Fandom Squad Shithead: A Naruto AU

[Gilzar]

Katsuro impatiently waited for an answer but would not get the one he wanted. Instead Tetsuo just stood there, staring back at Katsuro blankly. While at first this annoyed Katsuro, it only went on to confuse him as time passed. Tetsuo was never this quiet. He always had some retort to Katsuro, or would at least show some attitude. Yet there was none of that.

Tetsuo finally spoke, Katsuro was just as put off as Haruki was. Katsuro's annoyed eyes narrowed at Tetsuo as he tried to piece together what his student was saying. What did this have to do with the minefield? He hadn't even asked about the mine going off. After a little time passed Katsuro eased his grip off Tetsuo's shoulders, and lowered his hands back down to his sides. He doubted the boy would run off at this point.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Katsuro asked. While he was confused, he was still visibly frustrated toward his student. "Did you make that mine go off?"

Needless to say Mizu was also surprised by Tetsuo's response. Here she was expecting some half-assed excuse or insult toward the group, yet instead Tetsuo didn't even answer the question. Unlike her comrades however, Mizu was more skeptical than confused. He's just trying to buy himself time to come up with an excuse, Mizu thought to herself. Her trust in the troublemaker of the group had completely vanished since the incident from this morning. Mizu had no faith in Tetsuo, but was eager to see if he'd weasel his way out of this one.

 

[Pine]

When Katsuro released his hold of Tetsuo, the boy's shoulders started to relax. He knew from his expression and tone Katsuro was still upset with him, but for now, it seemed like he might be spared from the explosive rage he'd displayed just moments ago.

It seemed that his short, enervated response, however, was not enough to get his message across.

Not only that, but the new question he had to answer was complicated. If he attacked the bear in such a way that it became frenzied and ran out into the minefield, was it he who really set the mine off? Did it become his responsibility, the death of that animal?

Tetsuo shut his eyes and took in a shallow, shaky breath, trying to unwind the mental knot he found himself tangled in. After a moment, he opened his eyes and replied, "It was just an animal." His gaze turned to look at a patch of grass by their feet. "It's not important."

Haruki folded his arms over his chest and furrowed his brow. Tetsuo still wasn't making sense to him. Wherever the other boy had gone off to that was making him act strange, he was quickly wishing he had stayed there. There hadn't been a moment where he particularly liked Tetsuo by any means, but now with his cryptic messages and general melancholy, he was looking to be dead weight for them.

"Wait..." Haruki's frown deepened, then he began to look visibly upset. "You don't mean an animal set it off, do you?" He thought about the rabbit tracks from yesterday. That was far from the spot they were at, but it still put the thought of a cute little bunny getting blown to bits in his head. His upset started brewing into anger. How would he even know about the mine? If this was Tetsuo's idea of a joke, it was not funny.

Tetsuo, once again, did not react to Haruki's input. It was a much more conscious decision this time, though. He didn't want to talk about it. So instead, after thinking for a moment, he looked back to Katsuro and said, "There's something there you should see."

 

[Gilzar]

Katsuro listened intently to Tetsuo's shaky response. It was an animal that set the landmine off apparently, but that wasn't what Katsuro was focusing on at the moment. It was no longer a hunch; Tetsuo was acting strange. His entire demeanor had changed. The angry, confident boy that was Tetsuo now seemed on edge. His responses were shaky, he wasn't making eye contact, and mentally he didn't seem present.

Katsuro had seen this kind of look before. This type of behavior was all too common in the war. Sometimes shinobi would come back from the front lines for the first time with their minds rattled, just like Tetsuo. Everyone handles trauma differently, but it wasn't uncommon for people to act similar to how Tetsuo was after their encounters. The jonin let out a sigh and looked back at the rest of the team. Both Mizu and Haruki weren't pleased with Tetsuo. Haruki was even commenting on the situation himself, while Mizu was watching with an unamused look. They both had probably had enough of Tetsuo's antics by now and were expecting some form of punishment.

Tetsuo then looked to Katsuro, and explained there was something he needed to see. As much as Katsuro wanted to discipline Tetsuo, it wouldn't help anything at the moment. If anything it would probably make things worse if Tetsuo really was traumatized. In the heat of the moment he decided to take a stern, yet fair approach to the situation.

"Then show us, but don't think this is over. When we get back to the village you will be disciplined for the events of this morning. Until then, we press on and finish the mission."

Katsuro then took lead, with Toshio following behind. He paused, and took one final look at Tetsuo. "But if you run off again without telling me I'll put my foot so far up your ass, you'll never walk again!"

Mizu's lips opened in disbelief. That's all? After everything Tetsuo pulled this morning, Katsuro-sensei decided that he'd just discipline him later and drop it? It wasn't fair in her eyes. Katsuro never let him get away with his petty antics. However, the moment he actually did something that hurt her, and then jeopardized the mission, Katsuro decided just to shake it off? Her face tightened in frustration. For a moment she looked over at Haruki in frustrated disbelief and just shook her head. She audibly sighed, then grabbed her things. As she walked past Tetsuo to catch up with the group, her eyes leered at him the entire time.

 

[Pine]

Tetsuo, upon the deliverance of his instructor's judgment, nodded mutely. There was nothing to be upset over. He knew he was bringing about Katsuro's ire the moment he stepped out of the mansion. It would've taken finding the girl and bringing her back to the group unharmed for the jonin to have, maybe, had a chance of overseeing his disobedience, but he couldn't even manage that task. In fact, he had very little to show for his efforts at all. He could only hope that whatever it was he'd seen in the minefield before was actually something that would help them out. His stomach knotted just thinking about what would happen if it wasn't.

Meanwhile, Haruki's jaw dropped. Much like Mizu, he was gobsmacked. He was peeved that Tetsuo kept ignoring him, still making an ass of himself in spite of how deep of shit he was in - except it was just that. The one thing he'd been looking forward to this morning, and Katsuro was letting him off the hook. Why? He couldn't make sense of it, and he didn't really care to.

Haruki knew before Mizu even looked at him that she was not going to be pleased, either. When she did though, Haruki took immediate notice and mouthed to her, angrily, Seriously? He wanted to make sure she knew he was on her side. He copied her when she grabbed her things, but Haruki decided to be a little more showy with his frustrations, yanking instead of pulling his sack from out of the brush. When he started to follow after Katsuro, he intentionally planted himself right beside Mizu, keeping his eyes trained away from their other teammate with a practiced air of not even noticing his presence as they passed him.

Tetsuo sighed to himself upon Katsuro's final warning. He found himself looking at the ground again, only looking back up to make sure the rest of the squad had gone ahead. He was met with the force of Mizu glowering at him. He tried to glare back because he didn't know what else to do, but it had nowhere near the heat to match her own blistering gaze and it barely looked like he did more than furrow his brows. He let there be a good distance between himself and his teammates before dragging himself forward.

He soon found that the group's pace was much faster than the one he'd used returning to them. He would fall completely behind at this rate. He felt dull echoes of an extracurricular alarm at the thought of losing proximity with them just as soon as he'd gotten it back, and so he spurred himself into walking faster until he could keep up.

It may have been what he needed to begin tuning himself back into an awareness of his body and surroundings, because little by little, the tension that had been weighing him down fell away from him. Soon enough, he was listening to the sounds of his own breathing. A way of regaining control over his own focus as they traveled.

In time, the group had arrived to the same glade he had before, warnings for the minefield ahead posted everywhere around it. While Tetsuo had recovered enough to where he was starting to feel some normalcy, he did not have it in himself to raise his voice yet. And so, just before they had gotten there, he pushed himself past his teammates and Toshio to fall in step beside Katsuro. He did this so that he could tug gently on the jonin's sleeve to signal for him to stop, if needed.

He was silent at first, looking all across the minefield. He knew he'd seen the brown lump somewhere near the center, but there were bits of debris and patches of dirt that made it difficult to track from just a glance. He began to feel anxious, thinking it may not be visible at all from where he had stopped them. Something he was not consciously aware of told him that it would be a bad idea to return to where the mine had been set off at. But finally, before he began to pace the perimeter of the glade restlessly, Tetsuo's eyes fell on it. "There," he said quietly, pointing towards the lump's direction. As before, the longer he looked at it, the more it began to stand out from the rest of its surroundings. After a moment he added, "I didn't have a chance to really take a look at it before."

 

[Gilzar]

Mizu couldn't help but frown as Tetsuo moved past both her and Haruki. Even though he had something to show the group, she still preferred to have him out of her sight.

At the edge of the minefield Katsuro was finally able to look over the area as he had wanted to for so long. At the moment, the minefield wasn't exactly a pretty sight. The smell of burnt, rotting flesh was putrid in the air even from where they stood. Blood painted a good chunk of the minefield, all around a small crater like splattered paint. Next to the crater was the remains of the creature that had blown up. At this distance Katsuro couldn't tell what it was, but it was big. Was this what had Tetsuo in such a fuss?

