Chapter 17

It was dark. I stood guard as Kakashi snuck towards the mystery item. We wore gloves to not leave traces. Yoku snored and I jumped. "Shhh…" muttered Racoon. 

I glared at Yoku and his men. During dinner, I had fed them a sedative, they probably wouldn't wake up anyways. Eh, it was ANBU. Kakashi crawled out with a single vial. There was clear liquid in it. I held out my hand and he handed it to me. I stared at hit, swirling it. It was clear, there was no hint of anything in it. Water? I frowned and uncapped it. 

Cat hissed, "What are you doing?" 

"Finishing the mission?" I sniffed the vial. 

There was no smell. Either it was water, or it was poison. I bit my finger, Summoing Jutsu! Poof! Cat glared at me but the guards and Yoku didn't stir. "Katsuo," I said to the slug, "Can you tell me what this is?" 

He sniffed it, "Poison, never seen anything like it. If you can get more, I can analyze it." 

I nodded to Kakashi who snuck towards the box. "Get all of it," I hissed. 

"What?" asked Cat, "Are you crazy?" 

I pulled out a sealing scroll and pulled out about twenty empty vials identical to the one that held the poison. "Where did you get that?" asked Racoon. 

"Standard medic equipment…" I said. 

"You mean that stuff was shinobi made?" asked Racoon. 

"Probably," I muttered, "Go fill these with water." 

Racoon left and Kakashi came back. I grabbed the entire box and dumped the vials into my sealing scroll. One of Yoku's guards stirred but remained asleep. There was a piece of paper at the bottom. "Can you copy this?" I asked Cat who nodded and started writing. 

The eyes of the guard opened. "Slug!" muttered Kakashi. 

I disappeared, hit him on the back of the neck, and returned, catching everything I had been holding without making a sound. They stared at me in shock and I shrugged. Racoon came back and handed me the vials of water. I put them in the box and waited for Cat to finish copying. 

The paper wasn't long and when Cat returned the paper, I put it in the box and handed it to Kakashi. Kakashi tiptoed back to the original place while the rest of us returned to our sleeping areas as if nothing had ever happened. 

I heard Kakashi return and I closed my eyes, asleep. 

… 

"Were you crazy?" asked Cat as we walked towards the river, only three miles away. 

I shook my head. "That poison is unqiue, as ANBU it's our job to protect Konoha. We can't let it fall into the hands of other villages." I also had a fleeting suspicion of who we were exchanging it with. One of the greatest and most dangerous poison masters in Naruto?

Cat sighed and shrugged. "So," I tried to start a conversation with Yoku, "How long have you been a merchant." 

Turns out Yoku was one of those narcissistic people who liked hearing himself talk. "My dad was a merchant too so I've been in this business my entire life, haha! You see, my dad used to trade items witht he Village of Artisans. Got to meet all kinds of shinobi. One time when I was a boy, I met this puppet master! Chiyo-sama I think, from the Land of Wind. I'm natively from the Land of Wind actually, moved around a lot though. I've been interested in buying puppets. Going to meet one now, actually." 

"Oh," I said, "Are you exchanging that mystery item for a puppet?"

He shrugged, "Can't tell you, but I can tell you about that one time I did business with a shark man! Ha, can you believe it? A sharkman!" 

He kept talking but I wasn't listening. I was too busy, lost in thought. "Watch out!" I pushed Yoku to the floor as a kunai shot above us. 

"Ah!" he screamed in fright. 

"Protect the client and the merchandise!" ordered Cat. 

I stood up and let Kakashi take Yoku by the arm, draggin him towards the cart where there was a bit more cover. "Go!" shouted Cat. I deduced the plan was for me to hold them off while the escaped. That was… nice. 

I could sense ten of them. Bandits? I frowned. Their chakra seemed a bit high for bandits. One was at least jounin level, the rest genin or low chunin.

"Get them!" shouted the one that seemed to be the leader. 

I cracked my knuckles, this would be fun. The first one swung at me, kunai in hand. I ducked grabbed his wrist, throwing him over my shoulder. He landed on his back with a thud. "It's only a girl!" shouted the leader, "Kill her and get to Yoku!"

So where they after Yoku? Or the merchandise? "Get the item!" nevermind they were after Yoku's merchandise. 

Two of them came at me. I pulled out the three pronged kunai and the froze, stepping backward. "What are you so afraid of?" asked the jounin, "The Yellow Flash is dead!"

I shrugged and threw the kunai at them. Flash! I grabbed the kunai, appearing behind men. I didn't want to kill them… yet. I slammed their heads into the floor and they slumped, unconscious. "Next," I muttered. 

All of them except the strongest jumped at me. I pulled out my tanto, but not out of it's sheath. I whacked them, using the moves I had practiced with Isobu. I flipped and hit two of them on the back of the head. One of them swung and I ducked, narrowly dodging. Then, I bridged onto my hands and kicked up, hitting him in the chest and sending him flying into another. 

There was only the jounin level bandit left. "Are you the Yellow Flashes student?"

I shrugged, "You won't ever know." 

He growled. "Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!" 

The wind blew towards me and I infused my tanto with chakra and cut through it. Surprisingly, it worked. He frowned, "Interesting…" 

I shrugged and slashed at him. He jumped back and I threw the kunai. It appeared next to him and I hit him with the flat side of my tanto. He fell, unconscious. I landed and pulled out a piece of paper. I left my thoughts, apologies, and suspicions on the piece of paper. I was pretty sure the jounin level person I had knocked out was Baki, from the Hidden Village of Sand…