It took an entire week for Shinjo to recover from the ordeal that was his Genin Exam. The after effects to his chakra and mind after being trapped for so long under the Tsukuyomi reflected for a full seven days after climbing down from the cliff where he had engaged in a near-death battle with the ANBU Sennin. Shortly after making it back to the bottom of the cliff, his asthma which had been held back by a specialized medication inside of his mask apparatus finally attacked him, as he had ran out of the medicine that held it back about half way down. The attack to his lungs on top of his weakened state dealt a devastating blow to his waking conscious, causing the teenager to fall into a coma-like state for three whole days. He awoke early on the fourth with a letter from his sensei to begin recovery training immediately and…so he did just that; the medical branch had no idea Shin had even left. The next four days were spent gathering his wits, regaining his strength, and at least 16 hours crafting the aerosol medicine used in his mask to fight his lung disease. The latter only took so long due to a slow in the supply chain that normally came into Kumogakure, and by the end of the week when he was handed down his first mission as an AiT, he quickly realized why.
Pirates. While they were not unusual in the water surrounding Lightning, the sea bandits had been nearly stamped out in recent years due to no small part from Kumogakure’s shinobi. At least, so it was thought. Many gave way to the notion that in times of poverty and lacking military strength, the law would bend down to the lawless in at least some regard; the seas were vast, after all, and had many places to hide. The leader of his division, however, didn’t think it was so simple. She sensed that someone knew something they weren’t telling when the mission involving a lesser noble being absconded of his riches on a pleasure barge hit the desks. The location of the pirates were already conveniently known, somehow, and the reports towards that knowledge was supposedly due to their blatant disregard for being caught. The whole thing smelled, in a word, fishy. Yet the ANBU Branch was already over-extended in other cases and crimes within the Susukino District. A string of murders that were starting to look like another serial killer was lurking had a lot of the veterans investigating closer to home, so Shinjo was selected to get to the bottom of this conundrum; bonus points if he could do it before Main Branch eliminated the pirates.
The trip down to the coast took Shinjo a full day’s ride on the train system. The experience was weird when he probably could have made it in half the time by running, but the extended time and public transport gave him ample time to prep; and just as well. The train was full of young adults, all children of some rich fools, and intuition told him he’d be able to glean all the information he’d need from them.
From his cabin he was able to procure a disguise by silently stealing bits and pieces of clothing from the richer passengers’ cabins until he had cobbled together enough matching garments to look the part of a traveling rich kid. His weapons he hid within finger-sized scrolls that were placed in the linings of the impromptu disguise, though he highly doubted he’d need a single one. Yet, as they say, ‘better safe than sorry.” With the new clothing set he fixed his hair to copy some of the hairstyles the males his age were wearing, doing away with his tight ponytail and allowing the hair to fall around his shoulders; all while keeping himself low-key until the last 8hr train ride towards Tenebrous. In that train he took to the party cars and completely fell into character as the rich eldest son of a lesser noble. A prestigious jack-ass who loved his alcohol nearly as much as he loved girls. Both vices came to him easily, and with a mastery of a shinobi far higher rank than he currently held did he juggle both without missing a beat.
The years of his father soaked in alcohol passed not only a high tolerance for the spirits, but his ability to simply metabolize it all and sober up when he needed came in handy far more times than he cared to admit. Too many times he felt the booze starting to loosen his inhibitions in being drawn into a fight that would quickly throw his disguise. The fair features inherited from his mother’s side, along with the enchanting red eyes of his muddled Uchiha bloodline brought forth a different kind of problem in an entourage of both male and female, clinging to his waist and words. The other drunk youth were as putty in his trained hands and though it did lead to some situations far too graphic to explain away on paper, it also brought him exactly the information he needed.
Through the temporary playboy lifestyle, Shinjo asked questions of the other youth he was partying with regarding the noble who had been hi-jacked by pirates; mostly on the pretense of worrying about the same happening to him. The information return by the loose-lips of drunk and lustful youth trying to get close to Shinjo bought him a knowledge wealth that would make any spy elite jealous of his luck. It had been a wild, and even he admitted somewhat fun, eight hour train ride but when the train docked station the teenager ditched his stolen identity and blended back in with the exiting crowd once more in his traditional garb.
