CH_7.6 (224)

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Hajime, a sensory-nin of the Hidden Leaf stationed at Camp Banana, strolled across the makeshift earthen perimeter wall that covered the village center. In his case, the stigma surrounding sensory-nin— that they were only good at their sensory capabilities—was somewhat true. After all, they were hired solely for their special capabilities and nothing else, working extremely long hours that left them very little time to develop their other skills.

Hajime embodied the stereotype to the highest degree. He was only useful because of his sensory capabilities, but he didn't mind because he was outstanding at it, even compared to other sensory-nin. He was content with being a hyper specialist as that's what got him good jobs and he didn't see that changing anytime soon.

Putting all his time and effort into his sensing capabilities allowed Hajime to clock the chakra signature, moving rapidly toward Camp Banana. He turned to the thick woods bordering the camp, where he sensed the chakra. He judged it to be a high Grade-1 on the sensory-nin scale, but it took him by surprise because the chakra felt was nothing like he was used to feeling from most Grade-1 threats.

Despite that, he rang the alarms and notified the entire base about a potential intruder and incursion.

He felt people in the base flare up their chakra, which overwhelmed his senses for a moment. In the handful of seconds it took to steady himself, he lost track of the chakra signature. He sharpened his focus and quickly re-confirmed his senses on the signature, only to realize it was next to him.

Hajime looked around, but he didn't find anything.

"Be careful; the target might be a master of stealth," Hajime warned the others on guard duty.

As he continued to look around with a kunai in his hand, he heard a hissing sound. Hajime looked at the wall around his feet and froze up when he saw the slitted, sickly-yellow eyes of a forest green snake as thick as his arm and as tall as he was.

Before he could move or scream, the snake lunged at him, completely trapping and immobilizing Hajime in its coiling, serpentine body.

"You have sharp senses, human," the snake hissed, its head a few centimeters away from Hajime's face, "but those senses are a big problem for a predator like myself… maybe I should make you into a meal."

Hajime was beyond terrified and couldn't produce a peep from his mouth. He could only stare at the snake with his quaking wide eyes. The other guards couldn't move as the snake had Hajime in its grasp as a hostage.

The snake's forked tongue touched Hajime's cheek, making his entire body flinch and break out in cold sweat. Just as he thought he was about to become its dinner, the snake laughed loudly, and Hajime found his legs free as the snake coiled its entire body around his torso, arms, and neck.

"Unfortunately, I'm not here for a meal," the snake said. "Mitarashi Anko has sent me. Walk me to the humans named Shirakumo and Toridasu. I bring them news from her."

Hajime, of course, knew Anko and also knew that she was infamous for her snake summons. Hearing Anko was the one to send the snake, he calmed down from utter terror to stiffness from fear.

"I-It's okay, Chunin Mitarashi has sent the snake," Hajime announced loudly as he awkwardly turned his body to face the other guards because the snake was still coiled around his neck, and he didn't want to make any movements. He spoke respectfully to the snake, "Can you please let me go? I'll happily lead you to the jonin.

"No, you take me," said the snake, and Hajime could sense that the snake wasn't going to take a no for an answer.

"O-Okay," Hajime gulped. He announced: "I'm talking the snake to see the jonin. Clear a path."

Hajime jumped down the wall, and by then, the shinobi in the base had already gathered near the wall, fully decked in combat gear. They cleared a path for Hajime, who didn't need to walk much as Shirakumo stood in the middle of the road.

 "Release my shinobi," Shirakumo said, sounding dead serious.

"Not with all these human shinobi around me, ready to hunt me down," the snake hissed. "My time with Orochimaru hasn't left a great impression of you humans. I like my Anko, but I can't say the same for all of you… Most of the time when she calls me, I end up killing and eating your species." The snake's yellow eyes scanned the entire area, and the weak-willed in the crowd looked nervous or looked away when their gaze met the snake's.

Shirakumo frowned with displeasure at the mention of Orochimaru. The shinobi gathered around and looked nervous and scared at the mention of the Snake Sannin.

"You're the one called Shirakumo, correct?" asked the snake. "Give me your word that I won't be harmed, and I will release this human."

"Does that mean my words mean nothing in Anko's eyes," said Toridasu.

The slits in the snake's eyes narrowed as he turned his head back to see Toridasu standing behind Hajime. The snake moved around Hajime in agitation, coiling a bit tighter, making Hajime grunt in pain; the fact that he couldn't sense someone as dangerous as Toridasu standing so close to him wasn't something the snake welcomed.

