"Code name?"
For once, Shinji was stumped by Shion's question.
Shion furrowed her brows. "You haven't even thought of a code name? Shinji, you're not brushing me off again, are you?"
Shinji shook his head. "Our organization is very special. The members don't know one another's true identities, and most of them act alone or in pairs, so we haven't settled on official code names yet."
That was certainly true.
Shinji had no intention of telling Shion the real identities of the other members.
Just imagine: if Shion found out that her classmates at the Ninja Academy—the likes of Karin, Haku, Neji, Sasuke, Yakumo, and Kimimaro, all people she saw nearly every day—were members of the same organization as her, how could someone with her personality possibly keep it a secret?
Shion stared at Shinji suspiciously. "Isn't your code name 'A'?"
"Heh." Shinji smiled. "Those are code names the village assigned to us on its own, to tell us apart!"
Shion pouted. "But I should at least have a code name!"
Shinji lowered his head and began to think.
Aside from Karin and Haku, he had recruited the others with the intention of using them, so he hadn't given the question of code names much thought.
Now that the organization he had formed was growing in size and its membership was becoming more complicated, he realized that they really did need official code names to use when addressing one another.
"ABC..."
After mulling it over, Shinji realized there was nothing wrong with simply using the provisional code names the village had given them.
These purely alphabetical code names revealed no information beyond the order of the members. They were far more low-key and practical than the grandiose names he could come up with himself.
And so Shinji quietly decided to