Eleven Years Old
It was not quite Makoto's first actual mission, since he'd been on what was essentially a milk run a few weeks before, but it was the first one where there was even a slight element of risk. Even though, it was said in the briefing, the risk was not a high one unless you did something really, really dumb.
So basically zero for him, then.
Still, he was feeling a little uneasy about doing a proper mission for the Shrine itself. He had expected his first mission to be something a little more...neutral. Maybe they were trying to make a point to the new Shiruko in the Warden training program, or maybe it was just a coincidence. Because, well, tracking down a counterfeiter did sound like the sort of thing you sent in-training ninja on.
But who would even bother to make fake ofuda? If you weren't a priest or priestess, they wouldn't work, and in Moon, you'd find that out sooner than later--soon enough to point out whoever sold it to you, as a matter of fact.
(Makoto had already decided that scams weren't really workable, but then, he didn't yet have a lot of experience with people who didn't meet at least a basic level of competence that enabled them to detect such things.)
"You're not likely to be involved in combat this mission," the senior Warden briefing them said at the end, "but just in case, make sure to be ready for it." He pointedly was not addressing any one of them specifically, since they were all rather green.
There was a secondary purpose to this exercise--namely, that none of them had much field experience, and to see who was good at what and what training they should be specialized for. There would be an experienced Warden shadowing them, but they were only supposed to intervene if things got dangerous and it looked like one of them might die. It might have sounded harsh, but 'sink or swim' was very much a Warden mentality.
(Apparently, medics didn't have that sort of thing, because it wasn't generally their own lives at risk. So they got their hands held. Among other things, that sounded kind of boring.)
They weren't actually supposed to be, or rather, required to be, good at anything yet. Hence why they were going after a counterfeiter and not a serial killer. The reasons why Makoto was loaded down with generic ninja tools and a non-specialized sword were more family-related. Not as if he didn't know how to use a sword, but it probably wasn't going to be the focus of his weapon study when he got down to it.
There were three others on his team: a set of nondescript twins, one boy and one girl, who he'd already forgotten the names of and would probably forget the existence of after the mission was over, and a boy from a well-to-do family from outside the city itself who looked rather full of himself and was probably useless in a fight.
Not that they'd be fighting.
Probably.
They set out from the Warden main offices, all rather subdued to surface eyes. Makoto, for his part, was trying to see if he could spot whoever was watching them--but then, he probably wouldn't be able to. That would constitute a failure on the part of their watcher.
"So!" the arrogant boy said once they were away from the Warden zone. "Let's get started. The place where most people have reported seeing this guy is on the boardwalk, so I think we should--"
"Not go there," Makoto interrupted, ignoring the boy's glare. "It's the wrong time of day to be peddling on the boardwalk by the beach. Too early. The docks are a better place for vendors, including street vendors, until nearly noon."
The set of twins looked at each other, doing some sort of headbobbing thing, then nodded at Makoto not quite in unison. Apparently they lived in the city, then.
"Fine," the boy said, sounding as if he had just bitten into a ripe lemon like some sort of overconfident idiot. Apt, really. "We'll go to the docks, then."
The docks were always busy in the morning, with fishermen around hawking their daily catches, traders arriving from other parts of the island, and merchants set up around the place to sell to the people who showed up to take advantage of the first two sets. 'Crowded' was a good description of the place any given day; 'cramped' could be considered accurate if you felt so inclined.
To Makoto and apparently the nondescript twins, this sort of atmosphere in the area was fairly normal. The twins seemed entirely unbothered, and Makoto hid his discomfort at being unable to avoid touching people while crowding through them fairly well. The country boy, on the other hand, had affixed a scowl to his face to poorly conceal the fact he obviously did not want to be there.
True, it wasn't easy navigating or seeing around all the people when they were all short and mostly everyone around there was an adult, but they didn't personally have to see anything. Makoto had spotted the counterfeiter across the docks before they had descended into the press of humanity, and was barreling them toward the man. The twins were at least useful in the most polite but officious way to push past all the people. Country boy was useless.
Toward the side, where the merchants were, the crowds thinned out into the people who wanted to be there for that specific merchant. As luck would have it, the counterfeiter was not speaking to any customers at the time, simply hawking his wares.
Ridiculous. A priest would sell them at a shrine.
Country boy shoved past the three of them, nearly knocking over the girl twin, and stamped up to the fake priest before any of the three of them could stop him.
"All right, you made your profit. Clear out, stop selling fakes," country boy demanded, with not an ounce of finesse.
The fake priest barely glanced at him. "Shouldn't you be off doing your chores, little boy?"
Makoto sighed and went over to try and resolve the situation. He did not want his evaluation mission screwed up by a loudmouth whose first recourse probably involved punching things. The twins trailed him, the girl with her hand on a kunai belt.
