Welcome back to the Smoke and Mirrors AU.

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Hattori looked awkwardly at Yuta. His Bochigan was active, and he could see the kid was in turmoil. His ghastly Aura was trembling. He really didn’t know why he was shaking like that…

“Hattori-san…” Yuta’s voice was calm despite his aura moving around wildly. “I don’t understand.”

With a frown, Hattori told the boy to quiet down a bit. “We’re in an Izakaya. Th-” (AN: Izakaya is a japanese bar.)

“The ears have walls.” Hattori was cut off as Yuta finished his sentence, and felt his mouth twitch slightly. “I know, Hattori-san. Please, explain.”

With a cough, he cleared his throat before starting. “Yuta. We’ve scoured the city with our Dojutsu. We’ve checked in with the Bounty Office, and grabbed a dozen of those ‘bingo-book’ things. All the human resources we’ve spoken to have agreed with the bounty office, and what our Dojutsu has shown us.”

Yuta scowled. “So what? He’s just not here?”

“No. Further than that,” Hattori plopped his bingo book onto the table in their stall. He flipped to a specific page quickly. “Yuugito no Sharingan. A-Rank Shinobi from the Uchiha.”

Yuta stared at the page blankly. “We’ve been over this, Hattori-san.” The boy wondered idly if his Clan head was developing dementia.

Hattori sighed. “Yes, but look at the bottom of the page. Under known techniques.”

“Fire-style, Fire-style, Fire-style, Genjutsu, Genjutsu, Genjutsu, Genjutsu, Gen- ah. Earth Clone.”

“Right. Earth Clone. That’s the Ninjutsu we fought against. Now, I did some research while we were apart.”

“We were only separated for two days while we gathered intel.” Yuta said.

Hattori smiled. “I’m good. Anyway, I’ve learned that the Earth Clone Jutsu is an auxiliary technique. It can’t gather intel when it’s destroyed. In fact, the user wouldn’t even know it’s destroyed unless he saw it.”

“So he doesn’t know we’re in Yamatari?”

“No, Yuta. He doesn’t. We still have the element of surprise.”

“He still wants to kill me though.”

Hattori sighed, this kid was really negative. The only good thing to come out of this situation was that Yuugito wanted to kill him. The kid was practically the only way they had to track Yuugito down.

“Here’s my plan. I’m going to–”

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“Use me as bait. Hattori-san, it’s okay. I’m fine with this.”

Hattori had an odd look. Yuta’s aura had finally calmed down, becoming tranquil. This kid might really be crazier than he is.

“We leave as soon as our order from Ningu Saotome is finished. I travel back to our Clan Compound. You will stay at the inner shore of the Tawa River.”

With that, five more days passed quickly. They dashed to the shop quickly at dawn. The shop was open, with the man behind the counter. “Ah, Shinobi-san… You’re back.” Hattori nodded and bowed slightly. “And your friend is awake this time. That’s good.”

“Yes, it is. What is your name?” Hattori spoke formally to the old man. He had been testing his Chokuto quite often, and was extremely pleased with the quality. He’d say it was one-of-a-kind, if he hadn’t been given a dozen.

“Masamune. Your order, Shinobi-san.” The elderly man pushed a large bag towards them, Hattori took the time to sift through it, sorting everything in each of the three scrolls. Weapons went in one. Armour went in another. Masks went in the last.

“Is there a changing room in here? We would like to don our new equipment.” The old blacksmith smiled, pointing to his left. Hattori blinked owlishly. He had not noticed a door there before. With a mental shrug, he and Yuta entered the changing rooms.

The under armour cloth was excellent. The cloth itself was thick, with chainmail placed in between the two layers of fabric giving it extra thickness. While heavy, it was nothing that would affect him as a Ninja.

The armours plating was on another level. The quality was better than anything he had ever seen. He doubted he could pierce it if he stabbed it with his full strength. It was the perfect colour; an incredibly dark red, matching the Yanmaru Dojutsu’s signature iris colour.

The masks were of similarly high quality. They weren’t exactly porcelain, or clay, but some strange material that took properties of both while also being extremely hard. All twelve of the masks were animal themed. Hattori liked that.

He chose his own mask to be the fox mask. Everything had a central shape or an outline of black. It had four dark red triangular marlins, two on each side. With a foxlike mouth, and dark red corners, it looked fairly cool. The mask’s eyes had some kind of eyeliner on it, the same dark red colours on the rest of the mask present there as well. There were two tilted, straight eyebrows of the same colour as well. All in all, Hattori was very pleased.

The most important part was that he could still see out of it, even though from the outside, no one could see his eyes.

After leaving the changing room, both of the Yanmaru looked at eachother. Yuta’s hair was long, reaching his shoulders. Wild and black, it looked like some kind of porcupine had layed there and died. His own mask was that of a Dog. It had the same dark-red and black colour scheme.

Hattori couldn’t say he was much better. His own hair was past his shoulders by now. He had thought about cutting it, but in this day and age… He sighed. Cutting your hair was a way to declare enmity or war. His lips twitched as he imagined how bald and shiny the Clan Head of the Uchiha would be.

The two bowed towards Masamune before departing. It was just under a week’s worth of travel for the two, and then they would be home. They would depart again quickly, but this time they’d have a much stronger strike force.

Yuta and me alone, he thought, are not sufficient to kill Yuugito Uchiha.

With that in mind, he opened his Clan Ranking panel.

[Yanmaru Clan Rankings]

* Hattori Yanmaru (Jonin)

* Yuta Yanmaru (Jonin)

* Yuki Yanmaru (Jonin)

* Mei Yanmaru (Jonin)

* Asahiro Yanmaru (Low-Jonin)

* Sasori Yanmaru (High-Chunin)

* Izumi Yanmaru (High-Chunin)

* Amanai Yanmaru (Chunin)

* Mitaro Yanmaru (Chunin)

* Hanae Yanmaru (Chunin)

* Sukuna Yanmaru (N/A)

* Miwa Yanmaru (N/A)

Ah? When did Asahiro rank as a Jonin?

Yuta and Hattori left the shop in an orderly manner, but as soon as they were out of the doors, they jumped onto the roof of the building in front of them, doing a mad parkour dash in a straight line across the city.

It took seven minutes from Ningu Saotome to reach the exit of Yamatari City. It was another hour or so of full-speed travel before they even dared to slow down. The city was still on high alert from when one of their Samurai squads had been slaughtered.

Hattori and Yuta had long since left the scene of the crime, but there were still many people who had seen something that day. Many of them reported ‘red eyes’, and Hattori sincerely hoped that they would not remember anything else. Right now, the Uchiha were the only suspect.

A thought suddenly popped into his head. “Let’s use code names based on the mask we wear. I will be Fox. You will be Dog.”

Yuta shook his head, and from his aura, Hattori could tell the kid was trying not to laugh. “Okay, Fox.”

What was so funny about that? He felt exasperated.