Tetsuo then pointed toward the odd detail he had noticed the last time he was down here. Katsuro looked out in the direction, visibly combing the area behind his rounded sunglasses. Although it had taken him a moment, he spotted exactly what Tetsuo was pointing to. He'd have to cross the minefield to examine whatever it was.

He wearily looked back to Toshio, then to the rest of the team.

"Toshio and I are going out there. Stay here, and keep alert. We'll be back."

Katsuro then motioned his summoned bear forward, and the two of them walked into the hazardous field. Just like he showed his students the previous nights, Katsuro focused his chakra into his feet to avoid detonating any mines. Toshio did much of the same. Before his students eyes the both of them were walking across the active minefield as if it were just any normal glade in the forest.

First Katsuro and Toshio made their way over to the fresh animal corpse scattered across the field. The both of them loomed over the corpse for a brief moment or two, taking in the brutal scene before them while trying to ignore the smell. Up close it was clear that this thing was once a bear, and that it probably wasn't in that good of shape. Curiously Katsuro looked over at Toshio, wondering how he would take this.

"My brother..." Toshio grumbled to himself. "What have they done you?"

Katsuro awkwardly scratched the back of his head, as was his habit for situations like these. "Sorry Toshio. Tetsuo's a dipshit, but I don't think he wanted this to happen."

"The war is to blame, not your student" Toshio replied, looking down over the stared corpse of the brown bear. "This one hadn't eaten in months from the looks of it. Famine from your war has caused these woods to be poached of whatever game it once had. It probably would have starved to death or eaten a villager if not for this minefield."

Katsuro sighed. The war was truly cruel to this small nation. Even the wildlife still suffer in its aftermath.

"Come on." Katsuro motioned. "We still have a job to do."

Leaving the corpse behind, the two of them steadily approached the object of interest. It was still hard to make out exactly what this thing was at their distance, but as they got closer its identity became apparent: It was a small basket, turned over on its side. Katsuro kneeled over the basket, looking down into it. Inside sat the arm of some kind of stuffed animal. This had to have been Rei's. The basket was what she would have carried the berries home in, and this stuffed arm must have belonged to her toy rabbit she always carried on her. But where was Rei?

Katsuro immediately handed the basket to Toshio. The bear stuck his snout inside, smelling around the basket for a while. He brought out his snout and faced Katsuro.

"That's Rei's scent alright." The bear began smelling the air, and walking in small circles as he followed the scent precisely from the basket.

"This is odd." Toshio stated as he continued to walk in small circles. "She remained in this spot for a long time."

Katsuro looked over at Toshio. Even a veteran like himself was beginning to succumb to a sinking feeling in his stomach. He had a bad feeling about this. "...How long?"

"Probably an entire day...maybe a day and a half. The scent is starting to fade so it's hard to tell. But she ran all the way down from the start of the forest, went into the quarry, then ran out of the quarry, and came down here of all places. Then remained here for well over a day."

Katsuro couldn't help but think about what the girl's father, Sando, had mentioned the day before. He had scolded her about going into the minefields; she knew they were dangerous. His eyes traveled back over to the decimated bear corpse, and suddenly the Jonin was struck with an idea. Rei clearly knew that she was small enough not to set off the land mines...and all evidence from the day before suggested she was running from something.

"She came here because she was being chased and knew it was safe." Katsuro stated. "She was being chased by a person. Any animal around here wouldn't be smart enough to avoid a minefield. I think she stayed as long as she could out here in this heat until she thought it would be safe to leave."

Toshio nodded. "I agree. Follow me and let's see where her trial leads from here."

Toshio did a few more circles before finally walking back to the edge the minefield. He put his snout as close as he could to the ground.

"Here." Toshio pointed at a patch of dirt, just on the edge of the minefield.

"Get over here you three!" Katsuro called over.

"This is where it happened! Right here. Look Katsuro. Tracks." Once again Toshio pointed his nose into the dirt. There, barely visibly were the outlines a few footprints: Far too large to belong to that of a little girl. "Another scent meets hers here. I smelled this scent yesterday but didn't think anything of it...Thought it might have been one of that rogue shinobi's goons or a member of the search party."

Katsuro examined the area closely, softly laying close to the ground and looking at the tracks. These footprints were too small to be his, yet too large to be any of his students tracks. Furthermore, broken branches on the ground may have hinted at some sort of struggle. At this point Mizu had run over to Katsuro, presumably followed by Haruki and Tetsuo. She was anxious to see what their sensei had found.

"Stop! Not a step closer!" Katsuro ordered. Mizu suddenly halted. She could see he was still visibly looking over the area with Toshio for any possible clues. All she could do was wait with baited breath for Katsuro to say anything to them. They had gone through so much to find this poor girl, and all Mizu wanted was at least something to give them a hint of where she could be.

Toshio stood up on his hind legs to capture the group's attention. "Both scents go the same direction. We need to follow them now. Only a few hours left before the scent-trail fades away for good!"

"Come on then, go! We'll catch up." Katsuro shouted to Toshio, and the summoning once again began following the trail.

Katsuro faced his students. He was blunt with his explanation. "Rei's not lost in these woods. She's been kidnapped. We need to move now before we lose the trail! I'll answer any questions along with way."

With that being said, Katsuro led his students to once again follow Toshio. Oddly enough, the bear led them back on the same exact trail they walked down to the minefield on. It looked as Toshio was going to lead them back up the same exact path they took from the village to get down here. They moved at an even more brisk pace than before; time was of the essence.

 

[Pine]

Haruki, upon arriving to the minefield with the rest of the group, was deeply unsettled. He pulled his shirt up over his nose, but it was no use. The stinking rot had already wormed its way into his awareness and he could not get the smell out. His eyes instinctively tracked the source of the smell, roaming the glade straight to where the carcass lay. Haruki whimpered at the sight of it.

Tetsuo had not been pranking them. Haruki's initial fear had been confirmed: it must have been an animal that triggered that explosion, albeit something much larger and less innocent than a rabbit. He eyed Tetsuo warily, wondering how in the world the other boy knew about this.

He did not linger on this question for long, however. The smell was getting to him, and it made him groan and turn his back from everything. "I can't look," he said to himself, crouching down and squeezing his eyes shut.

Tetsuo, for his part, was forcing himself to look. More accurately, with some vexation, he watched Katsuro and Toshio go straight to where the bear had blown itself up, even though that was not the direction he had pointed them to. He almost wondered if Katsuro had missed the lump altogether. He felt sick looking at it again, but now with the rest of the squad in attendance, he feared if he looked away it would make him look weak. And so he stared, vacantly, even with the feel of nausea swimming in his gut.

It was a small reprieve when they moved on from it to examining what he had actually wanted them to see. He tried to focus in on what was being said. The object was evidently something of interest, otherwise Toshio would not have been stuffing his nose in it, and Katsuro without a doubt would have come storming back by now to yell at him for wasting their time or whatever else. With the distance between them now, however, Tetsuo was not able to hear them very well, and soon he was putting all of his focus once again into just making sure he didn't throw up.

He moved, behind pace from Mizu, when Katsuro called them over. Haruki hesitated, casting a cautious glance over his shoulder. He did not want to get any closer to the bear's corpse, but he knew what would happen if he did not obey their sensei. So he followed behind as well, albeit taking his time to make sure he didn't accidentally step in any blood or other remains.

They both stopped short when ordered to. The urgency in Katsuro's tone made Haruki's heart pound. He looked curiously at the footprints after a moment, trying to bridge together whatever observations their sensei must have been making amid the sudden silence.

If Toshio wanted to grab their attention by standing, he succeeded. Haruki knew the ursine was big, but he gawked now seeing him tower over them, dwarfing even Katsuro in comparison. Toshio's words didn't make any sense to him at first, but then Katsuro was sending Toshio away and debriefing them on everything they had discovered. "Kidnapped?" he repeated, just to make sure it sounded real to himself.

He and Tetsuo both followed when ordered.

Haruki continued to work through what he knew in his mind. "We got our mission yesterday. Rei had already been missing for like, three days at that point." He looked between Katsuro and Toshio, galloping ahead of them. "How long does it take for a scent to fade like that?"

Tetsuo, propelled by their sensei's exclamations, was racking his brain too. He was angered, knowing the young girl had been taken, but also anxious about what must've happened to her between now and then. They knew she had a bounty on her head, but wouldn't this whole search have been pointless if Sando had already received this ransom? Their client had not been straightforward with them so far, but he couldn't find a reason to hide that detail from them.

Whatever the case, if Rei had been abducted, that meant they were going to have to be ready to fight. This made the sullen look on his face deepen. This was the exact nightmare scenario that had driven him to go off on his own not even an hour before. As if he had any doubt before, Mizu had made clear her exact feelings about him when she glared at him on their way down here. She was still mad at him. She had meant every word of it when she said she was done with him. Now it was life or death for this young girl that they can extract her safely, assuming she was still alive, and there was no way Mizu would cooperate with him to make sure that happened.

