Guesswork

Guesswork

After leaving the Wasabi Clan, Shuji noticed someone following him in secret.

He did not mind. He simply wandered around the city, stopping before several shops and chatting with stall owners about market prices. Then he found a streetside teahouse, ordered a pot of coarse local tea and several cloyingly sweet rice cakes. The tea was bitter, and the rice cakes stuck to his teeth. Neither tasted remarkable, but the scraps of information revealed in conversation silently confirmed that Jirocho had not been lying—the resentment the Tea Mountain Gang members had accumulated over the past half month after putting on the guise of guards was like smoldering charcoal, needing only a single spark.

By the time Shuji returned to the Sea Breeze Pavilion, night had fallen. Hongshan Cheng was pleasantly surprised. After chatting with him briefly, Shuji returned to his room.

"Back already, Captain?" The purple-haired kunoichi knocked on the door and stood in the doorway, raising two fingers to tap lightly at her temple in a playful greeting. "Was the Wasabi Clan's information not interesting enough?"

Shuji raised his eyes to Anko.

She grinned. "I found something..."

Shuji smiled. "Then I'll have to trouble Lady Anko to tell me about it."

"While you were at the Wasabi Clan, Captain, a shipment of weapons arrived at the docks. I checked them out. They were ninja tools," Anko said. "Kunai, shuriken, and some protective gear."

"Do you know where they were being sent?" Shuji asked, growing serious.

"I already sent Itachi to investigate."

Itachi was young, and without his forehead protector, he would not attract attention. She, on the other hand, stood out too much. Say what one would, Anko was quite pretty, and in a place like the docks, she would draw even more notice.

So, after confirming that the cargo consisted of ninja tools, she immediately notified Itachi.

Itachi returned at that moment as well.

"Senior Shuji, Senior Anko." Uchiha Itachi was, as always, very polite. "I have investigated it. Everything was sent to Naqi Island. Apparently, Naqi Island has been secretly purchasing ninja tools throughout this month."

Shuji asked again, "Has anything happened to Mr. Hongshan's cargo?"

"No. I watched all afternoon. Those guards kept sneaking glances around, but their attention was on us. They seemed to have lost interest in the cloth merchant's shipment."

"I see..." Shuji then told the two of them about the information he had gained from his conversation with Wasabi Jirocho. Naturally, he omitted Tsunade's involvement and merely said that Jirocho had hired capable people, so there was no need to worry about safety.

After Shuji finished, all three of them looked thoughtful.

"Shuji." Anko furrowed her brow slightly. "The Tea Mountain Gang has gone mad with greed, the Black Erosion Corps comes and goes like ghosts, and Naqi Island is secretly buying ninja tools... These things are like pearls scattered across the ground. It feels like they can be strung together, but where's the thread?"

"The one connected to the Black Erosion Corps should be Beast Soldier Guard," Itachi said.

At that moment, Hongshan Cheng came upstairs and said that dinner had been arranged. Shuji looked up and glanced at Anko.

"Got it, got it!" Anko immediately understood. With an exaggerated sigh, she stood up and casually patted Itachi on the shoulder. "Come on, kid. Go help that unlucky cloth merchant carry the dishes, so he doesn't keep pulling a long face and ruin everyone's appetite."

Itachi silently rose and followed Anko out of the room. The door closed softly behind them, shutting out the sounds outside.

Shuji was left alone in the room. He rose, walked to the window, and pushed open the wooden shutters. The evening breeze rushed in, stirring the hair before his forehead.

Kunai and shuriken were called ninja tools precisely because ordinary people generally did not use them. Even for ninja, blades were often more direct and lethal in close combat—the standard equipment of Anbu members was proof enough.

Ordinary forces, unless they belonged to a shinobi village system, rarely purchased such specialized weapons on this scale.

Combined with the Tea Mountain Gang's undisguised money-grabbing ever since taking office, it was clear that they desperately needed money. And it was not entirely because of a bandit's nature or anything like that. They had another purpose. Their greater interest in ninja was enough to confirm it.

The door opened, and a lodge attendant entered carrying a tray. Dinner was typical harbor fare: a large bowl of milky white, thick fish stew with bright green chopped scallions floating on the surface; a plate of small sea fish fried golden and crisp; and the inn's specialty fish paste cakes, white and springy, dotted with bits of red pepper. Hongshan Cheng had also prepared a plate of sliced seasonal fruit for the ninja.