He had a firm grasp on what to do next. The pirates were located in one of the coastal towns themselves, but that wasn’t his target. Loose lips told him that what he was seeking was another lesser noble who had a secretly nefarious background in regards to pirating and knowing certain routes through the local seas that made his trade pop-off like no other’s. Rumor was that the reason the other noble had been jacked on his little pleasure barge was due them having accidentally discovering these routes themselves. This had started to build up a small fortune that “Noble B”, saw as an affront to his own business; so he contacted some ‘old friends’ to take care of it. Yet, Shinjo still didn’t think this was the end of his mission - though he could have easily just returned to Kumogakure with this information and let someone higher in rank finish what he had started. Part of his whim was curiosity to see just how well the information he had gathered panned out, the rest was sheer morbid curiosity to see what he was fully capable of now that he had been unleashed onto the world.
About three-hours after landing in the port town, the AiT could be found silently breaking into the building where Noble B was holding up. The man had a body double for his actual estate while he lived life however the hell he wanted in the ports and without it reflecting on his own personal image. It was sort of genius, actually, because the guy was into some really dark stuff like slavery, dangerous poison trade, and rare beast trade. Like a cat, Shinjo stalked across the roof and used the Transformation Jutsu to turn himself into…well, a cat, to fit through the ventilation shaft he had opened, until he had a general lay out of the building before exiting where he had entered. With the information on hand about the man’s normal guard number and now his safe-house, the Kumogakure shinobi knew that all he needed to do now was wait, observe and strike; a guard rotation was all he really needed to wait for.
When the rotation happened, it did so in the evening which only further aided to his stealth. Drawing the apparatus that contained his counter to the lung the disease that would otherwise keep him from doing this crap, he covered the lower half of his face and dropped from the roof to hit the ground like a feather. The teenager slipped in through the back door, surprisingly unlocked, without a sound and darted from crate to crate to block the line of vision of his small form as the guards finished their rounds and started chatting with each other as their shifts came to an end. Throughout the warehouse, Shinjo recognized many of the lesser noble’s goods. Just based on scent alone he found quite a few illegal goods along with a few cages that held not only rare animals waiting to be sold, but a handful of human slaves as well. They all ranged in age, height, and build but most were clearly meant to be sold off as ‘pleasure slaves’ based on their appearances; clean and scantily dressed. Shinjo slipped by them without a sound as well, hardening his heart at the sight of the children huddled together in one corner of their cage, until he found the office of the man he sought. With a shot of ninja magic into his eyes, Shinjo’s pupils’ expanded until two red rings formed in his now fully black eyes as he activated his dojutsu and summoned one of his black cat swords. The two climbed soundlessly onto a crate and the chakra beast arched it’s hind-legs up and wiggled before pouncing at the lone guard. As the man looked up with a startled jump at the cat, it transformed suddenly into a sword that pierced through his blocking arms towards his throat; the blade pierced it too as Shinjo also leaped from his higher ground to push the weapon, and door, through.
The door came down with a crash, but the office was far enough from the rotating guard that it went unnoticed by everyone except the men posted within. Two guards with their backs turned the door turned their necks to look down at the boy and started to reach for their weapons, a moment too late, as Shinjo drew the blades at his left side removed their faces in a sudden dance of steel. A katana flew across the room from his hand to nail the noble to his chair via his left shoulder to keep him from pressing a panic button, and before he could scream the teenager crossed the room with chakra speed to slide a weapon in threat towards the man’s throat.
“Whoa! What the fuck! What the hell! Wh-who are you!? What do you waaaaaaan-,” the man’s sentence was cut off as he felt the razor edge starting to draw blood. He was at Shinjo’s complete lack of mercy.