It was all too much. The smell, the rot, the bear, the heat, his heart thudding. The familiar taste of bile crawled up his tongue. Tetsuo peeled to the side of the path, yanked open its branches and heaved.

Haruki looked back over at the sound and regretted immediately. "Ugh," he said, wrinkling his nose in disgust and stepping to the far side of the path. Tetsuo, without looking up, waved to him and anyone else to keep going. Haruki didn't need his permission. He pressed on.

As it was evidently too late to have stopped this altogether, in spite of his best efforts, Tetsuo made the effort to push out everything that he could. No more than three rounds and he was depleted. Miserably, he spat, swigged from his canteen to spit some more, then finally drank to soothe the burn within his throat. He did not have time to determine if the exercise relieved him any. He immediately turned and ran to catch up with the group.

 

[Gilzar]

As Toshio was leading the group as quickly as he could while still tracking the scent, Haruki got to the front of the group and asked him and Katsuro just how long it would take a scent to fade away.

"It depends on the conditions." Toshio responded to the young genin. "Normally heat and humidity helps with scent by trapping odors in the air, and making them more intense. Under those circumstances a scent can linger around for well over a week. But the humidity isn't normal here: It's way too hot and humid for a scent to stay around long. All of the moisture in the air breaks up the scent particles, mixing everything together...Under these conditions a scent would last for two or three and a half days at best."

Katsuro then chimed in. "So in otherwords: The scent we are following is three and half days old and won't be around much longer."

Once gain Toshio and Katsuro moved back to the front to lead the group. As he passed Haruki, Katsuro watched his student for a moment or so before focusing back to the task at hand. Even though what Haruki just did was minor, it caught Katsuro's attention. Haruki seemed to be finally taking some initiative, without Tetsuo or Mizu pressuring him to.

Just then Mizu noticed Tetsuo run to the side of the path and stop. Ahead of her, Katsuro seemed to notice this too, stopping himself for a brief moment as the others went past him. Mizu watched behind to see what was all happening. Then Tetsuo began to throw up. Immediately Mizu looked away in disgust. It smelled bad enough as is from the dead animal, and now Tetsuo was going to have puke-breath the rest of the day.

Meanwhile Katsuro just made a quiet groan, and rolled his eyes. All that bullshit last night about how Haruki couldn't keep it together, and here he is losing it in the bushes, Katsuro thought to himself. What a mess. It would almost be funny if someone's life wasn't on the line. Once Katsuro saw Tetsuo moving back to the group he quickly dashed back to the front of the group.

Mizu was no longer watching Tetsuo, but he was still on her mind. Her estranged comrade was clearly in shambles, and it was conflicting her. Seeing Tetsuo suffer like this, after everything he had done, gave her a small feeling of satisfaction. However, she couldn't ignore how Tetsuo falling apart would implicate the mission. The success of the mission is always the utmost priority, that was something Mizu believed in fervently. They couldn't have him behaving like a liability. It especially held true now that time was of the essence. She thought about saying something to Tetsuo...but couldn't. It was as she said earlier: Mizu was done with him. It was far too soon to look past his actions of the past few days for her.

"Tetsuo!" Katsuro shouted from the front, interrupting Mizu's thinking. "Get your shit together and focus! The team needs you and we don't have time for this!"

He turned back to face the group. "I'm not going to bullshit any of you. Rei's been kidnapped for well over three days now. There's a good chance she's dead. I doubt Genzo was the one who got her, and no one's tried to ransom her to her father Sando. I sure as hell hope she's alive, but the odds are against it. You all need to be ready for the worst case scenario."

 

[Pine]

Tetsuo glowered at Katsuro's back. He did not need to be nagged of the severity of this situation, and it grated him getting told to do the very thing he'd been trying to do all this time. He wanted to snap right back at him, tell him that it wasn't like he had wanted to lose his breakfast just when he needed it the most, but he was still unprepared to raise his voice. So instead he huffed and rolled his eyes. "Fuck off," he said, so barely audible he may as well have just mouthed it to himself.

Haruki wasn't sure if he understood Toshio's explanation. He sounded so scholarly, talking about particles breaking down and humidity. It was weird to hear that kind of talk coming from a bear.

The main message got across well enough though: Rei was in serious trouble.

He scowled a little over his shoulder at Tetsuo, but either the other boy didn't notice or he was continuing to ignore everything he did and said.

He returned his attention to their Katsuro when the jonin-sensei addressed the group. A knot twisted in his stomach. Haruki asked, "Why would anyone kill a little girl like that?"

 

[Gilzar]

"I don't know." Katsuro replied bluntly. "There are some sick bastards out there in this world."

Katsuro was having the same thoughts run through his head as his students were: Why? In all of his years as a shinobi he had never encountered a situation like this. Most of his search and rescue missions were for fallen comrades, both during the war and after. Never before had he dealt with a kidnapping. He wondered about the nature of this crime. How nefarious was this? Could it be just a simple ransom that had yet to be announced? Or was it something far more sinister? Who was the individual that stole Rei, and how would they react to being caught? Out of everything the one thing they needed to avoid was a hostage situation.

After collecting his thoughts, Katsuro briefed his team. "We're not technically the law in this country, but we still have some martial authority here. If we find the bastard who did this you act immediately. Apprehend them before they can escalate the situation. However you deem necessary is fine."

"I want you all to know my rules though. You will not kill anyone unless absolutely necessary. Same thing goes for civilians. I don't care what is going on, you do not risk their lives for the objective unless it is absolutely necessary."

Mizu reflected deeply upon Katsuro's words, especially about his attitude towards killing. While she knew her sensei was just trying to establish ground rules, him even mentioning the idea that they'd have to kill someone made her feel uneasy. She knew the situation was bad, that was just common sense. However, hearing Katsuro mention the idea that they may have to kill someone in order to rescue Rei really gave the situation a lot more weight to consider. If push came to shove Mizu wondered if she even could kill someone, even if it was to rescue a person in danger. Her thoughts occupied her attention. For the rest of the journey through the woods all she could think about was the possible scenarios they'd be walking into.

Under the guidance of Toshio, Katsuro continued to lead the team through the forest. Much of the trip was uphill, and it had taken the team longer to get back to the village than they previously expected. After a grueling 45 minutes the team had finally arrived to where they first began their trip: A little patch of bushes, just next to the village of Ansu. For the first time since they had left the minefield Toshio stopped moving and tried to smell the air around them. The bear frantically shifted his nose around, but he couldn't track the scent any longer. After all this time the scent had finally faded and could no longer be tracked.

"The trail has faded. I can't follow it anymore..." Toshio explained in a disheartening tone.

"Fuck" Katsuro whispered under his breath. That was their easy ticket to finding Rei, and now it was gone. At this moment he couldn't help but think about how if they hadn't ran into Genzo the day before, they wouldn't have been in this situation. He wiped the beads of sweat from off of his head and thought about what their next step should be.

"Toshio, I still need you." Katsuro admitted. Toshio nodded to Katsuro, subtly implying that he intended to see this through to the end.

"There's no way whoever kidnapped Rei didn't walk through this village. Only one road goes through this part of the country and it runs right through this fucking place. Someone in this village saw something. We're going to split into two groups and question everyone in this village. If you get any leads follow them immediately. The other team will just have to catch up."

Katsuro dug into his flack vest and pulled out one of his cigarettes. He promptly lit it and began to casually breathe in its fumes. With all they had done, and all they still had to do he needed this. As he smoked one of his few remaining cigarettes, he walked over to Teshio and dug into one of the gear pouches surrounding the bear's waste. Promptly he brought out a large pipe, and filled with a bag of tobacco from the same pouch. He brought the pipe over to Toshio, who bit down on the end of the pipe to secure it as Katsuro lit up the end of it.

Mizu looked at the two of them in disbelief. Even the bear smoked? Watching the two of them chain smoke in front of her was an odd sight to see.

"Alright, I'm ready now Katsuro." Toshio announced.

"Good. Tetsuo and Haruki you're going to go with Toshio and question everyone you can on the east side of this little village. Both of you listen to him, he's in charge of you until we regroup."

"Mizu and I will investigate the west. Meet back here in an hour if you don't find anything. If you get back and the other team isn't here, look for them. Understood?"

"Yeah. Come on, let's go." Toshio signaled for Tetsuo and Haruki to come with.

Katsuro looked to Mizu. "You ready?" He asked.

"Yes sensei!" Mizu replied quickly. In spite of being tired, and doused in sweat from the sun she stood attentively when being addressed. Her and Katsuro then walked off toward the western part of the village, and faded from sight.

---------------------------

Toshio walked with Tetsuo and Haruki as they entered the eastern section of the village. This was a small place, but it still had a decent chunk of people around. It was roughly the afternoon, and villagers were scurrying around the street going about their business. Most villagers stared at the sight of a polar bear accompanied by two adolescent kids, but the sight of their shinobi headbands eased them so they wouldn't flee from them on sight.

Toshio inhaled the pipe lodged between his teeth, then exhaled a plume of smoke from his nostrils. "Look. I'm sure you know this but I'm not exactly good with people." His deep voice grumbled out between his teeth as he watched several villagers uneasily stare at him.

