บท 17: Chapter 17: To the Land of Tea

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As it turned out, Shisui was a great teacher. Being powerful did not mean one would be a good a teacher, but Shisui was both. Despite his young age, he was known throughout the village as the second fastest Shinobi in the village, right after the Fourth Hokage.

As for his teaching capabilities, I was the first person Shisui ever taught, Itachi didn't really count as they trained together more than anything.

Actually, I had been quite lucky as Shisui had been thinking of teaching for some time now, and taking a Genin Team next year had crossed his mind. So I had appeared at the right rime, resulting in him accepting me. Of course, me being awesome helped too.

Anyway, a month quickly passed by, during which I always had something to do. If I wasn't training with my team, then I would be training with Shisui, and if I wasn't, then I would hang out with my Academy friends.

Of course, the majority of my time wasn't spent on either of those, instead it was on missions. Since we were dealing with D Rank missions, Amai-Sensei had decided to have us finish one everyday, and while the pay was good, it was exhausting and time consuming.

Still, we didn't really get to complain as we were promised something we were all waiting for, a C Rank Mission.

Now waiting for our turn in the Hokage's office, Team 5 was sitting in a corner. Speaking of the team, my relationship with them improved for the better during last month. Izumi was now chummy with me, especially since I promised to mention her once everytime I spoke to Itachi, although I suspect she was jealous I got to speak so much to him. Ah, young girls in love…

Laiko was a few steps behind, but he had stopped glaring at me. I could still see the shadow of whoever I had replaced was weighing down on him, resulting in some angry fits, but that was better than outright ignorance.

After a while, we were called into the Hokage's office, and I was once again faced with the living legend, Minato Namikaze. There was an additional person in the room, an old man, who kept quiet as we entered. The Hokage looked at us four with a smile as he said, "Your sensei has told me you were ready for a C Rank Mission."

Neither of us replied audibly, keeping silent, but we nodded, so Minato took out a scroll and handed it to our sensei and gestured toward the old man with a nod while saying, "This here is Mr Tokike, an important member of our village responsible for most of our silk. Your mission is to protect him on his way to the Tea Country."

Once again, we all nodded, and as our sensei took the scroll in his hands, opening it to read it's contents, the old man, Mr Tokike, looked at us with a smile as he bowed, "I'll be in your care."

Next to me, Laiko puffed his chest, while Izumi showed a smile. I, however, did not show any emotion. We were ninjas on a mission, getting along the client wasn't the mission.

Besides, although I was excited I was finally getting some action, a part of me was feeling a little fearful. Although my knowledge of fanfictions had been wrong pretty much every single time until now, I couldn't help but fear something going wrong with this mission.

Be it the original work or the fanfictions, the first C Rank mission would always have something unexpected in it, resulting in the mission's rank being raised.

Now, if it was only my meta knowledge, I wouldn't be as worried, but through my interactions with Shisui and Itachi, I learned that the mission having more to them than planned was actually not a rarity.

Sometimes it would be the mission issuers who would hide information, although this was rather rare since it would result in a heavy fine most of the time, so most of the time it was simply the opponent being much stronger than planned.

But no matter what, I couldn't just hide in my room in fear because of possible danger, so I shoved my apprehension into the recesses of my mind and looked at our smiling client without so much of an emotion.

Tokike stared back with a cunning light in his eyes, but the stare off was interrupted by Amai-Sensei coughing.

Amai said, "It should take us a couple of days to move to the Land of Tea. We may cross bandits on the road. Don't forget, our task is to protect Mr Tokike."

We all nodded, and under Minato's watchful eyes we left the office, before walking to the village's gate.

On the way, Tokike talked a lot, but I kept my own words to a minimum. It was painfully obvious to me he was trying to butter us up, to create relationships.

There wasn't really anything wrong with this, building relationships was extremely important for a merchant, and so was it for a Shinobi. That's also why Id didn't say anything to either of my teammates, letting them chat with the merchant.

Our sensei sent a few glances my way, probably surprised I didn't speak much for once, but he did not say anything himself.

Once we officially left the village by passing through the gates, I moved behind Mr Tokike without a word, but neither Laiko or Izumi moved. I sent a glance at Amai-Sensei, and while he didn't show anything outwardly, I could understand his message through his eyes.

Good job.

It seemed that despite their experience, neither of my teammates were really taking this mission seriously. Again, I didn't' have a problem with them sympathising with our client, but forgetting about the mission was something else.

It was basic knowledge that to protect a target, it was best if all four directions were protected. However, they just stood on Mr Tokike's right side, neither of them moving to his left.

Thankfully, Sensei had walked in front, meaning he and I had the most important positions.

As time passed, I did not let my focus waver, an attack could come at anytime, from anywhere. And finally, it paid off.

Around four hours into our journey, we came upon an unexpected obstacle. A tree had fallen down, and it was pretty obvious it had been cut down, not only from the cut itself, but the men sitting on it, looking at us.

They looked at us, and our hitai-ate, that is our head protector, before one of them came to us, sheathing his blade.

Amai-Sensei took a step to the side, shielding us all as he asked, "Is there a problem?"

The man, who obviously was a bandit, sent a look at Mr Tokike, before shaking his head and saying, "No need to trouble each other. You may pass."

Amai-Sensei nodded, and we walked to the tree as the men cleared the path for us. We walked past it without any trouble, before quickly putting distance between us and them.

Bandits were not stupid, they knew they didn't stand a chance against trained Shinobi, and although we were a bunch of Genin, Amai-Sensei was Jonin. It would take him seconds to dispatch them.

Once we were far enough from the bandits, Laiko asked, "Mr Tokike, were those men here for you?"

Mr Tokike shook his head and said, "As far as I know, no one is coming after me. I hired you as a deterrent, to be honest, and it seemed it worked."

Amai mused, "We didn't have any cargo, so these bandits did not hold any interest in robbing us."

Laiko tilted his head and asked, "Still, shouldn't we have taken care of them?"

Amai-Sensei suddenly glared at Laiko, who lowered his head, and didn't say anything, but it seemed the two knew exactly what Amai-Sensei meant.

While this encounter went well, it did serve to put my two teammates on their guards as they finally adopted a battle formation, surrounding Mr Tokike from all sides.