When the breeze brought him that scent, he noted idly that Naruto had made a face and obviously had registered the faint scent - but just as obviously had not identified it.
He vanished from Tazuna's house and quickly summoned Pakkun to better track the scent to its source.
It didn't take long.
There was a particularly odd looking house, part of a compound near a dock area. There were also the remains of a large number of people.
Kakashi knew what to look for. Cheap clothing, pieces of mismatched armor, all sorts of odd weapons - mercenaries and not the more expensive professional sorts. The two at the gate had been killed where they stood, and the others had responded to an alarm. They'd come charging in and died in droves.
A kunai went through one mercenary's eye and through the back of their skull with enough force that the body was pinned upright against a wooden wall. Ninja - and not genin level. There were a few chunin with sufficient strength and accuracy to do that but not many. Most likely a ninja of jonin level.
Kakashi stopped himself from reacting violently as one of his genin lightly landed behind him. "Sakura, why are you here?"
"I saw you react, figured out which direction you were going, and followed. Sasuke-kun and Naruto are guarding the client's house." Sakura held one hand near the grip of her sword, ready to draw and strike in a single motion.
Kakashi decided to make this a Teaching Moment. "The battle here is over, but there may be survivors. What can you tell me happened here?"
Sakura's green eyes flicked around, she frowned and looked over the surroundings. "Mercenaries, not an established company. No common badge or weapons or armor - most pretty cheap from what I see. There's rust visible on that broadax. Two attackers. One used kunai or another stabbing weapon, also fire and some explosive technique. The other used a weapon I'm not immediately familiar with. Unless."
Kakashi waited as Sakura picked up a discarded spear and used it to poke at one set of remains.
"It might be Samedha - one of the Mist's Seven Swords Of Legend," mused Sakura. As a samurai she DID have a certain interest in such things. "It was said to not so much cut as shred opponents - taking chunks out. This looks like I pictured such wounds."
"Samurai and their swords," said Kakashi. "What else?"
Sakura glanced around. "This was not a battle. This was a slaughter. The two were powerful enough to wipe out thirty mercenaries, probably within a few minutes."
"Follow," said Kakashi, going into the building. He kept alert, watching everything around him.
"Clerk, possibly an accountant," said Sakura as they passed a body. "Probably questioned and then killed. Ink on the hands, papers scattered around the body."
"Hmmm," indicated Kakashi.
The top of the building had an office, and in that office was a fat person who was sprawled across his desk. Staring sightlessly at the ceiling with tear tracks and drooling.
"Drugs?" guessed Sakura.
"Genjutsu," was Kakashi's guess. "Someone didn't want to kill him - they wanted to break him."
"Office was looted," noted Sakura on seeing a large safe with the door ajar.
Kakashi checked, casually disarming a booby-trap that had been left behind. "Well, well, they just took the cash and left everything else. What does that tell you, my little genin?"
Sakura considered. "Cash can't be traced?"
"Very good, we'll make a ninja out of you yet."
Sakura scowled. "Please, Kakashi-sensei. Don't joke like that."
"I do kind of wonder why he had his cheeks stuffed full of chocolate," admitted Kakashi.
"'Gato brand Shiokara Bites'," said Sakura, making a face. "It tastes like you would expect."
"After weeks at room temperature?" asked Kakashi.
"These aren't that bad," said Kisame as he popped a Shiokara Bite into his mouth. "The paprika and chocolate go well together."
Itachi held back from comment. He merely shuddered ever so slightly.
"Well, at least the twerp had plenty of cash on hand," said Kisame. "Weird though. I keep getting the feeling we missed something."
"Mokuton!" said Naruto.
There was a brief rumble before wood erupted from beneath the water, growing and stretching, leaves popped out and unfurled.
Tazuna hmphed once as he noticed his crew standing around all slack-jawed.
"We can't finish your bridge for you," noted Kakashi. "Naruto DOES need the practice though and creating scaffolding is not completing your bridge."
"Anything that finishes this mission up faster," grumbled Sasuke to himself.
"As soon as your chakra replenishes itself, try another fifteen minutes of water-walking," Kakashi advised Sasuke. "Don't exhaust yourself though. We still don't know who killed Gato's men."
Sakura skated by on the surface of the water.
Sasuke grumbled, not at all pleased by how the samurai had taken the tree-climbing and water-walking techniques and not only excelled at them but did so in a very short amount of time. Or rather - he was less than pleased by how much faster she'd gotten near-mastery of the techniques than he had.
"She's primarily a close-range attacker," pointed out Kakashi, having a good idea what was aggravating Sasuke.
"Yeah?" asked Sasuke.
"So she's figured out the 'skating' part as a means to get to close range with opponents," said Kakashi. "Now if she could just get her steering under better control."
"Whoa whoaaaa-" WHAM! "Ow."
Sasuke actually felt a little bit better on seeing Sakura flub a turn and slam into one of the support pillars for the bridge. Just a little.
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Thu, 02 Jul 2015 06:21)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.