"You two will have to do the talking. I'll watch out for anything unusual, but as far as I'm concerned you're taking lead. Stop people in the streets, knock on doors. Ask these villagers if they've noticed anything unusual the past three days. Your kind loves gossip so I'm sure something will turn up. Make sense?"

The area they had to investigate was not that large. Ansu was a small village, and by splitting up the task the group only had to search an area roughly the size of two city blocks of Konoha. At a glance it could be seen that the East side of Ansu served as its production/commerial side. There were a few buildings that served the town industry, and one small store. Occasionally there was a random home scattered in the mix, but these would be empty and wouldn't be worth investigating at this time. Most of the people on this side of the village were in the middle of their workday, so it would be best to talk to them near their place of work rather than stopping them in the street. From what the group could see, the places worth investigating included:

• A small outdoor workshop. Beneath the shade of its canopy a middle-aged man was working tediously on some tools for the village.

• There was a lumber mill next to the workshop. Its worker was an older man, who was almost as big as Katsuro. He was cutting wood with an axe, just in front of his small hut.

• Four small farms were set up next to one other. There were a few farmers working these plots, wearing large straw hats to protect their heads from the sun. Some were tending to crops, while others were taking care of various livestock like goats. It would be best to question them as a group for time's sake.

• A tiny store was set up next to the main road. Inside was a middle-aged woman who looked bored.

• Last was a post office, located just on the edge of town. The only worker was relaxing on a chair in the shade, smoking a pipe and humming an unknown tune.

 

[Pine]

Normally, ground rules such as the ones Katsuro laid out were not something Haruki would have thought twice about. It seemed like common sense to him. Of course they wouldn't try to kill someone. Unusual as the bunch he found himself in, they weren't criminals, unlike Genzo and the ronin they'd encountered yesterday. Their squad was just there to catch the bad guys.

However, Katsuro's lack of insight into the motives of Rei's abductor made him feel uneasy. He did not like any number of possible answers he could come up with. There was no good reason, and whatever evidence their sensei had uncovered in the glade seemed to have eliminated any possibilities that this was all some haphazard misunderstanding: someone had taken Rei, and while Katsuro was explicitly discouraging them from using lethal force, there was an implicit exception to the rule when he reiterated, twice, circumstances of necessity. The very thought made him feel sick.

For Tetsuo's part, he believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the perpetrator responsible for this deserved death. The act of taking a young girl by force, hiding her, then committing whatever heinous deeds they intended to do with her was an irredeemable sin. The person they were dealing with was scum. They were a waste of oxygen. The only good deed they could do now for the better of society was to rot in the ground, so that they may eliminate any possibility or temptation for them to bring any more harm to this world.

However...

Did he have it in him to be the executioner? To be this arbiter of justice? Tetsuo had threatened a man's life just yesterday, but that's all it had been: a threat. He had not meant to kill that bear. Now even with a guilty party nearly within their grasp, the thought of this person's fate at his hands made him sick all over again.

Privately, he hoped it would not have to come to this, and even more privately, he was relieved by Katsuro's attempt to take this burden off their hands.

- - - - -

Tetsuo cast a rueful eye towards the hill that lead to the Sando manor. His toothbrush and toothpaste were up there. They were so close, yet he knew they didn't have the time for him to make a stop there. He felt his mouth with his tongue. It seemed noticeably more tacky now that he knew he was going to have to talk to a bunch of people. He grimaced to himself.

Tetsuo looked back to where Toshio was leading them, Haruki short behind. He sighed through his nose. Why did Katsuro put him with Haruki? The airhead was either going to do one of two things: stand around picking his nose, or he would be a constant source of interruption, probably getting off track talking about movies again or whatever dumb shit came to his mind.

Then again, his alternatives were Mizu and Katsuro. Tetsuo was still freshly annoyed with Katsuro. The jonin would just find some excuse to nag or yell at him the whole time. Then for Mizu...

His lips twitched, frowning even deeper. He sighed, again, this time with his whole chest. Haruki was probably the best he could work with right now, after all.

Toshio, too, he assumed. So far, the summoning had proven to be fairly quiet, which he liked. He wondered if he would stay that way now that he was assigned to take charge of them. The only downside was he still had to deal with the smell of smoke, even without Katsuro around. The pipe had been an unwelcome surprise for him. Tetsuo crossed his arms over his chest and started to look for who and where would most likely give them a good starting lead.

Haruki had been listening when Toshio began advising them on how to start. He really had been. Their situation was serious, he knew this, and every second they wasted could be one more moment this girl's life could be in danger.

Haruki knew this and cared deeply, but at the same time, he had a rare opportunity at hand. Katsuro had split off from them to the western side of Anshu, but left Toshio in their company. He did not know how many more chances he would have at this.

So when Toshio had been done speaking, Haruki replied with a sympathetic look, "Aw, don't say that. I'm sure people love you! They just gotta' know that you're okay with them petting and hugging you. Speaking of which..."

Haruki smiled, small and sheepish.

"Would you mind if I felt your fur? Just real quick. Maybe under your chin or behind an ear? I'm really good at petting dogs."

 

[Gilzar]

Toshio stared blankly at Haruki for what felt like almost a minute. The bear blinked a few times, but said nothing as he processed the humble request from Haruki. Out of everything going on right now, this is what's going on in this kids' head? No wonder Katsuro's always pissed...

Toshio let out a long sigh, exhaling smoke out of his nose and onto the face of Haruki. They had been hiking through the hot, humid air, all morning. Haruki's hands were probably sticky with sweat...Toshio dreaded the idea of having some kid's sticky hands run through his fur. The bear also wasn't just someone's pet dog. If Haruki wanted to pet the magnificent fur of a polar bear, with its illustrious shine, then he'd have to earn it.

"...No." Toshio replied simply. His eyes glared down at Haruki's sticky-looking hands, before he looked back at Haruki's eyes with an extremely judgmental look. The bear then began to walk away and towards one the workshop of the village, eying Haruki down with the same judgmental look.

"If you find that girl I might reconsider...Now come on. We're wasting time."

---------------------

Katsuro and Mizu walked through the western side of the village. It was clear that unlike the other end, this was the residential area. Lots of houses in the area. Some looked ancient, probably older than anyone in the village, while others looked new. A few people could be seen wandering through the area, but most of the villagers were probably at work on the other side of the village or on the outskirts. Katsuro didn't hesitate to approach any of them. Mizu would attentively follow behind Katsuro. She never spoke to any of the villagers, but she still tried to maintain professionalism by paying attention to the conversation and standing with good posture.

"Have you seen anything unusual the past few days?" Katsuro asked a man sitting on the steps of his home.

"Uh..." The man stared at scarred shinobi and his young companion. "Like what do you mean?"

"Just anything out of the ordinary." Katsuro replied.

"I'm sorry. Wish I could help since you guys are trying to find Rei and all but...I haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary lately."

"Alright." Katsuro began to walk away, looking for the next person to question. Mizu promptly bowed to the man, and followed Katsuro.

 

[Pine]

Hearing Haruki lay down his gambit, Tetsuo scoffed, rolled his eyes to the back of his head, then buried his face in his hand. He did not know why he was surprised that the other boy would bring this up again, nor why it took him so long to figure out that this was exactly what he was doing by attempting to bolster the bear's self-esteem.

The hopeful spark in Haruki's eyes were snuffed out by Toshio's rejection. He looked crestfallen, and to the best of his abilities, pitiful, too. Toshio looked unfazed by this. If anything, he looked appalled. He didn't even know bears could look that way at a human. Something about the narrow-eyed stare he gave at Haruki's hands suddenly made him self-conscious, and he found himself trying to hide his hands by clasping one with the other and holding it close to his chest.

At the same time as Toshio, Tetsuo began to move on, only instead of heading towards the workshops, he had decided to head towards the main road where the tiny shop was.

Haruki saw when he did this and asked, "Where are you going?"

Tetsuo looked back to glare other boy. "To actually do our job." It was only then he seemed to notice Toshio walking in the opposite direction and stopped where he was.

Haruki forced a smile. It was taut and thin-lipped, much unlike the usual grins his squad had become accustomed to. "Sorry. I don't know why I thought you might've just been leaving us."

Tetsuo balled his fists with such intensity it made his arms rigid. If he was glaring before, Tetsuo was looking daggers at Haruki now. Never before had he wanted to smack the smile off that idiot's face so bad. He would've done it, too, except he actually cared about making sure their time wasn't wasted. For Rei's sake.

Still pissed off, he turned from his original destination and marched his way over to the toolsmith. When he felt he was close enough the older man could hear him over the banging of his hammer, Tetsuo called to him, "Hey, you." He only paused to long enough give the smith a chance to register he was being talked to. "Did you see anything here in the past two or three days?"

