We've Got This. Right?
The spinning and circular motions that Ren had to learn as part of using the Kiba swords was not only difficult, it felt slightly unnatural. For so long, her mantra had been to face her opponent. Now, she had to train herself into calculated risks for a huge payout in combat.
Well, there was something to be said for having friends/teammates more than willing to make her learn it through experience.
Haku was working a shift at the hospital, and Chojuro had recently been placed as a Japanese teacher with the reopening of the Academy, so Suigetsu had roped Soo-Jung into helping with their training that day. While Ren trained her Genin in the morning, Soo-Jung took the training a step further, roping Jeong-Hwa into their little group, making it a three-on-one battle, making her have to learn the fast turns and spins that had made the Kiba swords so deadly in the past.
Given her propensity for swords, and now that she had three that she was willing to use regularly in battle, she had finally gotten the seal on her wrist repaired. The skin was torn up enough that the ink couldn’t take the shape properly, though, so she had gone to a shinobi tattoo specialist. The man had tattooed seals over scars before, and had a system that kept the items stored in a separate part while having a warped-looking seal applied to the wrist so whatever weapon it was sealing would exit the seal where it needed to be – namely, in the hands of the shinobi who wielded it.
Kakashi was intrigued to see the Land of Water. He hadn’t been, except for a few after-dark missions that hadn’t let him see the people or the places. Despite being a shinobi, he couldn’t help the slight desire to travel. He had enjoyed the time he spent with Sasuke going around the Elemental Nations, and he found that he wished he had done it more.
If he weren’t such a well-known shinobi, maybe he could have.
They entered the village at night, and Kakashi was struck by how worn everything was, and how people acted out their normal lives despite that. It reminded him of the last Great Shinobi War, and how life had been in Konoha.
He had never wanted his students to see that. He might have been preparing them for that worst case, but he had held out hope.
The Mizukage led them to a large apartment building, gesturing to the door. Zabuza scowled. “So you’re throwing them to the wolves without even a warning, are you?”
“Of course. I find that’s the best way to learn.”
Of course, it wasn’t until a familiar chakra signature on a very unfamiliar face walked up that Kakashi felt a slight sense of foreboding.
Ren saw them first, which is what led her to conduct damage control. Before Suigetsu could say a damn thing, she whipped around and sucker-punched him, pissing him off enough that he yelled while she let their guests in.
“What the hell, Deongsaeng!?”
He was yelling in Korean. Even better. That meant Kakashi and Iruka would have no idea what was being said.
“You couldn’t make a scene with the foreign nin on the fucking street, oppa.”
“What?”
That’s when he noticed Kakashi and Iruka.
And that’s when he started asking for embarrassing stories from her childhood.
Iruka and Kakashi had been put into the same room for the night, but until they went to sleep they were in a living space, sharing stories with Riko and her team. While she had changed, Iruka could see that spark of wit and intelligence that made her undeniably Riko. She didn’t have that shining new-genin look she had when she first become a shinobi, but he had seen that steadily leaving her face since the mission in Wave.
Over two years in Kiri had just sped it up.
Suigetsu finished talking about some strange combination attack the two had done the day before, Kakashi coming in with a question.
“So, Riko-chan-“
“Chae-Seon or Ren, Sensei. At least in Kiri.”
“Chae-Seon, then.” Definitely the name Iruka had heard used more by the people in the room with them, and clearly one she preferred. “Why have you been learning lightning manipulation?”
“Because this asshole is vague and doesn’t explain anything.” She gestured at Suigetsu as she stood up, pulling a bottle from the fridge, pouring something that smelled to Kakashi like alcohol.
“I wasn’t allowed to say jack until you got the Kiba, Deongsaeng.”
“Doesn’t mean you couldn’t have.”
“That’s exactly what it means. I was ordered not to.”
“And when has that stopped you from doing anything?”
“Since Seonsaengnim said it. I don’t give a shit about Ao or Zabuza, but I am thoroughly convinced our dear Kage could rip every single one of us to shreds without really thinking about it.”
