Chapter 13: Chapter 13: The Winter Lake
"Our mission this time is a simple reconnaissance mission. We'll head to a village near the Kuma border to investigate a missing Konoha ninja. Atsuki, you'll take the lead on this one." Fujio sensei spoke as the trio moved through the woods at speeds that any low-level genin would have trouble following. She tossed the mission scroll to Atsuki who spoke as he caught the scroll, "Me? But wouldn't it be better for Shin to be incharge?" "If you wanna make Chunin someday, you'll need to lead." Fujio's reply left Atsuki silent, instead Shin spoke up, "What about you Fujio sensei?" "I have something to do in Yugakure. You are on your own with this one." she replied, causing Shin to narrow his eyes, "Sensei… your mission won't happen to involve hot springs right?" Fujio chose silence as Atsuki was flabbergasted, "Sensei! How could you enjoy hot springs while we are risking our lives!" In response, Fujio simply sped up, leaving behind a frustrated Atsuki.
It took the trio a day to reach the land of hot springs where Fujio separated from the duo. The mission time was 1 week so Shin and Atsuki spent the night at an inn while establishing their cover as tourists. When the morning came, they used disguises to tag along a merchant group. Lucky for them, the place they were headed was a known tourist spot known as the winter lake located just at the border of Kumo and the land of frost. It was a place of dispute but mostly occupied by Kumo forces since apparently the Daimyo of the land liked to visit the place, so he simply forcefully took it without any compensation.
......…
Masamune was a middle aged man, he was a father, a husband, a brother, but above all else, he was a merchant. He had an instinct about people, he could tell if someone was good or bad for his business just after a few words. This ability had allowed him to become a rather wealthy person, his honesty and kind nature lured people into confidence and that was how he conducted trade and gathered quite a few loyal companions. Masamune took pride in his ability to judge a person's character at a glance.
"Today is a good day!" he declared to his people who were busy loading crate after crate into his carts. He was delivering tea leaves and rice to Kumo, this was a very profitable business but due to the reputation and nature of Kumo people, not many were able to conduct successful business but Masamune's long years and hard work had earned him this opportunity. 'When I get back home I'll bring some jewelry for my wife and daughter, oh my sweet Miyu, she's grown so beautiful.' The man mused in his thoughts as a beautiful brown haired girl adorned his thoughts, 'I'll have to find a good match, who knows I might even see him on this trip to Kumo!' The man laughed at the thought of spoiling his grandchildren and a few smaller Miyu s running around called him "Grandpa".
"Whoa! Look at that guy!" he was broken from his daydreams by many exclamations and murmurs around him, 'What's going on?' he wondered as his sight followed the crowd and unintentionally inhaled. There in the middle of the street, walked a teenage boy wearing a purple long coat that left his chest bare and flaunting his muscles and golden chains that hung around his neck. The boy's bright purple hair defied gravity and any other physical phenomena as they rose straight towards the heavens like spikes. His loose purple pants also adorned loose golden chains while his purple shoes had spikes on them for some reason. The boy walked in the middle of the street with a sour expression, as if he owned the place, only stopping for a moment to ogle at every passing girl, pulling down his sunglasses to wink at her before continuing to walk forward.
Masamune had never before, in his long years, seen such a sight. He shook his head and told his men to hurry up and load, he didn't know why but he had a weird feeling and wanted to put as much distance between them as possible. "Um boss? I think he's coming this way." Heheard one of his men speak and turned around to see one of his competitors talking to the weird teen and pointing at him, Masamune felt fear as he saw the teen's face split into a wide grin and walk in his direction. "Oi! Ya Masamane?" the punk yelled at the man. "It's actually Masamune." The man gently corrected the boy who snapped at him, "Da faq do I care! Heard ya leavin far Kumo. Mind if we tag?" the boy spoke while cleaning his ear out. Masamune looked at his competitor who just apologized from a distance before leaving in a hurry, 'Damn you!' "Ahem, this.. I'm afraid we don't have enough space for passengers." the man tried to reject the boy who just pointed out to a half empty cart at the back, "That looks free. What? Ya trin ta ditch me? HAH!?" The punk drew closer at every word as Masamune grew smaller. "N-No! I-I…" Ya wat!? A stutter!?" The boy yelled and tossed money at the man before getting into the cart and drawing the curtains.
"W-what do we do boss?" a man asked him to which he simply shook his head and replied, "Let's just hurry up and go, he's definitely part of a gang. As long as we get him to leave by himself, it will be all fine." After loading up the caravan was ready to set off, Masamune went to the cart at the front to take his seat but saw a black furry cat curled up in his spot besides the driver. Masamune tried to shoo away the cat but the death glare from the driver changed his mind instantly, 'I forgot, he's a cat person!' In the end Masamune had no choice but to sit somewhere else as the caravan started to move, 'I hope nothing else happens during our journey.' the man sighed as he remembered his guest though felt like he had missed something.
