Chapter 18: Shinobi Pride

Ko and Hiro were stalking the front of the inn that their target was staying at.

Since it's just a boy they have to kidnap they would just taken action under the cover of night.

But Hiro and Ko were so drunk last night that they held off drinking more so that they would sober up.

Instead they took turns watching the entrance of Bear's Inn.

Hoping to stalk them as soon as they leave the tavern, and hopefully an opportunity will present itself.

But that all went out the door when they saw the group of three come out of the tavern.

From experience they could tell that the group were shinobi including the little kid.

They've dealt with shinobi particularly the weaker shinobi, the ones with less strength would be tough to fight even for people like them

Manageable but tough.

Still they were against taking the fight to them since they didn't know of the other party's strengths.

But that didn't stop them from trailing the group hoping for an opportunity, because their target is the kid who shouldn't put up much of a fight.

Although it is common to see children shinobi fight, that didn't mean the kids were as capable as the adults.

They were naive, afraid, and less developed.

Unluckily for them the group seemed to plan on leaving the town.

There was already two merchant groups and a few independent travelers that were aiming to leave the town.

Which would cause the group they were trailing to wait in line for at most an hour.

Since they couldn't make themselves known they would have to wait for the group to leave the inspection gate before they could line up.

In the time between waiting for the group to leave and them waiting in line the group would have already left the area.

However, the sage of six paths should be overlooking them, since only one other group lined up to leave the town after the group with their target lined up.

It wasn't long till they were outside the city.

As they were wandering shinobis with a lot of experience they could simply track the shinobi.

As they kept following the trail they reached a point where the trail split into two.

Hiro and Ko could tell the adults went into two different directions with the kids accompanying one of them..

An adult and the kid seem to be heading towards the Land of Waves, while the other adult is heading towards the inner part of the Land of Fire.

As they continued to follow the trail of the shinobi, they eventually stopped as the trail continued; however, only the adult's footprints continued forward.

The child's footprints were nowhere to be seen.

'Did they notice?' was going through their minds as they pulled out their weapons and guarded against the surroundings.

Their backs pressed to each other.

"Are you looking for me?" a childish playful voice resounded to their right and left.

To their shock there were two kids.

'A clone' they both thought.

Unfortunately the sun's rays didn't shine bright today so they couldn't tell which of the boys was the real one.

As if readying one another's thoughts they both rushed to different targets, aiming to end this quickly.

But to their surprise their swords simply fazed through the boy, they were both clones.

"You old dogs, trash that consider themselves quite strong. Did you think you could capture me?

Well I got news for you, you were already dead the moment you turned your heads."

Ritsu who appeared in the spot where they were just at, wished them death, as he gave them the brightest and most sincere smile he could possibly muster,

Ko and Hiro wanted to turn around and trashed the punk but to their horror, they found they couldn't move their body, they couldn't even talk back.

"Well I guess you guys wouldn't notice, it was clean cut, not that you guys got much time left, after all your brain can only survive so much without air and blood." Ritsu said as a ring of blood started to form around the necks of both Ko and Hiro.

'Now I guess it's time to get some compensation from the perverted bastard. Let's get some money.'

—--------------------------------------------

Akio was sitting at the top floor of his store, the Cherry Blossom, although he looked calm on the outside he felt impatient.

'They're taking too long, if only they weren't drunk when I sent them out.

I should just play with the other toys I have.'

Akio decided to close the curtains as he felt more impatient as he saw potential 'toys' pass him by as they walked across the street.

When he turned to leave his room on the second floor, which is only available to VIPs of the store, the biggest room for VIPs on the second floor, he fell, Akio couldn't move his feet.

As he turned to look back as to why he couldn't move his feet he saw blood flowing out the heels of his feet.

Akio wanted to scream for his life, but soon found that something was placed into his mouth only allowing muffles through.

Akio soon felt a hand on his chin, he tried to grab the hand grabbing his chin but soon found the man used his other hand to break his fingers on his two hands.

Akio was now crying and snot was coming out his nose as the prospect of dying crossed his mind.

