Chapter 17 - C Rank Mission

B - "If you ever need help with something, then I will be there for you." Shinji didn't answer whether he believed her act or not and just wanted her to know that she wasn't alone.

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Chapter 17 - C Rank Mission

…

Shinji contemplated how to try and approach this situation, there wasn't necessarily a right way to approach a situation like this. But he wanted to reassure Sayuri of one thing first. "If you ever need help with something, then I will be there for you."

Her eyes widened at the words, she then looked towards the table, hiding her face from Shinji, so he couldn't tell what she was thinking. "That's such a cringe thing to say," she muttered. "You don't know about what's happening behind the scenes and you want to try helping me?"

He didn't back down due to her words and shrugged, giving her as much of a non-answer as he could without sounding like he wasn't on her side. Helping her? Well, he didn't know the situation and was cautious to get into something unknown. But helping her to the best of his abilities, as long as it wasn't something outrageous? Of course, he would. She was his teammate after all.

Shinji had his suspicions of what her situation was, and that same feeling of suspicion had been getting stronger lately, especially since Sayuri acted as if she would die soon. But he crushed such feelings by willpower alone, knowing that such things would only bring chaos to the team. "I will help you and have your back, as your teammate, that's my duty."

She smiled, glancing at him and the happy look in her eyes. "You're so logical, but during times like these you're quite soft."

"Not necessarily. You're someone who I want to trust my back to, if I am in a life or death situation, I wish you would have my back. So of course, I can't expect you to do the same for me, if I don't reciprocate." Shinji explained his reason, he knew that there might come a day when his life is in danger, and when it did, he didn't want to have Sayuri or Kota leave him behind. Rather, he would like it if they helped him, and he would do the same if they ended up in a desperate situation.

Sayuri turned to look at Shinji, and she had a smile on her face while gazing at him and he couldn't quite decipher what she was thinking. Her blue eyes peered into his brown ones and she chuckled. "Then don't worry, I will have your back," she got up and glanced at a shop nearby. "I'm going to get us some drinks until the ramen comes. What an amazing teammate you have, isn't that right?"

She didn't wait for an answer and just got up, going to buy the drinks. Shinji stared at her as she walked away and sighed. During these weeks he had spent training doing something he found easier than talking to teammates.

As his mind wandered, he saw Ichiraku, the middle-aged man who had his usual smile on and brought the ramen. "Enjoy!" he gave Shinji a thumbs up with a knowing look. "By the way, since you're my 50,000th customer, you'll get this meal for free! Congratulations!"

"Thanks," Shinji thanked the man, glad to not have and waste money on it. But as he thought about the situation, he couldn't help but think that something was strange. Why would the old guy give away free meals to him? Shinji didn't believe himself to be that lucky.

But as he was thinking that, Sayuri came in with two unopened drinks, it was apple juice.

'Right, and just as she was away, I miraculously no longer have to pay for the meals. Also if we were really his 50,000th customer, then Ichiraku would have announced it as soon as we came in, not now as he brought the food. That's how it usually goes.'

He thought about how Sayuri went to buy drinks and the shop's distance, unless there was a small line, it wouldn't have taken this long. Also from what he observed, there were only a couple of customers in the other shop.

'Well, it seems like this is the third time she pays for my meal. So she probably used the buying drinks as an excuse to go and pay Ichiraku for the meal and give some lame excuse. Must have been worried about my finances…'

Shinji decided to not say and act like he didn't notice what she did. "It seems like my luck took a turn for the better. The meal is free due to being the 50,000th customer."

"What?" Sayuri pouted. "Now you have to take me out again after our C Rank Mission. Because this doesn't count."

Shinji chuckled at her words and nodded. "Sure," he had no reason to refuse as he might just get another free meal on top of getting to know his teammate better. "Maybe next time we should invite Kota too."

The sour expression that came to Sauri's face as soon as those words left his mouth was a clear indication of her feelings on the matter. Shinji smirks, amused at her sudden change in demeanor.

…

During the rest of the evening, their conversation went normally and it was mostly light-hearted.

Shinji went to his apartment, which now looked like it belonged to a ninja. The windows were trapped and a couple of genjutsu were woven as soon as he entered. Like always, he took out a futon and put it under his bed, while making a water clone and having it sleep in his real bed.

Staring at the wooden beams that held his mattress, from under his bed, Shinji smiled. "Today wasn't so bad. Maybe I should relax more often like this."

For the first time in a while, Shinji wasn't so tired that when his head hit the pillow he would fall asleep. Instead, he had some time to himself and think about how much he had changed after graduation.