“She could not. She likes us too much.”
"No, she likes you too much. And that wouldn't stop her."
Kakashi accepted the glass that was handed to him, confirming that yes, it was alcohol. A glance and a sip told him it was definitely not sake. First, it wasn’t as smooth as sake. Second, this alcohol was a lot stronger.
“What is this?”
“Soju. It’s made on some of the warmer islands, and it’s cheaper than getting Sake, since that stuff has tariffs on it. Better too, if you ask me.” Riko passed the bottle to Suigetsu, and Kakashi watched as her refilled his glass.
“Really? And how long have you been drinking, Chae-Seon?”
“For a while. It’s nice when you’re hanging out with friends like Soo-Jung or Jong-Min. It makes them more palatable." She took a punch to the arm from Suigetsu for that one, which she shrugged off. “Be careful if it’s your first time. This stuff is a lot stronger than sake, and we have to leave early tomorrow.”
Suigetsu glanced over at Kakashi, throwing himself back into the conversation. “Yeah. First time she had soju was hilarious. She got super drunk, super fast, and the next day was so hungover.
“It was even funnier because she’s so short, so some guy in the base made a joke about giving kids liquor, and she was so uncoordinated when she went after him she tripped and passed out on the floor.”
“We don’t need to relive my low moments, thanks.”
“Actually, Chae-Seon, I think we do.” Kakashi smiled, knowing it would irk his student.
And if he was excited to learn more about the type of shinobi his student had become? Well, who could blame him?
Iruka woke up the next day to significantly less chaos than had been present before he went to sleep. The only chaos he could find around him was the scent of what might have been coffee being made. It took him a moment to smell it through the smell of burning and something that smelled so far from palatable, a weaker shinobi might have vomited.
“What’s going on?”
Haku, the lovely looking young man who had come in late and joined the conversation, was leaning on a table by a coffee maker while a congealed looking mess ran through the coffee maker.
“I am making coffee. Would you like some?”
“It smells like you charred some bricks.”
“Well if you can make it so much better, you do it.” Someone was a bit touchy in the morning. Good to know.
Taking the invitation seriously, Iruka moved towards the coffee maker. Turning it off and switching out the grounds and water he had to fight the urge to scowl. The grounds were old, and they were also burnt.
“Did you cook these?”
“Jong-Min insists that’s why they’re called ‘roasts’.” Haku’s eyes were dropping shut as he spoke.
“Jong-Min?”
“Suigetsu.”
“Oh. Well, no. That’s not why. Where would he even get that idea?”
“We didn’t exactly get taught how to make coffee during the war.”
Iruka sighed. He raised a good point.
“Give me a few minutes.”
Riko and Suigetsu were an interesting combination. Clearly they were close, but from what Kakashi saw much of that closeness came from needling each other and picking small fights. It drew them together as they embarrassed each other, whether there was an audience or not.
It was funny to watch. There was nothing that spoke of anything beyond a friendly competition between the two of them, nothing to suggest they were actually trying to hurt each other.
Of course, they threw around a lot of specific vocabulary, things that either sounded like places within the Land of Water or like Korean words and phrases they didn't bother translating, that while he understood most of the conversation, there were parts (and sections, not that he would admit it) that he didn't follow.
They were taking a slightly longer route to Konoha in an effort to throw off any possible tracking. At least, that’s what Suigetsu had said.
“Just admit it, you’re trying to make something go wrong so we don’t have to deal with it if it doesn’t.”
“What? Why would I do that?”
Riko rolled her eyes. Though the longer he had to call her Ren or Chae-Seon the more it seemed to fit the changed woman in front of him. “Because we all know the longer things go fine the worse it’ll be when things go to shit.”
“Well you said it, not me.”
“Don’t even lie. You’ve been thinking it since Soo-Jung said our last mission went completely fine.”
Suigetsu stuck his tongue out.
“Maa, children. Perhaps we should be more mature?”
“Like you have any room to talk, Hatake.” Chae-Seon smirked at him.