“Three days ago, a pirate crew attacked and stole a noble’s riches. This included money, women, and no small amount of personal cargo. I already know where all of this is, so you can keep that part to yourself, what I want to know is just how many pirate crews you have contact with.” The AiT’s voice came out with a mechanical tone as it hissed out a bitter chemical smell of his medicine as he exhaled. The teenager’s heart was beating with adrenaline and it was taking a lot to stave off the murderous instinct to simply remove the man’s head. He had him dead to rights already with the information he had, but that wasn’t the mission Miro sent him on.
“Y-y-you do know I’m a dead man if I squeeeal- holy crap that sword is sharp!” Noble B proclaimed as his possible murderer lifted the blade deeper in the folds of his fat neck.
“You’re a dead man if you don’t, so I suggest you decide which death you want: the sudden kind, or the one you might be able to escape from.”
“Shit! Fine! Here! Just please, please, don’t cut my head off!”
With careful movements, as not to set the teen off, the noble drew out a thick packet of files all bound in a folder kept together by a single hempen string. The pages were of varying age and bookmarked in coded colors. With his spare hand Shinjo fanned through the bottom half of the pages and quickly caught some of the information there revealing the tail end of pirate histories and what kind of favor or blackmail the noble had over them. Smirking behind his mask Shinjo removed the blade and lightly hopped off the desk to sheath one of his weapons and casually walk out; the other would keep the man pinned so he couldn’t hit that button under his desk. As he did, the noble began to scream obscenities about not letting him get far, how there was no way he’d get away with this, and something about burying his family.
“My family is already buried and dead, sir,” the AiT responded without looking back as he struck the lock caging the slaves on his way out. Shinjo opened the door before snapping his fingers to cause the sword buried in the noble’s shoulder to shatter into bits of sharp chakra that finally freed him; just in time to watch a gang of angry slaves descend on him. The shinobi made his way out casually the way he came to the dying sounds of a master being torn apart by his salves. The chaos of the guards all rushing back towards the office to pull the slaves off the man left was more than enough to distract the guards of the safe house to easily slip back into the back alleys and then to the streets once more; his clothing weighted down slightly by the packet of information.
The return to Kumogakure was far faster than the descent as Shinjo chose to simply run this time. He made the trip in half the time, stopping only for an hour to rest by a makeshift campfire while he ate and took a peak at the documents. Inside was a huge amount of juicy information regarding the noble’s ‘friends’, as well as a lot of fresh work for his branch to sink its’ teeth into. This seemingly was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, but it would be up to the Captains and Sennin to decide who got what from what the fresh AiT brought back; all he knew was that he was well ahead of schedule when the teen sneaked past a group of Main Branch Chuunins heading South.
[MFT]
Pirates. While they were not unusual in the water surrounding Lightning, the sea bandits had been nearly stamped out in recent years due to no small part from Kumogakure’s shinobi. At least, so it was thought. Many gave way to the notion that in times of poverty and lacking military strength, the law would bend down to the lawless in at least some regard; the seas were vast, after all, and had many places to hide. The leader of his division, however, didn’t think it was so simple. She sensed that someone knew something they weren’t telling when the mission involving a lesser noble being absconded of his riches on a pleasure barge hit the desks. The location of the pirates were already conveniently known, somehow, and the reports towards that knowledge was supposedly due to their blatant disregard for being caught. The whole thing smelled, in a word, fishy. Yet the ANBU Branch was already over-extended in other cases and crimes within the Susukino District. A string of murders that were starting to look like another serial killer was lurking had a lot of the veterans investigating closer to home, so Shinjo was selected to get to the bottom of this conundrum; bonus points if he could do it before Main Branch eliminated the pirates.
The trip down to the coast took Shinjo a full day’s ride on the train system. The experience was weird when he probably could have made it in half the time by running, but the extended time and public transport gave him ample time to prep; and just as well. The train was full of young adults, all children of some rich fools, and intuition told him he’d be able to glean all the information he’d need from them.
