A strange new life

5.4

Snake Hideout Search mission, or the Honey Badger trip, as I was calling it, took us away from Konoha.

The Land of Rice Fields wasn’t as far away as the Land of Waves, if we only counted the direct distance from Konoha to the border. The expectation was to reach the border in less than a week, because we’d be traveling like normal people. I wasn’t sure on the whys of that decision. Which, instead of guessing and stumbling, made me question the intelligence officer in our team. 

I took out my board, wrote my question. “Hayase, why are we talking the long path instead of rushing to the place? I thought this was a time-sensitive mission.”

Hayase’s eyes gleaned, like he just found someone to nerd something he was passionate about. “Ah, I understand your confusion, you just got promoted.” He shook his head, but soon kept talking. “It is impossible to root all spies from other villages from Konoha. Based on the circumstances, I’m guessing this is some smokescreen. Others will pay even more attention to any shinobi leaving current events. Even if our destination is suspect, given we are going to where we suspect Orochimaru settled down, our team isn’t rushing, which is the same as saying it is not a priority mission.”

I blinked at that convoluted logic. But wouldn’t people see through that bluff?

Maybe reading my mind, Hayase continued. “I’m certain a few other teams were dispatched before us, and more will be dispatched after, some to urgent missions, others not in a hurry at all.” Spiky hair bobbing with the movement of his head, the chunin turned to me. “If you were a spy and saw several teams leaving the village, some with some seemingly urgent mission, others not worried for time at all, who would you spend more resources to track?”

I had no answer. The way Hayase explained, felt too simplistic. A bluff that would be easy to see through, but maybe that was just the tip of the iceberg. From his reaction, I was pretty sure he dumbed down his explanation. I didn’t get the sense of contempt or even the feeling he was looking down on me, just that he believed I didn’t have enough information to understand the whole concept, thus the dumbing down of the explanation.

Besides that, our traveling plans were simple. Our group assumed the guise of a traveling family, plus a friend. Given the age difference, my disguise was Yamato’s daughter, which somewhat made me a bit sour at the whole situation: Yamato didn’t have any dad energy.

Hayase was my cousin.  Sai, a friend of Hayase, who joined us for a bit of travel. The trip’s destination was to visit Hayase’s parents in the daimyo court city, which’s name I didn't know about, nor where it was. That suited me just fine. If anyone asked, I could just say dad forced me to travel, and I didn’t care where we were going. Perfect spoiled girl behavior.

There was one last check up before we left. Yamato approached me looking over my things. “Hinata-san, you need to pack a normal traveling bag. Your disguise will be suspicious if you’re not carrying anything on an extended trip.”

I didn’t refuse. The man was right. I hadn’t considered that. A cumbersome bag would be annoying, but I can deal with it. I got used to packing light. The weight didn’t bother me, it was how big and hard it was to handle the whole thing that was the problem.

The first day of travel ended without any surprises by the time the sun settled behind the horizon. Sai was in charge of cooking, while Hayase and I gathered wood for the fire, which we deposited near Sai’s cooking pot. While we waited, I tried to recall everything I remembered from the show about the political landscape of the shinobi world, but it had been years. The finer details were lost on me. I remembered only the broad strokes.

Five great shinobi villages, and a huge number of small hidden villages. Villages were always in a state of cold war with each other, aside from Suna, which had a non-aggression pact with Konoha, a pact they broke by allying with Oto and attacking during the chunin exam. If I remember right, they’d blame everything on Orochimaru and surrender without a fight, which would somehow strengthen the relationship between both villages. More so when Gaara became the new Kazekage. At least that was the script in the original story. No idea how the One Tail situation was resolved. I should have interrogated Naruto about that.

The other great villages resented Konoha, and for good reason: Konoha had a lot of missing S-Rank ninjas roaming about and causing trouble. Before being ousted, Danzo worked from the shadows to cause trouble to other villages and keep Konoha’s status as the strongest. I knew some of the small villages often allied themselves with the great villages for protection, but I wasn’t aware of any political alliance regarding them, or which village they were allied with.

