strength and placing another genjutsu on him.
Stepping into the mindscape which was dark and gloomy, Weasel saw the bandit sitting in the middle of the mindscape with a distant look in his eyes.
Weasel had already broken the man with his first genjutsu, the second one now was just to collect information.
"Your leader mentioned that you joined this group from Mizu no Kuni. Is that accurate?" questioned Weasel in a calm but deep voice as he stood in front of him.
"Yes." came a rasping voice, it held no emotion as if emotions were forcefully torn out of it by force.
"Why?"
"Our original group was chased out of Mizu by the Mist village and by its people."
"Why?" Weasel continued to probe further, till he got some good information.
"Our leader has a Kekkei Genkai."
Weasel's posture stiffened as he heard the word.
"Kekkei Genkai? Why would a Shinobi Village chase out him instead of capturing him," asked Weasel as Kekkei Genkai users were like precious gems for a village.
So much so that even ninjas who went rogue and had Kekkei Genkai would be captured, imprisoned and used for genetic material if deemed extremely valuable by some villages.
Normal rogue ninjas would just be killedand then the hunter-nin would extract information out of their corpse. That was the cruel world they were in.
"Yagura Karatachi and the Military executives have deemed that Kekkei Genkai users pose a threat to the village's stability and could potentially disrupt the established power structure. So all the Kekkei Genkai users are being hunted." said the man in a lifeless tone.
Weasel took a few seconds to process this information as he was stunned by the information. But he wasn't an Anbu for nothing as he quickly regained his calm.
"Where is your leader now?"
"He is injured and is currently staying at the port city."
"Why did you leave your leader and join this gang ?"
"He didn't say the reason but he ordered us to leave port city for a while as he had business with someone there. Most of our group members joined different gangs on his orders."
With that, once most of the useful info was taken out by Weasel, he then disposed of the bandit.
Weasel had a lot to think about and a lot of information to relay back to Konoha since this turned out to be more than just a bandit elimination mission that he was assigned.
Most Bandits are not even worth the trouble or resources to eliminate. Normally a group of chunins or even a jonin or two is enough to handle a large group of them.
'But it's not just one or two groups' thought weasel as he again followed the Konoha carriage. He had dealt with more than three groups at this point, and most of them had not even been from Hi no Kuni.
Keeping that thought for later Weasel slowed down as he saw the entrance gate for the port city. Signalling that they had arrived at their destination on time.
Weasel watched as the carriage stopped at the toll where the entrance fee was collected for transporting goods into or out of the port.
'Now I need to find their base.' thought Weasel as he entered the city and went in search of the gang's leader, leaving behind the Konoha carriage.
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Ren sighed in relief internally as they finally reached the entrance gate of port city.
The port city was a coastal city which was one of the few harbours which provided a pathway for trade between Hi no Kuni and Mizu no Kuni.
It was an old harbour with frequent import and export of goods, though today it did not seem to have much trade going on as seen by the lack of frequent carriages.
'I'm happy that I don't have to hear that annoying voice again' thought Ren, truly on edge hearing after hearing 'Are we there yet' for the thirtieth time.
He had already thought of creative ways to silence the pig without breaking any shinobi codes.
'And I'm supposed to be the youngest one here' thought Ren as he snorted in amusement.
"40 Ryo, Please." asked the guard at the entrance gate. The entrance fee was only applicable to carriages and not to people. The more the number of carriages the more the fee.
And even then it was only 40 Ryo per carriage and for visualization purposes, the cost of one banana is 25 Ryo. This implies that for one carriage it would take only two bananas at most.
Though the fee was very low, it was essential to maintain the port city.
But like a truly wealthy person, Buta showed his Merchants' token to the fee man with a condescending smirk on his face, as if he had utterly destroyed him in a gamble, and had taken all the money.
Even Ren who had become a bit frugal due to always being low on money thought this was a bit low.
'I was thinking my opinion of this pig couldn't go any lower, but it seems I have severely underestimated him.'
Shaking his head Ren gave an apologetic smile to the fee man who looked plain confused as he let them cross into the city without taking any fee.
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Author's note:
So how was it? It is a bit longer chapter took me a while to write and edit this. If you want to motivate me do leave a comment or review.
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