“Yeah. And we could probably kick your ass if we wanted to.”
Kakashi glanced at Suigetsu. Jong-Min. Either way, he was going to put this snarky bastard in his place. “Would you like to prove it?” And yeah. Maybe they were goading him, but he could justify it as fostering friendly inter-village rivalries if anyone (Tsunade) asked. Probably.
“Sure!” Suigetsu’s grin was mildly disturbing, as most from Kiri were with the sharpened teeth. Even Riko’s teeth seemed to have sharpened while she was there. “I’ll take that action. Once we get to Konoha, we’re duking it out!”
Riko rolled her eyes. “How do I get myself in these situations?” Riko's following sigh was the most theatrical nonsense he had ever seen from her, and it almost made him laugh. "Yeah. I'll get in on this fight."
“Maa, Ren-san. How long have you been in Kiri?”
“Like two and a half years or so?”
“Three soon, right? Didn’t you show up like right as winter was really getting started?”
“Yeah, that’s right. Kiri winters suck ass.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
He was going to be driven up a wall by these two, he swore. He couldn’t find a way to get Riko to ‘relate’ to him. At all. She acted like she really hadn't met him.
Well. At least he knew she could keep a cover if she ever had to disappear again.
Iruka’s first impression of Kiri was worn down. Where Konoha shinobi would trade in badly torn flak jackets to either be repaired or replaced, a lot of the Kiri shinobi wore them as they were, even with the brutal marks of a self-made repair.
Kim Jeong-Hwa wore a flak jacket that bore the tell-tale marks of kunai having been imbedded within it. There were even some spots where the blood hadn’t come out, and Iruka could still see flecks.
Jeong-Hwa himself wasn’t particularly tall or remarkable. He had dark hair, kept short and somewhat messy. His eyes were a standard brown, his skin a standard, medium shade for the region; he wasn't particularly tanned or pale.
He was, essentially, the epitome of the shinobi. Completely unremarkable to the point of being able to go undetected and unsuspected until he was already long gone from the scene of whatever mission he had just completed.
“Do you understand, Umino-shi?”
He had insisted on using Korean forms of address, even when using Japanese, to assert the language and some of the smaller aspects of it.
“Ne, seonsaengnim.”
Knowing what that word meant made it strange to hear people talking about the Mizukage. To be called teacher so casually by one’s own soldiers implied a level of respect and camaraderie he hadn’t thought of within the context of a leader and their subordinates. Even though the Third had been called the Professor, it was never in person or by his people. Always, it was within the context of his prowess as a shinobi. When he had asked Jeong-Hwa about it, he had explained the title had been passed along with leaders as the first Mizukage had been revered first as a teacher. He had only taken the mantle of the leader of a Hidden Village because those he had taught and those he had served with during the formation of the Land of Water as a nation, and the formation of Kirigakure as its military village, saw his teaching skills as an asset when it came to leadership. The title had been passed down since then, and it became a standard. A Kage in Kirigakure had to be respected as a leader, a fighter, and a teacher.
Iruka thought it also spoke to the character of some of those who had taken the hat of the Mizukage, that (excluding Yagura, though no one was really willing to talk about how he had taken power) they were connected to their shinobi in such a way.
“Now, you will be joining me for the latter part of this morning as I visit my cousin. She is currently maintaining Chae-Seon-shi’s Genin team while she is away.”
He had met Kim Soo-Jung when she had stormed into the apartment that morning, just as the coffee finished, demanding to see Chae-Seon only to realize she wasn’t there, and the person she spent a solid three minutes ranting (that's what Haku had called it, anyway) was foreign and didn't understand a word she had said. That had lead to some interesting insults and gesturing at Iruka.
She had been rather irate, and her calm lasted only a moment before she was given her new assignment. After that, she scowled, talking about why she hated the idea of being ‘stuck teaching again'. "I'm not cut out for teaching, can't Seonsaengnim see that?" she had said, chugging a mug of coffee like it wasn't still scalding hot.