"What he obviously meant to say," he began, once their little group had the fake priest's attention, "we would appreciate it if you came quietly, so we didn't have to force the issue."
The fake priest seemed more amused than anything. "Not sure what you kids are playing at. Why don't you run along, now?"
"We aren't playing," Makoto said coolly, tamping down on his temper. He could have drawn a weapon, but instead he unfurled his Pressure aura, which tended to have interesting effects on civilians. Besides, the twins had drawn knives from the sounds of it without glancing back, and even country boy had pulled one, stepping quietly to Makoto's side. "We're here on behalf of the Wardens. Are you going to come quietly, or not?"
The man had wavered at his aura, and it seemed to have struck him when he saw the knives that he was actually being arrested. With an odd sudden jerking motion he yanked something off a chain on his neck that Makoto had been assuming held a protective charm and threw it at the ground.
Instantly the area filled with smoke. Muttering under his breath, Makoto waved his hand, summoning a low level Wind jutsu. After a second he realized he wasn't the only one. However, by the time the smoke cleared, the man had gotten far enough into the crowd, or away in general, that none of them could see him.
Makoto glanced at country boy, who had apparently been the other one casting, then turned away and went for the small pile of fake ofuda that had been left behind. Hopefully they were enough to trace based on. He wasn't a fully fledged Warden, but he did have enough of a grasp on chakra sensing to manage this.
"We blew that," boy twin said, sounding dismayed. Makoto was mildly surprised he could talk.
"Not we," the girl twin said, looking at country boy, who turned his scowl on her.
"Yeah, we," he snapped. "Didn't see any of you do anything to keep him from dropping the smoke bomb, either."
"Maybe if you hadn't riled him up first--" the girl twin said hotly, and then Makoto tuned all three of them out as irrelevant while he focused on reading a chakra signature from the pile of paper slips in his hand.
Eventually, he might be able to get to the point where a simple possession was sufficient, or even an item the person had merely handled. At this point, however, it was a godsend that the fake priest had made these himself. It made them a good deal easier to pick up a signature from.
"I have it," he announced, ignoring his teammates' sudden confused pause and oblivious to the curious crowd. "Come on."
"Have what?" Country boy demanded. "What are you doing?"
"His trail, of course," Makoto answered, dismissing the boy with a wave of his free hand. "Come on."
The twins fell into step behind him again, apparently content to side with a competent forceful personality. If he were a different sort of person, he might've considered them good lackey material. After a moment, country boy fell into step too.
They performed their push through the crowd again, this time people parting easier for them--whether because they'd found the flow of the crowd or people had realized they weren't just kids screwing around, he didn't know. Still, it made it much easier for him to follow the trail when he didn't bump into people.
Sure enough, it led into the shady end of the warehouse district. Makoto followed the trail without pause, but the twins seemed wary to step into it. After a moment, country boy seemed to notice this and also stopped.
"I don't like it," country boy hissed. "Seems like a trap."
Makoto rolled his eyes. "No, they're just being careful because they don't know the area. Come on, don't give him more of a head start."
"I've heard nasty things about this district," the girl twin said, brushing hair out of her face. She looked worried.
"It's daytime, and it's not that bad," he said, annoyed. "My family deals here all the time."
"Yeah, that's why it's dangerous," the boy twin said unhappily. "Like, maybe you're okay, but..."
"My family doesn't eat people," Makoto said scornfully. "Come on or fail your evaluation mission, I don't care."
He continued on after the trail. After a moment, country boy caught up to him, and the twins' footsteps sounded somewhat further behind.
"I didn't mean to blow it," country boy said after a bit more walking. "I was angry at the guy, see. I have problems with that, and my grandma falls for scams all the time..."
"I don't care," Makoto said again. "One thing you need to know is that on the job, you don't let personal issues get to you. You use your best judgment to finish the mission, without emotions getting in the way."
Country boy glanced back at the twins, then at him again. "You know it's kind of creepy how you can do that so easily. We're like, what, twelve at most?"
"I'm trained for that," he said easily. "Age has nothing to do with it."
"Yeah," said country boy. "That's why it's creepy."
He didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything. Besides, the signature was getting stronger. When they rounded the next corner, the man was puffing away ahead of them, clearly winded from trying to run. Behind him, the twins yelled and dashed forward, flinging kunai. Country boy jumped forward at the same time, slashing with a long-bladed knife that looked like it was used for hunting and skinning things.
Makoto simply formed handseals to flick out a water whip to wrap around the man and hold him still, no yelling and charging really required. The other three skidded to a halt so they didn't break the whip, country boy looking vaguely embarrassed, presumably by his own lack of Ninjutsu proficiency or perhaps critical thinking.
The idea that him being able to control his emotions was 'creepy' was just ridiculous, really. What did age have to do with it?
