****** ° ° ° ****** ° ° ° God Shinobi ° ° ° ****** ° ° ° ******
****** ° ° ° ****** ° ° ° God Shinobi ° ° ° ****** ° ° ° ******
On the same day
*knock* *knock*
Itachi and Ren stood in front of the village head's cottage, waiting for the village head to open the door.
The cottage was a humble one as denoted by its simple exterior. It was just an average house with a wooden fence around it, perhaps suitable for an ordinary man.
Soon, the door opened and an old man came out, the wrinkles on his neck highlighting his old age. He squinted as he looked at the two ninjas who had knocked on his door.
"Obata-san, right?" asked Itachi in a cool voice as he addressed the elder in front of him.
"Ja... Yes...Leaf headband...You are Konoha Shinobi!" Obata exclaimed as he recognized the ninjas in front of him.
"Yes. We are here to talk about the mission you commissioned."
On hearing it Obata quickly let them in and brought tea for them. Ren looked around and saw the photos of a man and a woman.
Probably the Obata and his wife, considering how the photo matched a younger version of him.
However, there were irregularly empty spots in the wall, which was a bit weird.
"Is the tea good?" asked Obata as he sat down on one of the chairs in front of them.
"It's good, thank you." Ren thanked the old man for the tea. As he felt the tea was genuinely good tasting, though a bit strong for his taste buds.
"So what do you want to know?" asked the old man as he folded his arms inhabit.
"Obata-san, You commissioned the mission for the suppression of a single Hog." Said itachi as he drank the tea.
"Yes. Is it complete?" Obata asked with a rough voice as he clenched his fist.
"No. You asked us to kill one hog, But there were multiple Hogs of the same description." Said Itachi as he directly got to the point
"What!?...No..That's not possible...." Obata stood up from his seat horrified, his hands were trembling, his eyes started to look unfocused and his breath became sharp rasps.
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'An anxiety attack' Ren deduced the cause quickly and then went near Obata and held his arm gently, making him sit.
Itachi had also figured it out and had taken the mug of water on the desk and held it to Obata who slowly regained his breath after a minute or so.
Obata drank the water and sat there completely still.
Both Ren and Itachi sat there in silence for a few minutes for Obata to regain his bearing.
After a few minutes, Obata got up from his place and then brought something from his room.
Obata placed a few broken photo frames with photos in them on the table.
"Twenty-five years ago, I and my wife went to the Land of Iron for a vacation." The old man said as he looked down.
"We were there for a few days and as we returned back we came across a small piglet on our path, we didn't have children, you see and the piglet was so cute that my wife wanted to keep it." The old man took a deep breath at this point.
'Land of Iron... Silver horn....It's the Iron Hog' Itachi was surprised as connected the dots.
The Iron Hog was a native species of the Land of Iron, Its characteristic abilities are its regeneration from wounds and a tough horn made out of pure Iron.
"We brought the piglet here and kept it with us for 10 years. After that, it was too large to keep with us so we let it go in the mountains."
The man showed a broken photo of an old man and a woman who held a small piglet in her hand.
"Oh." Ren understood what was going on here.
'But don't the Iron Hogs only survive on the Land Of Iron' Itachi Knew that due to the requirement of regular intake of Iron, they could only survive where there were natural Iron mines.
And he was pretty sure that this part of HI no Kuni didn't have any.
"We normally fed it, grasses and some Iron scraps till that point. As it was too big and needed too much Iron, we left it in the forest as we could not take care of it." The man started to tremble once again.
"But still my wife went to take care of it, every day. Till last week" He started to sob in sorrow.
"Last week.... She went... and never returned" The man at this point looked too miserable.
"I... went there to look for her.... only found her foot ....and her clothes... clothes had massive Hog... bite marks on them"
'The Hog she raised ate her alive' Ren felt bile rise from his stomach at that thought.
"Iron Hogs are Herbivores" said Itachi as he knew that the Iron Hog was one of the few herbivorous boars alive.
"Yes.. But my wife had found the Hog hunt..... and eat rabbits-" Obata fell unconscious as he couldn't hold it in anymore.
Ren quickly checked Obata and found that he was only unconscious. So both Ren and Itachi left the man and went outside to make a plan.
Itachi told Ren everything he knew about the Iron Hogs.
'They are supposed to be herbivores, they only eat that and Iron.. Why would an Iron Hog kill a person' Ren kept his fingers curled near his mouth as he thought about it.
'First of all, it shouldn't survive in the forest, much less reproduce. It needs Iron for God's sak-" Ren's eyes widened and his eyebrows rose up as he considered another possibility.
"Sensei, Where can we find the highest Iron content other than the mines?" Ren directly stared into Itachi's eyes.
"In.... animals.... The Iron Hog has mutated." Itachi mumbled as his onyx eyes gained a dangerous glint.
First, Obata had brought in a chakra beast from another country. That Chakra beast had adapted to eat meat, along with its herbivorous behaviour.
The Hog was abandoned in the forest because the Obata couple could not feed it.
The Iron hog had incidentally adapted to the forest environment instead of dying off as they had hoped.
It then reproduced uninterrupted and without fear of predators due to it being a foreign species.
It turned into an invasive species and ate other animals for their iron content.
This continued for fifteen years leading them to grow in numbers exponentially and potentially destroying the local ecosystem as a consequence.
Itachi pondered for a few seconds and then asked Ren.
"The mission has been compromised. Do you want to retreat?"
In response, Ren shook his head and then grinned.
"I want to test the Nuibari and the traps, they are perfect for practice"
Now, for normal people facing nearly 50 Hogs would be a death sentence, But for a competent shinobi, it was just a bit more tricky task, nothing impossible.
After all chakra beast or not, they were still animals, a little tougher perhaps but their habits would be similar.
Man has been on the top of the food chain since ancient times, not because of his pure physical strength but because of his mind.
"I thought so. Let us survey them at night and come up with a plan"
Not that Itachi need a plan as he could just go there and use one of his stronger sharingan genjutsu,
or Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire Technique and the Hogs would be finished before they could even say Hogwarts.
But right now they were doing the mission to let Ren gain experience so he needed to do the heavy lifting.
****** ° ° ° ****** ° ° ° God Shinobi ° ° ° ****** ° ° ° ******
****** ° ° ° ****** ° ° ° God Shinobi ° ° ° ****** ° ° ° ******