"What… scared?" asked Toridasu, tilting his head.

Shirakumo felt a growing tension between the snake and Toridasu and interjected before it became a problem.

"I give you my word that you won't be harmed. I assume you have word from Anko; let's talk about it inside," said Shirakumo.

The snake's eyes remained affixed on Toridasu for a moment before he opened his maw and sank his fangs into Hajime's shoulder.

———

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"Rest assured; I will give him the anti-venom when we're done. As you humans put it, it's insurance," said Mara, the snake.

Mara sat with Shirakumo and Toridasu in the war room. Neither of the Hidden Leaf jonin looked very pleased with Mara injecting Hajime with his snake venom. Their sensory-nin was in a fatal condition after getting injured inside the base while the two jonin stood by and watched.

"What does Anko want?" asked Shirakumo.

Mara sat coiled on the large table, taking nearly half of the tabletop. He opened his maw for a scroll tube to emerge from his body and drop down on a table covered in spittle. Mara flicked the scroll tube across the table with his take.

The scroll tube stopped in front of Toridasu, who used a handkerchief to pick it up and opened the tube to retrieve a scroll from inside. Toridasu read the scroll and then handed it to Shirakumo.

"It's legit," said Toridasu. The scroll had Anko's handwriting and a secret code to validate the legitimacy of all communication between the Yu team and the base. "She wants us to print posters for them."

"They moved quick," said Shirakumo. He looked to Mara. "We give you the posters, and she summons you into the city."

"That's the plan," Mara said, hissing.

"Summons sure are convenient," Shirakumo said with a deep exhale.

In the shinobi world, summons were in high demand due to their sheer usefulness, but contracting a summon species was an extremely rare opportunity that only a few were lucky to have. And even those who had signed summon contracts had to pay a prize in return for having intelligent animals capable of using chakra at call.

There was a rumor revolving around Orochimaru that the bigger, more powerful snake summons required human sacrifice every time they were summoned, and Orochimaru very happily sacrificed a large amount of people every time he needed help from the behemothian serpents that struck fear in the hearts of his enemies.

"You have three days; I will come to collect the posters sealed in a scroll that fits in that tube around this time of day in three days," said Mara, pointing at the scroll tube covered in snake spittle.

"Oh, you're leaving. What a pity," said Toridasu, his words dripping in sarcasm.

"I'll be in the nearby forest. Warn your humans to be careful if they visit; I might mistake them for prey," Mara laughed and then slithered off the table, heading towards the door.

"The anti-venom," Shirakumo stood up, looking ready to stop and grab Mara on a moment's notice. Mara might be a big snake, but he wasn't a jonin.

Mara laughed again, louder this time. "Don't worry. He doesn't need it. I'm not a venomous snake." The snake's hilarious laughter was audible from outside the war room for several seconds before they couldn't hear it.

Toridasu and Shirakumo looked at each other in silence. A snake had made up a fool out of both of them.

There was a knock on the door, and the chunin iryo-nin, who was looking after Hajime, stepped inside.

"Sir… uhm, Hajime—"

Toridasu cut him off. "Hajime is fine, we know."

"…Yes, sir," the chunin iryo-nin got the message and immediately stepped out of the room, leaving the two jonin alone

"This is why I don't like that girl," Toridasu said to Shirakumo. "Damnable snakes."

———

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Because of her duties as Chinatsu's handmaid, Rikku hadn't had the opportunity to visit the base of operation in the abandoned factory.

She was happy to be out of the handmaid's attire and back into her usual clothes. Unexpectedly, the handmaid's uniform was comfortable and easy to move around in, which made sense to her after she worked in them as the job required moving around doing a lot of tasks from preparing Chinatsu and maintaining the house— but she was simply more comfortable in her vest and pants that she had been wearing since she became a shinobi.

As she entered the building, she saw Takuma on the other end of the long floor. The base was situated in the most isolated part of the building—in the corner with other abandoned buildings adjacent to it. The factory Gaku had chosen was abandoned because a few years back, a dangerous chemical leaked into it killing six people, which led to the factory's closure. The team wasn't a fan of the location despite Gaku assuring the location's safety. The other option was a haunted warehouse, but Anko rejected it because she was worried that children might use the warehouse for 'tests of courage'—thus leading them to choose the factory.

