Spoiler:

Harue looked at the blueprints in her hands. It was a fairly interesting piece of work, especially the demarcation of the plots of land between two rather influential families in Iwagakure, whose recent row over where exactly the property line fell had sparked enough of a commotion that ninja had been contracted to ensure that these blueprints were delivered to the families, so that their issue could be resolved peacefully and civilly.

Even as she walked down the streets of Iwagakure, Harue noted with slight worry that she was still a missing-nin. She was unaware how the ninja of Iwagakure treated missing-nin from other villages, much less Konohagakure, but hitherto she had yet to be accosted by any officials, ninja or otherwise, so until then she would assume that she was given as much free reign in the village as if she were a Ronin, a wandering ninja.

She certainly felt like one. Accepting a mission in a foreign land brought a lot of unease to her, especially with the lack of familiarity with the place. While she had felt similarly upon arriving first at Konoha, she now had to look behind her shoulder, and avoid doing so at far too frequent intervals which would suggest suspicion. It was difficult, but Harue had made her decision, and regret it or not, she couldn’t change her circumstances now.

What made it worse was the fact that she was in Iwagakure of all places. She didn’t like Iwagakure. Memories from half a decade ago of slavers who had once been a part of this hidden village had tainted the reputation of this village in her eyes, and every time she saw the symbol of Iwa proudly presented on any ninja establishment, she couldn’t help but fight down the emotions that threatened to make themselves known when she recalled how six out of seven orphans who were kidnapped, whose lives had already been pitiful, had been sold off as slaves on the black market, with their fate now unknown to anyone.

Harue rationed with herself that Iwagakure was as good a place as any to begin her investigations into the location of these slavers, even if she was five years too cold on their trail, and that was assuming they hadn’t been on the run from Iwa. However, she could recall some of their faces with immense clarity, a side effect of the trauma that had terrorised her in the nights following the dawn of Takara’s failure to retrieve all but one of the kidnapped children. It had been the defining moment in her life when she had realised that Takara, for all his skills, was not omnipotent, and for all his invincibility, she was further reminded of his mortality when fate had stolen her third parent from her within seven years.

As she was reminiscing, she barely took note of the small blur that sped towards her, assuming it was a child who was playing the game of ninja tag with his Academy peers. She had passed by a few of those recently, but it wasn’t when she felt the slight tug of her right hand – the same hand holding onto the blueprints that were the cornerstone of her mission – that she realised he was in fact not a simple Academy student, but rather a thief.

Sparing only half a second to come to this conclusion and turn to look at the figure, who she determined from his stature even as he ran to be a male who still attended the Academy if his size was any indication, she sped off after him. While she wasn’t overly so, she was definitely faster than him, if her gaining on him was any indication, and it seemed that he too realised this when he looked back at her with his baby-ish face, one so young, adorable, and full of baby fat that Harue almost stopped in her tracks to gawk at his child-like appearance, before the reality that he was also the thief spurred her on to continue sprinting after him.

He turned a tight corner, and Harue realised that slowing down would cost her dearly in building her momentum back up. As such, instead of stopping, she merely angled herself so she would slam into one of the walls, before she jumped at the last moment and her feet landed on the wall itself, using it to propel her off to the opposite wall at a more relaxed angle, before she rebounded off of that to continue the chase down the street, now catching up to the boy who was looking frantically behind his shoulder at the sight of the woman whom he had underestimated.

It was with a final burst of speed that she sped past him, the blueprint vanishing from his hand as her blur sped past him, and in his shock he fell and tumbled straight into her. He looked up at her with wide eyes full of fear, and she couldn’t help the strong pang of guilt at having scared such a young child to such a state. She bent down, noting how he shrank back in fright, before she patted him on the head affectionately, causing him to calm down slightly.

“Why were you stealing this?” she asked, but he refused to comment. Taking a closer look at him, she recognised him from the picture of Rudaku family, one of the two families who were arguing over the plot of land that they shared with the Uchaka family. “You’re from the Rudaku, aren’t you?”

Still no response from the boy, and Harue stood up, confused. Why would the Rudaka member try to steal the blueprint? All worry was lost from her mind about her status as a missing-nin. Instead, adrenaline coursing through her veins from the quick run and the notion of a mystery. Was there foul play involved? It certainly seemed that way, but there could have been more underlying the situation, especially due to her lack of knowledge of the politics ongoing between the two families, and within each family itself.

“Come on, let’s get this to your family,” she said, hoping that she would be there in case anything happened to the boy.

The trip to the two families’ estates didn’t take much longer, and while Harue had hoped to stick around to make sure he didn’t get into any form of trouble, her presence was ultimately dismissed by the two families, who retreated behind closed doors. All Harue could hope for was the best, as she retreated from the scene.

[Exit thread]