From his cabin he was able to procure a disguise by silently stealing bits and pieces of clothing from the richer passengers’ cabins until he had cobbled together enough matching garments to look the part of a traveling rich kid. His weapons he hid within finger-sized scrolls that were placed in the linings of the impromptu disguise, though he highly doubted he’d need a single one. Yet, as they say, ‘better safe than sorry.” With the new clothing set he fixed his hair to copy some of the hairstyles the males his age were wearing, doing away with his tight ponytail and allowing the hair to fall around his shoulders; all while keeping himself low-key until the last 8hr train ride towards Tenebrous. In that train he took to the party cars and completely fell into character as the rich eldest son of a lesser noble. A prestigious jack-ass who loved his alcohol nearly as much as he loved girls. Both vices came to him easily, and with a mastery of a shinobi far higher rank than he currently held did he juggle both without missing a beat.
The years of his father soaked in alcohol passed not only a high tolerance for the spirits, but his ability to simply metabolize it all and sober up when he needed came in handy far more times than he cared to admit. Too many times he felt the booze starting to loosen his inhibitions in being drawn into a fight that would quickly throw his disguise. The fair features inherited from his mother’s side, along with the enchanting red eyes of his muddled Uchiha bloodline brought forth a different kind of problem in an entourage of both male and female, clinging to his waist and words. The other drunk youth were as putty in his trained hands and though it did lead to some situations far too graphic to explain away on paper, it also brought him exactly the information he needed.
Through the temporary playboy lifestyle, Shinjo asked questions of the other youth he was partying with regarding the noble who had been hi-jacked by pirates; mostly on the pretense of worrying about the same happening to him. The information return by the loose-lips of drunk and lustful youth trying to get close to Shinjo bought him a knowledge wealth that would make any spy elite jealous of his luck. It had been a wild, and even he admitted somewhat fun, eight hour train ride but when the train docked station the teenager ditched his stolen identity and blended back in with the exiting crowd once more in his traditional garb.
He had a firm grasp on what to do next. The pirates were located in one of the coastal towns themselves, but that wasn’t his target. Loose lips told him that what he was seeking was another lesser noble who had a secretly nefarious background in regards to pirating and knowing certain routes through the local seas that made his trade pop-off like no other’s. Rumor was that the reason the other noble had been jacked on his little pleasure barge was due them having accidentally discovering these routes themselves. This had started to build up a small fortune that “Noble B”, saw as an affront to his own business; so he contacted some ‘old friends’ to take care of it. Yet, Shinjo still didn’t think this was the end of his mission - though he could have easily just returned to Kumogakure with this information and let someone higher in rank finish what he had started. Part of his whim was curiosity to see just how well the information he had gathered panned out, the rest was sheer morbid curiosity to see what he was fully capable of now that he had been unleashed onto the world.
About three-hours after landing in the port town, the AiT could be found silently breaking into the building where Noble B was holding up. The man had a body double for his actual estate while he lived life however the hell he wanted in the ports and without it reflecting on his own personal image. It was sort of genius, actually, because the guy was into some really dark stuff like slavery, dangerous poison trade, and rare beast trade. Like a cat, Shinjo stalked across the roof and used the Transformation Jutsu to turn himself into…well, a cat, to fit through the ventilation shaft he had opened, until he had a general lay out of the building before exiting where he had entered. With the information on hand about the man’s normal guard number and now his safe-house, the Kumogakure shinobi knew that all he needed to do now was wait, observe and strike; a guard rotation was all he really needed to wait for.
When the rotation happened, it did so in the evening which only further aided to his stealth. Drawing the apparatus that contained his counter to the lung the disease that would otherwise keep him from doing this crap, he covered the lower half of his face and dropped from the roof to hit the ground like a feather. The teenager slipped in through the back door, surprisingly unlocked, without a sound and darted from crate to crate to block the line of vision of his small form as the guards finished their rounds and started chatting with each other as their shifts came to an end. Throughout the warehouse, Shinjo recognized many of the lesser noble’s goods. Just based on scent alone he found quite a few illegal goods along with a few cages that held not only rare animals waiting to be sold, but a handful of human slaves as well. They all ranged in age, height, and build but most were clearly meant to be sold off as ‘pleasure slaves’ based on their appearances; clean and scantily dressed. Shinjo slipped by them without a sound as well, hardening his heart at the sight of the children huddled together in one corner of their cage, until he found the office of the man he sought. With a shot of ninja magic into his eyes, Shinjo’s pupils’ expanded until two red rings formed in his now fully black eyes as he activated his dojutsu and summoned one of his black cat swords. The two climbed soundlessly onto a crate and the chakra beast arched it’s hind-legs up and wiggled before pouncing at the lone guard. As the man looked up with a startled jump at the cat, it transformed suddenly into a sword that pierced through his blocking arms towards his throat; the blade pierced it too as Shinjo also leaped from his higher ground to push the weapon, and door, through.
