Genin Days (XI).

They hadn't had a real choice in that matter, so they followed these two back to their camp. Of course they could have fought them and probably won, the short conversation had been enough to convince Itachi that they weren't real ANBU but more likely Chūnin-level rebels at most who wanted to protect their identity, but even a short fight would most likely attract others their way. That, they couldn't afford.

Anko, who had seemingly noticed the same thing, and he used the opportunity to find out some more about where they were and the current situation in the country in general. It seemed that they were on the most western island, the one closest to the mainland. They were stranded somewhere on the southeastern part of said island, which was fortunate because this was the part of the island the rebels controlled.

While the situation hadn't really escalated to an all-out war yet, regions all over the Land of Water were already choosing sides. It wouldn't be long now, Itachi concluded, until the real fighting would begin.

While Itachi was thankful for it, he was also slightly disgusted by the way the two eagerly told him about the tense situation of their country as well as all kinds of little secrets. They were lucky that neither Anko nor him or Konoha in general would act on this information to wield war on these lands. If he hadn't been sure of it before, then this would have been the point where it became obvious that they were no real ANBU.

The most interesting information they received were the names of the people in charge of the camp they would enter in a few minutes. Especially one name stood out: Mei Terumi.

He had been aware that the future Godaime Mizukage was part of the rebellion and that her achievements there would be part of the reason why she was chosen for the position, but he hadn't expected to actually meet her here and now. And that presented him with a problem: what should he do now?

The Sandaime and he had made a lot of plans, but most of them focused on strengthening Konoha and maybe its allies. They prepared to face the Akatsuki, which seemed manageable for the most part considering most members had already been killed when he had died himself, thought about ways to protect the Jinchuriki, and tried to improve their relationship with the other villages. It was unfortunately especially the last point that was hard to archive.

So shortly after the last war had ended, most other villages were still licking their wounds and griefed their losses. The animosity still held strong. Now, though, he was given the opportunity to improve the image of Konoha in the eyes of the future Mizukage. The best thing about it was that it would look like they helped them only because of the goodness in their hearts. After all, if you looked at it from the outside, then it was obvious that the rebels were in a worse position then the Mizukage, so there was no real reason to show goodwill to them. It wasn't even as if they could give something back in return for the aid they received. Everything they were given by Konoha would be in the spirit of goodwill, as far as they were concerned. Sure, there would be people that were thinking they were playing both sides so that they would win no matter who came out on top of the civil war, but they would have no proof. Besides, how could they possibly know that Mei Terumi would become the Mizukage?

The only thing they needed to pay attention to was that they didn't make it look like Konoha was only helping the rebels to further destabilize the country.

Yes, this was the perfect opportunity to better the relationships between Konoha and Kiri. Now he only needed to find a way to help the future Mizukage and somehow persuade Anko not to stop him.

He wasn't sure what would be harder.

"We're here."

In front of them was the camp, located in the middle of the forest with a huge, stone wall in the back.

The 'camp' was pretty much what he had expected; it wasn't very big and he doubted that it held more than 50 men, and the most complex structures were some tents here and there. Honestly, calling it a camp was kind of inappropriate. It was obvious at the first glance that this wasn't meant as a permanent solution, but more as a temporary location they used for as long they had business in this area.

The two 'ANBU' lead them right to what he assumed to be the centre of the place, ignoring the curious and, in part, hostile glances thrown at them. He could feel Anko's nervousness and thought about trying to reassure her, but decided against it. She would probably just take offense from that.

The two men stopped and they followed suit. In front of them, sitting at a round table of rock (probably created with a Jutsu, he thought), were six people; four women and two men. And of the woman was very obviously Mei Terumi.

He had never met her face to face before, obviously, but he had seen pictures, and the auburn-haired woman, easily the youngest person at the table, was definitively her. She looked to be around 16 or 17 years old, which now that he thought about it was a big help in creating a timeline. If he remembered correctly, and he was sure he did, then she became Mizukage in her early twenties, which meant that-

"Why did you bring some children to the camp?" the voice of the oldest looking man, who appeared to be in his late fifties, interrupted his thoughts. "We don't have the capacity to take in every orphan you find, especially not in this small camp. You should know that."

"Excuse us, Takahashi-sama, but-" one of the 'ANBU' tried to explain but was interrupted by the same old man as before.

"There is no excuse! Now that they know our location, we have no choice but to let them stay here, which means we have two more mouths to feed! We don't have enough resources to-"

"Takahashi-san, there is no need to become so loud. Please calm down. You're embarrassing yourself right now."

