A Life of its Own

Prologue, Chapter 16: Worries

Well, at least something good came out of that ridiculous meeting. That being Aya and Choji were dating now. Good, I was happy for them. Aya had been crushing on him since the academy. Now the only thing I have left to do to get Naruto-kun and Sasuke-kun together with Hinata and Ino. Naruto-kun would be easy, Sasuke-kun... less so.

But that isn't really important right now. Considering we were on our way to a mission, our first one in a while. I assumed it'd be a C-rank, considering how long it'd been, and I was right.

The mission itself was rather simple. A small village had been having troubles with an outside force that seemed to be a group of organised bandits.

But no matter what the mission actually was, it was rather unusual.

The village itself was much closer to the Hidden Valley village than us, being as the village was located in the Land of Rivers, rather than the Land of Fire.

Not only that, but the village itself was close enough to Hidden Valley that any issues with it should've been picked up by routine patrols by the Valley nin.

But obviously, that wasn't the case.

Kakashi-sensei picked up on this, obviously, and told us all to be on our guard. There was probably something much bigger going on here, and we'd have to figure out what.

I wondered why we had been picked for this mission, if something big could be happening under the surface. But then I realised something – no matter what could be happening, it was a C-rank. Hokage-sama couldn't afford to send stronger forces on a hunch.

But he could send us, and by association, Kakashi-sensei. We could do the mission, and he could figure out what, if anything, was going on.

I kept that all to myself. I think Kakashi-sensei realised. I don't think the boys really put that much thought into it. To them, it was a mission, and that was that.

We arrived in the village a day later. Although this time we had no one to escort, it was in an entirely different country, after all.

The village itself was pretty much as expected. In the hicks, podunk. The locals stared at us, since we were obviously foreigners. It made me a little uncomfortable, but everyone else took it in stride.

There was a little wooden stage in the middle of the village, which was for performances, I guess. There was a small moat around the thing, with some stairs leading up to it.

Kakashi-sensei stopped us for a moment, looking around, before quietly saying, "Let me do all the talking." With that, we moved on, to the mayor's house.

Instantly, I could tell something was wrong. The mayor's style of dress was completely different from everyone else's. He was wearing a tailored suit. Compared to the ragged-looking clothes worn by the farmhands outside, it was a startling contrast. I could tell Kakashi-sensei felt the same.

"Oh, hello!" the mayor said, looking up from his desk. I gazed at him, Observing.

The Chief
LV 7
Fukuroda Kirishima

That was... a disturbingly high level for a civilian.

"You are the ninja I paid for, yes?" Fukuroda asked.

"Yes, we are. You are Fukuroda-san, yes?"

"Yes, yes, yes! Please, come through!" He said, standing up and beckoning us through into the main part of the building. Kakashi-sensei looked as, before we all followed him through.

"Please, sit!" He said, gesturing to the sofa in his living room. Naruto-kun sat, but after seeing us all remain standing, he quickly stood up again. Fukuroda laughed to himself at this, quickly excusing himself, and returning with a tray with four cups.