"Now, now don't go crying, you should have known this was coming, after all you should have done something similar to all those 'toys' of yours"

A childish voice said, as a hand grabbed his hair pulling his face up, preventing him from curling into a ball.

Akio side glanced to the left to where he heard the voice coming from, his eyes widened as he saw the same pink eyes he saw the other day.

He had fantasized about those eyes glistening with tears, or showing pain and hopefulness when he finished toying around with the boy.

But now at this moment those eyes were showing enjoyment, enjoyment to the pain he is suffering.

Akio for the first time understood now how the people he toyed with felt when he looked at them.

Immense fear, a loss as to why this is happening to them, now he is experiencing those same feelings.

"Now listen I'm not like you who plays to their heart's content so I'll give you an option tell me the location of your stores and where is your money kept doing so and you can live, don't tell me and you die. Scream or talk in a loud voice you're dead."

Ritsu drew his sword out of its sheath and placed it at the side of Akio's neck,using his other hand and freeing Akio from the rag in his mouth.

"Ple–pleasee, let me go. I'll giv—"

"Wrong answer," Ritsu proceeded to cover Akio's mouth with the rag as he changed his handling of the sword as he swung down with the butt of the sword breaking Akio's knee cap.

Waiting for Akio to calm down, only then did Ritsu release the rag once more.

"Don't you want to live?"

Through labored breath resisting the urge to scream from the pain. Akio mustered his energy and courage,

"I only have three stores, and the money is located in the back storage, there's a safe."

"Wrong answer."

Once again covering Akio's mouth, but this time instead of breaking Akio's other kneecap he proceeded to swing his sword down and cut two of Akio's fingers off.

Once Akio calmed down the rag was released.

"I have six stores, four in the land of Fire, and two in the land of Water."

"The location and names of the towns. The other store is in the land of Water in Hiranha bordering the Land of Fire more inland of the peninsula.

North-West of Hiranha is Yorase, from there you can go either West or North, Fuyuta and Oksaki respectively, North of Oksaki is Shami."

After Akio finally croaked the last bit of information Ritsu quickly decapitated Akio.

Ritsu used a clan napkin in the VIPs room and cleaned the blood off his blade.

He made his way out the room avoiding the eyes of the civilians as he quickly made his way in the back storage.

Once inside he quickly located the safe.

It was pretty big, the size of almost two office printers stacked on each other, Ritsu had no way of pick locking so as any other shinobi would do.

He would break it open by force.

Ever since he reached the borderline of 90% in his bloodline Ritsu instinctively knew that he could manipulate storm release, although any and all archives regarding jutsus were lost over time in the clan.

But one thing that Ritsu managed to learn with his little time was learning how to control Storm release.

Specifically he could coat his hand with it, experiencing no repercussion in doing so.

His body was either immune or resistant to Storm release.

With his hand coated Ritsu proceeded to put his hand as a knife and started to cleanly cut the safe's hinges and lock so he just pry the door off.

Once he was done he put all the money in his storage seal, and activated his teleportation teleporting to Kaz, giving him a list of the town that had the Cherry Blossom shops and told him to make those his priorities.

He couldn't help but shift Kaz's priorities.

The man, Akio, was wealthy, the store was very exclusive and due to the short supply the demand was high.

He guessed that the amount of money in the safe was almost three million ryo.

'If shinobi didn't have that unwritten rule to not bother the civilians, then…

It doesn't matter, it's just an advantage I can take, since they are too prideful, I'll reap all the fat sheeps.

But I won't do it to the town here in the Land of Water. The only clan doing it right is the Kaguya Clan.

Though they are a bit barbaric for my taste. If I recall correctly they even tried to invade Kirigakure."

He gave Kaz another tag and proceeded to teleport himself to Riku.

Since Riku was traveling the branches at a high speed.

Ritsu had unfortunately teleported midway during Riku's jump, Ritsu simply fell to the ground at this height; it is not a problem for a shinobi for him.

'But if Riku was any higher…..note to self carry a string like whip, or speed up the process in developing Thunder God Jutsu.'

Riku, noticing Ritsu's presence, stopped atop a branch watching as Ritsu fell, before quickly descending.

