Naruto: Tango with Death

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[Sukaina's POV]

Once we reached the border to the Land of Forests, we separated with a quick word of encouragement from Itachi.

If I had to be honest, I would admit that I was surprised by the way Anbu welcomed me. I didn't even get to really meet my teammates or get to see them in action. Instead, we were directly sent on a high ranked mission.

According to my knowledge of how missions are ranked, my mission was A Rank, borderline S Rank, while the other two teams' missions were A Rank for their consequences. Then, because of how important the success of those three missions were, I guess all together they made up for an S Rank Mission.

This made this whole situation crazy. Hell, I worried about my first B Rank mission a few months ago, yet I get sent on an S Rank Mission the moment I join Anbu. The world really likes throwing me into the pit.

However, I couldn't, and didn't intend on complaining. This mission suited me a lot, and getting an S Rank Mission in our times isn't the same as say, or ten years ago.

All five of the Shinobi Villages are on the verge of a war, so of course the missions we get become more dangerous. If ten years ago the village would issue 2 or 3 S Rank missions in a year, today that number would increase tenfold.

The way mission ranking worked was simple.

D Rank was danger less menial tasks for Genins.

C Rank was for more dangerous missions outside the village, but with no chakra wielder.

B Rank was the same, but involved ninjas and all kinds of Chakra wielders.

As for A Rank and S Rank, it wasn't just a matter of who we would face. Instead, it was about the consequences. For example, killing Takeshi, the son of the Fire Daimyo. Whether he is guarded or not doesn't change anything to the mission rank.

Instead, the shit storm that would get started in the Land of Fire would be so huge that no matter what, this classifies as an S Rank Mission, despite being a mission that could technically be done by a Genin.

Of course, most of the time, danger follows high ranked missions, and it was the same for my mission. But in the grand scheme of things, the worst thing that can happen to this mission isn't me dying, but someone finding out I was the one trying to kill the Daimyo.

And while I didn't want to die just yet, I didn't want to cause the war to break earlier than it should, so I had to go for a different, and more subtle approach than I usually do.

Yugao has shown me that as a Sensor, she could easily detect me, and while there most certainly weren't sensors monitoring the capital at all times, wary for an enemy, I couldn't risk my mission on an if.

Since I couldn't sneak into the capital as a ninja, and I didn't know the range of the possible sensor, I decided to take the more time consuming, but safer option. I had a week to finish this mission anyway, although I would rather finish it fast.

I arrived at a nearby city from the capital, which wasn't heavily guarded. And even if there was a sensor here, they wouldn't be able to discern me among the masses of chakra.

A Sensor couldn't detect the quantity of a person's chakra from afar, they had to get really close, so as a rule of thumb, as long as I didn't get within ten meters of a sensor, they wouldn't be able to differentiate me from a normal civilian, unless we already met and they had my chakra signature, which I knew wasn't the case.

Anyway, it was a lot of precautions, but I quickly managed to make my intended disguise. In a matter of minutes, I turned from a member of Konoha's Anbu to a peasant girl. The Transformation Jutsu was nice, but it had its limits, so I opted for actual blending skills.

Once I managed to make a satisfactory disguise and hid my Anbu equipment where I was sure no one would find it, I moved to the main entrance of the city, and placed a thumb up as I waited for a lift.

Perks of being cute and beautiful, I didn't have to wait for long before what seemed to be a merchant stopped his carriage. He looked at me up and down with an appreciative eye, and finally asked, "Aren't you too young to be leaving the city alone?"

I politely bowed before replying with a refined tone, "Kind sir, I never met my father, and my mother recently died. It was her wish I head to the capital, and become a servant for the Daimyo."

The merchant sighed, interpreting that as me being a bastard of the Daimyo, and to my joy, he nodded toward the back of his carriage and said, "You can hop on if you find a spot to sit in, I'm heading to the capital anyway."

I nodded, grabbing my suitcase full of stolen clothes and a notebook, of which only the first page was written on. It was supposed to be a diary.

However, before I could get on, he added, "You shouldn't trust people so easily girl, especially with your looks."

I smiled and replied, "I know. You look trustworthy."

The merchant snorted, and I sat in the back of the carriage as the merchant clicked his tongue at the horses and whipped his leash.

The road to the capital was bumpy, but quiet. The merchant, whose name I learned was Tani, apparently was feeling too awkward to make any conversation, and I was perfectly fine with this.

Right now, I wasn't Sukaina Sumichi, Anbu of the Leaf. I was Takayama Kakume, an orphan whose mother recently died and was on her way to earn a living for herself. Her mother was either disillusional, or her father was the Daimyo, it depended on the later's reaction, but in any case Takayama saw this as an unlikely, but welcomed if true development.

Around two hours later, as the sun slowly started its way down the sky, we arrived at the gates of the capital, Tanzaku.

The Land of Forests was small, both size wise and geopolitically, as it was mostly covered in large forests, which gave it it's name.

However, there was one exception to that, and it was the world famous Tanzaku.

The Land of Forests had an important place in trading, and anyone who wished to transport something from the ocean would pass by the Great River running through the Land of Forests.

This gave a rather consequent economic power to the land, and it was almost all invested in Tanzaku. The river was too big and too long to really be monitored continuously, except for one spot, where many years ago an outpost was made.

Then, with the years, this outpost grew large enough to become a city, before finally creating a whole country around it because of it's influence. 50 years ago, this was actually part of the Land of Fire, but the land had been exchanged to Tanzaku to form their own country, in exchange of premium rights and access, which had to this day allowed us to easily keep the Land of Water in check.

Yeah, I did actually learn something in my history lessons at the academy.