NOVPUB
313 Push Comes To Shove
Yui perked up when another customer entered the business front at the edge of the Senju Clan Compound. Most of them usually browsed and looked at all the pictures of the houses and enjoyed taking the different levels off of the tiny models Naruto had made to show off the completed projects.
Everyone loved the Fire Daimyo's mansion the most and a few people had inquired if it was for sale. It was free money, so Yui easily convinced Naruto to put a price on it and they sold 15 of them, even though they were fairly huge. They were quite nice, especially with the tiny landscaping being fully accurate.
“Can I help you with anything?” Yui asked the woman wearing a trenchcoat, skirt, and chainmail shirt. She didn't ask why the woman liked having her nipples out on display like that, since some ninjas compensated for their lifestyle in weird ways.
“That depends on if you travel with the company when making deliveries and doing jobs.” Anko Mitarashi answered.
Yui hit the panic button under her desk with her toe and felt grateful that Naruto had installed it. “I'm not allowed to divulge that information.”
Anko sighed at having to do things the hard way and started to lift her hand to summon a snake, only for her wrist to be caught in a vice-like grip. She didn't startle at the sudden appearance of someone else, even if she hadn't felt anyone else around her.
“I hope you are not about to attack our beloved employee for no reason.” Tsuru said and her grip tightened slightly.
Anko didn't wince at the pressure that was sure to bruise her skin. She had felt much worse from training hard and what she went through under Orochimaru's experimentation. “I was only going to scare her a bit with a snake summon.”
“Why?” Tsuru asked and squeezed a little harder.
Anko did wince this time, because she felt like her wrist was about to be broken. “I need information and she has it.”
*SNAP!*
“AHH!” Anko gasped and Tsuru let her broken wrist go.
“How dare you come here to a Clan Compound to threaten a civilian that lives here.” Tsuru said and glared at her. “Are you under orders or are you just playing around for fun?”
Anko resented that implication. She had never tormented any civilians for fun. “You're heading to the Land of Wind to meet with the Kazekage.”
Tsuru gained a knowing look. “I see. The old man can't keep his nose out of other people's business.”
Anko couldn't refute that, so she stayed silent. She also didn't cradle her broken wrist.
“I suppose you're going to try and follow us when we leave, that way people will associate you with my company?” Tsuru asked and Anko didn't respond. “Is the old man really expecting that to work? Everyone knows we don't hire shinobi because we want no affiliation with any faction. It's on the first page of our brochure that we hold no bias against anyone.”
Anko did not know that and was surprised when Tsuru handed her the professionally made brochure. She read it and it really did have that disclaimer.
“Despite living in Konoha, we have nothing to do with the Hokage or his shinobi.” Tsuru informed her. “Mind you, we have surveyed many buildings, including the Hokage Tower and the Hokage Residence, as well as the academy and both the civilian and shinobi libraries. Not surprisingly, our offers to renovate them have been politely rejected.”
“Why?” Anko asked, because that would have been a great way to get someone inserted into the company or to make friends with them and tag along. She wouldn't have had to confront them directly at all.
“I can only assume it's because of the sensitive nature of the things inside.” Tsuru said with a chuckle. “If they had read the brochure, it's on the second page that everything is either covered for protection or packed up for storage before the construction work begins.”
Anko used her thumb to flip the brochure open and it was right at the top, with pictures as proof.
“That's the Fire Daimyo's private library.” Tsuru said, a little proudly. “He said we could use it and show everyone what he has and what we did to make it better.”
Anko looked at the pictures and read the description, detailing how they installed sliding ladders to make reaching the upper shelves easy and safe. They had also made specific shelves for the various scrolls to be easily handled without damaging them.
“You can take that back to the Hokage and tell him we won't be hiring guards for the caravan.” Tsuru said and waved at the door. “We also don't need you around to cause us trouble.”
Anko held up her broken wrist with a smile. “You already did that.”
“Akiko!” Yui shouted and her best friend came out of the back room. “We have a broken wrist that needs taking care of.”
“No problem.” Akiko said and walked over to Anko, whom stepped back. “I took my oaths.”
Anko thought about refusing, just so she could use it as an excuse to come back with reinforcements. Then again, just this encounter would be enough to have a group of ANBU here to take the place apart for hurting her. Maybe that was what the Hokage was after?
