『 Mistake 』

『 Always 』

『 Always 』

2100 words

6.29.21

"Left, maybe?" Inazuma asked through the radio. His audio wasn't as clear as before, which makes me think that he had ran off a bit too far ahead from us.

"There's another path here on the side." Mai informed us. She seemed to have stopped as the wind hitting the radio stopped as well, "Ina-kun, let's meet where we can all see the paths. We need to think this through. Don't just run into danger like last time. Let's wait for Rio-kun too."

"Do I have to go back? I'm literally half-way through this path." Inazuma whined.

Mai sighed and cleared her throat, "One, two..."

"Okay, okay. I'll go back." Inazuma groaned and started to head back.

I brought down my radio and started to follow the route Mai had taken. The Akimichi is rather fast, and since I had taken another route based on her instruction, it took me a bit to reach her position. She finally came to view—her light blue hair stood out, no one can miss her, really.

I ran to her and hopped down on the branch next to her and crouched, adjusting my eyes to effectively scout the area. I held onto the trunk of the tree and pushed myself, sliding upside down while still stuck on the branch with the help of my chakra, and pushed myself off of the branch and onto the one beneath it.

"What do you think, Rio-kun?" She asked me, "Where do you think those buggers went?"

I closed my eyes and breathed in, focusing all my chakra to increase all my already keen senses.

The mission we were given was to locate the only child of a merchant—and this merchant plead to the Hokage for him to find a way to find his only daughter. He gave a few information, and the rest are up to my team. Of course, he didn't forget to give the most crucial information—when he went and meet us, a strong scent of perfume came off of the scarf that he brought with him, which is his daughter's scarf.

His daughter loved a particular brand of perfume and, I don't doubt that she uses a lot since when you're used to a scent for a long time, you won't be able to smell it as strongly as before. I remember that I had to step out of the room in order to stop my nose from stinging so bad. Turns out the crazy man dumped all of his daughter's perfume on the scarf because he misses her so much. The only thing he hadn't done yet is to actually bathe in the perfume.

When I opened my eyes back up, the trail of the merchant's daughter's scent went to the far right side of the three paths that is laid before us. I hopped forwards and to the front of the path and pointed at it as I looked back at Mai—who nodded at me and, at the same time, seems to be thinking of something.

"Ina-kun's taking too long." She told me, looking at the path on the left, "I'll check on him—start scouting the area, okay? Don't go too far in or you might get in trouble... Shiaku-sensei will kill me if you get hurt."

"..." I watched her disappear and felt her chakra fade into the left path. I then sighed, crouching down on the branch that I'm standing on before taking a kunai from my pouch, "How long are you all going to follow us around?"

With my words, ninjas started to surround my location, revealing their positions. One, who I assume is the leader of this particular group, spoke up with a voice that is rather cocky, "Ayah... we've been found out. Were we being careless?"