Takuma was staring at a huge plan wall he had made. Because he was the only one not tied to Chinatsu for cover, he had the most amount of time to gather information and intelligence via observation and exploration.

Rikku didn't want to disturb the thoroughly engrossed boy and moved silently, but when she was close enough, Takuma turned, and his eyes snapped toward her as though she was a threat. The sudden movement from him gave her a pause, but since she didn't have to worry about disturbing him, she greeted him.

"Hey," Takuma returned her greeting.

"You should make it more readable," said Rikku as she stopped beside Takuma and gazed over the surprisingly large plans on the wall.

"It's not readable?" Takuma looked at her, his brows furrowed.

"Maybe to you; it doesn't make much sense to me." Rikku tried to look closer, but it all seemed like a huge, chaotic mess of information thrown on a wall. "What is all of this?"

"I'm trying to make sense of the city in my mind," said Takuma, pointing at a rudimentary city map in the middle of everything "I want to know what's where so I'm more comfortable with operating here. Not knowing how this city works is scary. The more I know, the more comfortable I am."

"Makes sense," said Rikku, nodding. As she looked at the plan-wall, she couldn't see the connections between the many clusters of notes that he had made, but she could roughly see that Takuma was focusing on areas and people in those areas.

And as she thought of people, a question rose in her mind."I didn't think sticking posters would be the first big thing we would do in the city," she said.

"Oh, what did you think we'd be doing?" he asked, his eyes stuck to the plan-wall as though he was obsessed with the clustered mess he had created.

"Honestly… I thought we would be killing one of the enemy shinobi," Rikku shrugged. She knew her answer was blockheaded, but that's what she thought was the entire objective. Weaken the enemy from the inside before the main force came knocking from the outside.

"You're not wrong; there'll be plenty of time for that," Takuma chuckled.

"So… we're doing this because we want the residents to help us, right?" asked Rikku. "Wouldn't we accomplish the same if we killed a couple of enemy shinobi? Wouldn't they be happy that someone was finally doing something?"

Takuma removed his eyes from the wall to look at Rikku.

"Yes, we're doing this so that we would have the resident's support, but that's just an outcome of something else we're trying to prevent. The city of Yu still considers the Land of Frost as the enemy, but if we allow what's happening, that would change, and the city would start looking at them favorably."

"I don't get it," Rikku shook her head. "Why would they look at invaders favorably?"

"Because we as a species aren't logical beings. After months of limited food and disrupted lives, if they returned to abundant food and their lives back on track, and the enemy claims that they did solve the problem Land of Hot Water created, the people would side with the side who 'solved the problem.'

Takuma paused for a moment as he mulled on something.

"For example, there's a helpless old man who's running away from a goon who's trying to kill him. And you have the option to let the old man escape. Would you help?"

"Yeah, I would help," said Rikku.

"But what if I told you that the helpless old man raped the goon's sister who took then took her life. The goon was just trying to exact revenge for his sister. Would you have still helped?"

"Of course not!"

"But you just said you would."

"Because I didn't know—" Rikku realized what Takuma was trying to explain. "The city people don't know that the old man is the real scum and will instead think of the goon as the scummy one."

"Yes," he nodded. "Imagine if our main forces come to free the city, but the city people who have been deceived get in the way. They try to help their 'liberators' and get in between a conflict between two shinobi forces. Do you think we will mow the civilians down to get to the enemy?"

Rikku shook her head.

Takuma continued. "Let's say we somehow got rid of the enemy without causing a civilian massacre. What now? We leave— but the Land of Hot Water is left with a city near the border full of Land of Frost sympathizers and supporters. Do you think the Hot Water Daimyo and the Hidden Steam would be able to see Yu as anything but a potential security threat? They would be left with a timebomb waiting to explode.

"So yes, I'm hoping by revealing the truth, the people will help us when we need their help, but mostly, it's because we're trying to rescue the city, and I don't want them to be doomed at the end of it all."

Rikku looked at the plan-wall, and unsurprisingly, nothing had changed, and it still seemed like a chaotic mess to her.

"I… don't think I'll be much help here. I would've killed the goon," she said.

"You don't need to help with this. You just need to be there ready when it's time to kill the scummy old man," said Takuma. "I think you'll be a very good handmaid who does some killing on the side."

Rikku smiled.

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The link is in the synopsis!