Something told Iruka she could have been a great teacher. She seemed to have the energy for it, anyway, and as long as she didn't swear too much (some of those insults were creative, but he didn't plan to repeat them anytime soon), she would probably get on well with kids.
Ji-Su may not have liked him, but Jae-Un loved the strange man from Konoha.
He had offered (according to Jeong-Hwa) to teach them Japanese. It was just what she needed to further her career. Every little bit that helped her toward Chuunin was a step in the right direction.
“What’d you say your name was again?”
The man puzzled through the question before Jae-Un tried to use her limited knowledge of Japanese from growing up with a bit of it in her local dialect. It helped being one of the first ports into Kiri, sometimes.
“What… name?”
She was pretty sure she had botched that. Horribly.
But she did well enough that his face brightened. “Iruka. I’m Iruka.”
“Nice to meet you!”
He knew that phrase.
It wasn’t until Chae-Seon was gone (she had gone down to a river to gather some water in a canteen that Kakashi was pretty sure she wouldn’t actually need) that Suigetsu rounded on him.
“I hear you have Icha Icha.”
“What?”
He scowled. “Chae-Seon told me about it. She read them when she was twelve, apparently, which rude, but she also said you had them.”
“I may have lent them out once several years ago.”
“What do I have to do to get to peek at them?”
“How do you know her real name?”
“We met when she got me out of Orochimaru’s lab, handed me a sword and threw me a coat, and said to get slashing. Nicest thing anyone's ever said to me, come to think of it. Some of the assholes there recognized her.
“Now will you let me read the damn book?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Chae-Seon found out about the interaction within minutes of returning. If you asked Kakashi, she knew it was going to happen, so when she came back it was just a ruse to give her deniability.
“He’s just going to pester you.”
“I want to know more about how he knows your little secret. I thought the whole point of wearing a disguise was making sure no one knew who you were.”
“I’ll tell you in Konoha.”
“It wouldn’t have to do with all of your missions going wrong, would it?”
“Absolutely does.
“Ri- Chae-Seon. You can talk to me, you know that?”
The glance she threw around told Kakashi she probably didn’t trust anything in the open. “I know that. Sensei.”
Kakashi nodded. Riko was being cagey, but there was no reason he could see that she would be compromised. He didn’t see what Tsunade was worried about. For all of his students, it hadn’t been the village that made them loyal. It was the people. And Riko most of all had been tied to the bonds she had with her friends and family. As long as she had those bonds, she would come out of this just fine. Maybe she would still be Chae-Seon, but she wouldn’t just leave Konoha.
It wasn’t her style.
“That man doesn’t belong here.”
“Ji-su!”
“I’m not kidding, Jae-Un. He’s a foreigner. How do we know we can trust him?”
“Because Seonsaengnim let him in! She wouldn’t bring anyone into Kiri she didn’t trust. And she wouldn’t let Jeong-Hwa bring him near us without our regular teacher if she really thought it was dangerous.”
“She would if she was fooled by him.
“He’s a jounin, and he’s soft. It’s got to be an act!”
Soo-Jung scowled. “It’s not an act, you morons. Yeah, he’s probably here for some information, but he’s a shinobi. Seonsaenngnim knew that when she brought him in.
“Besides. He’s a teacher, that’s what he does. Of course, he’s soft. It’s peaceful in Konoha and he just teaches kids how to be pre-Genin by our standards. Give it ten years or so and we’ll have soft shinobi, too. That’s just what peace does.”
“I still don’t like him.”
“Well you don’t have to like him, Ji-Su. He’s here to stay for at least a few months.”
The girl eyed Iruka as he spoke to Jeong-Hwa, who refused to use Japanese more than necessary. They had laughed when he had tried to help Soo-Jung. She would give the man an order, repeating it with gestures until he understood. It was kind of funny to watch, in Mi-Na’s opinion.
“I like Iruka-shi. He’s funny.”
“How so?” Ji-Su watched her teammate carefully.
