Chapter Sixteen

Pre-Chapter AN: Hey, thanks for reading this. It's literally my favourite thing to write these days. Enjoy the chapter, and let me know how it sticks if you enjoy it. 

After reading this, you can either wait until next week for the next chapter or read the next three on Pa Treon right now and keep reading as I write. For Pa Treon, you can remove the hyphen between Pa and Treon and Google it, then search for my username—Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting it in your address bar. 

Have fun with this. Also, if you haven't checked out my other story (Gamer of the Desert) yet, please do so. It's also set in the Naruto universe. It's an SI into Gaara with some gamer elements. I can guarantee you'll love it. It's also much farther along than this one, so gives you something to really sink your teeth into. 

"Well, what we have to do is simple. We go back to the village and try to figure out what's going on?" 

"The same village that the Mayor basically banished us from?" 

"Yes, the very same. Do you have a problem with that?" 

"Just making sure that we have the same things in mind" 

"Well, while we were walking through, Uzume and I noticed a few things," Shika continued.

"Like what? The general poverty of the people? I think we all noticed that." 

"But did you notice how all the women without children seemed devastated, and how the ones with male children were watching their babies like hawks?"

"No. No, I didn't." 

"Of course. What I think is that no one has been returned, but the Mayor has somehow been threatened by those who took the kids in the first place into keeping his silence. If my suspicions are right, then they realised we were coming sometime after the mission had reached Konoha, and it was too late to retract it, so the Mayor was under pressure to send us away without any investigations, or at best leading us to a false trail" She continued. 

I nodded at her words, seeing the logic in them. "That explains the relief, at least" 

"What?"

"The relief. He felt relieved when you asked us to leave. Like a lot of relief. I thought it was just because he was an arsehole, but to be honest, the emotion that would have made the most sense in that situation was victory or triumph, and not relief like a blade was suddenly taken off his neck." I explained. 

"Alright then. Change of plans. Toshiro and I will look into investigating the mothers and the missing kids. You and Uzume will look into the Mayor. Please don't kill the man or anything. We still need him" At that last part, Shika turned to me with a direct look.

I lifted my arms, affronted, "What? I don't go around killing people who piss me off, you know that, right?" 

"Your impulse control…" Shika started.

"Or lack thereof." Toshiro cut in, earning him a look of betrayal that I'd been practicing in front of the mirror. It screamed 'Et tu, Brute' in all the best ways. 

"Is quite legendary" She finished. 

I just huffed and turned around to head off. 

"Let's go Uzume" 

"I don't answer to you" She said, but still followed at my heels. 

"You do now. I'm the leader of this little group of ours." 

"Says who?"

"Shika" 

"She never said that"

"Well, she did in the second page of the mission briefing" 

"You're lying"

"Would I ever lie about in a situation so serious with the potential to derail our careers for years if handled irresponsibly?"

"Yes" 

"You know what? Valid." I relented with a smile.

"Let's just get to that office, I want to see what it was he had in those filing cabinets."

"The ones at the corner of the office?"

"Yeah, them" 

"Why?"

"They had an inordinate level of security for simple file cabinets."

"Hmm. Never noticed. Was too busy staring at the shirtless woman with the nice-" I had to dodge out of the way of a rock that flew at my head with a shocking amount of force. 

We snuck into the village this time. Shinobi could make ourselves unseen by regular civilians with nary a thought, and with the Meisaigakure jutsu well under our belts, Uzume and I didn't even have to spend our time darting between shadows at speed to avoid notice. We simply wrapped our feet with chakra to prevent any sound or footprints from marking our movements and giving it away. Even a civilian would be able to notice footprints appearing out of thin air with some amount of ease. 

We absently noticed Shika and Toshiro as they moved through the shadows until they got to one woman's home and began to speak to her. Our target was much less complex and thankfully required little to no interaction with another human. The Mayor's office was empty this time, and we wasted no time in picking the locks on the cabinet before attempting to pull out the files. I grabbed the drawer and tried dragging it out, but it didn't give. 

