{Tazuna's House, The Land of Waves}
{10:39 AM, 18th Mar 13 Yrs ANB}
{3rd Person POV}
Tsunami rushed to open the door trying to suppress the hope that bloomed in her heart, but before she opened the door she peeked through the mirror attached to the window. She saw her father standing at the door with two unknown men covered in blood.
Although she was afraid of the sudden situation her father didn't look like he was being forced or anything so she suppressed the fear in her heart and opened the door.
Ren was feeling a little exhausted after the fight but in the hour-long walk it took them to come here he was feeling okay, Hayate on the other hand looked exhausted, since he had to bear the brunt of most of Zabuza's attacks. He was also injured a little after catching a couple of Zabuza's punches to the ribs.
The door to the small house by the ocean opened and a middle-aged woman threw herself into Tazuna's arms, she was shaking a little and mumbling thanks to whatever deity she worshiped, seeing the private scene happening Ren turned away to look at the ocean. The house was made entirely out of wood and was supported by wooden beams so that it rested on the ocean.
'Why even build this, isn't he a bridge builder this seems impractical, what if large waves come through the lagoon and destroy their house...'
After scanning the surroundings the father-daughter duo finally separated, Ren watched as Tsuname's nervous eyes went toward their clothes so he asked, "If it isn't too much trouble would you mind if we rest here for a bit."
"O-of course!" Tsunami spoke as she got flustered, she opened the door again and helped her father inside by confiscating his sake as Hayate and Ren hobbled inside. Ren seeing Hayate sensei's struggle supported him and helped him lay down on the nearby sofa. Hayate lifted his shirt up and grimaced as a purple-black bruise was already forming on his ribs.
'Shit, there was too much strength in Zabuza's punches, if his speed had been anywhere near his peak I would have died along with Ren...' Hayate pulled his shirt down and Ren walked over to Tsunami asking if there was any ice in the house. Ren pulled a spare t-shirt from his inventory and wrapped up a bunch of ice cubes in it before giving it to Hayate sensei.
Hayate hissed as he applied the cold ice on his bruises, since there was no medical shinobi around this would have to do. His thoughts though were already collecting all the pieces of the puzzle that he had gained throughout the encounter.
'From the state of the Land of Waves, Konoha should have intervened a long time ago, what even are those patrol doing in the Hamasaki Village? And why is it taking so long for reinforcements to arrive, they should have been here half an hour ago...'
Through the last messenger hawk, Hayate had asked the patrol squad that was stationed in Hamasaki Village to provide support since they had encountered an enemy shinobi attack in a C-Rank mission. So either their response time was abysmal or something more sinister was happening.
'I need to send an urgent message to Hokage-sama,' Hayate thought as he glanced at Ren who was rummaging through his medical supplies for some bandages and healing cream, 'I can't risk Ren's life even though this is just a hunch.'
Hayate opened his pouch and pulled out another scroll, this was his last hope for now. He unfurled the summoning scroll and after using another chunk of his chakra a messenger hawk a little different to the last one appeared on the table.
"Kya!" Tsunami shrieked in surprise and Ren went to calm her down as Hayate started writing another letter to Hokage-sama.
'''...Hokage-sama, the mission escalated quickly after we arrived at the final patrol post checkpoint at Hamasaki Village. We were attacked by two chunin and a Jonin in quick succession, and my request for backup to the Hamasaki Village checkpoint was late by at least an hour I have some suspicions that there has been a breach in the security at the checkpoint and that they are compromised...'''
...
Ren watched Hayate sensei writing out another report, since he had already found the bandage and the healing cream he sat down on a chair and looked through the quest again to figure out what had changed.
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[A 'C' - Rank Mission!]
[The mission's objective is to escort Tazuna, a bridge builder, back to his home in the Land of Waves and protect him from any threats from bandits while he finishes the construction of the bridge connecting the Land of Waves to the Land of Fire.]
[Main Quest: Make sure the bridge connecting the Land of Waves to the Land of Fire is successfully built.]
[Side Quest I: Defeat any bandits that might disrupt the construction of the bridge.]
[Hidden Quest I: Defeat the Demon brother, Gōzu and Meizu, two ex-chūnin from Kirigakure, and successfully protect Tazuna from their assassination attempt.]
[Hidden Quest II: Defeat Elite Chunin, Yuki Haku, a fugitive from Kirigakure, and successfully protect Tazuna from her assassination attempts.]
