Downstairs, the innkeeper seemed to be nursing a hangover from the previous night’s drinking. He was slumped over the desk and groaned feebly when Choji and I passed him.

We continued walking for a while before splitting up with a firm handshake and wishing each other good luck. I spent less than an hour wandering around, listening in on conversations along populated streets, hanging around stalls, and mixing in with kids running about. Moral quandaries aside, children were up there on the list of things that disarm people of their suspicion.

During that hour, I hadn’t picked up on anything interesting; the village pretended that the Jagged Blades weren’t sitting on a hill not too far east from the city. Not that I blamed them, but the lack of information was frustrating; I couldn’t go to the smithy because it was on the eastern side of the village so that left only one place—The Empty Plate.

Honestly, I didn’t want to go; I only decided to because of Chie. The inn pushed the limits of what counted as “west” and was also the most popular place in Tenka Village. It sold good food, the alcohol was decent, and the beds were better than the shithole Asuma had us living in.

I bit the bullet and circled the building in search of a back entrance of some kind. The rich aroma of soup grew stronger and I soon stopped in front of a half-closed door positioned at the back of the building. Peeking through it, I spotted Chie standing on a raised wooden block, snapping at three nervous chefs scurrying about the kitchen.

“Freckles,” she pointed at a freckled guy stirring a massive pot, “add some water to that soup.”

I slipped through the open door. “Please, may I have some food?”

The three chefs that Chie was ordering about stared at me and looked back as one to Chie.

Realistically, I figured this wasn’t the first time some hungry child infiltrated the kitchen in search of food—especially since the rogue shinobi had settled in—so my strategy wouldn’t bring undue attention onto myself. I was also a little hungry so getting myself a snack while carrying out Asuma’s order killed two birds with one stone.

Chie pulled out a roll from a basket and pushed me outside. “What do you want, Whiskers?”

I nibbled at the cold bread.

“Well, out with it!”

“I’m looking for people with information on the Jagged Blades,” I said, keeping my voice down. “It doesn’t have to be important, but it’s best to diversify the information sources we have. Do you have any suggestions?”

“Why ask for food then?” She tutted. “It’s a waste of food.”

“I wasn’t lying about being hungry.”

“You ate an hour ago.”

I shrugged. “I need to eat a lot—growing body and all that.”

“There’s not much we villagers can tell you because we’re not shinobi,” said Chie, huffing out her words. “However, if you’re looking for more people to question, you can go to my serving girl—though she’s not working today.”

“Where can I find her?”

Chie pursed her lips but eventually grunted out where her serving girl’s house was. Luckily for me, it wasn’t that far from the inn I’d slept in.

“Before you go,” Chie’s voice stopped me mid-step, “understand that you might want to approach the conversation with some tact. Yumi… the last few months have been a troubling time for her.”

“Troubling how?” I asked, but she wouldn’t answer and shut the door in my face, forcing me to find out what happened from the woman herself.

Slightly annoyed but mollified by the roll I’d got out of the exchange, I walked to Yumi’s house, arriving a little past noon. Now that the sun was on full blast, people had retreated into the shade of buildings—most of the kids running about had sought shelter in their homes but a few idiots were still outside.

I knocked on the door.

“Yes, who is it?”

Yumi was apparently an exhausted-looking young woman with chestnut-brown hair and hazel eyes. She squinted through the sunlight, holding her child closer to her chest. I looked over her shoulder—surprisingly I was taller than her—but couldn’t see anything past the darkness of closed blinds despite it being the middle of the day.

“Can I come in?” I asked, smiling and returning my gaze to her face; it didn’t change the distrust on her face. “Chie sent me.”

She turned to the side, brow furrowed doubtfully, but let me in after a long moment. Once the door closed behind me, I relaxed a little, following her down the corridor. “Are you currently alone?”

She stopped and turned around, hiding her… son, probably, from view. “...Why do you ask?”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Don’t worry, I’m not an enemy. It’s an important question, so please, answer it—are you alone?”

“Yes,” she said. “I am alone.”

“Great.” I grinned in as friendly a manner as I could. “Look, Chie said you’d be a good source of information on the Jagged Blades. My name is Naruto Uzumaki and I’m a genin of the Hidden Leaf.”

She stiffened.

“Wait,” I said, afraid she’d ask me to leave, “just give me a moment to explain. You all commissioned the Leaf by pooling your resources—it was in the mission request—but we can’t afford to tip off Goro Tanimoto and his men by revealing our identities—which means none of you can know we’re here.”

“Why tell me?” she said, jutting out her chin. “I’ve had it up to here with shinobi and I’m not anyone important.”

“That sentence alone says otherwise.” I shrugged lazily, channelling my inner Asuma to hide my annoyance at her lack of cooperation. “The more information you can give me, the sooner we can make our move on Goro Tanimoto. True, your help isn’t going to be a deciding factor but it might help—and think of it this way: do you really want to upset the help that you hired for no apparent reason?”

