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I had to find out what was going on. It wasn't enough that I had seen this symbol on kidnapping sum in Kiri, now I was seeing it in the Land of Fire too. As much as I wanted to get to Sunagakure quickly, I knew I couldn't let a lead like this go without doing my due diligence. And I wasn't exactly in any major hurry, I still had a bit of time left before I was due to do another mission in Kirigakure. So I decided that I would follow up on the woman and her contact that I had run into while on the mission with Yukino. Luckily, I was using my Armadillo Sensory Jutsu when I had originally found her, so I was able to commit her scent to memory. Unfortunately, I was much too late to get a good look at her contact, but I had followed the woman, whose name I still didn't know, for the past couple of days.

She had mainly kept to the woods, staying out of regular Konoha ninja patrols, though I didn't exactly know how. I wasn't exactly right next to the camp the whole time, I was much too scared cautious for that. I was mainly keeping a look out from the border of my sensory jutsu, just in case they had one as well. I didn't want to get caught snooping around, especially not with that woman around. Yukino wasn't with me now, and I didn't want to test how powerful the woman was when I didn't have any backup. Still, I wanted to collect as much information as I could before passing it off to anyone in Kiri or Konoha.

This afternoon though, there was a noticeable change. For my morning routine, I had used my jutsu once every hour or so just to keep tabs, but finally there was a difference in location. The woman strayed much farther from her camp than ever before, and was heading in the direction of the village. I knew something must be up for her to do this, from her movements before it seemed she didn't like to take any chances, and she was certainly taking a huge one now. She must need something from the village. I hopped down from the tree I had been sleeping in, and started off towards the village myself. Now that I was getting closer to the village where there were many more people, I was more comfortable getting closer, but definitely not too close. The woman couldn't have seen me before, but I didn't want to push my luck when it came to recognition. Even just the fact that I was from Kiri could be used as a reliable identifier if she somehow knew.

So, I followed from a distance, keeping myself low to the ground despite my urge to take to the rooftops. Up there, I would certainly get a much better view of the surroundings, but I could also attract way too much attention. It wasn't exactly unheard of for a ninja village to have ninja on the rooftops, but it was a bit strange to have a ninja from Kiri up there as well. I wouldn't want any Leaf ninja to think I was spying on them.

Yeah, I think it's a bit early in my ninja career to be unintentionally causing diplomatic crises.

The woman, whom I had decided to nickname "Oy" thanks to the nominative contribution of a shopkeeper who had accidentally run into her, didn't seem to be in any rush, though it was clear she was taking careful note of her surroundings. I, too, tried to keep an eye out. She worked with accomplices before, and if she really was part of some multinational crime syndicate or something, it would make sense for her to have more here now.

Maybe that's what she was waiting for? After she lost the kid, she wouldn't exactly want to go to her superiors empty-handed.

I ended up following Oy -- and grabbing a rice ball for a nice snack -- for quite a while until something interesting finally happened. She stopped walking, found a place to sit, and started looking around. She was looking all over the place, but her main point of focus seemed to be a tired-looking woman walking out of an arcade and into a nearby restaurant for what I could only guess was a fairly late dinner. When the tired woman walked out of the restaurant again, carrying some take-out, Oy finally made her move. It was dark now, and barely anyone was out. It seemed to me like this was kind of a shopping square or shopping center in Konoha, so there were a decent number of people, but the shops were slowly closing one-by-one.

Oy got up, made her way over to the woman, and quickly did...something. I couldn't tell what, but it could've been that she moved her hands in some way...maybe? It was too dark, and she was too quick for me to see it clearly. Oy walked next to the tired-looking woman and patted her on the back, as if the two had been long-time friends and not stalker and stalkee. The woman looked slightly dazed, but accepting of the situation, and started following Oy to a more secluded part of the town. I looked around.

If this is her move, she's bound to have lookouts to make sure whatever just happened went smoothly.

I scanned the rooftops and spotted a figure staring at the two. I jumped from my position around the back of the building, climbing up behind the mysterious new figure, whom I soon realized was not so mysterious at all.

