Kakashi prepared to deny that, stopped and considered the merchant on the lead cart. "Yes... Is that you, Murakami?"
"Eh?" asked the old man, fumbling with a pocket and pulling out a pair of glasses. After studying Kakashi for a moment, he chuckled. "Kakashi Hatake. So you're still among the living. Now with a genin team of your own?"
"Yes," said Kakashi. "Standard deal?"
"I suppose so," said Murakami. "We've got room."
"'Standard deal'?" asked Sakura.
"Transport for added security," said Kakashi. "We could go faster without them, but as they are known merchants who regularly supply Konoha-"
"Not to mention we'll throw in meals and you'll arrive more rested," said Murakami.
"Pick a wagon, find a place to sit, keep an eye out for bandits and ambushes," Kakashi instructed his genin. "Now, Murakami, are you still working with those brass devices?"
"Oh, yes, you should see some of the devices I've worked out," said Murakami, obviously quite proud as he fumbled with a chest near where he'd been sitting.
"I don't get it," said Naruto as he found a spot out of the way on one cart.
The woman driving that cart, a middle-aged woman tending to plumpness, clucked to get the beasts in front moving again. "Simple. We're frequent customers and suppliers to the Leaf. We're merchants that stick to the single country though, and don't always need or can afford a regular guard to hire. Konoha maintains the safety of the roads within this country and sometimes your ninja will arrange to ride with a merchant as part of that. You just stick with a particular merchant and see if anyone attacks that might hide from a ninja patrol."
"Oh," said Naruto. "So what are you hauling. You got five of these wagons, so is it something valuable?"
"Rice flour for the most part," said the woman. "Murakami's also got some of his gadgets."
"'Gadgets'?" asked Naruto.
"Clockwork mechanisms," explained the woman. "He's primarily a toymaker."
"Oh," said Naruto, now curious to see one of those.
Sakura sat back, opened the book, but kept glancing up to check on things going on around her. That this provided her a chance to try and work on these 'cantrip' things was just an added bonus to travel this way.
On the minus side, these animals pulling the carts stunk.
The driver of this cart was a kid about half her age, who glanced at her a few times but otherwise seemed mostly interested in trying to overhear the conversation between that 'Murakami' and Kakashi.
Said conversation seemed primarily to concern plot details in the Icha Icha series once they'd gotten past the 'what have you been up to over the past eight years and change' stage.
Sakura was aware of Sasuke going alert two hours later and she let one hand drift near her kunai pouch, but nothing happened and after awhile Sasuke visible relaxed. A false alarm then.
"We coulda totally taken them!"
"Idiot!" said the bandit leader. "Three kids were wearing Leaf headbands and the old guy was wearing a vest. Most likely a jonin and a genin team. We're going to attack a caravan laden down with boxes marked 'Rice Flour'? How the hell does that value make up for that level of risk?"
"We could'a taken 'em," insisted the vocal bandit. "We just need to make enough to send something back home."
"Rice flour? Really?" asked the leader. "Look, if we're going to throw our lives away to get a chance to make enough money for our families to survive - we're gonna need something we can resell fast and for serious money."
"But..."
"And how are we supposed to haul that sort of thing? I've slung boxes and bales like that before. They weigh a good seventy-five pounds per. Even if we could pull off the heist, and we sent the stuff back home - them Leaf ninja would be on us before we got halfway to the border."
"Would you stop bonking me on the head? That hurts!"
"Would have hurt a lot worse if those ninja had spotted us," said the bandit leader. "As it is, we gotta keep from killing anyone we steal from. It's our only chance of getting any mercy from them ninja or the authorities if we DO get caught."
"That's true."
"Glad you finally agree... That wasn't you, was it?" asked the bandit leader.
The vocal bandit gulped nervously. "Uhm. No."
One by one the other bandits indicated also that they hadn't spoken either.
"Oh. Crap." The bandit leader twitched. "Don't tell me that their jonin has some way of hearing us talk despite us having retreated next to this waterfall."
"All right. I won't tell you," said the same voice from earlier.
"Would it help at all if we ran away?" asked the bandit leader. "Or would groveling for mercy have any chance?"
"Not so much on the latter, but right now the former might be fairly effective," said the voice, sounding thoughtful and still seeming to come from no particular direction at all. "As long as you keep running past the border."
"Sounds like a plan," admitted the bandit leader.
"You're not going to let some voice tell US what to do-" began the vocal bandit.
KER-THUNK!
The vocal bandit stared at his left arm, currently having a kunai stuck up to the ring in the forearm. "Oh."
The leader saw the rest of the gang was already running and decided to join them.
Kakashi rejoined Murakami a moment later. "That had to be the most pathetic group of bandits I've run across in my entire ninja career."
"Really?" asked Murakami.
"Well, no. There was a worse one," said Kakashi, beginning his tale of an unclassified mission and a group of bandits who were very ill-suited for the job.
(Posted Thu, 04 Jul 2013 16:54)
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