"No problems?" Shuji asked casually as he took his seat.

"No problems." Anko efficiently helped set out the bowls and chopsticks, while Itachi quietly placed the fruit plate in the middle.

Shuji's gaze swept over the fragrant food on the table. "Once the mission is over, we'll find a chance to try the local specialties."

"When the time comes, I'm going to make the Captain treat me to a huge meal." Anko's eyes lit up, utterly unabashed.

The lodge cook was not bad. The fish was fresh, and the heat had been handled just right. By the end of the meal, Shuji had developed a better impression of Chujie Port and decided that once the mission was complete, he would definitely stay a few days to properly experience the local sights and customs—provided, of course, that the mess before them could be untangled smoothly.

After the meal, the bowls and dishes were cleared away.

"Let me explain my guess," Shuji said. His voice was especially clear in the quiet room. "The Black Erosion Corps likely intends to establish a shinobi village of their own in the Land of Tea. The Tea Mountain Gang is the force they support."

"A shinobi village?!" Anko nearly choked on her saliva, her eyes widening round. "Just a few rogue ninja? What kind of joke is that?!"

Even Uchiha Itachi showed a flash of undisguised surprise.

"This is not without precedent." Shuji's tone was calm, as though he were stating an objective fact. "The Shinobi World does not contain only the Five Great Shinobi Villages. Many smaller countries have their own shinobi villages. As long as core interests are not touched, the Five Great Nations neither have the desire nor the ability to completely eliminate every small shinobi village. After all," he paused, his gaze passing over the two of them, "when a great war breaks out, the major nations are too occupied to look after themselves, and commissions outside their spheres of influence naturally become a vacuum. Yet the needs of the powerful in smaller nations do not disappear because of that. If an emergency arises and they have no armed force at their side to command, their security cannot be guaranteed. Forming a ninja force controlled by their own country, or at least rooted within it, becomes a practical choice."

"But... but," Anko still found it hard to believe, "what about Guardian Ninja? Can't the Feudal Lord recruit powerful ninja as his personal guards? Isn't that the same thing?"

"The nature is different." Shuji shook his head. "Guardian Ninja are private soldiers. They depend on individual authority and can easily be swept into political turmoil, turning against their masters. A shinobi village," he emphasized the term, "is an institutionalized entity. It has legitimate status and receives financial subsidies to maintain operations. A shinobi village's scope of action and rules have relatively clear boundaries and consensus from the moment it is established."

"Besides, after thinking it over, this is the only possibility that explains why the Land of Tea has ignored the Tea Mountain Gang's actions in Chujie Port."

Anko opened her mouth as if she wanted to argue, but could not find a stronger point. In the end, she merely scratched her hair irritably.

"Then... Shuji, what do we do next?" She looked at him. "Get this unlucky Hongshan's cargo onto the ship first, then immediately return to the village and report? Let the old man and the others worry about it?"

Rather than answer directly, Shuji took from his robes the Mission Scroll personally handed to him by Hiruzen Sarutobi, marked with an "A," and gently placed it on the table. The dark scroll glinted with a cold, hard sheen beneath the lamplight.

"The village," Shuji said, tapping the scroll with one finger and calmly meeting Anko and Itachi's eyes, "has already given us authority, and it has already shown its inclination."

Drive out, or eliminate, the Black Erosion Corps.

From the Land of Tea's own perspective, having a shinobi village rooted in its territory would naturally be a good thing. Resources had to be directed somewhere. Giving them to one of their own, someone who could prioritize their interests, seemed more worthwhile.

But from Konoha's perspective, it was another matter entirely. The small shinobi villages established around the same time as the Five Great Shinobi Villages were either too far away, or Konoha had lacked sufficient manpower during its early years. The Land of Fire's generous mission quotas and funding had already been enough to handle.

But times had changed. The village had thousands of ninja on its rolls, and their numbers continued to grow even in peacetime. The Land of Tea, a territory Konoha regarded as a stable source of missions, would never be handed over to someone else unless they had no other choice.

The night wind poured through the open window, carrying the harbor's distinctive chill and lifting the edge of the scroll at the corner of the table. In the lamplight, the shadows of the three stretched across the wall, still and silent.

(End of Chapter)