Fascination: Sequel

Fascination: Sequel: Part 14

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Fascination: Sequel

Part 14

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Days passed and Kakashi and Oriko had taken a chance to enter the village of Shimogakure[1], it was a big risk, but Kakashi had used a henge as had Oriko and they were planning only on entering for an afternoon.

At this point in time, information was vital, and so far they couldn’t even create a summary full sentence with what they knew.  Crossing the border into Shimo had been a stroke of luck and exceptionally good timing, whilst she and Kakashi were crossing, a giant festival was taking place in Shimo that evening and throughout the day after.

This meant that most of the guards were a little preoccupied – the lesser shinobi villages and their countries simply didn’t have the man-power and other resources that Konoha or the other five great shinobi nations did. 

The guard, at the time, was a young man – couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty – and Kakashi was able to easily intimidate him into not point-blank arresting them.  But he was still quite stubborn and Kakashi in the end, as there wasn’t another soul for miles, picked a judicious time and used the Sharingan on him to make the boy forget he’d even seen them at all.

They’d performed the henge in a secluded copse of trees several kilometres from the hidden village (half way between it and the southerly coast) and made their way in separately, agreeing to meet back in the copse after dusk. 

They both looked significantly different from normal as they subtly made their way into the village, blending in with the many other random visitors arriving.  Oriko herself now possessing long blonde hair and a slightly more...voluptuous figure, much to her own irritation, she did know that most tended to assume that the more beautiful a woman was, the more stupid she must be. 

It did, however work to her favour as she would be able to get close to men in general more easily and if she got caught listening in, she could make up an idiotic excuse and it may well be accepted. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but she sauntered as best she could through the dirty streets – they were cold, grimy and seemed to possess a permanent slush – no doubt a result of the generally freezing weather warmed and polluted by so many footsteps. 

It depressed Oriko in a way she couldn’t quite describe, it made her long to be back in Konoha with familiar company – would this be what it would have been like had I become a missing-nin? Would I forever end up in grimy places like this? I can’t believe I even considered the option so strongly then but now I’m barely a week’s travel from Konoha and I already feel lost and alone in that depressing sort of way…

Oriko shook her head as she slipped into a side street, her instinct knowing that bars and other such public places will offer the most likely opportunities to glean information but that same instinct also warns that they are unlikely to be quite so stupid as to talk in such open company about as dangerous a subject matter as they could get. 

The buildings began to appear more business based and they grew in height and intimidation tactics with all of them sporting fierce and unsympathetic architecture.  Oriko couldn’t deny the feeling that the shady place which was this town, Shimogakure, probably trade in underhanded, black market deals for far worse than information – maybe that was it: the information was to provide the basis for an even bigger problem? Some sort of attack?

She had no idea but she was desperate to find some sort of knowledge; her footsteps followed most of the people in front of her – who were preparing for the festival.  If the people involved in all of this are less stupid than I’m assuming, then an ideal place to discuss this would be where they don’t look unnatural and everybody around them is too busy in their own affairs to notice or remember their words...