It was not quite Makoto's first actual mission, since he'd been on what was essentially a milk run a few weeks before, but it was the first one where there was even a slight element of risk. Even though, it was said in the briefing, the risk was not a high one unless you did something really, really dumb.
So basically zero for him, then.
Still, he was feeling a little uneasy about doing a proper mission for the Shrine itself. He had expected his first mission to be something a little more...neutral. Maybe they were trying to make a point to the new Shiruko in the Warden training program, or maybe it was just a coincidence. Because, well, tracking down a counterfeiter did sound like the sort of thing you sent in-training ninja on.
But who would even bother to make fake ofuda? If you weren't a priest or priestess, they wouldn't work, and in Moon, you'd find that out sooner than later--soon enough to point out whoever sold it to you, as a matter of fact.
(Makoto had already decided that scams weren't really workable, but then, he didn't yet have a lot of experience with people who didn't meet at least a basic level of competence that enabled them to detect such things.)
"You're not likely to be involved in combat this mission," the senior Warden briefing them said at the end, "but just in case, make sure to be ready for it." He pointedly was not addressing any one of them specifically, since they were all rather green.
There was a secondary purpose to this exercise--namely, that none of them had much field experience, and to see who was good at what and what training they should be specialized for. There would be an experienced Warden shadowing them, but they were only supposed to intervene if things got dangerous and it looked like one of them might die. It might have sounded harsh, but 'sink or swim' was very much a Warden mentality.
(Apparently, medics didn't have that sort of thing, because it wasn't generally their own lives at risk. So they got their hands held. Among other things, that sounded kind of boring.)
They weren't actually supposed to be, or rather, required to be, good at anything yet. Hence why they were going after a counterfeiter and not a serial killer. The reasons why Makoto was loaded down with generic ninja tools and a non-specialized sword were more family-related. Not as if he didn't know how to use a sword, but it probably wasn't going to be the focus of his weapon study when he got down to it.
There were three others on his team: a set of nondescript twins, one boy and one girl, who he'd already forgotten the names of and would probably forget the existence of after the mission was over, and a boy from a well-to-do family from outside the city itself who looked rather full of himself and was probably useless in a fight.
Not that they'd be fighting.
Probably.
They set out from the Warden main offices, all rather subdued to surface eyes. Makoto, for his part, was trying to see if he could spot whoever was watching them--but then, he probably wouldn't be able to. That would constitute a failure on the part of their watcher.
"So!" the arrogant boy said once they were away from the Warden zone. "Let's get started. The place where most people have reported seeing this guy is on the boardwalk, so I think we should--"
"Not go there," Makoto interrupted, ignoring the boy's glare. "It's the wrong time of day to be peddling on the boardwalk by the beach. Too early. The docks are a better place for vendors, including street vendors, until nearly noon."
The set of twins looked at each other, doing some sort of headbobbing thing, then nodded at Makoto not quite in unison. Apparently they lived in the city, then.
"Fine," the boy said, sounding as if he had just bitten into a ripe lemon like some sort of overconfident idiot. Apt, really. "We'll go to the docks, then."
The docks were always busy in the morning, with fishermen around hawking their daily catches, traders arriving from other parts of the island, and merchants set up around the place to sell to the people who showed up to take advantage of the first two sets. 'Crowded' was a good description of the place any given day; 'cramped' could be considered accurate if you felt so inclined.
To Makoto and apparently the nondescript twins, this sort of atmosphere in the area was fairly normal. The twins seemed entirely unbothered, and Makoto hid his discomfort at being unable to avoid touching people while crowding through them fairly well. The country boy, on the other hand, had affixed a scowl to his face to poorly conceal the fact he obviously did not want to be there.
True, it wasn't easy navigating or seeing around all the people when they were all short and mostly everyone around there was an adult, but they didn't personally have to see anything. Makoto had spotted the counterfeiter across the docks before they had descended into the press of humanity, and was barreling them toward the man. The twins were at least useful in the most polite but officious way to push past all the people. Country boy was useless.
Toward the side, where the merchants were, the crowds thinned out into the people who wanted to be there for that specific merchant. As luck would have it, the counterfeiter was not speaking to any customers at the time, simply hawking his wares.
Ridiculous. A priest would sell them at a shrine.
Country boy shoved past the three of them, nearly knocking over the girl twin, and stamped up to the fake priest before any of the three of them could stop him.
"All right, you made your profit. Clear out, stop selling fakes," country boy demanded, with not an ounce of finesse.
The fake priest barely glanced at him. "Shouldn't you be off doing your chores, little boy?"
Makoto sighed and went over to try and resolve the situation. He did not want his evaluation mission screwed up by a loudmouth whose first recourse probably involved punching things. The twins trailed him, the girl with her hand on a kunai belt.
