5 Chapter 5

Fortunately I was not summoned by Sandaime for the little meeting with Naruto. Well even I could tell that I was being paranoid but I had a good reason too.

I did not want to meet the old man because I definitely wont be able to hide the changes in my personality from him. Aoki was a loner who rarely talked and always maintained a stoic face while I was very carefree compared to him.

I had planned to gradually change the impression of others towards me so anything that could prevent my plan was of course not welcomed by yours truly.

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Right now I had come to the mission center for of course the purpose of choosing a mission. I could perform the techniques without trouble now so now it was time to test them in real missions.

To tell the truth , I was not confident in acting as a ninja. The reasons were simple. Even if I had the knowledge, I still could not perform the acts like stealth which were instinct for jounin class ninja. I was bound to commit mistakes when tailing someone or something like that especially if the target was a powerful and experienced one. So in such circumstances, the ninjutsu in my arsenal would not be much useful either.

No matter what , inside I was a modern Earthling not a veteran shinobi. So I had decided to look for missions which involved direct combat rather than collecting information. So missions like bounty hunting, clearing bandits or hunting missing nins were best fit for me right now.

The chunin in charge of giving put mission scrolls seemed to be annoyed with my behaviour and I could not blame him either. After all I was already checking different slips for an hour now but had not decided on one mission.

Suddenly my focus was broken as a familiar voice called for me from behind.

??? - Aoki? You are Aoki, right?

I was really surprised when I turned back and saw the newcomer's face. He was Sarutobi Azuma. The only remaining son of Sandaime.

Azuma - What happened, did you not recognize me? Well I have just returned after eight years after all..

Me - Azuma , so the rumors were true then. You have really left the capital. Besides I wont forget the face of Sandaime's son that easily.

Azuma - Tch.. dont mention that. I had another argument with my old man few hours ago. Anyway, Congratulations on becoming a jounin! I met some of our batchmates and yours and Kurenai's promotion was really the talk of the hour.

Me - Yea..thank you. So are you two going out already?

Azuma - Me?

Me - Tsk.. Dont act like that. Our whole batch knows about your crush on Kurenai.

It was really fun to tease him. Azuma was so surprised that his cigarette fell out of his mouth and it remained open for a while. Did he really think that nobody could guess that from his unusual glances towards Kurenai all the time? Well this much was clear from Aoki's memories and besides I knew that both of them would become a couple from the story anyway.

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The little episode with Azuma continued for few more minutes before the guy left saying that he had made plans to meet Anko and it was not a good idea to make her wait. Well it was correct because from Aoki's memories, I could see that Anko really had a nasty temper but loved dango too much.

As for me? , I once again started my search for a mission. The list for B ranks was a long one but I was hesitating between two of them.

One was a bandit clearing mission which should have been my first pick but I was hesitating because according to the info , the actual number of enemies was unknown while it was confirmed that the leader was a chunin class trio. I was hesitating because it would be troublesome if the enemies had any more chunin or even genin class ninja because my actual battle experience was close to none.

The other one was an escort mission. A rather wealthy merchant was hiring a jounin to escort him until the Captial of Fire Country. This one was much simple but I was not sure about this one because it would take at least two weeks to complete. The Capital was not that far from Konoha considering my jounin level speed but it was another story if I had to travel at a slow pace along with the carriage.

After thinking for another few times, I took the bandit clearing mission and left the mission center.

The location was near a small commercial town. I could reach there in about one day easily. From the battles , I could gain the valuable experience and return back rather fast. Then I could pick another mission soon.

Besides I could also train my stealth and tracking abilities during this mission which was another reason I chose this mission.

I was rather eager to leave but a voice inside my head rang at the same time , I stepped a foot out of the mission center.

QUEST FUNCTION UNLOCKED.

INVENTORY FUNCTION UNLOCKED.

QUEST : Eliminate the bandit group (70/70)

REWARD : SHOP FUNCTION UNLOCKED, 500 SHOP POINTS , NEWBIE GIFT PACK.

The notification came and left me surprised. I had not expected that the condition to unlock the functions would be much easier than I had thought before. Besides the newbie gift pack piqued my curiosity by a whole a lot so my determination to complete the mission as soon as possible became much strengthened too.

According to system , the number of enemies should be 70 in total. So I hastily went back to my apartment to take some explosion tags which Aoki had collected before. A small plan was budding inside my head and a famous quote came with it.

" ART IS EXPLOSION !!" Yes. My plan was simply to track the base of the bandits and blow them up. Well it was possible only if they were together or there were no hostages but having everything prepared beforehand was not that bad choice either.