The Harsh Truth

Chapter 3

Tanzaku town had been the bright idea of a wealthy merchant: not too far from a shinobi village, of which obviously no-one knew the precise location, except other ninjas, yet not too far the capital of Hi no Kuni herself. This meant that Tanzaku town actually had a lot of people passing through it in the beginning of its founding, but this wealthy merchant in particular had more plans, since, after all, people also need to spend stuff in town, to make it grow.

First the hotels were built, coupled with casinos, then followed souvenir shops of the casinos themselves, and from there onwards, the town flourished, and with great flows of money so too did criminal organizations rise, to conquer a spot in the town itself.

Tanzaku town had outskirts, which weren't all too dangerous, as those were the spots where the workers of the casinos lived, and there was a sort of unspoken law about not messing with the area, too poor to be considered worthy of anything, even of a drug ring. Then came the central area, that was where the majority of hotels and casinos were, and with the incredible amount of alleyways, back alleys, dirt roads, and dead-ends, it was the perfect alcove for the worst existing scum ever to be born. Finally came the heart of Tanzaku town, the area reserved for really important guests, or really rich people, villas, gardens, and police forces, obviously private ones, some even with the Konoha's forehead protector, but mostly belonging to a private guard of sorts of the Tanzaku Town's lord, Aiden Tanzaku.

The Town had quickly become the number one spot for tourists, until the Kyuubi, attacking Konoha, had sent a Bijudama, by mistake or intended, nearby, causing a veritable crater to sprout halfway through the city. This had Forced the reconstruction of a good part of the town, and a severe death toll, that still then lingered in the mind of those who had survived the deafening explosion, that some simply called *The black day*, as said sphere, upon contact with the ground, had emitted a blackish chakra explosion, that had easily incinerated anything within its radius. Many things outside the immediate surroundings had been badly charred or destroyed instead, and further away, wounds and damage were still relatively high. Needless to say traffic had dwindled for a while, but then it had flourished again, casinos didn't need crops or farmable areas to be lucrative.

Obviously, as one could have expected, the doll maker lived in the heart of the town, but if there was one thing that was on the side of the three Genins, was that their sensei had decided to actually go with them, and when you have a legendary sannin walking behind you, there's no private army that can stop you from going where you have to go, and criminals…they didn't survive that long because they thought that they could take Orochimaru himself and live to tell the tale, that much was sure.

Kokuyo's working area seemed more of a sort of private clinic, with a secretary, a lot of comfortable chairs and sofas, and little girls drinking tea with their pouting mothers, all dressed in clearly rich clothes. Naruto winced more than once, his thoughts, running along his face, were something easily picked up by Itachi, who knew the boy all too well.

"This is a doll maker shop? Are we in Idiot-land? Kami save me please, is that a golden napkin in that brat's hands? Please somebody tell me this idiots don't actually buy more than one doll," followed by colored mental expressions, that made Orochimaru show a slight grin, seeing how the snake sannin usually did the same line of thoughts, but on the more general population since, after all, he was a genius and the others weren't.

Itachi looked puzzled, when the two guards inside the shop stopped them, letting only Orochimaru move forward.

"Kokuyo-sama was expecting a Konoha team, but he gave clear orders to only let their sensei through," one of the guards said, leaving the subtle message of "Dirty shinobi brats shouldn't be going around the shop!" which was probably what the doll maker had thought, and said, forcing the three Genins to look at their sensei, who, with a smirk nodded.