Chapter 60: Poison

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I knew I had nailed it when I saw the stares as I headed to the main room. I had appeared to the castle dirty, as if I had been on the road for a long time, so my beauty couldn't really be seen.

Now though, not only could it be seen, it was magnified. Beauty could more often than not be a kunoichi's deadliest weapon, so we learned to capitalize on it. If one couldn't find an ugly Kunoichi, it wasn't only because Kishimoto was horny, it was also because we were all taught to be more beautiful in the academy.

In any case, before long I was in the most important room of the palace, where I could finally see everyone important who would influence my mission.

Of course, there was the Daimyo and his wife, whom I had already seen. The Geishas were nowhere to be seen, seems I had some more people lose their job.

As for the Land of Water dignitaries, I immediately saw they weren't the supposed nobles. They were dressed as such, but I could see they were in fact ninjas from Kiri.

I didn't recognize them because their disguises were bad, far from that actually, it was to be expected for ninjas. However, they were betrayed by one of their members, who had a large rectangular box next to him.

It was Kisame Hoshigaki, one of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, along with his sentient sword, Samehada. He would go on to become one of the members of Akatsuki in the original work.

His special features were covered up, so he looked more like a normal person now, but I could still recognize his face. Adding to that the giant box next to him and the way the others behaved around him, I was positive it was him.

As for the others, I couldn't say I recognized them, but they were definitely ninjas too, or they wouldn't show these subtle signs of fear towards Kisame. Kiri was never reputed for their great acting skills anyway, it's the Bloody Mist, not Oscar's Mist.

Ignoring that bad joke, this was good intel because their hierarchy meant a lot for my mission. With some more observation, I should be able to find the most suitable one for my plan.

Pulling my attention from them, I sat down in the middle of the room, the shamisen in my hands, and bowed to the Daimyo as I started playing a more romantic song this time. A part of me wanted to just play Shape of You right there, but that was an English song, and it would defeat the purpose of a my love song if they couldn't understand it. And me knowing another language would be suspicious.

So instead I switched to something Japanese, that wasn't straight about love, but enough for my goal, and immediately started playing.

My voice was softer this time, and the shamisen was used less, but it did not make my performance any lesser. Instead, as I progressed into the song, I saw the Daimyo's wife have her hands turn completely white as she clenched her fists hard.

Indeed, she was a very jealous person. By the time I ended my song, the Daimyo laughed and clapped, "Wonderful performance!"

His wife snorted and said, "Girl, serve us tea now, I've had enough of music."

Hook, line and sinker, the big fish has been baited.

I put down the instrument and first served the Daimyo, much to his wife's annoyance, before serving her as she scrutinized my every movements, waiting for me to slip up somewhere and yell at me, which was exactly what I wanted.

Even better yet, I didn't even have to mess up on my own. As I finished serving her and moved toward the Land of Water dignitaries, she yelled, "You useless servant you are shaming us by having our guests wait!"

None of the Kiri ninjas reacted, and neither did the Daimyo, so I bowed at her and said, "My apologies Mistress…"

She cut me off by throwing her cup of tea at me, aiming for my head. If I didn't do anything, then the hot tea would splash on my face and disfigure me for at least the rest of the day. Well, that's if I was a normal girl, it can't really do any damage to me, but they don't know that.

Thankfully I didn't have to do anything as I suddenly felt a chill, and the tea froze right in front of me, along with the cup. At the same time, one of the Kiri ninjas appeared next to me and grabbed the cup.

I remained unmoving for a second, to express my shock, before bowing at him and thanking, "You saved me Sir, thank you."

This man, by far the youngest of the bunch, smiled and replied, "It's only natural."

He sent a nasty look at the Mistress, who flinched, before smiling back at me. Yep, he's the weak link in the team.

Ninjas are taught in every village they are supposed to be emotionless tools, but anyone having watched Naruto knows that even members of the Root, where ninjas are the most abused both physically and psychologically, they still have feelings.

So my goal was to rile up the Mistress enough to have her go against me, and see which one would react. And now, I've found him, little Ice Boy.

He wasn't even 20, so he had less experience than the others, and fell to the little girl act. I bowed to him and the Daimyo as I said, "I will go fetch some more tea from the kitchens."

Before the Daimyo could reply, I went off running, as if I was a frightened little rabbit trying to flee from the big bad wolf.

As I arrived in the room I was interviewed in, I saw the butler, still giving orders, but he was also looking at me worried. I really am great at attracting pity aren't I?

I didn't immediately head to the kitchens though, and instead stopped near Jiro, and continuing with my pitiful act, I asked, "Could I prepare the tea? I would probably do it better than anyone and…"

I was speaking very fast, and hyperventilating, as if I was panicking. Jiro picked up on it and said, "Fine, we'll send another girl while you make tea. Don't be too long."

I nodded, and walked away. Of course, I didn't do that to earn time away, but for the next phase of my plan, poison.

Of course, my aim wasn't to poison anyone to death, that would be much too obvious. Instead, I wanted to use poison to stimulate certain emotions and thoughts on my victims.

For example, feel angrier, hornier or more sensitive. It was a wonder what poisons could do to the mind. Especially with how it was done.

For a ninja, poisoning isn't only done by mixing plants, but more so with their chakra. Extracting certain components of certain plants and infusing them in others. The technique could also change what said attribute did.

It was a bit complicated, but I happened to excel at it. Moreover, some of the techniques I had discovered by myself specialized in poisons.

So as I arrived in the kitchens, I started making the tea myself, making it as good as possible while also tempering with the cups and the tea.