I took my spare board from the bag. Since we were pretending to be normal traveling companions, I couldn’t just pop out my usual board. No fuinjutsu for me. It was a bit of trouble to pick up the pen and eraser all the time, but it was how it was. After writing my question, I showed the board to Yamato.

“Yamato, what is the current political situation between the villages?”

Yamato read the question, but didn’t answer it himself. He looked at the other older chunin in our team. “Hayase?”

Hayase’s eyes shone. He took a deep breath, a smile on his face, and promptly disgorged the information. “The current political situation remains tense. There’s movements from Kumo, as well as Iwa. There’s speculation that those two might ally against us.”

I nodded, simple enough to understand.

“We had a non aggression pact with Suna, which they broke in the recent attack. That leaves only Kiri as a neutral party. Kiri is currently busy with their own civil problems. They shouldn’t interfere for the time being.” Hayase looked about, to make sure his audience was paying attention. “In the worst case scenario, we might see a three village alliance against us in the near future. Realistically speaking, our intelligence agents don’t believe Sand will join any conflict. They suffered heavy losses, and lost their leader. With the Kazekage gone, they have no known shinobi that could assume the position for the time being.”

If things still went the same as the original story, Gaara would become the new Kazekage. The boy was already freakishly strong, add the one tail to the mix and you had a literal S-Rank shinobi there. That brought another thought to mind. I never asked Naruto what happened in his fight with Gaara. The group that went after Gaara returned banged up and hurt, but still alive. Did it happen the same as canon? And by that logic, was Naruto a S-Rank shinobi as well?

I imagined the brat’s entry in the bingo book: Loudmouth, dumb, naive, likes ramen, annoying as hell, a pacifist at heart. Is also the nine tails host.

I snickered at my own silly ideas. By my side Hayase glanced at me. I schooled my face, stopped giggling. The chunin continued with his political lesson.

“— it’s expected that if Iwagakure attacks, they will do so by invading the Land of Grass. They currently have an alliance with the Land of Waterfall. Grass has a good trading relationship with us. Because of that, it becomes the best avenue of attack to reach Konoha, damaging our relationship with the smaller villages at the same time. If we can’t protect our allies our credibility will be like sand on the wind.”

I cast my mind again to my own knowledge. Between Wind and Fire, there was the Land of Rivers, Akatsuki’s hideout. Grass, sat between Fire and Earth, could become a battlefield with Iwakagure, Land of Whirlpools was already being invaded by Land of Bears, as a front for Kumogakure. Things didn’t look good when put in that light.

“— which makes this mission even more important.” I put my own ideas away, and looked again at Hayase. “If Kumo or Iwa learn about the hideout and manage to get there before us, they might learn a lot about Konoha. You need to remember that Orochimaru was a student of Lord Third. The potential information he has on the village is too valuable to leave out for others to find.”

By our side, Yamato finally joined the conversation. “The mission is important, but be careful. We don’t know what awaits us there. Other villages shouldn’t know about this operation, we are not expecting any interference from them, but keep your wits sharp.”

I wanted to facepalm. Had Yamato never heard about fate flags? Why was the man tempting fate like that?

The discussion didn’t continue for long. Sai finished his cooking, served bowls of hot food to us. I looked at the thing he handed me. It was a hot bowl of something, that’s for sure. It smelled alright, but there was no care at all for the presentation: the vegetables were cut in a haphazardly manner, the pieces of meat looked burnt. Not sure how a soup could have burnt meat. The broth was hazy and viscous, not at all like a nice thick soup broth.

Was this thing even safe to eat? I wasn’t brave enough to try. I looked at my companions.

Sai gulped down his food, and his face betrayed nothing. I didn’t know if he enjoyed it or not. Yamato ate a mouthful, stopped for a moment after, methodically eating the rest. Hayase, however, took one bite, and his face turned wan. He placed the bowl down. Ran away from the campsite. From not that far, I heard his raul-ing noises.

I looked at my bowl. Placed it down, untouched. I took my board. “Sai is forbidden from cooking from now on.” I wrote. Yamato nodded, sighed, his shoulders sagged. Was that relief?