Blame It All on Me. Part 2

Chapter 4. Dishonourable Ninja Weakness

Arina was already thinking that their predictions were not justified, and the trip would pass without any incidents. Having spent the rest of the day and the entire following day at the capital, on the morning of the third day they left the Daimyo's residence. They were joined by a nobleman who had, of all things, an actual carriage pulled by four horses.

They stopped for a small snack at a picturesque lake, and soon they would already be in the village where they spent the night on the way to the capital.

The girl was quite satisfied with this layout.

They moved a little more briskly to the stopover spot, but Arina had the opportunity to train her legs again the rest of the way.

The nobleman with the carriage – his name was Okumura Kisho – tried several times to lure the girl to him, but she kept laughing it off, referring to the fact that the carriages made her dizzy, and merely stroked the velvet nose of the nearest horse. Hiruzen, seeing this, chuckled to himself: before that he, too, not particularly eager to get involved in the conversation, avoided the company of the nobleman in the same way.

To keep herself entertained, Arina sometimes talked with Hiruzen, and sometimes listened to the stories of shinobi carrying a palanquin: they had visited various corners of this world, so they could tell a lot of interesting things.

She was chatting with one of the shinobi walking in front, when suddenly a masked figure rushed to the palanquin – one of the Anbu squad members.

"Hokage-sama!" was all he said before rushing off again.

The palanquin thundered to the ground, and the carriage braked noisily behind it.

The four Shinobi synchronously performed some jutsu, following which two of them remained near the palanquin, and the other two followed the Anbu operative. In the silence that descended, Arina heard the sound of approaching battle.

"Rina, get inside, now!" Hiruzen barked.

However, before Arina managed to react, she was jerked sharply to the side. Almost the same moment the beam behind the spot where she was previously standing, was hit with several shurikens.

The motion stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and right in front of Arina's face was the familiar fox mask.

The next moment Arina shuddered: Kakashi twitched, and his mask burst into pieces. One small fragment pricked the girl on the cheek, but she didn't even notice it, her eyes locked with Kakashi's. It seemed to her that the gaze of his mismatching eyes reflected her own confusion, but almost immediately he had the look of severity and focus back.

Shoving Arina into the palanquin, Kakashi rushed away, working his katana skilfully. The girl watched his deadly dance with a wildly beating heart, trying to not pay attention to the seemingly slight tingling where he had previously held her: around the waist and the shoulder.

She hadn't seen him in action for a long time – but even what she had already seen, she tried to push from her memory as soon as possible. Now he appeared in all his murderous glory – swift, ruthless, punishing.

After another well-calibrated blow from Kakashi, accompanied by a strangled scream from the enemy shinobi, Arina turned away hastily and looked at Hiruzen, who was still sitting calmly in his seat – he even began filling up his pipe with tobacco. As it seemed to her, Hiruzen was glancing in Kakashi's direction with disapproval.

"Hiruzen-sama," Kisho called out cheerfully to him, leaning out of his carriage, "if this fighter can protect me at least half as zealously as this girl, I would not mind taking him!"