"Hina? What are you doing here?"

WC: 990

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Hina was very prompt in her response and equally prompt in her departure.

Ok, so much to unpack here. First off, the person I saw looking at them is Hina, and apparently she also doesn't like what's going on. Which means a couple of things. One, this is a bigger problem than I thought, and it definitely extends well outside the Land of Water. Two, it isn't a Konoha operation. I trust the Village Hidden in the Leaves, but I had to keep the possibility in mind at least initially. Crazier things have happened. Three, if Oy did post scouts to make sure the drop went well, I couldn't find them. And four, I'm pretty sure Hina was already here when I got here, which means that somehow she had intel on the location of the kidnapping. Also, five, apparently it is actually a kidnapping. I wasn't quite sure before, -- maybe the new woman was another contact -- but now I have reason to believe she's actually the victim.

So then why did she go so apparently willingly? And what was that thing she did right before with her hands?

I watched as Hina jumped off the roof and made a beeline for the two women. Distracted by my own thoughts, it took me a moment to process this happening, but I jolted myself out of my temporary, self-imposed stupor and started following her once I realized what was going on. I was about as fast as she was, but she had a head start and she knew the streets better than me, so it took a few seconds for me to catch up. When I did catch up, I could see her looking around. Oy was skilled, and she definitely would've shaken me if I had ever gotten close enough for her to notice me. In the time I kept track of her, not once did she let anyone get within maybe 25 meters of where she was.

I nodded at Hina, understanding the situation, and brought my hands together, forming the Ox symbol as I activated my Armadillo Sensory Technique.

Ok Nobuya, concentrate!

I scanned and filtered through all the different smells that my nose could suddenly pick up, looking for the scent I had tracked for days. I never liked to do it in a village other than The Burrow, and the reason soon manifested itself once again. There were just too many different, yet powerful smells coming from all around me, and every time I would isolate one, ten more would be distracting me. I winced as I started to get a headache from the mass influx of sudden information.

There!

"I found them. They aren't too far from us now, but they're starting to pick up speed. Let's go."

I would jump off in the direction of the scent, and assuming Hina was following me, I would debrief her on my side of things as we followed the criminal and her target from a distance. It was probably best to stay at a distance, but it soon became obvious that we didn't have much choice. She was partially slowed down by having the kidnapped woman with her, but she was still moving very quickly.

"Good to see you again, hopefully your current mission can go better than our last. Since this is your mission, and we are from allied nations, and I'm pretty sure you are the actual Hina, lemme tell you why I'm here," I offered, shifting my focus between my feet and what was in front of me to make sure I didn't lose my balance.

"So, I don't know much about the situation, but I've been following the kidnapper for a few days now, whom I have nicknamed 'Oy'. I haven't found any concrete intel on her habits, identification, or fighting style, but I do know that she was the leader of a small group of people who kidnapped a kid a few days ago, and the group seemed to be afraid of her capabilities. No one's been near her since me and another ninja from your village named Yukino went to rescue the kid. We used her leaving to speak to a contact as a window to make our move, but I don't know anything about the contact or what they spoke about. What I do know is that they have ties to a criminal organization in Kiri. Or...the organization in Kiri has ties to whatever's going on here. I have no idea. Whatever the case, I didn't feel right about just leaving it, so I'm glad Konoha feels the same way. Now, if you wouldn't mind, how did you know where the kidnapping was going to take place?"

WC: 813
Total WC: 1803

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The two we were pursuing didn't leave us much room for caution. I didn't know how, but Oy seemed intimately familiar with every street, every roof, every possible corner en route to wherever she was going. I would've guessed she had been running the route to practice, but I knew that wasn't true. I had been following her since the time she met with her contact, and I was reasonably sure that's when she got the assignment. For a moment, a sudden panic gripped me.

What if I was tracking a decoy clone that sat at her base when she went into town?!? Or some other kind of trickery, like a genjutsu? But then why was I able to follow her here? Shouldn't I have been led to somewhere completely different if the target I was tracking really was a diversion? Something's off here. Something I'm not thinking of, an explanation that actually fits what I've noticed.

