章 18: Bandits?
Tachibana *gasped* as he leaned on his knees and looked accusingly at Maruboshi.
"Haha! Do you have such little energy? I thought you admired Hashirama. Hashirama was said to make jutsus that were a thousand feet tall when he fought Madara."
Tachibana with a sweet smile spoke calmly, "I see. Thank you for teaching me just how useless you are. So old and can't even produce a jutsu that's a hundred feet high."
*GAK*
An arrow pierced Maruboshi's heart as he became rooted to the spot with Tachibana walking ahead of him and into the village they had to protect.
"Halt!" The village guard said holding Tachibana back.
"I'm here for the quest that the village posted. To defeat the bandits and bring back the children who've been kidnapped."
The guard was startled for a second but he quickly recovered and held his hand out, "Could I please see your identification papers Shinobi-san?"
Tachibana nodded and turned to Marubohsi who'd arrived beside him at some point. Maruboshi pulled out a neatly folded paper and handed it to the guard who looked at the pictures in it and then at Tachibana and Maruboshi before nodding thankfully.
"I hope you're able to help us with this soon. Several families in the village have become despondent since their children have been taken. The village has become as silent as a graveyard." the guard said politely, bowing deeply.
Tachibana nodded while Maruboshi patted the guard's shoulder before they entered the village.
The village head's house was the largest one and they immediately spotted it, making their way towards it as several curious onlookers peered through their windows to see who'd arrived in their village.
But as soon as Tachibana or Maruboshi looked at them they closed the window or drew curtains to break their line of sight.
'They're pretty afraid…'
*knock* *knock*
Maruboshi knocked on the door, making them wait for only a few seconds before an old man opened it from the inside.
The man's gaze was confused for a few seconds until his eyes fell on the Konoha forehead protectors on both their heads, which caused his eyes to light up as he smiled and called them inside.
"Please come in."
In the rather wide room, the village head sat on one side of the table while Tachibana and Maruboshi sat on the other.
"If you can explain to us exactly what happened we can help solve your problem faster.", Maruboshi asked, taking the lead to ask questions.
The village head nodded and explained, "About three weeks ago, one of our children went missing during the evening while he was out with the other kids. Initially, we assumed the worst. Perhaps, the child was taken by the wild animals in the forest."
"Then? How did you find out about the bandits?"
"It wasn't until two weeks ago when another kid was being taken away that the villagers heard his screams. We rushed to the source of the sound and managed to catch a view of the bandits as they were carrying our boy towards the forest."
"Hmm…" Maruboshi thought for a few seconds before asking, "How many bandits were there?"
"We saw only three when they came to take away our children initially and each time the bandits we saw were different. But recently there have been many more bandits. In yesterday's attack, we spotted about seven bandits."
"And how many children did they take?"
"Yesterday it was five, in all, it is fifteen." The village head spoke with red eyes. "The bandits were all powerful and could use the sword very well. They even injured one of our guards, he's unconscious even today."
Tachibana frowned at the information as his mind wandered, 'Are those kids even around anymore? Or were they sold away?'
'But why would the bandits come here in a small group to take a few children away each time?'
'Why not come with a big group and take them all away at once?'
That was when the village head continued speaking, "The bandits know that we don't have enough money to hire shinobi from the village. The money for this mission was obtained by pooling everyone's resources. And even then we could only afford a low C-rank mission."
The village head then placed his head on the floor and spoke earnestly, in a gut-wrenching tone, "Please shinobi-san, we don't have much else apart from our next generation. Please bring back our children."
Maruboshi *sighed* but then nodded, "It's alright. Let us finish our work, make sure that you don't let anyone else from the village wander around and interfere or cause problems in the mission."
The village head nodded with fervour and escorted Tachibana and Maruboshi to the spot in the forest where they'd seen the bandits
Once they reached the spot the village head was asked to return as Maruboshi studied the tracks the bandits left behind.
"Their tracks are plenty. It doesn't seem like they're shinobi. They're probably just bandits who picked up how to use the sword on their own." Maruboshi concluded.
However, after his short explanation, Maruboshi never heard Tachibana speak so he looked at him.
Tachibana's eyes were rolled back in his head as he used cogitation while mumbling something under his breath.
"The people who left these tracks behind are simple bandits."
After muttering the statement seven times, Tachibana opened his eyes and looked at the pendulum in his hand that was spinning counterclockwise.
"They weren't simply bandits. They might not be shinobi but were likely trained by someone in the way of the sword. Could they be expelled samurai from the Land of Iron?" Tachibana asked.
Maruboshi frowned a little as he looked at Tachibana and then he said, "I thought I told you not to trust things that are experimental."
Tachibana shook his head and calmly explained, "I trust my divination. It isn't experimental at all."
Maruboshi remained frowning for a few seconds before he said, "Fine. Let's do it your way then. Let's follow these tracks and see if the people we're fighting against are really people from the Land of Iron or just bandits."
Tachibana shrugged, "Sure."
Maruboshi and Tachibana followed the tracks for the better part of the day and ended up at a cliff that overlooked a short valley in the evening when the sun was about to set.
In the valley were several bandits drinking and sitting around a fire while in plain view were young children trapped in a cage. Tachibana and Maruboshi could only count about ten children which meant that five of them had already been sold.
Finally, Maruboshi said, "Irrespective of if they're bandits or samurais, they've got the children in a cage. That means we can't fight them head-on since they'll use them as hostages."
"You want me to distract them so you can free up the children and then we fight them?"
"You read my mind."
"But what if they're trained samurai? Wouldn't I be defeated rather easily?"
Maruboshi frowned, "It's hard for samurai to have come all the way from the land of iron to the land of fire undetected."
"I don't know how they came here. But I'm sure they're not simple bandits."
Maruboshi stayed silent for a while before pulling out a storage seal from his pouch.
"In this are seven smoke bombs, you can use it at your discretion. It should keep you safe for long enough until I'll be around to help you."
Tachibana nodded and said with a little glee, "Thanks sensei! I knew you'd believe me!"
"I don't believe you.", Maruboshi stated plainly.
Tachibana only rolled his eyes and pulled out his make-up kit to paint himself like a clown.
"What're you doing?" Maruboshi asked with some confusion.
"You wanted me to distract them right? Just watch."
Tachibana quickly finished his make-up, hid his forehead protector and walked down towards the camp of 'bandits'.
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