With a sigh, Anko held out her arm with the floppy hand attached. Akiko carefully examined it and nodded at Tsuru, impressed at the dislocation instead of shattering the bones. A quick healing jutsu later, she wrapped the wrist in a bandage.
“No heavy lifting or fancy hand signs until it sets properly.” Akiko warned.
“How long until I get the use back?” Anko asked.
“Tomorrow afternoon, as long as you don't aggravate it. If you do, you'll need another jutsu for reinforcement and it'll take another day for it to finish healing.” Akiko told her.
Anko nodded and stepped back, giving her enough space in case anything else happened, and then she turned around and went to the door. She stopped walking when a fairly tall 8 year old blond boy opened the door from the outside and stepped inside.
“You could have just asked for what you wanted to know.” He said and held the door for her. “If you had approached us as a friend, we would have accepted you without question. You didn't have to make us into an enemy.”
“I didn't...” Anko started to say.
“Anyone that tries to attack us is an enemy.” He cut her off. “Don't worry, though. Your pay for this mission was already deposited into your account.”
Anko stared at him and didn't know what to say. How did he know that?
“Good luck with the Chunin Exams.” He said and put a hand on her back and pushed her out through the open door.
Anko stumbled at the hard shove and caught herself before she fell. She turned to shout at the boy for pushing her and froze. As she looked back through the glass door, see saw that the place was completely empty and the lights were off. That was when she realized she had been played with from the very start and had probably been caught in a Genjutsu.
“Dammit.” Anko whispered and walked away.
As she did so, she went over her actions and admitted to herself that she had gone in there with the intention to hurt someone to get the information she needed. Anko hadn't once thought she could become friends with them and just ask for what she wanted, which annoyed her, because she hadn't even tried to be a customer as a cover. Her own confrontational attitude had doomed her right from the start.
It didn't take Anko long to return to the Hokage Tower and reported her failure to the secretary. She didn't bother asking to see the Hokage and handed the brochure over to the secretary to give to the old man.
With the first half of her job done, she returned to her apartment and finished working on the plans to give some final lessons to the hopeful Genin students that wanted to pass the Chunin exams. They would be completed on the trip to the desert where the shinobi village of Suna was located in the Land of Wind. She was not looking forward to the blistering heat and sweating all the time.
*
“Do you think she'll come back?” Yui asked as we all walked back to the house.
“Not until after the Chunin exams.” I said. “She is just barely accepting that it was her own fault for how this turned out.”
Yui gave me a brief hug before Akiko put an arm over her shoulders.
“We can expect a group of ANBU to excessively search the business in about twenty minutes.” Tsuru said, which was why she had ushered us out of there so quickly.
“You mean they're going to wreck the place?” I asked and she nodded. “You have been wanting to redesign it since we added the huge palace model display.”
Tsuru softly chuckled and hugged me with one arm. “I told you it's in the way where it is. It should be in an alcove off to the side below the posters.”
“Like a shrine?” I asked and she nodded again. “We'll have to take a picture and send it to the Daimyo's wife. She'll love that a model of their home has a place of prominence, too.”
“That she will.” Tsuru said and kissed my cheek.
“Are we actually using a caravan to travel to the Land of Wind?” Akiko asked as Yui opened the front door of the house for her.
“Only if you all want to enjoy a nice relaxing trip across hostile territory as we travel from the Hidden Leaf Village to the Hidden Sand Village through the Land of River.” I said with a sarcastic tone.
“If we could go in a straight line, it's only 250 miles.” Tsuru said with a laugh. “We could divert through the Land of Rain instead and make the trip even more interesting.”
“That would double the trip to 500 miles.” I countered. “However, I don't think anyone that ever made a road here knows what a straight line is.”
That made the three women laugh and we went to the hidden teleportation circle. Akiko activated it and we appeared in the underground base.
“We'll gather the supplies we need to load into the large cart and I'll scout out some good locations to stop. We can give the horses a break by only teleporting short distances and easing their load.” I said and went to the kitchen to start making lunch.
“Setting up relay stations is a great idea, Naruto.” Yui said and sat with the other two women at the kitchen table. “We could offer quicker shipping times at reasonable rates.”
