[x] Tell Mr. Sato nothing.
What recklessness could inflaming his suspicions bring about? As a jonin of Amegakure, encouraging people to hire ninja for missions is one of your responsibilities. As a human being, convincing an elderly man with no living family to waste all his wealth to bring in an interrogation specialist who will rip through his town to find a murderer who may not even exist is not. Or maybe he'd simply be mired in his suspicions and guilt, and jump at every imagined clue. Until, eventually, he'd do something in anger, convinced he knows who the culprit is.
Or he might be gladdened by your honesty, and come to the same conclusions that you have: that it's impossible to know, and life is best served by moving on. It's possible. But when you pull Mr. Sato and the priest aside, you have no intention of bringing the man's son up.
"I should warn the both of you," you say, and watch them tense. "That a powerful spirit has made a mountain near your village its home. It assisted me in locating your son's body, but it should not be interacted with, if possible."
Mr. Sato furrows his brow. "Is it… dangerous?"
"Anything powerful is dangerous," you rejoin. "And it seems to have ambitions, which your village might be entangled with in the future. But it doesn't seem murderous." Assuming, of course, that Konan responds to its invitation. "Amegakure will handle it: expect more ninja in a few months."
The priest cuts in with a frown. "What cause does Amegakure have to interfere with the spiritual affairs of this village?"
An interesting response, and surprisingly brave. You wonder how much the priest knows about the tiger - surely, not enough that they were in active contact, otherwise the creature would not have been interested in the village's worship. "It's powerful and ambitious, and seems to be considering ways to further those ambitions," you reply, putting the issue out of mind. "It also had something of an interest in blood, when I spoke with it. Amegakure is involving itself before it looks for ways to indulge that interest that would require blood in response." It's a good justification. You'll be sure to give it to Konan when you have to explain why you committed your leader's time without consultation.
This, at least, seems to rattle the priest, and Mr. Sato nods with frantic gratitude.
"I would strongly recommend avoiding it. Mr. Takuto knows the signs and location if you need more detail, but in the simplest terms: if you see white and red flowers with three-part symmetry, turn back."
And Takuto knows better than to say anything more than what's necessary.
~
For all the problems in how you completed the mission, it must be said: you completed it quickly.
…did you just give yourself a backhanded compliment? You run that thought back through your mind and wince. Ow. Anyway, you have a few more days than you thought you would, so even getting a bit lost - maps in this part of the country are guesswork, sometimes - you set up camp near where you're supposed to meet your next client and settle in to wait. It's a modest Torii gate that leads to nowhere, and unlike your last mission, you don't think it's because of anything particularly supernatural. It's just there. Abandoned, or built in the middle of nowhere, you're not sure.
You settle in to wait, and to critique your genin's camping techniques.
~
Yuma approaches Takashi. The helmeted boy is doing… something, with a pair of kunai. The sparking sounds make it pretty obvious that it's related to the Steel Release, but exactly what is a mystery. And Yuma is bored.
"What're you doing?" the younger boy asks.
Takashi pauses for a moment. The tone isn't the scorn which Akira so often directs at his techniques, but he's been fielding questions and 'questions' about his ambitions for years now. "Practicing," he says.
Yuma rolls his eyes. "Obviously. But what are you trying to do?" The kunai are completely ruined - cheap steel or not, it's enough to make one wince. "Some sort of weapon destroying technique?"
The other boy lowers the knives down and turns to face his teammate, resigned to this being a longer conversation. "Kinda. Captain Kitagawa said I should start small. Find one useful trick," he finishes sourly.
Yuma squats down beside him. "She give you any good advice?"
"Some tips on how to ramp it up and down really fast, but she said it wasn't really her area." Takashi shrugs. "Her earth techniques are really bad, I guess, and her lightning is different. She got me a scroll on the Kurito bloodline, 'in case I manage to discover a dual-nature element without a bloodline'." This is said with exaggerated finger quotes, and Takashi frowns. "I dunno know if she's making fun of me or not. What about you?"
"Just sparring, mostly."
Takashi blinks and stares at him, ruined kunai forgotten. "Shit, really? What about your like… signature move?"
Yuma scowls. "Stabbing you in the face is a signature move," he threatens.
