I arrived their first and stood waiting for my teams mates to show up. At the ten minute mark Zumo showed up with a heavy looking backpack and an excited smile on his face, "morning Yami! You excited?"
I smiled and nodded, "you bet I am."
Zumo looked over my shoulder and frowned, "where is you bag? Didn't you pack anything?"
I pointed at a scroll on my thigh pouch, "storage seal," I put all my needed stuff inside the seal, since I obviously couldn't just use my inventory in front of people.
"Smart," Zumo sighed, "I wish I thought of that."
"I can make it for you is you want," I offered, taking out a spare scroll.
Zumo blinked, "really? You don't mind?"
"Not at all, besides, if you are held down by so much weight that might be a problem for us," I opened the scroll up revealing several kanji streams along the side, "put in on."
"Right," Zumo placed the heavy bag in the middle of the seal and after a small puff of smoke the bag was gone. I rolled the scroll up and gave it to him, "thanks, this is so much better."
I nodded, just then China arrived, running towards us with a smile, "good morning!"
"Hey China," Zumo smiled and waved, "packed all your stuff?"
China nodded pointing at the scroll on her back, "all in here. You two?"
"Same," I pointed at my scroll ad Zumo's.
"Ah, I see you're all here, good, we don't have to wait then," the three of us looked over and saw Ko walking towards us with an elderly man wearing a green kimono with a bald head and pencil mustache riding a horse. Gemu Soru, Merchant of Tea Lv- 12 REP- 0 "This is Gembu, he's our client," Ko introduced the man.
The bald man looked at us and raised an eyebrow, "this is your team? Aren't they...a bit young?" Ko smiled, "I assure you, they are more than qualified for this mission."
"Hello, my name is China, it's a pleasure to met you," the girl bowed.
"Zumo Sarutobi, yo,"Zumo waved.
"Where's the cargo?" I asked, not bothering to introduce myself.
"It's with me, so technically speaking, I'm your cargo," Gembu huffed, "and aren't you going to introduce yourself?" "As far as you need to know, I'm the man who is in charge of saving your hide," I pulled up my hood around my cowl and my face mask covering my head, "shall we get a move on then?"
Gembu snorted, "rude boy."
Ko smiled, "they are a handful. Alright team 11, assume kunai formation. I'll take the lead, China, you and Zumo stay on either side of the target and Yami bring the rear. We'll set a walking pace, remember, our client is only a civilian. Any questions?" there were none, "then move out!"
We walked out of the giant gates for the first time and...well, it was kind of disappointing. I totally expected something amazing and profound. I mean, this is the country of ninjas right? Sigh, well, I'm just happy the mission hasn't gone to shit just yet.
Two days later: It was a boring two days. Filled with nothing but walking, not even running, walking. It was so boring halfway through I decided that I might as well get some training done. So I began practising my shuriken, throwing it at trees and retrieving them using chakra threads.
And then I began juggling the shurikens with my threads, just to see how well I could manipulate the items using chakra threads.
It was a slow few days.
But hey, at least I leveled it up!
Chakara thread, Lv- 28 (2%) A concentrated thread of chakra that can be attached to manipulate certain objects.
CP cost- 3 CP per minute per 1 feet Max length- 255 feet Cool. However finally, finally, we reached the edge of the border for the land of fire, arriving before a booth of some kind where a shinobi sat in waiting wearing a konoha vest, reading a book...wait...that's my book!
The man was reading Wonder Woman, and he quickly noticed us approaching him and got up to greet us. "Hello, mission, vacation or free movement?" he asked not bothering to look up from his book.
"Mission," Ko replied taking out his ninja ID card and presented it to the man who looked at it for a fraction of a second before returning it to him and looking at Gembu himself and nodding.
"Alright, escort mission to the land of Tea, move along," the man said waving us through.
We walked until we were passed earshot when Zumo spoke up, "what a lazy guy." "Not really," Gembu huffed, "the land of Tea is famous for it's peaceful nature, the only reason Konoha even has a patrol booth is simply for census sake. The poor man probably had nothing else to do, one can forgive him for reading...especially if it is a Lee book."
The last part peaked my interest. "You a fan of Stan Lee?" I asked in my best neutral tone.
"A fan? No my boy, I'm an avid worshiper!" Gembu smiled as he laughed heartily, "the ideas he writes about, the idea of a world not ruled by chakra, but by the hearts of man. The idea of men and women brave enough to fight and die rather than cover in fear and let themselves be conquered, now that is a book I believe a lot people must read."
"Yeah, it's pretty cool!" China admitted, "I especially love Wonder Woman! She' my favorite!" "Mine's Batman," Zumo smirked, "any guy who's brave enough and ballsy enough to take on a demigod like Superman is worth respecting."
"Plus I'm sure the pills of cash he has on hand isn't half bad," I chuckled.
"Damn straight!" Zumo smiled.
"It's just such a pity," Gembu sighed, "all this talk of Stan Lee but I haven't even seen the man. I so wish to meet him, at least once."
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