3 -Land Of Tea-

Two men stood in the middle of a familiar underground room, both with more normal serious faces than usual.

One of them, a tall man with long auburn hair who wore black ninja pants and shirt underneath his white vest along with a white tiger mask over his face. The man dared not to utter a word first and speak before his lord.

Danzo sent him to spy on raizel for the past six months because of some suspicions about raizel with-holding important information from them. These suspicions further reinforced when he asked a Yamanaka to access Raizels mind only for them to fail miserably.

The Yamanaka said Raizels head space was a maze of darkness, with each turn the darkness became more eerie until it would devour you. Poor man became scarred for life.

This news brought slight shock to Danzo.

"So?" Danzo asks with an unreadable expression.

"I'm sorry Danzo-sama," The shaggy haired man bows his head in shame. He watched Raizel like a hawk wherever he went, but none of Raizel's actions screamed suspicious. But like Danzo, a sixth sense told him the boy hid something from them. He was... odd.

In his spars Raizel fought and moved with experience, and seemed like he himself was unused to his own size. But that was impossible because his history showed he was born in konohagakures hospital and parents left in the orphanage.

This lead to another problem, Root never found out the names of Raizels parents, if they even existed.

They cracked their heads open for days trying to figure out Raizels origin but came up with null. If Root, the most informed organization in the shinobi world couldn't figure out who he is, then who can?

Danzo let out a soft sigh and waved his hand for the man to raise his head, "How has the relationship progressed between him and the girl?"

"The girl had already built an attachment to him from the beginning, and I think its possible over the course of these couple of months that he also developed a sense of fondness for her."

"You think?" Danzo said with further narrowed eyes.

"Yes, he is a really hard person to read so I was only able to conclude this from the few instances of playful interactions he had with her."

Danzo nodded his head, "Good, he just needs one more push and I will have him dancing in the palm of my hand. How goes his mission?"

"He should be arriving in the land of tea very soon sir," The man replied.

"Good... You are dismissed," Danzo plopped himself back in his chair.

"Yes sir!" The man disappeared in a swirl of leaves leaving Danzo to bury himself in endless paper work. 'What is it that you are hiding from me Raizel?'

He sighed as he took a look at another paper with information of small battles and scuffles happening between konohagakure and Sunagakure along with Iwagakure. 'War is coming, soon.'

---

The land of tea was a land with beautiful, organized fields of crops and vibrant trees. The place strikingly resembled a village in feudal japan, Raizel had even seen a few traditional samurai who wore armor patrolling the village.

The land is surrounded by a large body of ocean and was a perfect place to fish.

The air was clean and pleasant to the nose with the scent of mother nature in the vicinity. But one thing he detested about this country were the high temperatures.

He felt like he was in a desert always wiping the large beads of sweat off his forehead and flapping his shirt, now he understood why the normal folk tended to dress so light.

'Was it also this hot in the series?'

He had just arrived a couple hours ago and searched around the populated and clean streets for an Inn or Hotel.

He had a transformation jutsu on to make himself look taller and older, and wore nice fitting black pants with sandals on his feat and a normal black shirt.

Others viewed it like Raizel came to their country sight see and relax, that couldn't be any further from the truth. He was here to assassinate somebody within the time limits of three days.

His target is a D-rank criminal businessman that went by the name of Gozu, Raizel wasn't told what Gozu had done but came prepared to follow through with the mission in order to prove himself.

His plan was to finish it today because he did not want to stay in this scorching place any longer than twenty four hours.

Raizel sensed root agents tailing him from far away most likely to make sure he succeeded his mission. Since a while back he learned he became a sensor but never told anyone, that's why he was really careful with using his abilities when he sensed an agent following him all day.

He found an Inn twenty minutes later. He paid and took the key as he went to his room and then came back later to eat. Everything he needed was brought in a storage scroll, he meditated getting himself into assassin mode until it turned night time.

The moon replaced the brightness of the sun as he began to wear his root outfit. He wore a white neutral mask with narrow eye slits and had a katana to his left hip.

From the information he gathered by himself, the target at this moment should be in a meeting in a hotel south of his area. He estimated the time here and there should be near twenty minutes apart.

he traversed on top of the buildings, his foot steps not making a single creak and his body becoming one with the wind.

The hotel was located in the red light district and with how many people there were at night out to have 'fun' he made sure to be extra careful so as to not get spotted. It was even easier to stay away from the public eye with his small body.

Underneath his mask his eyes shifted to their mystic eyes pattern, he didn't worry about anyone seeing them because his masks narrowed slits made it impossible and his eye color change wasn't much so in the event they are able to see they won't be able to differentiate.