Something small dropped in the pit of Haruki's stomach. He did not expect Tetsuo to immediately start demanding answers like that. Even when it came to their mission, interacting with civilian, he had no tact, a Haruki had just learned. For once, it was him worrying his teammate was going to ruin everything.

Haruki shuffled quickly behind the shorter boy. He gave the middle-aged man an apologetic smile and put his palms together, as if to plead for his forgiveness.

 

[Gilzar]

Upon hearing the voice of Tetsuo over his work, the middle aged man set his tools down and adjusted his glasses.

"Hm?" The man curiously looked over Tetsuo and Haruki, promptly noticing their Konoha shinobi headbands. "Oh."

He rubbed his fingers through his beard, trying to think if he noticed anything that could help the leaf shinobi's search. It was obvious the man was caught by surprise but was trying to be at least somewhat helpful.

"I've been cooped up in this workshop the past week trying to get these tools ready for harvest. I apologize, but I haven't seen anything that would be of use to you."

Just as the worker was about to resume his work he paused, as if realizing something important.

"I can tell you the best places to ask around at though. Try talking to Mori at the store just by the road or the village post worker, Tezuka. If anyone would notice something here it'd either be the town gossip hound or that postman..."

"Anything else?" The worker asked as he slowly resumed his work.


------------------


"Nope, haven't seen anything unusual lately." A lady calmly replied to Katsuro and Mizu as she walked past them. Katsuro nodded in response, then continued to walk down the small section of the village they were in. That was the third villager they had questioned, and none of them had seen anything. His eyes continued to scan the area, looking for anyone else to question. As per usual Mizu was following right behind her sensei. She was quiet, doing her best to help spot anyone else to question. Sadly though, it seemed like for now they had hit a wall. No one else was in this part of the village, for now at least.

Katsuro leaned his back against the railings of a small bridge that went over a stream. From this position they could see most of their side of the village. For now they'd just have to wait and see if anyone else left their home, or came back to this part of town. As Katsuro continued to idly smoke, Mizu leaned the front of her body onto the same railing Katsuro was on, and gazed down into the small stream. The small passage of water ran through most of the village. It was calming, watching the water gently flow under them. She stared into her own reflection cast by the sun above them, and for a moment the girl tried to forget about the missing girl, Tetsuo, and the death of her estranged father.

Through the reflection Mizu saw Katsuro's head turn to her.

Katsuro lowered his cigarette and blew the smoke out of his mouth in a direction away from his student. "These past few days have probably been shitty for you."

Mizu posture tightened in surprise; it was as if her sensei had read her mind. Her gaze shifted over to Katsuro, and from the corners of his glasses she could see the green of his eyes looking into her own.

He put his hand on Mizu's shoulder. "For what it's worth kid, I'm sorry. It shouldn't have to be like this."

Mizu blushed, quickly looking away in embarrassment. She wasn't expecting this sort of conversation from Katsuro's usual hard-ass banter.

"W-what do you mean?" Mizu asked.

"Having to put up with all the bullshit of this mission. Even after losing your father."

Mizu remained silent. She continued to glare out into the water, not knowing what to say. Katsuro could feel her muscles begin to tense at the mention of her father. Immediately he though back to the last conversation he had with Matsuda. "You know, you probably know what she's going through better than anyone else in this village." Even days later, he could still hear Matsuda's annoying voice in his head. He hated to admit it, but she was probably right.

Katsuro let out a sigh and resisted the urge to grab his flask. "I hated my father. When he died, I didn't know what to think about it."

With that statement, Katsuro could feel tension in Mizu's shoulders ease. Katsuro's words stirred up a tide of emotions in her that she had been trying to tie down. What he had just said was exactly how she felt. Even now, days later she was still torn about her father's death. In spite of wanting to move on and be over with it...there was still this looming sadness and anger. Just thinking about it made her nerves feel uneasy, and she felt her throat begin to clog with emotions. She breathed deeply to keep them down and not look weak in front of her superior. Katsuro didn't say anything for roughly a minute. He was dreading the next part of their conversation.

"We also need to talk about Tetsuo..." Katsuro stated, "You're going to have to work with him."

Mizu immediately snapped her gaze back at Katsuro. "I'm not working with him anymore! Tetsuo can go to hell for all I care! I almost died for him, and he only sees me for these markings on my face!"

"I'm not asking you to like him." Katsuro replied in a stern yet calm tone. "We're a unit, and we're going to act like one. He's not the first who's treated you like that, and he won't be the last. You're not going to change anyone's mind by refusing to work with them. I'm going to talk to him and discipline him for his actions today, but in the meantime I need you to be a professional and work with him."

Mizu didn't say anything, she just stared into the stream below and reflected on her sensei's words.

 

[Pine]

Tetsuo whipped his head around to shoot a pointed glare at Haruki. "That's where I was going."

The store lady. Not only was the main road sure to have the most foot traffic, but there was a vast difference between the inattention of someone manning a store and someone who actively worked at their craft all day, such as the workshop folks. He looked at Haruki now as if he had personally stood in his way and commanded him to speak with the toolsmith instead. Even though he had said nothing of the matter, Tetsuo had read the implication well enough in the snide comment.

Tetsuo unfolded his arms from his chest but still kept his fists closed tight. When he turned to start heading back to the main road, he made sure to push his shoulder into Haruki as he passed. The other boy had been standing too close behind him anyway.

Haruki frowned and rubbed at the spot where he'd been bumped. He waited a moment, but it soon became evident that Tetsuo had no intention of stopping to thank the man. Tetsuo had a thus-far unbroken streak of being rude, and apparently not even a civilian who had done nothing but help them was enough to change that. It was appalling.

Haruki turned back to face the toolsmith. He asked his name then bowed in gratitude. After he thanked him, he ran to catch up to Tetsuo, who was halfway to the store already.

"Tetsuo," he called to get his attention.

"What?" he replied irritably, but nevertheless stopped to face Haruki.

"Maybe... you should let me do the talking?"

"Why?"

Haruki smiled sheepishly back, fidgeting with his hands. He had to think about how he could word this without just adding fuel to the fire. After a moment he offered, "Because... you don't... exactly... seem to like people." He paused for a moment, waiting for a response, but when one didn't immediately come he added, "And some people might not really want to work with us if they think that."

Tetsuo had not stopped glaring at Haruki, even for a moment. For once though, he seemed to actually consider what the other boy was saying. He wasn't wrong, after all. He took no pleasure in chatting up locals and trying to get information out of them. He was impatient for results, and he wasn't so oblivious that he didn't know people seemed to react to him a certain way. That was to say, they never seemed to particularly care for him.

After what seemed like forever of him just staring Haruki down, Tetsuo conceded with a nod. "Fine," he said, "but this isn't the time to chat and make friends. We're still on a mission and everyone is a suspect." He poked him in the chest, still scowling. "And if you can't get to the point, then I will."

Haruki put his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay, relax." He took the lead to the store. "Stick to the mission. I got it."

By the time they entered the store, Tetsuo was back to crossing his arms over his chest and glaring in the direction of what seemed like any random person or thing.

As soon as Haruki was able to make eye contact with the bored woman they'd seen through the window, he greeted, "Hello!" He walked up to the counter where she was at. He swept a quick glance around the shop's wares. For a moment, his attention focused on a modest collection of knickknacks near the counter. Among them was a cute, small porcelain bird with tanned feathers, beaded eyes and a short beak. He would have to try to get Katsuro to let him come back here when the mission was all over. "This is a lovely store you have."

 

[Gilzar]

Upon hearing potential customers, the bored woman's head quickly popped up. Her demeanor visibly shifted to a more attentive, and friendly state as she saw both boys enter her store.

"Hello there!" The woman responded. She remained behind the counter of the store, patiently waiting for her new customers to pick something out. From where she was at the counter, she could see Haruki eyeing the bird on the shelves.

The woman let out a small chuckle at the Shinobi's pleasantries. So far they were representing their village well. "Thank you," She responded. "I was wonderin' if any of you leaf shinobi would stop by here. You're the talk of the village, aside from poor little Rei."

She then raised her finger, pointing at the bird figure Haruki had his attention fixed to. "That's a special bird. It's a tanned finch. You only find them here, in the Land of Birds."

 

[Pine]

"Oh?" Haruki's grin broadened, and he leaned forward to rest his elbows on the wooden counter. He should've guessed they were a hot topic among the townsfolk, but it was nice to hear this lady confirm it for them. He cupped his cheek with one hand. "I've really been wanting to look around Ansu, but we've been so busy, we haven't had the chance."

At this, Tetsuo turned his scowl from a stone, which had some cheesy phrase about hearts and homes carved into its face, to Haruki's back. He did not want to be included in whatever small talk the other boy was making. As soon as this business with Rei was concluded, he wanted to be out of this village.

"Only found here? That's so interesting," Haruki responded. "I swear all we ever see at home are crows." He waved his hand, as if to shoo a flock of them away. "I'll bet they're real cute. I'll have to come back here to get that."