…

The next day came by fast, as if in the blink of an eye, and Shinji was relaxed, with a smile on his face as he got up and smelled the fresh morning wind flowing through his window. He had never felt so relaxed, his mind was sharp like a razor, and his body wasn't fatigued at all.

Which was new to him, even though it had been just three weeks of such hellish training, the sensation of being well-rested felt so new to him.

With a smile on his face, he went to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror, brown eyes stared right back at him with slightly spiky dark hair dripping slightly along his face. Shinji smiled and started doing his morning routine.

He put on his usual clothes, he had many pairs of the same clothes. Humans wasted a lot of thought processes even picking something as simple as their clothes. During his training weeks, Shinji couldn't waste time like that and just had sleeveless gray hoodies with dark short-sleeved shirts and dark pants with ninja sandals.

Today was a special day as Yamato had told them to prepare for the C Rank Mission, and Shinji had prepared adequately for it. He took a small backpack that was filled with storage scrolls that had food, medicine, survival kits, and other things. Though he had two scrolls full of water, just in case he was running low on Chakra and needed to have some surrounding water.

..

Unlike usual, where they would meet in the training grounds, today Shinji was early like always and waited for them just outside of the Hokage Tower. Not long after him, Yamato appeared and he waved at Shinji with a happy smile on his face. The jonin no longer seemed to be angry about Shinji previously not listening.

From what Shinji could tell, his jonin teacher seemed somewhat happy. "You seem happy today?"

"Of course I am," Yamato stated proudly, ruffling his student's hair. "My Genin are finally going to become a fully-fledged ninja."

"Sensei!" Kota yelled out as he ran towards them with a big backpack. Both Shinji and Yamato stared at him dully, as if he was doing something stupid. Kota tilted his head in confusion, not understanding why they were looking at him like that. "What's wrong?"

Shinji suddenly noticed something move stealthily around the trees and saw that it was Sayuri, she was moving amongst the trees quite fast. But he easily caught sight of her, even as she went behind him.

"Use storage scrolls," Sayuri advises Kota. Yamato smiled and nodded as if complementing her abilities, and agreeing with her words.

Shinji turned around and smiled at his teammate. "It looks less cool when the victim you're trying to scare already notices you. Though the way you used the shadows of the trees and Genjutsu to make yourself less visible was amazing."

*sigh*

She sighed in disappointment. "I will teach it to you later."

"Anyway, now that you're all here, let's go and meet Hokage -sama," Yamato brought their attention to him. "I already notified the Hokage yesterday and have just the perfect mission as the first one for you."

So with Yamato in the lead, they walked towards the tower… after Yamato lent Kato a storage scroll. Shinji contemplated if his jonin teacher had predicted something like that would happen?

…

Shinji cringed internally at the sight of the Hokage's office, it was filled with papers and even with five Chunin helping him, the Hokage was swarmed.

Was it because of the Chunin exams that were coming soon? Shinji wondered, but his mind stopped thinking of such things as the Hokage's eyes settled on him and he smiled.

"Yamato, you've come for the first C Rank mission?" Hiruzen addressed the jonin, with a grandfatherly smile on his face.

Except for the first D Rank Mission of the new Genins, the Hokage didn't usually give the rest of the D Rank missions and they were handled by other Chunin that work as paper pushers. Opening a scroll, Hiruzen glanced at Shinji and the others.

"Tanzaku Prison Escapees, C Rank, many criminals imprisoned there have escaped as of recently. You will have to help the officials deal with the escaped prisoners, the payment is the highest possible for a C Rank Mission, at 100,000 Ryo." Hiruzen continued reading the rest of the contents in the scroll, which included contents of where the prisoners might have escaped, eye-witnesses, and how there were some suspicions that they had formed a group of mountain bandits. After finishing reading the scroll, the Hokage threw it at Yamato, and the jonin caught it. "Normally, for new Genin as their first mission it is an Escort Mission, but Yamato has insisted that you're ready for this. Be careful out there."

After saying that, everyone nodded respectfully towards the Hokage and walked out of the office of the busy village leader. Shinji was glad that he didn't have to deal with things like this at least. Though he likes studying Jutsu and is curious about any Secret Techniques, Konoha might have. Becoming Hokage to get his hands on that sounded like a pain.

Still, Shinji was quite ambitious in getting his hands on some rare jutsu, knowing that without them he at best will reach some Jonin level. He needed to be special in some way or another.

...

The road to Tanzaku was quite far away and would take days to travel to. Even as ninjas, they could at most lower that time in a day or so. Because they also had to take into account saving stamina, and being ready for surprise encounters.

As team 13, they weren't specialized in tracking or anything like that. A team set to fail, without a specialization. But as they moved through the forests, they were nothing less than a blur.