Uzume pushed me aside with a muttered curse and began pulling at the cabinet on her own, achieving the same as I had with my own attempts—nothing. "Hold on" I whispered to her. We deactivated our Meisaigakure jutsus to avoid wasting even more chakra as I began to examine the cabinet. Just like I'd suspected, there were seals lining the edge of the cabinet. Not a particularly complex matrix, but one that required some finesse to deactivate without risking the destruction of everything within the cabinet. Such an inelegant failsafe, I thought with a click of my tongue as I began to draw my own script underneath theirs. The languages were different, but there was enough of a common thread between our seals that I could sus out most things on my own, and for those I couldn't- I had the benefit of a byakugan that allowed me to see exactly what was going on with the flow of chakra within the seals. 

With those two advantages, it took me only three minutes to completely overpower and negate the existing seal matrix with my own. The cupboards fell open as one as we began to search through as one. With no words, we agreed that I'd start at the top drawers, and she'd start at the bottom. The first few files were nothing to write home about. Just bits of administrative work. By the second drawer, I was already beginning to come to a clear picture of the Land of Waves' economic situation. By the third, I'd found something fascinating. A single look at it made it clear what it was by its nature, but a motion from Uzume drew me to her side in seconds as I stashed the file in my seal with a subtle movement. 

"So this is what has been going on with the kids" She commented absently, and I nodded at her words. In the folder was a profile of what, we assumed, was every boy that had been taken. Things like their height, weight, age, chakra potential rating, were listed out in plain view. 

"Reminds me of the forms we had to fill to get into the academy" Uzume absently commented as she flicked through, and my eyes flicked to hers at the same time as she realised what she'd just said. 

"Fuck," I said for the both of us. 

"Let's get the hell out of here" I told her, and we wasted no time in body flickering towards the woods. All the while, I pondered how to contact Toshiro and Shika. Flaring my chakra was out of the question. If there were shinobi here, then that would be suicide. We just had to twiddle our thumbs and wait at the rendezvous spot, hoping that Shika and Toshiro didn't get caught by surprise by the enemy shinobi kidnapping children at Konoha's borders. 

XXXXXXXX- Piandao the Boulder

"So the Kill-squad failed," His Kage said with a distant tone. Eyes on the ground, he could say little about his Kage's mood or appearance, but even a fool would be able to tell that he was displeased. 

"Yes, Tsuchikage-sama. The target was there as predicted, but his team proved capable enough to dispatch the entire group of Four Jounin". 

"So you are telling me one Jounin of theirs and three genin were sufficient to kill four of my own Jounin" 

"The Jounin in question was the Sakumo Hatake, Tsuchikage-sama. He is recognised as one of the Leaf's special war powers for a reason. And his team was made up of one chunin and two genin at the time." 

"Regardless, the team was fodder. Only Iwabe alone should have been a match for all three of them." That meant that Sakumo Hatake had been able to kill three of his jounin with relative ease as they could find no signs that the man had sustained any injury in the attack.

"Yes, Tsuchikage-sama. Our intelligence underestimated the strength of the man, my Lord." 

"Then let it never happen again. Upgrade his rating in our bingo book to S. Increase the bounty on him as well. And the Senju boy. What news is there of attempts to get his bounty?" 

"No attempt to sneak an assassin into the village has yielded much fruit. Our spies report that any who attempt to get close to the boy with ill intent soon find themselves being picked up by a squad of anbu."

"A full squad of Anbu for his heir's protection, ey? How protective of old Tobirama," Piandao did not see any need to reply to what was merely an observation, so he waited for the next question to come his way. 

"And how is young Azula?"

"She is taking to the sealing well. Her fire release has been increased to unprecedented levels. So far, she has shown no affinity with the Yonbi's native lava release, but it is expected to come with time. She trains alongside Han now". 

An appreciative hum from his Kage was the only reply to that statement. 

"That is enough. See to it that the bounties on both Sakumo Hatake and his student are increased by half again". 

"Yes Tsuchikage-sama" 

"Dismissed." 