Ritsu looked at Riku, "We'll be making a stop by a town before heading over to the Land of Rivers."

They quickly made their way over to the town called Hiranha.

Once they had arrived it was already late at night and since there were in the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Water there was barely any mist, not that mist wouldn't appear, it just wasn't as common as the weather in the more inner part of the Land of Water.

Tonight although it wasn't a full moon, there was not a single cloud in the sky, thus allowing them to have a full view of the town atop the tallest tree in the vicinity.

They quickly found the store, Cherry Blossom.

Quickly and silently made their way to the store, and entered the storage.

Though they had to snap a couple doorknobs as the store was locked and there were no windows that could be pried open without shattering the glass.

Once again using his justu to cut the hinges and lock to pry the safe's door off, Ritsu quickly took the cash into the storage seal all while Riku stared with his mouth open at the sight of the money.

'I'ver seen so much money before in my life. Are civilians this wealthy….. No…. don't stoop so low like that devil' thought Riku as he stared at Ritsu so at ease taking the money into the storage scroll.

Ritsu thought as he collected the money, 'This is more than what the previous store had, could it be because we're closer to the Land of Fire there is more money? If so, why didn't that loser Akio just stay at his shops in the Land of Fire?'

Ritsu didn't know that Akio was trying to be patient with his spree as he was too active in the last town he was in, Oksaki, in fact Ritsu was the first person that made Akio give up restraint as he was 'clean for four' months.

After they took the money they left the town and traveled half an hour before setting camp.

They couldn't exactly just go into a tavern or stay at the town, cause it would be suspicious that two random individuals appear the day the store was robbed.

Although the town was big and people probably couldn't identify Ritsu rather not be there waiting for such a cliche to happen.

—--------------------------------------------

Weeks passed and they finally made it into the Land of Rivers.

They had to pass the land of waves first however, but Ritsu didn't raid or stopped for anything as the town in the Land of Waves didn't look too well off that only took them three days.

The first town they came across Ritsu had Riku look for any beneficial information regarding any clans in the Land of Rivers.

While Ritsu would spend the day looking into which stores were managed by shinobis, or affiliated with shinobis or daimyos.

Of course before doing so Ritsu would hide his chakra levels, change his hair and eye color with seals, and change his clothes into what the common people would wear.

He went around acting like a civilian kid his age should be.

Although he scouted stores he only ever targeted those that were exclusive and seemed to have a lot of money stored up.

After all, he can't be taking the money from every store, he would get caught and there wasn't enough time for that.

Once the day was done Ritsu and Riku would reconvene outside the town at a designated spot they set before entering the town.

The information gathered by Riku wasn't particularly helpful.

Although the information allowed him to know the situation in the land of rivers, and the names of the various clans within its borders, they were all no-name clans.

Ritsu already knew which clans he was going to invite, they're all needed to develop Kirigakure.

The clans that were already part of Kirigakure were all based on power, and strength.

If he could convince the groups he's aiming for it would fortify the strengths and provide the support that Kirigakure never had.

Though he wouldn't mind developing a relationship now with them if given a chance.

Later on after he formed Kirigakure he would have the say and weight to make them come to his village.

After night time came they waited just before the moon was at its highest and went to raid the shops Ritsu had chosen.

Doing so allowed to rake up around fifteen million Ryo, the civilians were wealthy and since the Land of Rivers was bordered to the Land of Fire the economy was higher.

The towns that were closer to the Land of Fire provided the most money.

Those three there weren't of much importance until today where they plan to raid a town that borders both the Land of Rain and the Land of Fire that he heard a particular news.

"Hashirama"

'From the news gathered by Riku it seems that Hashirama is already leading his clan. Though it's not known for how long he's been leading, and there seems to be no news of Madara.

So Madara stills isn't leading his clan, so.....

There is no news of Konoha, or peace talks between the Uchiha and the Senju.

It must be a couple of years till Konoha is founded, Noo.... I must treat it as if it was going to be founded in the following year.

If I do that then….. there is not enough time.'

"Riku we will be speeding up our processes, we won't be raiding towns any more, we'll head directly to the Land of Wind."