It was Mei that interrupted the old man who indeed shut up after a murmured 'Yes, Mei-san'. In fact, every other person at the table looked at her as if they expected her to make the decision.

'Interesting,' he thought. 'I didn't expect her to be such a prominent figure of the rebellion already. It's even more impressive when you're considering her youth.'

"You can leave now." she said to the two 'ANBU' who nodded thankfully and vanished a second later. "You two," she turned to look at Anko and him now. "Would you be so nice and explain who you are?"

Anko stepped forward first, looking as confident as ever and not showing any of the nervousness he knew she must feel. "My name is Anko Mitarashi, and this is my teammate Itachi Uchiha. We're shinobi of Konoha who landed here after a fight at the coast of the Land of Woods ended with us being swept away into the sea. We woke up at your coast only recently, and when your men offered us their aid in returning home we went with them. And now we're here."

Really, it was easy to forget that Anko could be great at negotiations when she stayed calm and collected. It was a shame she only rarely chose to act like this.

A surprised murmur broke out after she finished, and even Mei's eyebrows rose in silent surprise. Multiple people opened their mouths to speak, but one raised hand by Mei stopped them in the process.

"Shinobi from Konoha? You're far away from home, then. Sadly, I don't know if we can actually let you go home as easily as that. Our country's situation is very delicate at the moment, you see. We need to discuss this before making a decision, so if you-"

"Wait, what?" Anko exclaimed, taking another step forward. "You can't just-"

"Anko" he interrupted her calmly while grabbing her by the shoulder to stop her from taking another step. "Please calm down. We don't need additional trouble."

She glared at him. "You can't ask me to stay calm after she said something like that!"

"If you can't stay calm, leave the talking to me. I don't want you to offend our hosts, that would lead to really unfortunate consequences we should try to avoid."

She looked at him for a few moments during which Itachi was actually surprised no one else interrupted them before finally nodding and stepping behind him. "Fine, then talk."

"Well," Mei said and giggled silently when he turned around to face her. "That was interesting. And intense! If you were older I would think you were a couple, you know?"

Not looking at Anko, as he was not interested in seeing her reaction to such a comment, he said: "Please forgive my teammate's rashness. Patience isn't her strongest suit." He ignored the glare he could feel at the back of his head. "If I may, could I please ask a question?"

"Fire away," she simply answered with a smile and a careless motion of her hand.

"The problem you're facing is that you don't want the other nations to find out about this intern conflict in your country, correct? Because if that is the case I' sorry to tell you that it's too late for that."

Her easy-going attitude vanished in less than a second. "Explain," she demanded.

"My father is the Head of the Uchiha Clan, one of the four noble clans of Konoha. He gets more information than most, information he often shares with me, so I can confidently say that at least the higher-ups from Konoha already know about this conflict. I can't say anything certain for the other nations, but at least Kumogakure could possibly also know about it. Forcing us to stay here, or even killing us, will archive nothing."

There was a moment of silence before Mei started to speak again. "How did they found out? The borders are shut, no information should be able to enter our leave this country."

"I don't think you're naïve enough to believe that, Terumi-sama. It's impossible to completely shut off an entire country from the rest of the world. There will always be a few people who manage to escape abroad and tell their stories. We encountered a few Kiri-nin on our mission, for example. It's their fault that we even stranded here in the first place."

"And what exactly was your mission?"

"We received information that many children got kidnapped from an orphanage at the coast of the Land of Woods during the last few weeks. Probably even longer. We were sent with our team to take care of the people responsible, which we assumed to be common bandits. However, it turned out that the leading force behind these kidnappings were shinobi instead. Shinobi from Kirigakure. And by the comments the one who I assume was their leader made about my Sharingan and Kekkei Genkais in general, I'm confident they were loyal to the current Mizukage."

"Wait, children, you say?" one of the other women at the table exclaimed in surprise. "We have noted an increasing number of orphan children arriving in several villages that support our cause, Mei-sama! And we just talked about the increased number of vanished people under our protection! This has to be connected! We need to-"

"Yes, thank you, Ito-san." Mei interrupted her. Turning back to them, she continued: "Mitarashi-san, Uchiha-san, I'm sure you noticed that I and my friends here have much to discuss. I will come back to you later. Until then, please enjoy our hospitality."

When she turned around once again to face the other man and woman at the table, an ANBU appeared at their side, and by the way they held themselves, Itachi was sure it was a real ANBU this time.

With no other choice, both he and Anko followed him when he began leading them away.

Itachi could only hope that he wasn't making a grave mistake.