When they returned, it was with a visible bounce in their steps. They'd found something. Something big if they way Toshiro held his shoulders was any indication. It was clear then that there was something he'd found that he was sure would be better than whatever the two of us had found. 

When they crossed into the clearing, they found Uzume and I seated on branches at opposite corners of the empty space. "Debrief" Shika said, almost sounding absentminded if not for the sharpness in her eyes when she looked up at each of us in turn. I jumped down and walked to the huddle at a leisurely pace while Uzume closed the distance in two bounds. Both of us were careful to keep chakra utilisation to the minimum, considering we didn't know who was watching or out there trying to sense us. 

"Want to do this, or should I?" I asked Uzume, and she just nodded at me to give me the go-ahead. 

"The Mayor knows more about this than he lets on. We found files in the cabinet that basically were like induction files into the Shinobi Academy. Our best guess is that these kids are being taken by some ninja village nearby to add to their military. Probably a small village" I said. 

"Well, we can do you one better. The parents all had the same story. The Mayor goes out with a kid, comes back without them." 

"Why haven't they done something about him then?" I asked, wondering how the hell they managed to stay civil in a town that had a man capable of doing something so evil to the children of his own town. The children of people who trusted him for protection and care and guidance. It was a betrayal of the kind I could not even fathom or game out in my head. It went against everything I'd been taught in my twelve years here and that made my very being recoil at the concept. Like goosebumps spreading across my arms. Like I was being electrocuted from a power source that went up one ampere at a time, dealing it up from 1 until fucking infinity. It was insane, I knew it. 

"Because anyone who so much as considers betraying him disappears in the night. They think shinobi are involved, and after Toshiro and I were able to convince them that we weren't the ones helping him take their kids and promise their protection from the other big bad shinobi, they were more than willing to roll over on him". 

"So what do we know for sure?" I asked, trying to get a letdown of everything all together. 

"Well, it's simple, isn't it? Mayor is taking the kids. He's giving them to a Hidden Village. The Hidden Village then adds the kids to the Academy, hence the forms. In return, they keep the Mayor in power, and protect him from the backlash". 

"I agree with you, Toshiro. But there's one small issue. Why would the Mayor have the forms if adding them in the academy happened after taking them? I think the Hidden Village has someone right here watching the kids. They find ones with the potential to be shinobi. They fill out the forms and then hand the forms over to the Mayor who procures the kids. In return, they protect him from the backlash of the villagers. That's why they manage to react to threats to the Mayor's position so quickly. They're here. And they're watching". 

 I felt a jolt run through my back at that. They were here. 

"How astute," A voice said suddenly. The way it pushed itself out of the shadows. Uzume turned her gaze to me first, and I almost facepalmed as I noticed I'd turned off my byakugan the second I'd seen Toshiro and Shika on their way. When our eyes bolted to the intruder, we found him standing atop a tree with a sharp smile on his face. Around his neck was a headband. The insignia, three diagonal lines, tickled my head as I tried to place it. 

I didn't get much time to think about it as everyone bolted into action. 

Uzume was the first to reach him. She was always one to act first, and think later. He dodged away from a swipe of her warden that dug into the tree trunk he'd been leaning against. With a flick of her wrist, she forced the weapon to continue the movement and cut the tree at that spot, beefier diving after the fleeing shinobi. He danced through the foliage as the very shadows that called the forest home came to life and began to reach out to grab him. I watched the way his eyes flickered from side to side as he dodged the shadows as they came for him.

Like they'd been working together for years, Shika used her shadows to lead the man right into the path of Uzume's next swing, and he was forced to block the attack with the katana he had sheathed at his back. They struggled against each other for a few seconds, before ehe began to overpower her, and then there was a crowd of shuriken that forced him to jump away. Right into the grasp of Shika's shadow. "Shadow Possession: Complete" She said with a smug smile as I body flickered right in front of the enemy shinobi and flicked him on the forehead. He remained still even while glaring at me with enough anger to boil water. 

"Well, how do we get this one to answer questions?" I asked with a smile on my face, turning to the others. 