“We could also guarantee delivery if the money's paid upfront.” Tsuru said. “Or maybe half on pick-up and the other half on delivery.”
“We'd have to work out the proper travel times and cut them in half.” Yui said. “We can't be faster than their ability to send word, no matter how they send it.”
“You're thinking a letter and not a phone call?” Akiko asked.
“Letters are light and a man on a fast horse can deliver things pretty quickly if he paces himself and the horse.” Yui answered.
“That's a good point.” Tsuru said and looked thoughtful. “We'll have to be careful about not cutting into anyone else's business.”
I finished making the sandwiches and brought them over to the table. “You're worried about Gato's monopoly in the Land of Water?”
“He does have the largest shipping business in the Elemental Nations.” Tsuru said and accepted a sandwich.
“He's also an asshole and treats his people like slaves.” I said and went to the refrigerator to grab drinks for everyone. “I haven't had the chance to visit and put down a teleportation circle near the Hidden Mist Village.”
“We have been surprisingly busy with actual work after the Daimyo's enthusiastic endorsement.” Yui said. “But, I thought Gato's base was in Wave, not in Water Country.”
“It is.” I said and put their drinks on front of them and sat down to eat my own sandwich. “I'm not going to waste a teleportation circle for a small island that can be easily reached by boat or have a bridge built.”
“Oh, we should do that!” Yui exclaimed. “If we can prove a bridge can work where only boats have been used, we'll open a whole new market for ourselves.”
“Lots of people know how to build bridges.” Tsuru said. “We have a pile of them here in the Land of Fire that cross ravines and large crevasses.”
“Yes, we do.” Yui said and smirked at her. “How many of them have you crossed and wondered what idiot built them?”
Akiko made a snort sound and laughed. “That's so true!”
Tsuru smiled as well. “You're right. I have thought that nearly every time I crossed one.”
“There should be plenty of time in our schedule after the Suna job to come back here and check Wave out.” Yui said as she thought about it. “The Kazekage doesn't want a full renovation, just an update.”
“We can scout out some good places for a permanent teleportation circle once we're there in Suna. The facade of the palace should be done in a week or two, well before the Chunin exams are over. ” I said in agreement. “I'll draw up a few bridge designs and we can compare them to see which ones will fit the distance the best without screwing up the shipping lanes around the area.”
The three women looked quite happy about that and we ate our lunch. We chatted about the upcoming trip and how long we would pretend to be travelling before showing up in Suna as I made teleportation circles along the way.
After an hour, which was quite a long lunch, we returned to the business near the edge of the Senju Clan compound and saw the building was trashed, inside and out. We took pictures of everything, then included the pictures taken from the security cameras that were hidden inside and out.
“They had a lot of fun wrecking the place, didn't they?” Yui said and kicked the remains of her desk. “At least they didn't light the place on fire.”
“That would have been too far past their normal operating procedures.” Tsuru said. “This was a lesson to be learned, since it's all easily replaced. They aren't trying to force us to shut down, just to be more careful with how we treat the shinobi of the village.”
I stiffened at her words and gave her a very pointed look.
“Oh.” Tsuru said and pulled me into a hug. “That's just evil.” She said and nuzzled my neck. “Let's do it.”
“Do what?” Yui asked and tried to not blush as she stared at Tsuru making me squirm.
“Shut the business down.” I said and Yui and Akiko gasped. “We gather up the evidence, leave all of this the way it is, and send it off with a complaint to the Daimyo's wife that the Konoha ANBU destroyed the shrine to her model home and ruined our business.”
“That... that really is evil.” Yui said and then smiled. “I agree, let's do it and leave early for Suna.”
“Our last big job!” Akiko said and let out a little cheer. “Let's really stick it to the Hokage!”
“We really should.” Tsuru said and gave me a sexy look. “We should send her a copy of everything and show her the ANBU and the Hokage have been screwing people over for years and encouraging how they treat Naruto whenever he shows his face.”
I grinned at her and the four of us left the ruined business behind us as we went back home to get ready for the rushed trip. The sooner we left, and told everyone around us the reason why we were leaving early, the sooner we could get the information to the right person. With luck, she would take care of everything before we came back.