"Nah man, that's bullshit," Takashi says. "Even teach has like, a lightning sword, and she's the most boring jonin alive."
"How would you even know?" Yuma asks, half offended.
"It's pretty obvious she'd rather be in like… a book club or something. She used to do research, right?" Takashi says. "And, uh, I know she has a lightning sword because she showed me?" Sparks crackle by his scarred fingertips as he waves them at Yuma. "Lightning."
Yuma huffs. "Akira's just doing sparring too."
Takashi waves the point off. "Akira has his freaky bendy knee thing going on. Sparring is his signature move. You need something else. Or," he laughs, "your signature move will be 'getting stabbed'!"
"What if you don't need a signature move?" Yuma presses after a moment. His pride has been pricked. "What if you're just, good at everything?"
Takashi scoffs, picking up his pitted kunai. "Every ninja has a signature move. Or moves. Well, every jonin."
The younger boy frowns. "Why? It's not like the captain's needed to use hers." He pauses to think about it. "I mean, if most missions don't take a lot of fighting, why does the move matter? Shouldn't you want to learn something useful outside of a fight?"
The sound of sparking metal stops. "What? Like making girders?" Takashi spits.
"That's not-" Yuma protests, shooting to his feet.
Takashi settles, somewhat. "Yeah," he mutters. "Sorry."
Yuma shifts uncomfortably. He's touched a nerve which is raw and oversensitive.
"...beating someone in a fight is what people care about, anyway," Takashi explains. "Yeah, if you're only good at that, or if you're dumb and get poisoned or something, then it's a waste, but like." His mouth twists. "Fighting is what matters," he concludes lamely.
"We haven't fought anyone," Yuma points out.
"We fought Mr. Takuto."
"Barely." He reaches up to the fading cut on his cheek.
"Still counts," Takashi insisted. "And it's like… being able to fight, even if you don't actually fight a lot. If a ninja can't fight, they aren't a ninja."
Yuma chewed on that philosophical statement for a minute as Takashi got back to sparking his kunai. "Okay, sure. I see what you mean. But what does that have to do with a 'signature move', or whatever?"
"For the love of- I almost had it," Takashi curses.
"Aren't you going to melt those if you keep practicing without a break?" Yuma asked.
"Yeah? I mean, that's kinda- aw, fuck." He rests his head on his knee. "That's why it was getting easier. Maybe I should take a break," he says, shaking a hand out. "I'm fried."
Yuma just looks confused. Takashi sighs.
"I was heating the metal," he explains, picking up one of the ruined kunai. "Trying to focus the lightning on a point so it can melt and freeze really fast. Hopefully fast enough to disable a sword or something."
"By melting it?"
Takashi shakes his head, picking up the other kunai and holding them tightly against each other. Lightning crackles again, louder and more sustained, and when he lets go of one kunai, it remains stuck to the other. "By welding them," he says. "If I'm fighting someone with a sword, I could ruin it by sticking a kunai to it." He twirls the awkward mass around a finger. "Well. That's the idea, anyway. I think it only started to work because the edges were pre-heated."
Yuma opens his mouth, about to ask how such a specific technique could be a 'signature move', before re-thinking it. "So your signature move is going to be… melting metal?" he ventures.
"Yep." Takashi says. "I'm gonna prove to everyone that my family can fight. With our techniques. I just need to figure out how."
Because fighting is the only thing that matters, Yuma thinks. Right. "What's the problem?" Yuma asks.
"Mostly? It's too slow." He gestures at the fused kunai. "That took a few seconds. When I was a kid, I wanted to like, forge swords in the middle of a fight and melt shuriken out of the air, you know? But it takes time to melt a metal the way I do it."
Yuma rubs his chin. "What if you just kept it melted?"
Takashi smirks. "Not a bad idea - except I can't make the metal move fast, even when it's melted. It's Earth chakra, not metal chakra, and definitely not liquid metal chakra. And-" he holds up a hand. "-yeah, me and the captain have thought about whether we can make metal chakra. That's what the Kurito scrolls were supposed to help me with. But most people think making other elements without a bloodline is impossible." He shrugs. "I'm working on it."
"Oh. Uh. Good luck, I guess?" The other boy is clearly somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of new theory he'd been exposed to - the rest of the team was only really aware of the standard applications of elemental chakra, and that, mostly second hand. He coughs into his hand. "Anyway, the captain wants us to re-do the perimeter traps. Like, now."