"Is anyone else around?" Uzume asked me instead. 

"None for miles. Don't worry, I'll be looking out now" I said while tapping my sunglasses meaningfully. They did a shitty job of hiding the byakugan, but that wasn't what I got them for. When I lacked a doujutsu of my own, I spent many an idle hour coming up with ways to combat users and rob them of the advantages their cheating eyes gave them. What I'd come up with—well, it made me more than cautious about my own eyes. Sure, everyone knew about flash-bangs, but how did no one even think of using luminescent powders that would irritate the eyes of those they came in contact with. I hadn't even had to invent anything there. All of it was available in the clan's poison library. There were even a few things we'd come up with for doujutsu users that were so terrible that we'd agreed to ban their use—even against the Uchiha clan, of all people. 

Of course, the ban wasn't as strictly enforced as it could have been. Many an Uchiha faced off against those banned substances themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if they had countermeasures already added into their clan training, but as I lacked such advantages, I had to work out my own shit in case I ran into someone out there who had the same tricks up their sleeves. The glasses actually created a field around my eyes that prevented any sort of egress. That meant I could use them in the middle of a sand storm without any difficulty. They also worked to allow me see in low light and even in pitch darkness as well as negating the effects of flash bangs almost entirely. That function had needed Grandma Mito's help, and that had been a lesson and a half, but it would pay more than anything else in dividends. 

"So can you-" Shika asked Uzume, gesturing to the man that was bound in her shadow's grasp. 

"Not nearly good enough with Sharingan Genjutsu for that kind of thing. You'd need Izuku for that" She admitted with a shrug. Shika turned to Toshiro next. 

"How could I even get information out of him with the genjutsu I know?"

"You're the fledgling Genjutsu master here, so you have to figure it out." 

"I mean, valid. But still. This isn't something as simple as just fooling his sight so he didn't notice that he was jumping into your shadow, or even giving him the urge to jump in that direction in the first place. This is diving into his mind to snatch secrets from him. Yamanaka territory" He said firmly. 

"Well, if no one is going to say it, there's another way to get the answers we want" I pointed out, pulling out a kunai from my holster. 

"Put that away, Shori. None of us have any idea how to torture a man. Last I checked, no one here took that particular elective" Shika said with a gesture. 

"Speak for yourself. I am more than familiar with the coursework" I said, walking forwards. 

I felt Toshiro's hand grip my shoulder. 

"Are you sure?" He asked me with the kind of tone that one would use when they were facing someone with second thoughts. With doubts. How could I ever explain to him that I felt no hesitation or squeamishness at the thought. 

"Certain" 

"Okay I vote that he does it. We need answers, and quickly." 

"I vote yes, as well" Uzume said, watching everything with spinning red eyes. 

"This won't count for much, but I want it on record that I am opposed to this" Shika said. I just nodded at her words and stepped to the target. 

With him standing still, it only took a few seconds for me to block enough chakra points to paralyse him from the neck down, while careful to avoid messing up the pain receptors. 

"You can release him now" I told Shika. 

"Also, just for the record, I want to point out that you never did try just asking me the questions you had and just jumped straight to torture. What kind of psychopaths is the Leaf breeding these days?" He said as I began to slide my kunai across his skin to build up tension. 

"Would you have answered our questions truthfully?" 

"No. No, I would not have. But if you want some advice, I can give it to you". 

"Let's hear it then. Might as well give you a chance to say something without tears:" 

"Next time you capture and plan to torture a man, you should check for failsafes" At the last word, he clicked his tongue, and I saw it then. A false tooth. I jumped backwards, weaving the seals for a mud wall, but it proved useless as it turned out the false tooth had just contained a single poison pill. He was dead before I could reach him again. 

A/N; Here ya go. As I said earlier, the next chapter comes up next week or skip the wait and read the next three along with daily uploads on pa-treon. For the pa-treon, you can remove the hyphen between pa and treon and google it then search for my username- Oghenevwogaga. Or you could copy the link in my bio and remove the spaces before pasting in your address bar.