His face became more serious, concentrated. He would be lying if he said he didn't do this for the drama of it. "We're kind of in a hurry though. Rei is still missing," he said, straightening up from off the counter. "Have you noticed anything weird lately? Anything you've seen or heard could be helpful."

 

[Gilzar]

Haruki's actions worked as he likely intended. His shift from a friendly demeanor to a strikingly more serious one had completely enraptured the woman's attention. She listened attentively to the young boy behind her counter, thinking about anything that could have been helpful to their search.

"Well, not much really happens around a small village like this. Not a lot of 'weird' things happen here but -"

Out the corner of her eye the woman noticed a large white figure pass by the window. Stopping mid-sentence, she glared out the window only to catch just a glimpse of the polar bear Toshio walk by. Both of them made eye contact for just the briefest of moments, with Toshio narrowing his eyes in the same judgmental stare he had given Haruki. Then the bear walked around the corner of the building, vanishing out of sight. She stared out the window in disbelief for a short while. The woman glanced over at the two boys, who didn't seem to have any reaction to a polar bear just casually passing by the store. Maybe she had just imagined it, or they hadn't seen it?

"Uh..." Not forgetting about Haruki and Tetsuo, the woman tried to recollect her thoughts. "The only concerning thing I've noticed since Rei has vanished is that the old couple who live just down the road haven't come into town. Usually they stop by here in the afternoon to chat and buy a few things...haven't seen them in days though. The town post-man was by here a bit ago and mentioned something similar: He says that the mail has been piling up outside their home but nobody has come out to get it. I sure hope they're alright..."

She paused to look out the window once again, trying to catch another glimpse of Toshio to confirm her sanity. "You guys...by any chance didn't see a bear just walk by did you?"

 

[Pine]

"Oh," Haruki said, frowning. He was unable to keep himself from sounding a little disappointed. After the toolsmith had hyped her up as the chief authority on town gossip, he thought for sure she would have a little more for them to go off of. Someone passing through the streets looking suspicious, perhaps donning a cowl they normally were not seen wearing.

To answer her question, Haruki responded, "You mean a fluffy white bear, right? He's with us. His name is Toshio." He was about to reassure her that he was nice, but the wound infected from Toshio rejecting him was still fresh. He had started to doubt his original evaluation of him.

Tetsuo stepped up to the counter then. He pointed at the window towards the direction where an old wooden house stood on a shaky foundation. "You mean that house?"

Haruki looked at Tetsuo with some mild irritation. He had been doing a good job with staying on topic, he felt, and he did not appreciate the interjection. He had agreed to leave the talking to him, yet here he was butting in unnecessarily.

Tetsuo continued, "How many days has it been, exactly, since they were last seen?"

 

[Gilzar]

The woman gave the boys a strange look as Haruki seemed all too casual about having a bear along with them. She looked to be on the verge of making a comment, but Tetsuo interjected with his questions. Much like Haruki, the woman seemed slightly irritated at the interruption, but she cooperated with the young shinobi.

She nodded in confirmation at Tetsuo. "Yup, that's their home. It's probably been about three days since anyone's seen them."

Meanwhile, Toshio circled around to the front of the store. He awkwardly sat down near the door, where he would wait for the boys to report if they found anything. Toshio hated being in human settlements. Even where he sat, near the edge of town, he could feel their eyes staring at him. In the distance he could see villagers pointing their fingers at him, calling out to each other. It made him anxious, he did not like being the center of attention. Impatiently he stared through the screen door of the store at the boys, trying to urge them to hurry up in a passive-aggressive manner.

 

[Pine]

Three days. The timeline almost perfectly aligned with the age of Mizu's last scent-trail. A grim look crossed Tetsuo's face.

Either he hadn't noticed the look the shopkeeper was giving him or he was just ignoring it. Without saying another word to her, he turned to address Haruki. "Wrap this up quick then go talk to the post office guy. I'm gonna' see what I can find out."

Haruki furrowed his brows and crossed his own arms as he looked down at Tetsuo. Clearly he felt indignant about his fellow genin, once again, trying to give orders.

Tetsuo started to walk out, but stopped short, seeing Toshio's own look of impatience staring at him through the screen door. He turned to point a finger at Haruki. "Be quick," he repeated. "I mean it."

Tetsuo made to leave the shop, walking with posture erect and head held high. With Tetsuo's back turned, Haruki made a little mouth with his hand, both his sneering face-mouth and his rigid hand-mouth wordlessly mock talking after the other boy. As soon as the door was shut behind him, Haruki scoffed and rolled his eyes back to the woman behind the counter, who he remembered was named Mori.

"He's such a jerk," he said, leaning back over the counter so he could speak to her lowly, just in case Tetsuo could still hear them through the screen door. "Like, we're both the same age and rank, but he acts like he's so much better than us. And he's so bossy. Do you ever deal with people like that?"

- - - - -

Outside the shop now, Tetsuo squeezed uncomfortably through the small gap Toshio had left between himself and the door.

When the entire bulk of the bear's frame was comfortably in his sight again, Tetsuo addressed him. "Toshio." He pointed out the building Mori had confirmed as the old folk's home by turning his head towards it. "I need you to sniff around and see if there's any kind of scent that stands out."

Without waiting for an answer, Tetsuo began walking in the house's direction. "The shopkeeper said an old couple lives there, but they haven't been seen in three days. It's probably just a coincidence. Old people die all the time, but..." Tetsuo didn't feel the need to finish the sentence.

For a brief moment, he looked over his shoulder, checking, just in case, that Rei, Genzo, or some new seedy sort of characters weren't lurking in a corner just behind them. What he found were several sets of eyes staring at them, only turning away when he made eye contact with them. He, too, did not like being watched.

As they reached the house, he wondered how or why an old couple might be involved in the disappearance of Rei. Could they be relatives of hers? Surely the shopkeeper would've mentioned that. Would they be capable of killing a young girl? Probably. He grimaced, recalling even Katsuro was clueless for possible motives, only being able to comment that there are some "sick bastards" in the world.

Then there was just the very real possibility that they had just kicked the bucket and no one has been by to check on them. He stopped by the house's exterior wall. Tetsuo's stomach flipped at the thought that he might very well be walking here just to see a corpse for the second time today. Then again, it would have to be yet another coincidence for them to have both died at the same time.

He steeled himself. Tetsuo traced along the house's perimeter to where a window looked in from the west side. He pressed his back to the wall and inched up on his toes so that he may peer at the house's interior without making himself too obvious.

 

[Gilzar]

Toshio couldn't help but roll his eyes at Tetsuo and Haruki's back and forth bickering. Kids. Not fully informed on the background of the situation, he wondered how a group like this ended up with a task such as this. Katsuro was good, there was no doubt about it in Toshio's eyes. He'd worked Katsuro for years, long before this mission. These genin were strikingly different than their superior however. Young, inexperienced, naive, and temperamental thanks to all of their hormones. The bear worried if they'd be able to handle what may be coming without Katsuro around to watch over them.

Before Toshio could put his anxious thoughts to rest, Tetsuo had come out of the store. In the snap of a finger, the kid was suddenly ordering him around even though Katsuro explicitly said Toshio was in charge. He looked down the road at the house, then looked back at Tetsuo. If the kid had a lead, there was no point in squabbling over the chain of command.

"Alright." Toshio grumbled and he walked alongside Tetsuo to the house.

Toshio listened intently to Tetsuo's explanation. "Seems to be worth checking out..."

He paused for a moment or so when the arrived at the house. The building had definitely seen better days. Time had taken its toll on the old structure, but it looked livable enough. There were various signs of life scattered throughout the front yard, such as chopped logs, tools, and even a small garden. Around the old home was a small path leading behind the house, but Toshio couldn't see much of it from here.

As he approached the house with Tetsuo, he noticed the mailbox out of the corner of his eye. The old wooden box was filled to the brim with unopen letters. Whoever lived here either wasn't around anymore, or they hadn't left the house in days. Taking note he proceeded to smell the area. Immediately after his first sniff of the air around he froze. There were two distinct smells in the air: Tetsuo needed to know about them both. Hastily the bear moved to Tetsuo as stealthily as it could.

From where Tetsuo peered into the window a small kitchen could be seen. Even at an odd angle he was viewing through, there were signs of life within the house. The kitchen was filthy. Trash and various scraps of food lined the counters, and fresh mud tracks could be seen on the portion of flooring that was visible to Tetsuo.

As soon as Tetsuo finished looking through the window, Toshio approached him from behind. In spite of his size, the bear was deceptively quiet on its feet.

"Tetsuo," He whispered to the genin. "There are two smells in this house you need to know about. The first is Rei, I think she's inside this house. But the second scent...it's death. There's a corpse here somewhere."

----------

The store owner couldn't help but chuckle at Haruki's complaints. Even though the boys were trained shinobi, they were still just kids.

"You don't say?" She responded with mild sarcasm to Haruki's insults toward Tetsuo. Even as a stranger to the two boys, the woman didn't find it too hard to believe that Tetsuo was hard to be around. The entire time they were in her store she never saw even a hint of a smile or gratitude on the short kid's face. It would be a lie if she didn't find their personal conflict entertaining.

