Kitsune no Akuryō

A New Start...

Koni'chiwa minna! Welcome to the next chapter of Kitsune no Akuryo. So, I will admit that there will be running in this chapter, lots of running, so why not make it fun as we imagine how Kitsune and Kinoe ran to their destination. There are always two options. Kitsune has finally been allowed to leave the exclusive people of the Hidden Leaf, but at a horrible cost. That doesn't matter anymore. Danzo has given Kitsune a new mantra to govern his life: no name, no feeling, no past, no future, only the mission. Kitsune knows that he will live and die by that code of the ROOT ANBU.

Kitsune's P.O.V.

    Much to Kinoe's frustration, I could no longer speak even after my throat healed. I found that this was for the best. Danzo-sama required very little of me by way of speaking. After every mission he only needed to know if I passed or failed. Kinoe, who had become my constant companion in these missions, could easily express that, especially as the leader of the two man squad. I already knew what would happen if I passed or failed a mission anyway, and Kinoe needn't know that. I couldn't tell him whether I wanted to or not. I had already faced Danzo-sama's confirmation of success or failure when I had gone out to Konohagakure. He would either nod or tell me to leave. Now, however, failure was not an option as it had been when my missions had only consisted of trying to help other people. If I failed a mission, Danzo-sama had personally informed me, he would find a new vessel. I had known what that meant and nodded from my kneeling position.

     It's been several months since my entry as an official member of the ROOT ANBU, and Danzo-sama has been sending Kinoe and I, team Kitsune, on reconnaissance missions. We scope out various areas. In diplomatic, negotiationary, or spying situations, which have been coming up much more frequently nowadays, Kinoe has put himself in the immediate danger of talking to or watching whomever we're getting information out of. I make sure that interrogations go smoothly.

     This mission was another such mission. We were on our way to the Land of Sands to spy on the Kazekage. Stealth was of the greatest import in these missions. The Sunagakure was scheming something, and team Kitsune was going to figure out what it was.

     We were camping at the moment on our way to Sunagakure. I sat on my bed painting strange symbols in the dim firelight. I had only just been becoming familiar with them myself. I knew they were sealing symbols, and I had memorized the ones necessary for this mission, but they still looked strange on the small strip of cloth. At the moment, I was trying to figure how to arrange them. We were supposed to be henging into Suna-guard doubles, but henging wasn't one my specialties. However, using Fuun-jutsu, I could describe all the characteristics I needed in the seal and apply to myself with the same basic result.

    I tapped Kinoe on the shoulder, "Basic appearance?"

     It had become a sad reality of Kinoe watching my lips move in order to understand what I was saying. He looked over at me from tending the fire, "Short dark brown hair, tanned skin, dark eye colour, small eyes," Kinoe was silent for a moment then nodded.

    I lifted my brush for a moment and looked at him hard.

    He came over to me and looked at me in the firelight as my lips began moving. I tried my best to enunciate, "Specific Eye Colour?"

    He looked down at my paper and smiled, "Sorry, dark brown eye colour. Oh and don't forget, you'll need to make sure your whiskers are covered."

    I nodded, but before  he turned to leave, I pulled on his sleeve. He turned back around and watched me. It was hard, painful even, to try to force the soundless word out of my mouth, "Clothes?"

    Kinoe looked me up and down and then at the paper, the small slip of paper, before deciding, "We'll have to knock someone out."

    I looked at him grimly. We had yet to find a way around my inferior seal henges. Our greatest difficulty was clothes. Adding that to the seal only made it bigger more cumbersome, and easier to detect. However, the  problem now turned to finding a double so that I could have a set of clothes. How were we going to do it without being caught? It could be done; that wasn't the question. The question was about getting caught when someone found the dead, or unconscious body. Rushing into clothes after knocking someone else out often made forgetting to hide the body far to easy, especially with time and demanded explanations and the rush of the heart as we tried not to mess up.