"What he obviously meant to say," he began, once their little group had the fake priest's attention, "we would appreciate it if you came quietly, so we didn't have to force the issue."
The fake priest seemed more amused than anything. "Not sure what you kids are playing at. Why don't you run along, now?"
"We aren't playing," Makoto said coolly, tamping down on his temper. He could have drawn a weapon, but instead he unfurled his Pressure aura, which tended to have interesting effects on civilians. Besides, the twins had drawn knives from the sounds of it without glancing back, and even country boy had pulled one, stepping quietly to Makoto's side. "We're here on behalf of the Wardens. Are you going to come quietly, or not?"
The man had wavered at his aura, and it seemed to have struck him when he saw the knives that he was actually being arrested. With an odd sudden jerking motion he yanked something off a chain on his neck that Makoto had been assuming held a protective charm and threw it at the ground.
Instantly the area filled with smoke. Muttering under his breath, Makoto waved his hand, summoning a low level Wind jutsu. After a second he realized he wasn't the only one. However, by the time the smoke cleared, the man had gotten far enough into the crowd, or away in general, that none of them could see him.
Makoto glanced at country boy, who had apparently been the other one casting, then turned away and went for the small pile of fake ofuda that had been left behind. Hopefully they were enough to trace based on. He wasn't a fully fledged Warden, but he did have enough of a grasp on chakra sensing to manage this.
"We blew that," boy twin said, sounding dismayed. Makoto was mildly surprised he could talk.
"Not we," the girl twin said, looking at country boy, who turned his scowl on her.
"Yeah, we," he snapped. "Didn't see any of you do anything to keep him from dropping the smoke bomb, either."
"Maybe if you hadn't riled him up first--" the girl twin said hotly, and then Makoto tuned all three of them out as irrelevant while he focused on reading a chakra signature from the pile of paper slips in his hand.
Eventually, he might be able to get to the point where a simple possession was sufficient, or even an item the person had merely handled. At this point, however, it was a godsend that the fake priest had made these himself. It made them a good deal easier to pick up a signature from.
"I have it," he announced, ignoring his teammates' sudden confused pause and oblivious to the curious crowd. "Come on."
"Have what?" Country boy demanded. "What are you doing?"
"His trail, of course," Makoto answered, dismissing the boy with a wave of his free hand. "Come on."
The twins fell into step behind him again, apparently content to side with a competent forceful personality. If he were a different sort of person, he might've considered them good lackey material. After a moment, country boy fell into step too.
They performed their push through the crowd again, this time people parting easier for them--whether because they'd found the flow of the crowd or people had realized they weren't just kids screwing around, he didn't know. Still, it made it much easier for him to follow the trail when he didn't bump into people.
Sure enough, it led into the shady end of the warehouse district. Makoto followed the trail without pause, but the twins seemed wary to step into it. After a moment, country boy seemed to notice this and also stopped.
"I don't like it," country boy hissed. "Seems like a trap."
Makoto rolled his eyes. "No, they're just being careful because they don't know the area. Come on, don't give him more of a head start."
"I've heard nasty things about this district," the girl twin said, brushing hair out of her face. She looked worried.
"It's daytime, and it's not that bad," he said, annoyed. "My family deals here all the time."
"Yeah, that's why it's dangerous," the boy twin said unhappily. "Like, maybe you're okay, but..."
"My family doesn't eat people," Makoto said scornfully. "Come on or fail your evaluation mission, I don't care."
He continued on after the trail. After a moment, country boy caught up to him, and the twins' footsteps sounded somewhat further behind.
"I didn't mean to blow it," country boy said after a bit more walking. "I was angry at the guy, see. I have problems with that, and my grandma falls for scams all the time..."
"I don't care," Makoto said again. "One thing you need to know is that on the job, you don't let personal issues get to you. You use your best judgment to finish the mission, without emotions getting in the way."
Country boy glanced back at the twins, then at him again. "You know it's kind of creepy how you can do that so easily. We're like, what, twelve at most?"
"I'm trained for that," he said easily. "Age has nothing to do with it."
"Yeah," said country boy. "That's why it's creepy."
He didn't know what to say to that, so he didn't say anything. Besides, the signature was getting stronger. When they rounded the next corner, the man was puffing away ahead of them, clearly winded from trying to run. Behind him, the twins yelled and dashed forward, flinging kunai. Country boy jumped forward at the same time, slashing with a long-bladed knife that looked like it was used for hunting and skinning things.
Makoto simply formed handseals to flick out a water whip to wrap around the man and hold him still, no yelling and charging really required. The other three skidded to a halt so they didn't break the whip, country boy looking vaguely embarrassed, presumably by his own lack of Ninjutsu proficiency or perhaps critical thinking.
The idea that him being able to control his emotions was 'creepy' was just ridiculous, really. What did age have to do with it?