"Fuck."
As they hurry off to do the job you assigned them, you consider, in your hiding spot, whether you want to curb Takashi's tongue. Just as a matter of professionalism. Then you consider who he likely learned it from.
Fuck.
~
You make sure to stake out the place you're supposed to be meeting with the client during the day. It's a good way to prepare your genin for the most boring part of war: waiting for someone to come by. The kids are lucky none of them have real sensor-grade talent, 'cause then you always have to be on edge to detect something and call it in.
Yeah, the Sensing Squad is valuable, and prestigious, and honestly pretty safe - just look at the Maekawa, who became Rain's biggest, most influential clan by dominating it - but you're glad you're not in it anymore. Even with Shio, it was such a pain.
Anyway, there's no guarantee the client has a functioning calendar, or that you didn't make a mistake on yours, so it takes three days of increasingly sloppy stakeouts and ever escalating sets of push-ups assigned as punishment for sloppiness before the client arrives. He's…
Well, he's a monk. What more can you really say? There's a solid number in Amegakure, but you never did more than chat to them on the street and take their pamphlets once in a while. This one's a bit more solidly built, and his saffron robes are cut a bit more practically, but beyond that he's just another old monk. Early forties, probably - past his prime if he were a ninja.
You flicker a safe distance away. "Hello!" you call. "Monk Ikkyu, I assume? I'm Captain Kitagawa, your escort to Hidden Rain."
"You assume correctly!" he replies brightly, and you suppress a snort. A sassy monk, then. "Teacher Ikkyu at your service."
"I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be the other way around, sir." Your voice is flat, but not enough to hide the curl of humor you're feeling. Ikkyu only looks more delighted.
"Are we all not in service to each other?" he offers. As he gets closer, you make out more details. His eyes are an unusually deep blue, and his ordination scars number nine. Generally inauspicious, though you suppose monks take a more ambivalent view on suffering and annihilation.
You can't resist. Shio can keep her reasonable advice; nobody's more fun to argue with than a monk. "What is the other, sir? To what extent are the distinctions between people illusions, and to what extent are those illusions people?"
He tucks his hands deeper into his robe, mouth twitching. "And here I thought I'd hired a disciple, not an acolyte! Or," he casts his over your team arranged behind you with a speculative smile. "Perhaps four? I will admit, we rarely take in students so young, these days."
"Ninja aren't young," you correct him. "Only untempered."
Ikkyu hums. "Or perhaps young is all they are. Is there anything I ought to know about the specifics of this protection?"
"As ignorance is a poison, I'll give you knowledge," you quip, before settling back into a professional mode. "Standard civilian escort - we keep you alive and unmolested, until you are well situated in Amegakure. Funds have been arranged for transportation from the old capital, prior to that we'll-" You take in the monk and his notable lack of any beast of burden. "Well I suppose we'll all walk."
The monk waves a hand. "We'll never make it on time at my speed," he says and yes, you had just noticed the schedule was a bit tight. You really don't want to have to carry him. You can do it, you just don't want to. "A friend of mine will be on his way to the old capital: we'll go with him."
"That wasn't part of the mission brief," you reply. It should have been. On the other hand, maybe you won't have to carry a man all the way back to the north river.
"Will it be a problem?" Ikkyu asks.
You shrug. "We'll see. Regardless, you'll make it to Rain. Lead the way." A tilt of your head. "What is it that you hope to get from this, anyway? The mission brief didn't say."
~
Religion among ninja is an atrophied, withered thing, especially outside the structure of the clans. Among the people, though, it thrives and blends into a kaleidoscope of sects and traditions even after Hanzo's suppression of the martial temples. With a new leader in Hidden Rain, however, the relationship between the two largest groups of chakra users may be renegotiated.
[ ] On exorcisms.
Creatures from the ghost realm were once the sole responsibility of priests, but Hanzo disliked the idea of priest geared for battle.
[ ] On medicine.
Chakra healing is a valuable commodity, and Hanzo brought those temples capable of it into the fold - or out of his way.
[ ] On location.
There are some old fortified temples which used to control critical paths through the mountains, now empty by the Salamander's decree.