Instead of answering, Yumi closed the distance between us before veering left into the kitchen. I made to follow her but she turned around past the door threshold and shook her head. “Take a seat in the living room. I’ll be there with some tea in a minute.”

So, I sat across from her in a living room as dark and glum as the hallway, nesting a cup of herbal tea. Not willing to drink any tea from a stranger, I placed my cup down on the floor between my legs and leaned forward.

“Why the animosity earlier?” I asked. “It’s a strange reaction to have towards an otherwise adorable kid like me—even if I told you I was a shinobi.”

That got the morose woman to smile, even if it only stayed on her face for a split second before vanishing.

“I…” she wrung her free hand, fidgeting with the fabric of her clothes. “wasn’t sure if you were who you claimed to be.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. It’s not every day that a kid turns up at your door and claims to be a shinobi.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that.”

“Oh?”

“About a week ago, a group of strangers came to the village—there were three of them—and started asking questions about the Jagged Blades. They were Leaf shinobi, so I told them everything I knew.”

I stopped a frown from forming on my face—I needed her to keep talking. “Can you describe what they looked like?”

“I’ll do my best, but I don’t remember the details because they were wearing hooded robes.” She furrowed her brow. “I think one was a woman because they spoke the most and had a gentle voice, but I’m not sure.”

“Right…” I nodded once, maintaining a calm exterior.

Inwardly, though, I was panicked beyond belief because too many unknowns had piled up in the space of minutes. Another group of shinobi had come to collect the bounty on the Jagged Blades and they were aware of our presence thanks to a misunderstanding.

Had they packed up shop and left? It would fit Yumi’s recount of things seeing that the Jagged Blades were still up and running. Hinata hadn’t picked up any extraneous chakra signatures nearby either… but it wasn’t like she looked further than the outpost.

A week was more than enough time to grab the bounties and disappear, so if they didn't, it meant that they probably had some kind of grudge against the Leaf. Was it Hidden Stone shinobi? Technically, sending foreign shinobi into enemy countries was against the peace treaties, but the major villages broke that accord all the time.

The only other option I could think of was Hidden Sound shinobi, but seeing that Orochimaru planned on entering his sacrificial subordinates into the exam, making an enemy out of the Leaf wasn't something he planned on doing until he was all good and ready.

Then who could it be?

Swallowing hard, I put a stop to that train of thought, focusing on Yumi once again. “Thanks for the information—we’ll look into it and see who those strangers were. Now, what can you tell me about the Jagged Blades?”

Her eyes darted to the wall beside the door where several pictures hung in rows. She kept her eyes level with the ground as she spoke. “They appeared out of nowhere one night, taking anyone who looked strong to renovate the old watchtower east of the village. All they do is hunt other rogue shinobi—for money, probably—and raid villages. Whenever they return, they take craftsmen and the village’s smith to the outpost and fill up The Empty Plate, eating and drinking to their heart’s content for free.”

I remained silent, just absorbing her words.

As a shinobi, I wasn’t under any illusion that the occupation was a moral one. I was paid to carry out any number of tasks to whomever Lord Third decided. Today, it was exterminating rogue shinobi and taking the bounties on their heads—tomorrow it could be silencing a perfectly innocent person who overheard the wrong information.

But man, these Jagged Blades made it easy to get some vindication out of an otherwise grim job.

“One afternoon, my husband, Kashiigi, h-he—he’d had enough of the way they were treating me and stormed into The Empty Plate.” She furiously wiped at her eyes, snarling out her next words. “And those… those animals killed him for it! Goro Tanimoto comes by every few weeks with gifts and jewellery,” she showed me a box of glistening rings and necklaces, “but it’s only so he can show his men that he conquered me by getting me to sleep with him.”

I grimaced, not bothering to hide my disgust.

Yumi’s pallid face was flushed and her eyes darted about frantically. “I’d rather die than give that bastard the satisfaction!”

“Okay.” I nodded once. “Thank you for recounting this for me, truly. It was definitely helpful in clarifying Goro Tanimoto’s character to me.”

She nodded slowly, sagging into the couch as the surge of energy left her. I looked around at the dark living room, the clothes strewn about. Despite the self-inflicted darkness, Yumi’s house was generally in an okay state, so maybe she hadn’t completely given up on living a life. My gaze dropped to the baby—who I now knew to be a little boy called Kentaro—sleeping soundly against her chest. Little Kentaro would never know the love of his father, who cared so deeply for him and his mother that he defied reason to defend them.

“Let a little light in,” I said, rising out of my seat and cracking open the living room blinds.

A wide ray beamed in, illuminating the carpet and the far wall beside the door where the family photos were—lightning up the wide smile on her late husband’s face.

“Goro Tanimoto will die before the week is out and while his death won’t bring your husband back, I hope it’ll return some semblance of life to you and the village.”