16 Hitori Kotchu

"Where am I?"

These were the first words of Kaito, after sleeping for several days.

He was injured, but not to the point of falling into coma. The cause of his symptoms was as simple as that : chakra exhaustion. Depending on your chakra affinity and reserves, the symptoms could be very heavy, and Kaito had completely exhausted his reserves this time around. Despite being at his limits, he ran away from Tanigakure at full speed as if jonins chased him.

Looking outside, the ordinary and pure sand covering the landscapes reassured him.

Sunagakure had become his home after all, and he felt safe in this hidden village. It was not very strong in all honesty. Its shinobi paled in comparison to the hidden village of the land of Fire Konoha. Its strongets shinobi came from the last era. And while it possessed some crafty hidden jutsu, it did not have extraordinary clans such as the Uchiha or the Senju.

Yet, Sunagakure possessed something that Konoha or the other hidden villages did not have: a natural barrier that made it extremely difficult to pinpoint its location, and survive around it.

As he moved outside, a few medical nins came over to check him up. 

"You are free to go", the head of the medical nin unit said to him

Kaito nodded without uttering a word. It seemed like they had not heard of his ability to use the mystic palm technique without receiving formal training. If they did, it would have arisen suspicions or they might have mistaken him for a genius, which he was not. He was just a desperate man who had sacrificed a lot of EXP to save his companions.

He would have loved to say that he had done it out of love. 

But deep inside him, he knew that a part of him did it purely out of selfish after-thoughts. Without his teammates, he would have a harder time getting stronger in the future, or even survive. Worse still, if he was given worthless teammates, he would have had to go complete D-rank mission again, which would harm his growth.

After getting out, Kaito was stopped by a familiar figure.

It was neither Eiji nor Aki. 

"You survived against a Tanigakure Chunin, huh...", the woman said.

Besides her four lines of face paint, her whole body was covered in bandages. 

"Tsk...Of all people, you are the first acquaintance I meet...What bad luck"

Back when he was still an academy student in the Sunagakure Shinobi Academy, she reigned as a terror. Talented, heiress of the noble Kotchu Clan known for its interrogation techniques and extraordinary sensory techniques, she had already reached a realm of strength he could only admire.

[Hitori Kotchu - Level 32 Sunagakure Chunin]

"My father has already interrogated Eiji and Aki about the failure of your mission with the Golden Turtles...However, there is more to this story, right?"

Suddenly, Kaito looked at his waist, and while the shuriken launcher puppet scroll was still attached to his waist, the notebook containing crypted information about Sunagakure he stole from Mr. Hiroshi's caravan was nowhere to be seen.

"Are you looking for this?", Hitori said while coming closer to him, "It has always been like this...Your eyes...Despite being untalented, you managed to perform extremely well in dangerous situations. During formal training, you managed to beat some of us noble clan heirs with your strange puppet designs...", Hitori said while seizing him, touching him to feel his strength

Kaito's hands went straight for his kunai. He was not one to let himself be humiliated like that. 

"If you already have the notebook, then you must have made the connection, right? This mission's rank was not right. Even then, we managed to retrieve the most important item from the Golden Turtles' caravan, which is information of Sunagakure"

"Do you think you would be free if you were not cleared?", Hitori said ironically, "My, my...Kaito, you are truly dense sometimes. I didn't mean to infuriate you. The fact that you still have the same will as before is proof that you have a strong mind. This team of yours...I must say I am jealous"

After saying these words, she disappeared in a cloud of sand, one of the many techniques the Kotchu used for information gathering. 

'Jealous? What is she talking about as the heiress of the Kotchu clan...Damn it, this girl is annoying'