| [Sep. 4th, 2017|11:12 pm] |
Tanigawa was half the size of Hiraizumi, if that, but its buildings were bigger. Steep thatched roofs designed to shed snow towered over two- and three-storey windowless warehouses. Clustered around them like children were the peak-roofed homes of the sake brewers, and the few shop fronts that served the village. A broad ribbon of white marked the path of the Kinano river — source of the water that birthed Tanigawa’s famed sake; even at this distance, the rumble of the falls was easy to hear.
Light glowed in windows, and a trio of red lanterns marked the doorway of a little izakaya. It didn’t look like a town under siege.
A quick chakra sweep didn’t contradict that impression. There were people, pets, and livestock in the village, and the expected wildlife in the forests surrounding. No ninja. No strange chakra signatures. Nothing to set Genma on edge. He turned to Raidou and shrugged.
“It’s been long enough since the theft, I guess village life is back to normal,” Genma suggested. “I don’t sense anything weird. Maybe if we go into town and grab some grub, we can ask around? They’re expecting us, at least, so we don’t have to go in disguise.”
“Unless it’s an inside job, and we alarm them with scary ANBU uniforms,” Kakashi muttered.
Raidou shook his head. “Village this small, strangers’d be just as alarming.”
“We could always go in jounin blues, if you’re worried about the ANBU uniforms.” Genma slid his hair free from its tie, then retied it more neatly. “We’re representing the Fire Daimyou here, but we’re not in Fire Country. Might need the weight of the uniform to get what we need.”
Raidou looked thoughtful. He turned to Kurenai. “Yuuhi, weigh in. Are we more useful to your intel-gathering as masked ANBU or jounin with faces?”
“Jounin,” Kurenai said immediately. She seemed genuinely pleased. Was it because Raidou’d asked for her input, or because they’d actually thought about the possibilities without her prompting? “They’ll know Fire Country is taking this seriously, sending five shinobi, but they won’t be as terrified as they would be to see ANBU. We’re more likely to get useful information if they’re not just babbling to save their own skins.”
“Jounin it is.” Genma said. He knelt and removed his pack to extract the violet linen scroll he used for clothing and personal items. A twist of fingers and a weak chakra discharge brought his blues and a vest tumbling out. He divested himself of sword and armor, then other weapons, belt packs, and gloves, and piled them neatly on the ground, before peeling himself out of the clinging ANBU top. It was damp with a day’s hard use, but if he applied Kakashi’s water extraction jutsu it would give him another day’s wear without being too gross.
After the heat of the day, the mountain-night air was a blessing on his bare skin.
Next to him, Raidou and Ryouma were easing free of armor and underpinnings as well, until they were both stripped to the waist. Ryouma stretched and twisted, making the twining lines of the tattoo on his back undulate in the dim light of a crescent moon. Both he and Raidou still had strips of new, pink skin over their shoulders: legacies of abrasions from the harness ropes they’d use to tow Genma, Kimiko, and Sango through Mist’s treacherous sea.
Genma banished the memory before it had a chance to grow. On a mission was never the time to dwell on the previous mission, unless the two were materially related.
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