"Oh yes. There are people like your 'friend' even in a place like this." Without hesitation she pointed out the window and toward one of the nearby fields. "You see that woman working the field over there? She's the same way. Most farmers have attitudes around here, but she somehow has found a way to take it further. She thinks her life is so much harder than all of ours, and that that she's entitled to more because of it."

"Always going to be people like that no matter where you go."

 

[Pine]

Tetsuo hitched a breath. The beat of his heart picked up speed. Rei was inside?

The other news was troubling too. He opened his mouth to demand what that meant, whether the scent of death and the scent of Rei were one in the same, but he thought better of it. Rather, every second he spent talking was another second delaying him from finding her. He had to be the first one to get to her.

Tetsuo stared back at Toshio, a heavy intensity weighing his gaze. His mind was racing a thousand miles a minute. Whose footprints had those been? An elder's, or a child's? They looked new. Had Rei escaped into here? Had the couple taken her? Had they killed her? Had they killed each other? Had she killed them in self-defense?

If Toshio was right, that meant one of two things: either Rei was dead, or she was alone in a house with a corpse. Whatever the circumstances leading up to it, a child her age had no business being so close to death.

The girl from the photograph was vivid in his mind. He imagined her huddled in a closet somewhere, starving, but too terrified to leave in case her pursuers found her. But they weren't pursuers at this point, exactly. Katsuro had said she had been taken. And if one of them was left there with Rei...

Tetsuo balled his hands into fists. He was overcome with the need to find her, shield her from the events of the past few days and any collateral damage that should follow if he did not get to her right now.

She could not be startled. She did not know him or any of them, but she needed to trust them. And Haruki who hadn't done anything to prove he was taking this mission seriously would certainly fuck that up. In fact, Tetsuo did not trust any of them from his squad to not scare her off except maybe Katsuro, and that was only because he was a jonin. He wished Toshio was not there so he could handle this completely alone, at least this part of first contact with Rei, but Toshio was there, and considering how much he didn't know about the situation, he may need the backup anyway.

He elected for the next best option.

Tetsuo nodded to confirm to the summon he understood the situation. As quiet as he could, he whispered back, "Take Haruki and go get Katsuro."

He immediately went into action. Tetsuo turned back to the window. He tested it, pushing lightly against the frame to see if it would lift. If it did, he would not hesitate. Tetsuo would do his best to slip into the house before Toshio could do anything to stop him. If that did not work, he would sneak off to the back and see if there was a better entry point there.

- - - - -

Haruki pulled a looked of disgust at even the joke of calling Tetsuo a friend, then laughed immediately after. He liked this woman. He hadn't had a fun conversation like this in weeks it felt.

He followed her finger to where a cropped blonde hair peeked out from beneath a wide-brimmed sunhat. She was struggling with raking a garden hoe over her plot of soil, but it seemed to keep catching on something. Haruki smiled back at the shopwoman. "I can just imagine." He pointed to the plot of land adjacent to the aforementioned woman's, which was being tended to by another farmer who he couldn't see quite as well. Matching with Mori's sarcasm, he said, "I'm sure her crops get so much more water when it rains."

Haruki laughed again, shaking his head. "I really should be going," he confessed, even though it was clear he didn't want to. "If you think of anything else that might be helpful, please let us know." Haruki's face became serious, or about as serious as he is capable of being. "The last sign of Rei was from about three days ago. We think she may have been kidnapped."

 

[Gilzar]

Surprisingly the window frame slid open after putting up some resistance. As Tetsuo entered the house, a foul odor could be smelled from all of the trash/scraps of food laying around the kitchen. Like the smell suggested, the rest of the kitchen was just as messy. Random cabinets were hanging open all around the room. Flies could be heard buzzing around the kitchen as they scavenged upon the scraps left behind by whoever was here. The only sink in the room was filled to the brim with dirty pots and pans. Even the walls of the room were dirty, as random stains were splattered across them. Some of the stains were dried, others seemed fresh.

Music could faintly be heard playing from some other room in the house. Occasionally, a strange noise or two would also ring into the kitchen. Sometimes these noises came as a knock, other times it came as a scraping/rubbing noise. From the outside of the home it was clear that there was only one level to the house. Wherever these noises were coming from, they were close to Tetsuo.

There was only one door leading out of the kitchen. It led to a small dining room. While everything could not be seen from Tetsuo's angle, it was clear that the room was much more tidy and clean than this one. The only strange thing about the room was the mud tracks, similar to those in the kitchen.

Toshio let out a small growl as Tetsuo barked more orders at him and slid into the kitchen. "I'm not leaving here." He retorted quietly. The bear then hesitated for a moment, thinking things over. On one hand, if he left then there was no telling what would happen to Tetsuo if he left. Katsuro specifically told them to follow any leads and act accordingly. But likewise, if he didn't get Katsuro they wouldn't have backup if things got hairy. Silently, Toshio gritted his teeth together in frustration as the uncertainty loomed. Why did they have to split up again?!

After what seemed like an agonizing amount of time (But was only just 30 seconds) Toshio finally made up his mind. "I'm going to get Katsuro. Don't do anything rash while I'm gone, you hear me?"

With that said, Toshio took off at full speed toward Katsuro. The bear moved at an astonishing speed for its size, bolting through the woods so he wouldn't be seen by any other windows of the house. He cursed under his breath at the situation, knowing that there may not have been a correct course of action here.


-----------


The woman's eyes opened in utter alarm at Haruki's last statement. "Wait, Rei's been kidnapped?!" She shouted loudly.

She frantically began to pander Haruki with questions. "Does Sando know about this yet? Have you alerted the local authorities at all? Why are you here just making chit-chat if you're so sure someone has taken her?!"

 

[Pine]

Haruki's eyes widened in surprise as the woman began shouting. "Whoa," he said, putting his palms up, much akin to how one might try to calm a horse that got wound up. She was clearly very alarmed by the news, much more than he thought she would be, and he immediately regretted sharing that little bit of information.

He started to inch away, walking backwards towards the door.

"We're not actually sure, it's just a theory," he tried to reassure her. Likely with the barrage of questions she was pelting him with, it wasn't going to be very effective, so he came up with a half-lie. "Sando and the authorities already know." That was to say, they probably could've guessed that too by now, wouldn't they? Surely they at least considered the possibility, especially since the news of Sando's involvement with the Naku Shita came out as not-exactly-irrelevant.

"You're right though, I should get going." His back his the frame of the screen door. He bowed, albeit a bit awkwardly. "Thank you again for the help." With that, he scurried out of the shop, eager to avoid anymore consequences for his actions.

Maybe he would not be coming back to the shop after all.

Haruki hurried down the road towards the post office, walking as fast as he could while it could still technically be classified as walking.

The post office was a modest building. It could not have been much larger than the shop he had just exited out from, and certainly it dwarfed in size compared to the one in Konoha. It was much closer to the size of his home village's, if a bit smaller. The shape was the same though: one solid unit with a thatched roof hanging over a small seating area just outside of it. For a brief moment, he felt nostalgic for his childhood home.

He found the worker in the same place as they had seen this person earlier, still humming a jaunty tune.

"Hello," Haruki greeted, trying to sound as upbeat as he had before when he's entered the shop. The note of his voice fell flat.

He was still feeling rattled by the shift in the shopwoman's demeanor. It was still stuffy and hot outside, too. It was either nerves or all the walking he'd done over the past couple of days, but his legs were a bit shaky, so he sat down in a chair across from the other person, who was still smoking a pipe. Maybe because a pipe just made it seem classier, but Haruki didn't mind the smell of it as much as he did Katsuro's own smoking habits.

"I'm sorry to interrupt. You work here, right?" The question was more of a formality than anything. "I'm one of the Leaf genin hired to help find Rei. Have you seen or heard anything that might help us out? Anything from the past couple of days that kind of sticks out to you?" He bounced his heel with great speed as he spoke.

- - - - -

The smell was the first thing to hit Tetsuo.

Quickly, he brought his shirt over his nose and held back a gag. In some weird twist of fate, he was grateful that he had already puked back in the forest.

He waited for just long enough to adjust to the smell, then he took his face back out of his shirt.

The second observation were the sounds of the house. He heard music. His guess was classical or an old ballad, but it was hard to tell with the distance muffling much of the sound of it.

Then there was the first knock, then a scrape that followed after. It was enough to make his blood run cold.

Tetsuo's imagination ran wild. He now pictured Rei, gagged, tied up and locked in a closet or some weird torture room somewhere. He [i)needed[/i] to find her, and fast.

The state of the kitchen was much worse than he had originally believed.

Tetsuo scanned the room again. He didn't notice any blood nor any knife or kitchen scissors that immediately stood out to him as a freshly used murder weapon. He found nothing of note, but with the space as cluttered as it was, it was hard to really make any particular observations about the area anyway.

It was then he heard Toshio change his mind about staying and warn him not to act rashly. Tetsuo nodded in response, even though he knew the odds of the bear seeing this was unlikely.