“He’s trying so hard, but I don’t think he even realizes that he’s learned a lot today alone just from listening to people. He’s constantly looking for a grade.
“It’s funny. He’s a teacher who wants to get a good grade.”
The irony was pretty funny, Ji-Su couldn’t argue with that.
Oh yeah. Something was up. The universe was getting cosmic justice for whatever wrongs she had committed in a past life.
They were halfway through the Land of Fire and nothing had gone wrong.
Nothing.
“Your plan failed, Oppa.”
“Yeah, you don’t think I see that?”
Kakashi blinked. “We still have quite a ways to go before Konoha. Even at shinobi pace, there is a chance that something could still go wrong. Not that I can understand why you would want it to…”
“Stay out of it, Hatake.” Ren flicked a senbon at her teammate, landing it in his side. Kakashi raised an eyebrow.
“What the hell, Chae-Seon?”
Ren shrugged.
“What can I say, you make yourself an easy target.”
They couldn’t get to Konoha fast enough.
“Hokage-sama, my youngest daughter is on that team My nephew is the team leader. A child of the Nara clan is on that team.
“You must send someone after that team.”
“And I’m assuming you expect to be on that team, am I right, Hiashi?”
Hiashi nodded. “Naturally. She is my daughter.”
“And she’s Hinata’s sister. And Hinata’s team is a tracking specialist team, are they not?”
“Hokage-sama, you can’t be serious!”
“I am completely serious. You are a clan head. We can’t risk you.
“Not to mention, I have to worry, based on past events, that there will be pressures to disregard our jounin for the genin on the team. They are both Hyugga, but if such pressures were to exist, there is one Hyuuga whose eyes will be destroyed should he be killed. Not to mention two non-Hyuuga team members.”
“Hokage-sama, I would never put my nephew in jeopardy.”
Tsunade met Hiashi’s eyes. “You can promise me if it comes to it, you will do everything, and I mean absolutely everything, in your power to save all four of those kids?”
“Hokage-sama, the Hyuuga are a loyal clan. I will gladly do the best I can to return all four members of this team to the village.”
Tsunade looked toward Hiashi. There was so much wrong when she considered this.
“You haven’t been active in the field in years, Hiashi. If you go on this mission I will be forced to send you with a partner who you will be your commanding officer throughout the mission.”
“Hokage-sama, surely…”
“Hiashi, I couldn’t get this mission approved on a good day. Sending a clan dead who has been off the active duty roster for years into the territory of confirmed hostiles to retrieve three genin and a chuunin? Even with the clan affiliations involved, you have to take someone with you. If only to maintain some semblance of objectivity.”
“Who are you sending me out with?”
“I was thinking Nara Shikaku.”
“Isn’t he just as attached to this as I am? He has a niece on that team, does he not?”
“He’s also our jounin commander. That should pull enough weight when I have to justify this to the council tomorrow, after you two are long gone, I would hope, that this doesn’t completely blow up in my face. You better come back from this fine, or I will hunt down your corpse and kill your ghost.
“Now if you could go and get Shikaku from his office for me, I’ll begin the mission write up.”
“I’m kicking your ass when we get to Konoha, Oppa. That was a cruel joke to play.”
She was soaking, Suigetsu having shoved her into a river as they passed along its banks, and it was almost winter. Even though Fire Country was a lot warmer than the Land of Water, and even with her water affinity being useful when it came to drying herself off, she was still chilled. She was going to be freezing for hours.
“So?”
“Wipe that smarmy fucking grin off your face before I-“
But before she can finish that threat an all too familiar face is running towards her.
“Riko-sensei!”
There’s blood streaming down her forehead, and Ren has to wonder if that’s what’s letting her put two and two together to make five. She doesn’t look like she did when she was Riko, and there is no way Aimi had chakra sensing sensitive enough at that age to be able to tell it was her now.
Not to mention she shouldn’t even be out of the Academy. Isn’t she too young?
And goddammit, this is exactly the kind of thing she wanted to avoid – someone dying – and now, if she wasn’t careful, it was going to be Fumio’s little sister.
