บท 35: Team Assignment: Shinobu Island
Hokage's Office, (Kamui's Point of View) (The Next Day)
Kamui and Yugao stood in the fourth's office. Today, they would be receiving their next set of mission orders. Even with all the reforms going on in the village, missions still needed to happen and the genin need the experience before the chunin exams in a few months.
"Alright you two, are you ready for your next mission?" Minato asked with his trademark smile.
"We are, lord fourth." Yugao replied, her expression remaining stoic as to maintain her professionalism.
Kamui nodded, agreeing with her sensei.
"Good." He stated before loudly proclaiming toward the door, "Come in Reina." With that, a beautiful young woman in her early twenties walked in. She had pale white skin, short lavender-colored hair tied into a bun, purple pupilless eyes, and a short stature. She wore a black formfitting long-sleeved shirt under a purple flak jacket, a purple belt, dark brown pants, and a combination of purple thin metal shin-height grieves and elbow-length gauntlets.
Looking at her, Kamui and Yugao noticed that the gauntlets and grieves seemed to have sections where they could open up to fire weapons of some kind. Seeing this, they wisely assumed that this girl was a lot more dangerous than she looked.
Once Reina reached a spot near the Hokage's desk, she turned around and faced the two kunoichi.
"Excellent." Minato stated. "Now, please introduce yourself and state your mission. These two will be the ones conducting it." Reina nodded.
Looking at Kamui and Yugao, she stated with a disarmingly gentle smile, "Good Morning. I am Reina Kocho, heir to the Kocho clan. We are a clan with a bloodline that merges toxins into our blood. Thanks to that trait, we've kept out of most major shinobi scuffles and have been able to remain anonymous. After all, we live on Shinobu Island, an environment that would kill the vast majority of shinobi unless they were guided past the island's natural defenses. That's worked pretty well for us so far, until recently." Reaching this point, Reina paused to catch her breath.
The three Konoha shinobi remained silent. It was always important to receive as many details as possible before the start of the mission and interrupting the client during their initial exposition could hamper that effort.
Finished catching her breath, Reina surveyed the room to see if anyone had any questions on what she presented so far.
Seeing that not one did, she continued, "17 years ago, one of our brightest scouts Ana Kocho, disappeared during a trip to the mainland. We sent out a search party to find clues on her whereabouts, but failed to find anything substantial. Although unfortunate, we were forced to write it off at the time and declare her missing. Although we kept looking for clues on any missions that we took outside of our territory, we never found anything. At least, not until a few months ago." She paused; her gentle smile fell into a solemn one. Her hands balled up in a tight grip, signaling her distress at the next part of the story.
"A few months ago, four shinobi breached the defenses of our territory with an enfeebled woman in tow. Although we were curious of the four, the one that caught our attention was the woman. She had pale, dry, and wrinkled skin that had various splotches of a dirty yellow. Her hair was as dry as straw and was a sickly white color with the tiniest bit of pale lilac purple at the roots. Her eyes were dull, lifeless and seemed to stare into nothing. Even with all the changes the woman had gone through over the years, the older members all knew who this was; it was Ana. Our fellow clan member who disappeared all those years ago" At this point, her whole body was shaking in despair, tears streaming down her face. Her solemn expression barely hiding the fury behind her gaze.
"Seeing what had been done to our clansman, the gathered clan members came to her position to confirm her state. At the time, we were quite emotional, so we dropped our guards to do this. To us, anyone who could bring our family back to us should be friendly…. we were wrong. Our isolation had blinded the majority of our clan to the realities of the outside world.
Before we even arrived at Ana's position, her head had already left her body. The four shinobi seemed to have no further need for her. Then, they pounced on the rest of the clan. From there, it was a massacre. They ripped through our clansmen like they were rag dolls. Our poison, the weapon we relied on to stave off enemies was made weak. It was pretty obvious that they used Ana to craft an antidote." At this point, Reina's face was a mess.
She was just barely keeping herself functional to finish the brief. She needed these people to save her people; she couldn't just let the difficulty of recalling these events slow her mission down.
Kamui looked at Yugao with a concerned expression, clearly wanting to provide some form of support for the Kocho heiress. In turn, Yugao shook her head. This girl was clearly on her own mission to seek aid; it would be an insult to show pity at this stage. They could do that all they wanted during the trip to the mission location. If the two had any doubts about taking this mission, they were gone.
Reina continued, "From there, we tried to escape. A few of us were able to reach the forbidden section of the swamp in time to evade capture; it was one of the few places Ana hadn't been to. We only found the key to navigating it a decade ago, so she wouldn't have known. Since they didn't want to risk being poisoned, the four of them stopped and focused on the rest. From what we were able to tell, they captured a few jonin-level combatants and killed the rest who were at that level. Clearly, it was to remove our ability to escape. Then, they rounded up the chunin and below and created a large stone prison for them that siphons any chakra they might generate. It's the perfect prison for confining our clan, who relies primarily on poisons for combat.
"Eventually, we decided to send for help. I'm here to request the aid of Konoha. The mission is to kill the four shinobi that raided our village and save the remaining clansmen. In exchange, we are willing to become citizens of this village and contribute our bloodline limit to it." She finished. With her exposition finished, Reina took a deep breath to calm herself down. She also started wiping her face with a small handkerchief she prepared for herself before the meeting.