[Hidden Quest III: ?]
[Hidden Quest IV: Defeat the Demon Hidden in the Mist, Zabuza Momochi, an ex-Jonin from Kirigakure, and successfully protect Tazuna from his assassination attempts.]
[Rewards:]
[Main Quest: +10,000 Ryo, +100,000 EXP]
[Side Quest I: +1,000 EXP per enemy neutralized.]
[Hidden Quest I: +20,000 EXP, + {Moya Hebi Poison} Formulae.]
[Hidden Quest II: +30,000 EXP, + {Human Anatomy Skill Book}. {Collect}]
[Hidden Quest III: ?]
[Hidden Quest IV: +150,000 EXP, + {Water Release: Hidden Mist Jutsu} Formulae. {Collect}]
[Failure: +1000 EXP]
Ren took a sigh of relief when he saw the number of experience points he could gain from accepting the rewards of the quest. Since he could refresh his state every time he levels up, Ren has always felt like it was a good idea to leave some of these quests uncollected as a safety net just in case he was stuck in a sticky situation.
'I would need to work harder to get access to those chakra storage seals fuinjutsu formulae mentioned in the books, that way I would be able to explain my magically regenerating chakra in case a sensor is on my team.'
"Hayate sensei, you need to take care of your wounds first," Ren put a couple of rolls of bandages in front of him along with some anti-bacterial cream that also helps promote healing by a little bit.
"Yeah I'm almost done, remind me to send this scroll in another 23 minutes," Hayate spoke and he removed his shirt, the sweat and dirt would infect his wounds. The bruises on his ribs were simply covered in the roll of bandages, it was the cuts along his arms that he got from Ren's jutsu that they needed to take off first of all.
"Alright no supercharging jutsus unless I could learn to control them better," Ren muttered as he saw the numerous cuts that went through Hayate's arms and even his left side.
"No your response was good, I had to constantly augment my legs with chakra to fight on equal footing with Zubuza, a couple of minutes more and my muscles would have started rupturing due to the stress," Hayate spoke as he cleaned his wounds.
All this time Tazuna was standing there looking at the cuts on Hayate's arm, he gulped almost half the bottle of sake by the time it took Hayate and Ren to bandage all of the spots.
"Alright it should be time right about now," Hayate muttered as he looked at the messenger hawk who was eating some rice that Tsunami had put in front of it, Hayate sealed his scroll and put the scroll into the back pouch once again. He let the hawk climb up on his right arm and walked out of the house.
Ren sighed and leaned into the chair, now that he was somewhat safe the severity of the whole situation was coming back to him. He opened his inventory and looked at the two corpses that were stored in his inventory, maybe he wouldn't need to delay accepting quests as quests contained other rewards that might be useful, instead, he should rather keep the bounty targets in his inventory.
'The bounty system did tell me the higher level the target, the less the chance for their signature jutsu to drop...'
He shook his head, his thoughts regarding keeping the dead bodies of his enemies in his personal pocket aside, there was something off about this mission and he was still confused as to why they confronted a Jonin almost head-on.
Shouldn't they have retreated as soon as the mission went beyond their parameters, he was sure Konoha could have escaped responsibility in that case because of the moral high ground they would have gained due to Tazuna-san's lies.
Hayate walked back into the room, his condition was improving at the very least but Ren could see he was trying not to put too much pressure on his right leg. Seeing that all of them were here Hayate decided to address the room, "Tsunami-san, do you have a spare room or somewhere we could rest for a bit?"
Tsunami nodded and spoke, "Yes the upstairs room is mostly empty, you can rest there."
"Good, that should work," Hayate then turned to Tazuna-san his face was stern as he spoke, "I have sent a mission report to Hokage-sama, the report should arrive in Konoha later today and by tomorrow evening our reinforcement should arrive," Hayate spoke, Tazuna looked down on the ground avoiding eye contact.
"There is something weird going around The Land of Waves and it isn't just Gato, the situation should not have deteriorated to the point that the whole of Land of Waves had to go through a famine. So quite a lot more shinobi should be coming to reinforce us and look around..." Hayate wanted to speak more about Konoha dealing with Gato but then decided against it, if the Konoha Ninjas in the checkpoint had really taken bribes from Gato then this situation would worsen very quickly.
'No point in outsiders knowing about these things, I'm sure Hokage-sama will deal with these things...'
...