Tetsuo kept low to the ground and pressed on. He moved as quiet as he could through the kitchen, staying close to the cabinets, but not so close his clothes snagged on one of the knobs. Bits of silverware were strewn all across the floor at random, and he deviated from his path only to step around them.

He arrived at the doorway leading into the dining room. He paused for just a moment to get a better look at the footprints left on the floor. Even with the mud smearing some of the steps, it was obvious these were left by someone much larger than himself or Rei. Tetsuo frowned. It may be best if he avoided crossing paths with whoever made these so long as he was alone, but being safe wasn't going to lead him to Rei.

Tetsuo pressed his back to the wall, and once again looked into his next destination by peeking his head out as little as possible. He doubted anyone would be in the dining room, but it would be unwise to not check. He was grateful that it seemed like the rest of the house may be more tidy than the kitchen had been.

If no one was in the dining room that he could see, then he would move on quickly to get a glimpse of the next room as much as he could from the dining room's vantage point.

 

[Gilzar]

The dining room was completely empty. As Tetsuo entered the dining room, what first appeared to be a clean and tidy room turned out to be another strange mess. All around the dining area were broken picture frames scattered across the floor. Bits of glass were scattered throughout the area, as if someone had purposely smashed all of the glass frames against the floor. Strangely, all of the photos on the floor had also been vandalized. On the walls of the dining room, various dark spots outlined where many of the photo frames once were.

Many of the photographs themselves had been vandalized. Nearly all of the photos were of the elderly couple which the store owner spoke of. On each photo Tetsuo could find, their faces had been etched out by a black marker.

Oddly enough only one photo frame remained in tact in the room: A small photo of a little girl, whose appearance strongly resembled that of the missing girl Rei at a glance. However, a closer look would make it clear that the girl wasn't Rei. The photo seemed out of place even in the strangeness of the room. For one, the photo was much smaller than the frame it occupied and the rest of the framed picture was just empty space. Secondly the girl didn't appear in any of the other ruined photos in the room. Not even the style of the photo matched anything else in the room, as it was clear the girls picture was taken with a more modern camera compared to the rest of the couple's photos.

The sound of the music nearby was louder in this room (The dining room) than in the kitchen. Aside from the kitchen, two other rooms were accessible from this area. Across the room, on the furthest side from Tetsuo, a partially opened sliding door led to what appeared to be a bedroom. Most of the mud tracks on the floor led to this room. On the side nearest to Tetsuo was a completely open doorway where the music and strange noises were emanating from. As Tetsuo would move closer to investigate the room, the noises only grew louder. The sound of rusted metal cutting painfully split through the older music, followed once again by a strange rubbing noise. Although it was hard to see from Tetsuo's angle, the room this doorway led through was likely the living room of the house.

It was difficult to hear, but Tetsuo could swear he heard a man mumble something every so often from the living room.

------------

Tetsuo's words did little to calm the woman who ran the store, but it at least stopped her yelling.

The postman watched Haruki the entire time he approached, still humming the same tune as the genin walked closer and closer. He stopped humming once Haruki was finally close. A cool yet welcoming smile grew across the postal worker's face as he comfortably leaned back in his wooden chair. He had to have been in his early 20's.

"I was actually just about to finish the hardest part of the workday, but I suppose I can make time for you." He replied in a friendly manner. The postal worker stared briefly at Haruki's headband, almost as if he had never been this close to a shinobi before.

Much like the store owner, the postman listened carefully to Haruki's question. Still keeping the friendly expression on his face, he thought things over carefully, yet his answer still came pretty quickly. One of his eyebrows raised.

"Anything that sticks out to me? Like a polar bear following a bunch of shinobi kids around this boring town?" He chuckled briefly at his own joke.

"Just kidding. I have noticed something: Ever since Rei has gone missing I haven't seen or heard anything from an old couple that live just down the road." He pointed down the road to the exact same house that Tetsuo and Toshio ran off to.

"It's weird because they're normally pretty chatty. Like, the exterior of that house is a wreck, but the couple is pretty responsible. They come by and help out with things in town whenever they can, and in return some of us keep that house standing. Neither of them coming into town isn't normal, especially given that we have the late-summer harvest happening."

His friendly smile left his face, and straightened into a more serious expression. It was clear he was concerned about the situation.

"They haven't even bothered to open up any of their mail. It's just been piling up in the box. That's never happened before. I've told this to the town constable but he's been so busy searching for Rei that he hasn't looked into it. Everyone else around here either has a stick up their ass or is too busy with harvest to do anything about it. Was actually debating about just heading over there sometime today until you leaf shinobi showed up..."

Just then the man's attention suddenly shifted from behind Tetsuo. His eyes narrowed in a perplexed manner, following something along as it moved quickly behind Haruki.

"Say...shouldn't you be with that polar bear?"

Behind Tetsuo, Toshio could be seen trucking through the village at an alarming speed. As he passed by Haruki, Toshio only glanced over at Haruki. He didn't have time to explain everything to him. The bear's primary concern was getting to Katsuro before something serious happened.

--------------

The area was completely silent. Katsuro and Mizu had not said a word to each other since their last conversation. All that could be heard was the gentle current of the stream, swaying around the support beams of the bridge beneath their feet. Mizu was reflecting on her situation as she watched the stream, thinking about Katsuro's words. Although plenty of time had passed since they last spoke, her sensei's words still clearly rang through her mind. She thought about everything he said, even the parts regarding Tetsuo.

Tetsuo was the most frustrating person she'd ever had the misfortune to deal with. His personality was volatile, all he ever did was complain, and he had no discipline whatsoever. Yet in spite of that he still had a level of skill that rivaled her own without having had any of the special training she'd had. To top it all off she was stuck with him. Tetsuo was her teammate. It wasn't like other genin she didn't get along with from the academy, like that Uzumaki girl. She'd have to see that imp's face every day until she became a chunin, yet even then there was no guarantee she'd be moved to a chunin squad. That was what frustrated the girl the most of anything, there was no escape from his antics.

Quietly she took a moment to observe Katsuro. He was still leaning with his back against the rails, enjoying the cancerous fumes of that cigarette. Her sensei wanted her to work with Tetsuo, but that required trust. Every time Mizu trusted Tetsuo he always found a way to make her regret it. She trusted him to help her against the bandit swordsmen and he ended up burying Haruki and her in a cloud of smoke. She trusted him to help her fight Genzo and he nearly killed her with a paper-bomb. She trusted him to be her comrade, especially after he showed her a brief moment of compassion when he consoled her about her father's death. But later he had the audacity to insinuate that she was a monster. Katsuro really wanted her to trust him after all that?

She couldn't help but think about how Katsuro treated her. From the look of pity outside the mansion this morning to his unnaturally kind words just a bit ago. Katsuro acted like he knew her well, even though she'd only known him for just a few days. He even apologized about having to go on this mission after hearing the news of her father...Mizu then remembered how Katsuro talked about his own father to her, how he felt exactly the way she did. A curiosity about what exactly her sensei had been through began to burn through her mind.

"Katsuro-Sensei..." She quietly asked, breaking the awkward silence. Her eyes met with his once again as he looked down at her.

"What was your father like?"

Katsuro shifted his weight back over to face Mizu. He didn't expect Mizu to ask any questions, especially any involving his father. The grizzled man looked away from Mizu's eyes as he debated whether or not he really wanted to talk about his father. It wasn't something he enjoyed discussing. Yet he owed her an explanation since he mentioned it...and talking about it might help with what she was going through.

His eyes trailed back over to Mizu's. "He was a bastard. Cared more about status and politics than his own family."

With his free hand Katsuro scratched the back of his head, trying to ease his discomfort on the subject. It was hard verbalizing why he hated his father so much. That was a complex issue that would take hours to explain. Yet as he looked back down at Mizu he realized that he probably didn't have to explain it that much. She probably understood where he was coming from. As was his habit, he took another whiff of his cigarette before continuing.

"Never knew him as well as I wanted to when I was your age. His servants mostly raised me. He was only around when I needed to be disciplined."

Katsuro couldn't help but remember the beatings. The guards would grab common items like boards or brooms and hit him until he was bruised...meanwhile his father would just stand there and watch. A strange pain began to cloud his mind as he thought back to his father's expression. No emotion on his face...no remorse or regret. Another memory started to creep back into his mind - the day of his father's funeral.

Suddenly Katsuro dug into his vest and pulled out his flask. Immediately he was taking large swigs of his whiskey, much more than he usually drank out of the flask. His forearm wiped off his lips, and let the burning sensation in his throat settle. A familiar and conformable buzzing sensation slowly eased out the pain in his head.

"I don't fucking miss him."

Mizu couldn't help but stare as her sensei tried to get the better of his inner turmoil. Despite how tough he may have acted they were both the same: Scarred on the inside and outside.

Just then, from out of the blue, Toshio came frantically charging over to the both of them.

"Katsuro, you need to come with me right now!"