“Deongsaeng?”
“I’ve got something to take care of Suigetsu. No matter what I do, you stick with Kakashi.”
She knew shit had to hit the fan at some point.
Shikaku and Hiashi had left within an hour of receiving their orders. As far as they knew, there were definitely three, possibly four captives. Tachibana Aimi hadn’t been accounted for, but there was a chance their informant just hadn’t seen her. If she had gotten separated from the group, there was always the hope they would find her beforehand and get a decent report on what had happened as her team was captured.
Hiashi was tense the entire run towards the last sighting of the missing team.
This mission was going to be a long one, even if it was only meant to last a few days. That much Shikaku could guarantee.
Aimi had been hysterical, but vague as ever. It had taken far too long to get her out of her anxious breakdown, but it had been Suigetsu's idea to try and distract her.
Her swords. Her freaking swords are what got Aimi out of her anxiety. Suigetsu had laughed, immediately saying he was adopting her as his protégé.
“Come on, deongsaeng. She likes sharp and deadly things. She’s the perfect student for me!”
“That's what I'm worried about.”
“Why?”
At least Kakashi was amused by their antics. Though he was keeping his distance.
Ren glanced back to Aimi. “Aimi, you need to tell us what happened to you. Where’s your team?”
Aimi may have liked her sword, but once the similarity went away she was hesitant to trust Ren at all. “I’m not supposed to give information to foreign nin.”
“I’m not a foreign shinobi, Aimi. I’m just undercover.”
“Then why don’t you drop your cover?” Aimi being this serious and focused was off-putting for Ren. Even more than that, though, she had to wonder what had happened to her team that the girl was so shaken.
“Because I’ve wrecked my body enough I might not be able to get it back up, now please. Tell me what happened.”
She glanced at Kakashi. “You’re a Konoha shinobi.”
“Yes…” Ren could tell where this was going, and that was making her nervous. There was no guarantee Kakashi would back her up.
“You trust her?”
“She is who she says she is, and I trust my team.”
“Do you trust her?”
So it wasn’t just Ren that noticed the ambiguity. Meeting Kakashi’s eyes, she raised an eyebrow.
Kakashi sighed. “I trust Nara Riko. From what I’ve seen, I trust Choi Chae-Seon. Akagi Ren I’m on the fence about. She is all three individuals, so yes. A majority of the time, I trust her.”
Aimi swallowed before looking at her. It wasn’t an easy idea to stomach, how someone’s identity could be so thoroughly changed while they were undercover. It had been hard as Ren had moved around Kiri to deal with, and she was in the thick of it. Aimi had just gotten into the shinobi lifestyle, as far as Ren could guess. She knew very well what could possibly happen, having had her brother die so young, but there were still parts of the shinobi life she hadn’t been exposed to in detail yet.
She was doing really well, being confronted by this for the first time.
“So which are you right now?”
Her old sensei made her want to say Riko. Aimi made her want to say Riko. The fact that she was about to see her family for the first time in years, her best friend, her brother, her boyfriend, the concept of which was a bit weird to think about in the context of her mission, but still filled her with excitement… It made her want to say she was Riko.
The mission pushed her to say Akagi Ren.
It was her friend being there that made the choice though. Her friend that had her back unquestioningly, even knowing she was going to leave one day. Her genin team she would be going back to train. Her friends in Kiri. Seonsaengnim. The language she had come to love just as much as she loved Japanese.
She wasn’t quite Riko anymore, and Ren was still a shell and mask for who she was. She didn’t want to be Ren, and she didn’t want to push herself into being Riko again. She wanted to be her.
“I’m Choi Chae-Seon. I am a Kirigakure jounin and I train a team of genin. Pleased to meet you.”
And Aimi began to talk. And once Chae-Seon had heard enough, she had left her with Kakashi and Suigetsu, taking off in the direction Aimi said her cousin and other former student had been taken.