The room fell into silence as the two Kunoichi contemplated Reina's words. Minato was silent as well. This was a mission he was hesitant to assign this team. Normally, he would assign a jonin team to a mission like this. The problem was, he couldn't. It was too close to the land of water who was in a civil war. If he sent shinobi of that caliber, it may give other nations the impression that Konoha was interfering and although he wouldn't mind supporting the rebels, he didn't have a just cause to do so. In this case, these two were technically a genin team, even if that was a load of bull. It was politically sound for them to take this mission.
Kamui contemplated for a moment, then asked the first question on her mind. "Why would you want to become citizens of a military village who would absolutely require your clan to involve itself in more conflicts?" She asked. It may not be a wise question considering this girl was promising another bloodline to her village, but she really wanted to know. Why would they jump from one fire to another?
Hearing the question, Yugao's eyes narrowed at her student. Truthfully, she had the same question, but that didn't mean she would ask it. It would have been best to wait until the clan was fully integrated. It was less about the morals and more about the military strength of the village in her case. That said, this was something she expected from her student, unfortunately.
Minato didn't react. He knew his daughter; if he wanted her to not ask questions like this, he would have warned her in advance. At this point, the fact that she was able to ask that question showed his consent.
Reina ruefully smiled in response. "Well, we don't really have a choice. Even if we pull off this rescue, we'll have chunin-level shinobi making up the core of our remaining force. At best, there'll be a handful of jonin-levels, but that won't be enough; even that's assuming they'll still be in one piece when we rescue them. Now that someone has a confirmed path through our defenses, we need protection. With time, we can alter the toxins in our bodies to be effective against the antidote, but we don't have the luxury to assume we have that time. It's safer to join Konoha, the village known to be the most benevolent toward bloodline clans.
"Truthfully speaking, we wouldn't have joined if someone else was the Hokage. The fourth is known across the land as an extremely powerful idealist. A mindset like that makes it safer to assume good results for my people."
Kamui nodded. Reina made good points. Although there was a loss in total autonomy, they gained a level of protection that kept them safe at a clan level. Even if individuals were exposed to danger more often, those individuals would gain a level of experience that would have saved their clan in this situation.
Kamui decided to ask her next question. This time, she posed it to the fourth. "Based on the descriptions of the four shinobi, have we been able to identify them?" Yugao nodded to herself at the question.
Kamui was asking the right questions, even if some of them needed to be asked at different times. This was good; she definitely shouldn't have a problem making chunin. Her student was learning the ropes very quickly. If she had to guess, this mission was the fourth's way of testing his daughter. This mission would likely present a situation where they'd have to retreat against unknown variables. It was probably the last basic competency Kamui needed testing on for the chunin exams. They had tested everything else on the last three missions. The ones she didn't test, didn't apply to her. For example, she would never run out of water and she carried around enough ration pills in that sash of hers to feed the two of them for months.
Minato nodded. "We have. Based on our intelligence, we suspect the four of them to be the sound four. The advanced unit Orochimaru sends on some of his higher profile missions. On occasion, he travels with them, but in this case, we believe they're working alone. If Orochimaru's taking in Iwa missing ninjas, he'll need to be present to control them. From what I know about the man, he wouldn't let people like them anywhere near interesting specimens like these. Therefore, he probably sent four reliable agents to perform whatever operation he needed done in his stead. Here's a folder with their information. Keep it safe Yugao." He commanded. Yugao nodded and took the folder. In an instant, the folder was gone, transported to her storage seal.
Minato continued, "Good. Now, you are to approach this with extreme caution. The only reasons why you're allowed to undertake this mission are the circumstances of the politics in that area and your means of escape."
"Right!" The two of them replied.
"Good luck you three. Dismissed." He stated firmly
The two kunoichi and heiress nodded at the sitting Kage and glanced toward each other.
Yugao looked toward the other two and commanded, "Meet me by the village gate in two hours. We'll set out then. Hearing this, the two nodded in agreement.
With that, they all left toward their preparations.
Minato just sat in his seat and sighed. He really didn't want to send his daughter on this dangerous of a mission, but he really didn't have a choice. She was one of the few in the whole village who could escape via teleport in case of an emergency and was extremely powerful for her rank.
The fact was, this mission was simply too important to ignore. If it's successful, another bloodline clan will be added to the village. The council would tear him a new one if he didn't seize this opportunity. If he could send a team of experienced jonin, he would. Unfortunately, he needed to be wary of appearing to be interfering with the rebellion in the land of water. His daughter's team was literally the only one he could send that could complete the mission without causing a diplomatic incident. Politics could be a bitch.
'Kamui, please be safe.' He thought to himself.
Focusing back on the pile of documents in front of him, Minato pulled out the next folder in the pile of assignable mission requests. On the cover, it read "C-Rank – Land of Waves – Requestor: Tazuna".
'Hmm…' After giving it a quick read, he thought to himself, 'This looks pretty straight forward. It's a perfect mission for team 7, nice and easy.' Thinking this, he chuckled to himself. 'At least they'll learn that some missions are games of 'hurry up and wait'.
With that, he wrote team 7's name on the mission folder and moved it aside. He'd formally assign them the mission tomorrow.
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