Secrets (Kakashi x Reader)

Chapter 6

We traveled for the next few days, and were finally nearing the princess' village. Our journey there was uneventful, we didn't pass anyone along the way. Which was starting to strike me as strange, now that we were nearing a village.

Genma was walking beside me and noticed the strange look on my face, "What's going through your mind?"

"Don't you find it weird that we haven't seen anyone during our travel here?"

Genma shrugged, "Our arrival is supposed to be a secret, so there shouldn't be anyone out here looking for us anyway."

I started to explain that's not what I meant, when Kakashi interrupted, "No, she's right. We haven't seen anyone. Not even a villager hanging around the outside of the village. Even with us being careful, we should've sensed at least one other person along our journey."

We all picked up our pace, having the sense that something was wrong. We wanted to get to the princess even sooner now.

 The gates of the village quickly appeared, but there were no guards stationed. We all gave each other a look and passed through, entering into the village. For only being late afternoon, the streets were deserted. Shops seemed to be closed up, and windows and doors to homes tightly secured. As we traveled further into the village, many buildings appeared to have extensive damage. We slowed down to a walk and observed the ghost town around us. We exchanged looks again, this didn't feel right.

Kakashi briefly stopped, then motioned us to follow him towards a building. He opened the door, revealing a tavern with a couple of people inside. I breathed a sigh of relief of finding people living in this village, but the villagers didn't seem relieved to see us. Everyone turned to look when we entered into the tavern, and their expressions were a mix of fear and anger.

"Leave. We don't serve your kind here." A gruff looking man behind the bar spoke up. Genma moved forward, looking like he was going to try to talk to the man. The villagers in the tavern flinched back, clearly afraid of us.

"I said GET OUT." The man behind the bar yelled when we didn't immediately leave. We still lingered around the door, not wanting to upset the villagers but also not wanting to lose our chance of gathering information.

I motioned for Kakashi and Genma to stay where they were, to avoid creating more fear, and I slowly approached the man at the bar. Some villagers tensed at my approach, others looked like they were ready to flee. But nobody put up a fight, they knew they wouldn't win in a fight against the three of us. Whatever had happened here, it really made these people distrust ninja. I made my way across the room and sat at the bar, keeping my hands on the counter where they could see them. The man behind the bar had anger rippling off him.

"The three of us aren't here to hurt you." I started. The man scoffed, obviously not believing me. I sat silently, trying to make my presence non-threatening, and just waited for him to talk. The man grew confused by my actions, then started to twitch and fidget as he became uncomfortable.

Finally he let out an agitated sigh, "Well if you're not here to ransack the village like the other ninja, then why are you here?"

"There have been other ninja here?"

 The man hesitated, noticing that I didn't answer his question, but his anger started to subside, "There have been several ninja attacks since the King and Queen died a few months ago."

I encouraged him to tell me more. He continued with his tale of the village, how they were peaceful under the rule of the King and Queen. And how, a few months ago, the King and Queen were found dead in their bed, having been assassinated in their sleep. The old man sitting next to me joined in. He described the ninja attacks that have been happening, all the buildings destroyed, villagers killed, and children stolen.