In the last cart, two boys sat face to face. The purple haired punk spoke up, "I think it worked well, no one even saw you Shin." the boy in front of him looked at the punk and replied, "Yuip. looks like our plan would work just fine after this test run. You draw the attention while I do the investigation. Atsuki grinned, "Hehe yah! Lets go!" he had gathered so much attention that no one had noticed Shin who was in a disguise as well.
Shin had kept his black hair but instead put freckles on his face, gotten a lisp and used contact lenses to counter the effects of his big nerd glasses and to finish it off, he bought a random half filled dairy from an old book store along with a few stickers of an actress and an old copy of Jiraya's famous smut- ahem, book. In short, Shin had become an easily forgettable nerd, one so nerdy that everyone would ignore him on instinct!
As the long journey carried on, Shin decided to meditate while Atsuki grew increasingly more bored. After 2 lengthy hours and having explored every item in the carriage twice, Atsuki could no longer stay silent "Hey Shin! Did you know? That Uchiha girl at the academy? I heard that she's trying for an early graduation again. Heh! Even if she succeeds this time, there's no way she's ever gonna catch up with us now!" Shin slowly opened his eyes while internally sighing in relief, he was getting tired of meditating and was silently begging Atsuki to start a conversation. "That's true." Shin calming replied while thinking, 'She will never even have a chance to realize her potential just because shecarries the name of Uchiha.'
"Seriously though, I thought we were strong before but now I could take on 10 of me!" Atsuki claimed and Shin agreed, "That is true, Fujio sensei has really put her all into training us. Jonin sensei usually don't train their teams this hard." "Tell me about it! There were times I thought I was gonna seriously die! Especially that time she sent us to that brothel! Who sends 8 year olds to brothels!?" Atsuki continued to complain as Shin tried to calm him down, "Hey it was for training you know, seduction is an important technique to learn and where better to learn it from than a brothel? Besides, she was there to gather intel you know." "INTEL!? I couldn't sleep for 3 days!! THREE DAYS!!!" Atsuki yelled with tears in his eyes, "Alright alright, just calm down! You are going to blow our cover!" Shin shushed him. '9 years for you but I am only 7 you know.' Shin internally complained.
The duo spent rest of the time talking about various things such as different jutsus, the famous Ninja, how the 4th was the best Hokage, how Pineapple hated him, how Ryouka's cooking was not getting any better and how Haruki sensei had no chance with Fujio sensei.
Time passed quickly and the caravan had reached the Village near Winter Lake at night, the caravan didn't stop anywhere because they would not have made it in time if they stopped for lunch so pre-packaged lunch was handed out and because Masamune wanted to be rid of Atsuki as soon as possible. Atsuki thanked the merchant and expressed his interest in seeing him again which drained blood from the poor man's face.
Atsuki got a room at the inn and the two of them ate a simple meal in their room. Since the night had just fallen, the inns and markets were lit up with friends and families visiting shops or restaurants. Since this was a tourist spot, there were many foreigners which allowed the duo to blend in. They had changed their disguise and separated to gather intel about the missing ninja. The mission scroll had a list of locations and people where information could be gathered so they divided it amongst themselves and started to wander the village.
Shin had it easy, he used the system to avoid interacting with any ninjas, especially ones from Kumo since it was entirely possible that the missing ninja was a spy that Kumo had captured.
After a while Shin returned to the room and waited for Atsuki, "Any luck?" "A bit, the guy apparently worked a bunch of part-time jobs. I checked out the places but found nothing special. They all say he just disappeared a week ago." Atsuki replied. "That's pretty much the same as me then. I checked out the guy's room where he had been staying but someone had already turned the place upside down." Shin said his piece. Atsuki sighed as he hung his head, "This is gonna be harder than I thought." Shin laughed at his friend,"This is a B-rank mission you know. What did you think, that we would come here, fight a few ninjas and they would spit out the information we needed in the form of a scroll?" "YES!" Atsuki yelled. Shin simply shook his head as he decided to go to sleep.
The two tried again the next day, while Shin kept his eye out for any trouble, and it seems that their luck was better this time around. "Winter Lake!" Atsuki told Shin as soon as he entered the room, "They say that he used to visit Winter Lake often, but he lived here so why would he keep going there without getting bored? I bet there is a clue there!" Shin nodded as he heard but spoke with a solemn expression, "I got the same thing, it is weird isn't it." "Weird? How? Doesn't that mean there is definitely something there?" Atsuki became confused. "It's weird because yesterday we didn't get any clue and today both of us got pointed towards the same place?" Shin answered Atsuki, his eyes widened as realization dawned on him, "It's a trap!" Shin nodded, "Yes, but it's also our only clue. It will be the 4th day tomorrow, if we rush back to the land of hot springs and find Fujio sensei then she could help us but we might miss the deadline. Or we could just investigate by ourselves and see what we find. What should we do?" Shin asked Atsuki, "Why are you asking me?" Atsuki pointed to himself in confusion, "You are the leader remember? It's your call." Shin watched as Atsuki became silent and contemplated his options.
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