The door came down with a crash, but the office was far enough from the rotating guard that it went unnoticed by everyone except the men posted within. Two guards with their backs turned the door turned their necks to look down at the boy and started to reach for their weapons, a moment too late, as Shinjo drew the blades at his left side removed their faces in a sudden dance of steel. A katana flew across the room from his hand to nail the noble to his chair via his left shoulder to keep him from pressing a panic button, and before he could scream the teenager crossed the room with chakra speed to slide a weapon in threat towards the man’s throat.
“Whoa! What the fuck! What the hell! Wh-who are you!? What do you waaaaaaan-,” the man’s sentence was cut off as he felt the razor edge starting to draw blood. He was at Shinjo’s complete lack of mercy.
“Three days ago, a pirate crew attacked and stole a noble’s riches. This included money, women, and no small amount of personal cargo. I already know where all of this is, so you can keep that part to yourself, what I want to know is just how many pirate crews you have contact with.” The AiT’s voice came out with a mechanical tone as it hissed out a bitter chemical smell of his medicine as he exhaled. The teenager’s heart was beating with adrenaline and it was taking a lot to stave off the murderous instinct to simply remove the man’s head. He had him dead to rights already with the information he had, but that wasn’t the mission Miro sent him on.
“Y-y-you do know I’m a dead man if I squeeeal- holy crap that sword is sharp!” Noble B proclaimed as his possible murderer lifted the blade deeper in the folds of his fat neck.
“You’re a dead man if you don’t, so I suggest you decide which death you want: the sudden kind, or the one you might be able to escape from.”
“Shit! Fine! Here! Just please, please, don’t cut my head off!”
With careful movements, as not to set the teen off, the noble drew out a thick packet of files all bound in a folder kept together by a single hempen string. The pages were of varying age and bookmarked in coded colors. With his spare hand Shinjo fanned through the bottom half of the pages and quickly caught some of the information there revealing the tail end of pirate histories and what kind of favor or blackmail the noble had over them. Smirking behind his mask Shinjo removed the blade and lightly hopped off the desk to sheath one of his weapons and casually walk out; the other would keep the man pinned so he couldn’t hit that button under his desk. As he did, the noble began to scream obscenities about not letting him get far, how there was no way he’d get away with this, and something about burying his family.
“My family is already buried and dead, sir,” the AiT responded without looking back as he struck the lock caging the slaves on his way out. Shinjo opened the door before snapping his fingers to cause the sword buried in the noble’s shoulder to shatter into bits of sharp chakra that finally freed him; just in time to watch a gang of angry slaves descend on him. The shinobi made his way out casually the way he came to the dying sounds of a master being torn apart by his salves. The chaos of the guards all rushing back towards the office to pull the slaves off the man left was more than enough to distract the guards of the safe house to easily slip back into the back alleys and then to the streets once more; his clothing weighted down slightly by the packet of information.
The return to Kumogakure was far faster than the descent as Shinjo chose to simply run this time. He made the trip in half the time, stopping only for an hour to rest by a makeshift campfire while he ate and took a peak at the documents. Inside was a huge amount of juicy information regarding the noble’s ‘friends’, as well as a lot of fresh work for his branch to sink its’ teeth into. This seemingly was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, but it would be up to the Captains and Sennin to decide who got what from what the fresh AiT brought back; all he knew was that he was well ahead of schedule when the teen sneaked past a group of Main Branch Chuunins heading South.
[MFT]
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