Hiashi and Shikaku had eyes on the hideout where the team was being held. There was still no confirmation on any village affiliations, but Shikaku was fairly certain there wouldn’t be any. If this was the work of bandits – not likely, given Neji’s skill level – then there was only filing names, and there wouldn’t be work beyond that. If this was the operation of any of the other villages, they would cover their tracks as thoroughly as they could, leaving no trace they had ever been involved.
The hideout was a small house built into a hill, meaning there could be an entire network to search beneath it and they wouldn’t know until they got inside.
“Why aren’t they switching guards?”
Shikaku shrugged the question off. “I couldn’t tell you. All I can tell you is that we’re going to have to work around that.”
A new chakra signature showed up, off toward the East of the building. Shikaku caught glimpse of a woman, watching as she flickered into existence behind one of the guards, killing him and burning the body within seconds.
It was better for his sanity if he pretended he didn’t just watch his daughter carry out what was to her just another assassination on a list of assassinations. Instead he focused on keeping Hiashi from storming in and rushing to make sure she didn’t endanger their mission.
She dispatched of the less obvious outdoor guards before moving towards the more obvious ones, keeping most of them silent as she could while taking them out, and ensuring those that saw her didn’t have much of a chance to put up a fight. She had, evidently, sensed Shikaku and Hiashi, because she flickered to their location, just behind them. Shikaku turned and got the first glimpse he had in nearly three years at his daughter.
She looked like the pictures he had seen, but there was something in her the pictures hadn’t caught. She stood straight, but her hands curved in, as though there was supposed to be a weapon in them. Her eyes were sharp, honed in on the two of them, likely already creating plans. Her hitai-ite was nowhere to be seen.
“Choi Chae-Seon. Nice to meet you.”
“I believe you’re more known as Akagi Ren, isn’t that right, Nara-san?”
A clever misdirect on Hiashi’s part, as if there were anyone listening they wouldn’t have thought twice about the address.
Riko rolled her eyes. “I’ve gotten rid of the guards. Aimi is safe, so we’re only going after the other three. Who is their sensei?” So she had dropped all pretense with them for this mission.
“Neji.”
Riko nodded. “Alright. They’ll probably have him separated from the other two. They don’t seem like much, but they are definitely Kiri-trained, if their stances were anything to go by, but no one I’ve met.
“There’s a whole class of untrained or informally trained mercs running around since the war. Be careful. If that’s what we’re dealing with, they’ve put their strongest inside to protect their leader.”
“That doesn’t make much tactical sense, though.” Shikaku glanced at empty field. Someone could come out at any time, see the lack of guards, and raise the alarm. “They wouldn’t want us to get in.”
“They don’t really learn tactics, just how to keep the power structure alive.
“Let them raise the alarm. They’ll swarm out here, but it’ll give us a way in. Take off your headbands, any metal plating will raise some suspicions.”
“And why should we follow your plan?” Hiashi didn’t seem too keen on Riko, watching her as though she was going to turn on him any moment now.
“Because from a purely tactical standpoint, I’ve been doing infiltration missions for almost two years. I’ve got a lot of experience getting in and out of places I’m not wanted and making sure no one finds the bodies.”
Shikaku sighed. Tsunade had informed him of the conditions for sending Kakashi as an escort for Iruka. He knew she wasn’t obligated to keep it secret. Hiashi already knew, it seemed, and it would waste time to mince his words as though he wasn’t speaking to someone he knew closely and personally. Someone he had watched grow up. “I know you’re still technically undercover, but please stop talking about killing people like it’s not a big deal. I’d like to think that sending you away wasn’t the worst choice of my life.”
Riko scoffed. “I’m not saying killing isn’t a big deal. I’m just saying I’m pretty damn good at it.
“As for sending me away being a bad choice… what was your first clue? Was it- You know what. Never mind. We can solve this shit in Konoha.” There were people coming out, likely to switch the guard, and shouting filled the space around the hideout. She was right, they really weren’t professional shinobi. “Right now, I’ve got some students to go after. You two feel free to join me.”