Fwish!

Shinji was on the right flank, and he was a little cautious of the mission. Yamato wasn't the kind of teacher who would deliberately pick something dangerous for them.

So he brainstormed to figure out what his teacher was getting at here.

"This mission wasn't chosen at random," Yamato suddenly announced. His voice is serious, leaving no room for debate. "While the details aren't exactly written down, the situation is a little more delicate than just taking care of the prisoners."

"What do you mean, sensei?" Kota asked nervously, as he could sense the tense situation. A bead of sweat rolled down his cheek.

Yamato continued staring forward, and after a couple of seconds of silence, he added. "You must kill the escapees. This mission was handpicked by me to give you the taste of what it feels like to kill. As a ninja, you're dancing with death every mission. I don't want you to learn what it feels to kill in a critical situation."

Shinji caught on to that while Kota seemed nervous at the prospect of having to kill someone. While Sayuri seemed perfectly calm, like always. People reacted differently when killing someone, and her reaction wasn't anything strange. Though Shinji suspected that this might not be the first time she will kill someone. But he kept that thought to himself.

While he was observing the others, he also took account of himself. How was he feeling about this? Well, Shinji felt strangely calm, initially, he had thought that this would be more nerve-wracking. But unexpectedly, he had never felt calmer. It was quite strange.

Checking his pulse, his heartbeat also was normal.

Was it because it was just words that he wasn't panicking? Or maybe ever since joining the academy, he knew that killing people is part of a ninja's job. So this didn't come as a surprise to him.

But right now, amongst all the people in his team, the person who was the biggest mystery to Shinji right now was... himself.

Still, he didn't delve into it for too long and concentrated on his surroundings. This was the first time he had been out of Konoha, and unlike back in the village, he couldn't relax out here and play around.

'Hmmm… I wonder how it will feel to kill someone? There's no avoiding it now, I have understood this for a long time now. But how will it feel when I kill someone? Will I be sad? Traumatized? Terrified? Fascinated with life? Or maybe I will not be bothered by it.'

…

Tanzaku, a town surrounded by high and thick walls. It also had a giant historical castle in the middle, which was a good tourist attraction. But even with all that, this place was mostly known for its gambling houses, casinos, and such things.

Shinji and the rest of the team walked along the streets casually. "What are we doing here?" Shinji inquired. "Don't we already have the information we need?"

"We need the updated information," Yamato explained. "Only then can we act. Also while you have the mission to take care of the prisoners, I have another mission that correlates with it. I'll explain it later."

Shinji frowned, trying to understand the situation. He didn't like now knowing something, and there was more to the mission than it seemed. Also, the prisoner's escape in and of itself was a little suspicious. The first thing that Shinji found suspicious was how long it had taken to contact the Ninja. There are cases when it happens, but that's only when some bandits take over a village and no messages are sent and only neighboring villages send the mission to Konoha, not wanting their villages to get taken over by criminals.

But here, Tanzaku Town didn't seem to be taken over at all and was even thriving. So why did it take so long for the Mission to be deployed to Konoha? The mission description said that the escapees might have even had the time to make a bandit camp in the mountains. Shinji estimated that for something like that to happen it should take at least a month.

What kind of person would let dangerous fugitives run around for a whole month? Shinji could think of hundreds of reasons. From the local noble needing a big incident to cover something else, or maybe he just wanted people to panic a little to take their gaze away from his questionable leadership.

Still, all that speculation wouldn't lead to an answer, so Shinji stopped thinking about it and instead decided to observe the situation, how it develops, and learn the truth by himself.

"You stay around here, enjoy yourself and explore the town. While I go and take care of some things with the local governor." Yamato stated, before blitzing away in a Body Flicker.

Left to his machinations, Shinji didn't know what to do. Kota seemed just as confused, but Sayuri had a devilish smirk as she glanced towards her teammates. "Shinji, you're smart right?"

"Intelligence is a relative thing," he answered. "Also in comparison to some geniuses, I would call myself normal."

"Have you ever thought of counting cards? Gambling is a good way of earning money," Sayuri tried to entice him, but Shinji stood casually as if a buddha untainted by material desire.

"Well, having some more money on hand would help with training," he nodded, which made Sayuri stare at him with a disappointed gaze.

"Is training all you think about?" she sighed.

"Counting cards? That's cheating!" remarked Kota, unwilling to partake in this.

Shinji nodded, agreeing with him. "You're right, the risks aren't worth the rewards. A Genin doing this could ruin Konoha's reputation and that will have some lasting effects on my career. For example, I might not be promoted to Chunin if I am found out to be cheating here. Because as a Chunin it will require someone to be more trustworthy than someone who uses his ninja abilities to cheat in gambling."

