30 Chapter: 30
"Ah~ hahahaha~"
That was all Mikoto could do at the moment, laugh awkwardly,
'By the way... where's that thing?'
***
Kaori sprinted across the rooftops, the wind slamming into her with a strange intensity, after all, it was a particularly windy day. She sighed in relief, thankful for the considerable distance she was able to put between her and the chaos she'd left behind. Two months of freedom awaited her on the other side of the Konoha's main doors,
'No more babysitting, no more dealing with Kushina's temper, and definitely no more trying to deal with that lazy bum."
[Sure about that? You know, you'll probably be killing a lot of people these coming weeks.]
Kaori chuckled,
'Fun'
[We'll see.]
She jumped from roof to roof till she finally reached the main gate, guarded by two Shinobi, namely Hagane Mugetsu and Kamizuki Itsuki, both looking a bit too much like their children would in the future...
"Registration?"
Asked Hagane as he ruffled through a worn old notebook,
Kaori nodded.
"Codename?"
"Suzume."
"Time period?"
"Approximate two months."
He paused while searching through the details forwarded by the Hokage's office, it was not every day that a Ninja was assigned to a prolonged mission that might last more than a month. After all, it usually meant guard duty, espionage, or suicidal missions.
Hagane had probably deemed her to be the third case, a look of pity appeared in his eyes and he nodded sadly,
"Very well then,"
He began jotting down numbers, probably her Shinobi registration number and a couple of other details that authorized her to leave the village,
"as the guardian of Hidden Leaf Village's Gates, It is my duty to inform you that if you are unable to make it back to the village, you will be declared MIA..."
'If I die, it's KIA, and if I'm still alive then a Rogue ninja, bla, bla, bla...'
[You really should pay more attention to the village's rules you know. Not like you have any major backer to get you out of sticky situations.]
'I know, you don't have to rub it in my face.'
"Thank you, I'll get going then."
She nodded at the gatekeeper and scurried past the bustling crowd at the doors, somehow, people did not notice her black ANBU uniform.
Once outside, Kaori turned to give the village one last look,
[Don't you dare...]
'Meh, what do you think I am? A chunni?'
Of course, she won't shout something or raise her hand high in the air and shout,
" " "FORMATION" " "
'Huh?'
A strange shadow fell above her own, forcing Kaori to hurriedly jump away from the spot she was standing on.
"INO!"
A blond man around her age jumped down from a tree, crouching down and forming a seal of some sort,
"SHIKA!"
A second, tall, black-haired man similarly around her age, with a porcupine-like hairstyle followed after him, squatting down with one hand on the ground and the other forming a seal as well,
"Cho-ho!!!"
The third one was a fat...
"Huh!?"
...big-boned fellow, with a long, spiky reddish-pink hair-piece. He also had strange purple markings on his cheek and a weird samurai armor.
"AND TOGETHER WE ARE!!!"
Declared the black-haired fellow,
" " "FORMATION INO-SHIKA-CHO!!!" " "
'Ah... these guys...'
Unlike their children, the 14th generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho formation... or was it the 15th, Kaori didn't really know, was made up of boys... and boys will be boys, so from their childhood, they practiced their 'cool entry' to try it out in battle.
"Inoichi, Shikaku, and Choza. It's just you guys,"
Kaori deadpanned at their entry and shunshined past them, even after making Special Jonins, the trio was still as much of a band of jokers as always. But their strength was formidable, together they could easily match more than twice their numbers, and in the world dictated by strength...
"KYA!!! INOICHI-SAMA!"
"SHIKAKU-SAMA!!!"
That happens. A horde of fans crowded around them, being the next in line of succession for their respective clans, they were quite popular in the village... and so was their sensei.
If she remembers correctly, their sensei was the Old Man's first son or Konohamaru's father, but it's just that...
'Talk about some serious age gap between siblings.'
One of them was already a Jonin at the age of 20, while the other was still playing around in the Ninja Academy at 12,
'How the hell did Sarutobi plan their birth?'
[Maybe he didn't, holes in the rubber?]
'Do you want me to spend the rest of the day vomiting?'
[My bad.]
***
Once she had made quite a bit of distance between herself and the village, she found a comfortable spot to make an inventory of the stuff she had with her when she escaped,
'A shuriken pouch, kunai pouch, smoke bomb bottle, paper tag bundle, a couple of flash-bangs, fifty-meter ninja wire spool, and a tanto.'
[That's not much is it?]
'Not enough for a long-term mission, but it will get me to Otafuku Gai.'
She separated the more volatile stuff from the stabby stuff and stored them in two different places. The stabby stuff goes in the hip pouch, more volatile stuff goes in the back pouch, and the essentials go on the backpack,
[Essentials?]
'Yeah, some ration pills, a water canteen, a first-aid kit, a sleeping bag, a map, a disguise kit, a couple of sealing scrolls, and a body processing kit.'
Using the body processing kit was... not her forte, it was used on corpses that needed to be collected for memory extraction. And the last thing in her overstuffed pouch was,
'Seven mission scrolls... damnit!'
*DING*
[You have a new mission!]
[New Mission(1): Neutralize a dangerous thief.]
[Mission Rank: D+ Rank]
[Eliminate Shinji Kazu, a thief who stole an important scroll from one of Konoha's satellite towns.]
[Part 1: Locate Shinji Kazu: Last spotted at Otafuku Gai]
[Success: A Tier 3(Yellow) Card, 10k Ryō]
[Failure: Mission failed. Will of Fire Enema from the lord third himself.]
'Da faq!?'
[I am asking myself the same thing.]
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