Whatever the case, Oy and her victim were speeding through Konoha as Hina recounted her side of the story as to why she was on the rooftop overlooking the kidnapping. Apparently she was on a mission to find wherever their base was. I would've assumed it would be outside the village, but strangely enough, Oy was leading us even deeper into the Village Hidden in the Leaves. As she continued explaining, she revealed that she was a victim of this group herself, though she woke up in her bed the next morning.

"I'm very sorry that you had to go through that, it must've been scary. What motive could they even have? If they were doing genetic testing or something, why only do it on new employees? That's so...weird!"

Seriously though, why? Usually, when people kidnap -- well first of all people don't usually kidnap shinobi -- but when they do, it's usually for some kind of ransom or to sell the victim (or their parts) on the black market. Either way, if they really thought she was a Senju, they would get quite a pretty penny either way, the Senju's been a pretty big clan in the Leaf for quite a while, if I remember. So why didn't they? What were they hoping to accomplish?

We managed to keep tailing them, but at one point the scent very rapidly disappeared. I thought Oy might've used some sort of stealth technique, but there'd be no reason to not have used it before, and even then, smell is not as popular to hide from as vision or hearing. And even then, the stealth technique would also have to cover the kidnapped woman.

Unless she had a stealth technique of her own.

Hoping that dual stealth techniques was not what we were dealing with, I decided it would be best to check out where I last smelled them anyways. If nothing else, we might find a clue as to how they disappeared. I didn't want to make the decision alone though. As we were running down an alleyway, turning a corner to a sparsely populated side street, I slowed down and faced Hina.

"Uhhh...so, this is kinda awkward, but their scent disappeared. I mean, I know my jutsu's still working, I can still smell other things, but I can't smell them anymore. Either one of them. I don't know what part of your town this is, but they stopped about two or three blocks that way," I said as I pointed down the street.

The area we were in was a little run-down, with no big buildings or decorated shops. It was still Konoha, so it wasn't anywhere near destitute, but it seemed like it could use a little upgrading.

Actually, maybe it's like a culture center? Most of the buildings here are wood, thatch, or a combination, so maybe it's more of a historical thing?

"Sorry I can't be more specific, I'm still working on making the jutsu work better."

As we snuck around the area, trying to find Oy, the victim, or a sign of either, we came across two casually dressed adults playing a game of chess in front of an unremarkable shack. I was about to continue on when Hina silently pointed out the two massive swords resting upon the wall.

How did I miss that? I guess I'm just so used to seeing nearly everyone with some kind of blade in Kiri, but those two aren't even dressed like ninja...

Hina whispered, "Any idea where they might be? This is kind of spooky."

I 100% agreed. One second they were here, the next, they vanished. And in their approximate place, two guards casually playing chess while their swords, just as casually, were propped up behind them.

"I don't know, but maybe they do," I whispered back, careful to keep my voice from carrying, "I mean, we could try asking. If you have any genjutsu that might help, at least THESE guys aren't wolves. Ooh, or maybe we could transform into Oy and the person you were following! Since we've been following them, we'd know how they acted, so we could probably...Actually, no, that probably wouldn't be too great of an idea since the actual Oy came through here just now. And if they compared us, it'd be pretty clear who was the real one."

"Hmmm...Well, I could probably send Arusuno to scout ahead if you think that might help. He doesn't have any markings on him, so he'll look just like a normal member of his species walking around..."

If Hina asked who or what Arusuno was, I would respond, still whispering, "Oh, that's right. You haven't met him yet. He's a summoning armadillo. He's nice, and very helpful."

If she wanted to use him to scout out the location from a closer point of view, I would sneak away to summon Arusuno to make sure it wouldn't alert either of the guards. Then, after I would explain to Arusuno his task, he would go close to the shack and around the area, and make his way back to report what he would have found.

Arusuno, for reference:

WC: 1061
Total WC: 2864

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