He landed swiftly on top of a shop across the hotel that was like a tower several feet in the sky. He spread his senses and picked up zero root signatures. He smirked. 'Good, I lost them.'

He sat comfortably on top of the build and camped out until his target made himself known. He waited near two hours when he caught a glimpse of four people surrounded by bodyguards each with an animal tattoo of sorts on their neck come out of the hotel.

Raizel scanned them and grinned at the sight of the huge burly man whose muscles looked like they were suffocating underneath his suit. He had a red snake tattooed on his neck and a grey beard with the coming of his age.

Each man took their leave in the carriages they brought after their bosses talked a little more and finalized their business deals.

Raizel eyes followed the dark blue carriage that started heading north. It was time to move.

Gozu with his bodyguards left the village and continued on their path to another country, before they stopped just after an hour. A rock the size of a nail was thrown through the right window of the carriage and knocked a civilian bodyguard dead.

Gozu gazed unfazed at the corpse of his man and said, "Three of you go and the rest of you stay and huddle around me."

Three kirigakure chunin dressed in normal wear equipped their kunai and went to scout the area. Undoubtedly someone lurked around here and was most likely a dangerous person.

The three nin didn't know why they felt an aura of death looming around at every corner they turned to, and the quietness of the night scared them even more. There was no sounds of birds or little critters, it was just silent. Too silent.

Their hearts continued to thump harder and their eyes darted everywhere. One of them furrowed their brow in thought. Their boss was an impatient man, so why hasn't he said anything after near ten minutes?

"Oh no..." He said.

"What is it?" The youngest asked.

The short haired man who had spoken first darted back to the carriage with the others following close behind and also starting to figure out what pushed their partner to the edge. They reached inside and were baffled by what they saw.

It was their boss, without a head, still in that same sitting position with his legs crossed with his body tilted facing the window. Their palms became sweaty, where was everyone else? Where did they go?

They peered at each other in horror and put themselves back to back. They weren't the strongest Gozu hired, so the person or thing that managed to do all this silently, scared them to death.

"S-should we make a break for it," One of them suggested.

"No, we can't, that would make us easier targets," The other one said.

The sun rose slowly as the day turned bright, the men stayed in the same position all night not getting one ounce of sleep. Eventually with the birds chirp their legs failed them and they dropped to the ground not caring anymore should they live or die.

They woke up later in the afternoon where they widened their eyes to see that they were left alive to live another day. They looked at each other, smiled, and gave a sigh of relief.

"How are we going to explain this to our superiors?" The man with short spiky black hair asked.

The other two had thoughtful look on their faces, the younger one of the group had an epiphany.

"Ghost..."

The men glanced at their partner as if he were stupid but nodded their heads in understanding soon after. Yes, there was no other way to explain it. Thus began the legend of the Ghost.

---

Raizel passed the borders between the land of tea and fire still in his root clothing, he jumped from tree to tree with immense speed hard to follow with the naked eye.

Why did he leave those men alive? The answer is simple, because he wanted to. He used time skip and stabbed each point on the bodyguards surrounding Gozu and disintegrated their bodies, which then he proceeded to cut Gozu's head off and put it in his scroll.

He couldn't hit any of Gozu's points because then his whole body would disintegrate and he wouldn't have anything to bring back so he settled with just slashing at his neck, taking his head, and leaving the rest of his body in the carriage.

He left the trio of kirigakure nin alive because it's impossible to pinpoint that Raizel was the cause of Gozu's death. So with all the bases covered he began his journey back to Konoha after finding the root ninja and telling them he completed his mission.

He almost laughed out loud seeing their startled body movements when he found them, but then again it probably wasn't such a good idea because he just exposed the fact he was a sensor.

He shrugged it off, with how skillfully he began to make use of his abilities and how strong he became within these six months of training, he could probably take on a squad of root now.

He had mid-jonin chakra reserves and was high chunin in ninjitsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu. Adding on his cheat abilities on top of that greatly improves his strength, near kage level to be precise.

The only one who he needed to watch out for was Danzo and soon even he would incapable of handling Raizel. It's all just a matter of time.

He arrived in Konoha around night time and snuck in past the guards. He found a root member with short brown hair waiting inside his apartment.

Raizel stared longer than usual. 'Isn't he? No it's not him, Yamato should still be young or maybe not even born yet'

"Did you complete your mission?" The man asked inching closer.

Raizel took out his scroll and a bloodied bag came from it. He handed the bag to the man who unwrapped it and then tied it back nodding to him.

"You know root-san, it's not very respectful to come into someones house uninvited."

The man didn't pay any mind and left in a swirl of leaves, Raizel sighed, and did his usual schedule until eventually he fell asleep awaiting for a new day.