"Okay, okay," Sayuri nodded, trying to stop his ramblings. "How about you try legitimate gambling then," she sighed. "An honest ninja, that sounds like the punchline to a joke."

Still, Shinji was firm in his beliefs, not because he didn't want to cheat, but because of the negative impacts, it might have on his future. Unless he wanted to become a Missing Ninja, doing things that could impede your career wasn't a smart thing in his opinion.

"Geez, we are in the capital of gambling and we aren't gambling at all," Sayuri pouted. "You know, as Ninja, our lives could end at any moment. So it's normal to get some quirks or bad habits, it helps keep you sane."

Kota smiled. "Die?" he intervened in the conversation with a confident gaze. "I and Shinji aren't allowed to die until we accomplish our goals."

…

The trio spent some time as a team and acted like tourists, visiting the nearby castle, trying different foods, and talking to the locals. That lasted until Yamato returned, and Shinji also got another bit of news while talking to the locals. While the local people had heard of the prisoner's escape, it seemed like the local governor hadn't made a big deal of it and reassured the people he would get Konoha Ninja to help.

'So that dismisses my theory that the local governor is into shady business and is trying to cover it up. Or else, he would have made the news bigger and exaggerated the escapees' crimes to make people more fearful of them.'

"Yamato -sensei, what's the real mission?" Shinji glanced at his jonin teacher, Yamato sighed.

"Don't worry, your mission is as stated in the documents. Mine is a different one. Also, our targets' locations are already known, so we don't have to do any tracking."

Those simple words made it clear to Shinji that he shouldn't talk about the mission anymore and leave it at that. Still, he decided to keep his guard up, being cautious wouldn't hurt him.

…

After a while, everyone arrived at a mountain close by, but by now it had turned dark and Shinji contemplated whether they would camp. But Yamato's eyes narrowed and following his teacher's gaze, Shinji saw a wooden structure in the middle of the forest.

The structure was surrounded by walls that were made of trees, and by the look of it, Shinji could discern that it was recently built. Mostly due to the still fresh tree stumps around. "Shinji, Sayuri, Kota, I want you to go in by yourselves and deal with the situation."

Shinji swallowed, as a nervous feeling crawled down his heart. Sayuri and Kota glanced at him, there was no need for words to be spoken. They had chosen him as their leader. Shinji knew he couldn't refuse either as if Sayuri became the leader, she was a little too reckless with her life, and Kota just wasn't leader material and was unlikely to come up with a good plan.

So Shinji first took a deep breath, calming himself as his gaze turned cold. His mind immediately started working on strategies he could use in the attack. "Sayuri, Kota, make sure to follow me stealthily and only start attacking after I do. First, we must take care of the lookouts."

As a leader, Shinji led by example, he wasn't too worried about Sayuri as she seemed calm, but Kota was a whole other deal as his eyes were blinking rapidly, his breath was heavy, and his hands shook with a kunai in them.

Shinji signaled them to wait as he caught sight of one of the scouts talking about something to the other and walking back, leaving only one of them in the lookout in that direction. Shinji saw the perfect opportunity and he took action.

Fwish!

With speed no simple bandit could follow, Shinji was in front of the guard. Looking down, the man's eyes widened in shock and fear when he saw Shinji's headband. "N-"

Shinji didn't let him talk as he might have notified his colleagues. The kunai slid through the bandit's throat like butter, cutting through flesh so easily. Tears came out of the man's eyes as blood spewed out of his neck and he fell to his knees, focused on Shinji.

The genin just stared at the dying man, now he could tell how it felt to kill someone.

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[Pick one, and put your choice in a comment down below]

A - Indifferent. It was part of his job, he didn't care about it too much. People die all the time, it was only a matter of time.

B - Scared, Terrified. Seeing someone dying wasn't the biggest thing that Shinji cared about. But looking at the man's face, it was replaced by his own… Shinji didn't want to die in a horrible way like this and will make sure with everything in his power that it doesn't happen.

C - Happy. Overpowered someone weaker than yourself and dominating them. What a feeling… something that he should explore more.

D - Sad. Shinji felt sad for killing someone, what if he had a family? Or a child? Not every prisoner is guilty. The world wasn't that black and white. Shinji feels cautious of thinking like this, as it might get in the way of his duties.

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A/N: Join discord where I post the dice rolls of the chapter and their effects. And discuss with other readers about plans for Shinji:

https://discord.gg/wbwRTqd7jr

P/S: (If you like the story, give it some power stones.)