The Undesired Second Chance

Chapter 27: Red Fish, Blue Fish

Akaiko was far from home, and surrounded by enemies.

This wasn't a problem, of course, as none of them actually knew she was their enemy—that's the whole goal when infiltrating somewhere, after all. Still, even if she did appear to be just a simple civilian minding her own business, the Land of Mist isn't exactly a peaceful place to visit, ever. Doubly so if since she happened to actually be a Konoha kunoichi in disguise, and triply so with Kirigakure on the verge of joining in the war against her village.

But Akaiko didn't bother to worry about all that, since for all intents and purposes she was just a nobody running a stall at the local festival. She was more worried about Inochi, since her partner was the one who actually needed a disguise to stay low-key. Honestly, there were plenty of benefits to having brown hair and a plain face when it came to sneaking around: she didn't need to deal with hair dye and contacts, unlike her Yamanaka partner.

She trailed her fingers lightly over the water in the shallow glass tank she had set up, poking one of the floating bouncy balls and mentally checking the rock-solid presence of Inochi's chakra elsewhere in the crowd. It was subdued to a civilian level, of course, and seemed unconcerned. There were a few other strong signatures that stood out to her—deep murky water and an ocean being the most worrying two—and Akaiko would guess that some of the civilian chakras she felt weren't actually civilians at all.

Festivals are good places to gather intel, so she actually would have been more worried if there hadn't been other shinobi snooping around. With most everybody in the crowd happily relaxed and talking (or at least drunk and talking), she'd already overheard a number of interesting conversations they would need to follow up on later.

Of course, she'd also listened to plenty of chatter from people just having fun.

"Come on, come on, come on," murmured the little girl playing at the moment, nearly broken paper scoop in one hand and a bowl of her eight colorful captured bouncy balls in the other. "Just two more!"

With a gentle twist of chakra, so slight even the best sensors would have had trouble detecting it, she tugged a current around one of the floating balls and pushed it away from the scoop. The player groaned and tried to go after it, but the paper in the scoop had spent too much time in the water and finally broke.

"No! Augh, I was so close!"

"I really thought you had it there for a moment!" Akaiko said, which was a lie even if the way she said it sounded perfectly genuine. She handed over the prize for catching over five balls: a little wooden charm carved to look like a fish. "Want to try again?"

The girl looked like she very much did want to try again, but then she shook her head and tugged the long sleeves of her kimono back down from her elbows, plainly disappointed. "I'd better not. My mother would be annoyed if I spent all my money trying to win a fish."

Akaiko chuckled, glancing over her shoulder to the carefully stacked tanks behind her. Each held a single betta fish, serving as the reward for catching ten or more bouncy balls. At the moment they were all swimming about and proudly displaying their colorful fins. For all their complaining about how degrading it would be for them, her summons—for that's what they were—seemed to be really getting into the idea of being prizes for a festival game.

They probably liked all the attention.

"Well." Akaiko crossed her arms, watching a bright blue betta twirl dramatically with a fond smile—Gebra had always liked to show off. "They are nice fish."

And quite good spies, too, if one could get them into position.

The girl nodded, enthusiastic, and looked as though she was about to say something when a shouted name from the crowd made her wince.