"Thank you all for coming." A well dressed older gentleman with round glasses greets the six of us. "My name is Sandayu Asama, I welcome you all to call me Sandayu."
"That's nice." I tug my arm. It's still firmly looped together with Ino's. "Can you let me go now? I promise to give you the clothes, you don't have to hold me hostage."
"Nope! You'll just have to suffer." Ino rebukes my request without batting an eyelash. She's enjoying this too much.
"Ah how cute." Sandayu says to himself. "Anyways, this is Yukie Fujikaze. The actress you all will be escorting."
Sandayu graciously gestures to her. She's dressed for her role as a princess, an elegant robe with lavish details. She herself has long black hair that's swept on each side of her face and light blue eyes. And she's scowling at us.
That's weird, didn't she hire the Konoha shinobi to escort her?
"Or I could pay you all now and send you on your way." She condescendingly scoffs out. "I do not even want to be here, I am sure you all feel the same way."
Okay this is very weird. What kind of a person hires shinobi then tries to send them away early?
"Sorry Princess." Kakashi apologizes to the actress. "But we've been over this already. Sandayu hired us to protect you, only he can terminate the mission early. You can offer us all the money in the world but our honor as Konoha shinobi won't let us accept it."
"Tch." Yukie turns her head away from us and crosses her arms in disgust.
Ah. That clears that up. I've got to keep this chick alive. It's going to suck. "I hate you Shikamaru. I hate you so much."
"Now you know how I felt." He's been waiting for this for so long. The smug look on his face is annoying, he's lucky Ino has me trapped or I'd wipe it off his stupid face! "Sorry about him, he doesn't want to be here either. My name is Shikamaru Nara, I am the leader for this mission."
"We've already met, Kakashi Hatake at your service." Kakashi does his little half wave of introduction. "Sorry about the genjutsu. Had to get you on the ship somehow."
"Hi!" Naruto beams at Yukie. "Naruto Uzumaki! I'm a huge fan! Can I have an autograph? I didn't get a chance to ask you when we first met."
"No." Yukie barely takes the time to glance at him. "I do not do autographs."
"Aw. Darn." Naruto wilts.
"Anko Mitarashi." That's all Anko takes the time to say. For some strange reason she keeps glancing at Ino and I with a weird look about her.
"Ino Yamanaka." Ino daintily dips her head in acknowledgement of Yukie. "Pleasure to meet you."
A long silence falls among us. It lasts for a good minute.
Everyone turns to look at me.
"What?" I question the odd looks.
"You're not going to introduce yourself?" Shikamaru asks.
"Hell no." I snort out in mild amusement. "I'm not here as one of your underlings Shikamaru, I'm just some dude that owed you a favor. We agreed that all I have to do is keep miss doesn't-want-to-be-here alive. That's all I'm going to do."
"I'll pay you triple what he is if you get me out of here." Yukie boldly offer me in front of everyone else. "Triple."
"Sorry, for some ungodly reason I have a sense of honor." I point at Shikamaru with my free arm. "He called in a favor, I'm doing this for him. Not you. You don't mean jack shit to me."
"Alvarcus!" Kakashi attempts to reprimand me. "That's not how you talk to who you're protecting!"
"Oh shut up. I'm not your underling either." I turn my gaze onto my former sensei. "I agreed to keep her alive. I did not agree to care about her, become her friend, have deep and meaningful life changing conversations with her, or enjoy being in her presence. I'm forced to be here because I'm just a big softie that won't go back on my word! At the best I'm going to act as an over glorified meat shield. I am solely on defense. Defense just for her. That's it."
Another silence falls over us for a long minute. But this one isn't awkward, it's a stunned silence.
"Well… technically he's not wrong." Shikamaru regretfully admits. "That is all we agreed on."
"Why do you make everything so difficult?" Ino demands without expecting an answer. "His name is Alvarcus Mar. If he won't tell you then I will."
"Dammit Ino." I groan out in defeat. "Why did you do that? Now they know whose name to scream when a kunai is flying at her. Do you have any idea how annoying that is?"
"Not as annoying as you being stubborn." Ino sends me a glare. "I can guarantee you that."
"Wow." Naruto says out of the corner of his mouth to Shikamaru. "We're lucky we brought her along if she can keep Alvarcus in line."
"No shit." Shikamaru agrees. "I thought this would be like old times, he's fighting this tooth and nail. We really are lucky."
"Believe me." Anko happily inserts herself into their side conversation. "I'll be doing everything in my power to make sure Ino gets lucky too."
Ino flushes crimson and immediately let's go of my arm.
"Right." I shoot her a questioning look and she turns away from me. "I'm going to ignore whatever the hell that was supposed to mean and use this brilliant opportunity to flee like someone who would rather be anywhere but here. Oh wait, that's exactly what I am right now. Bye!"
I sprint out the door and slam it closed behind me.
"Dammit!" Ino stomps her foot. "Anko you made me lose him! How am I supposed to corner him again like that! And he still owes me those clothes!"
"Not my fault you let him go!" Anko let's out a hearty laugh. "Don't worry Honey, I'll think of something for you."
"No! No! Absolutely not!" Ino's tone change from one of anger to fear in an instant.
"Okay… so… yeah." Shikamaru awkwardly turns back to Yukie and Sandayu. "We're actually very skilled. Anko and Kakashi are both jounin. Hell Kakashi is one of the best Konoha has to offer. I'm a chunin and it has been said that I'm the smartest of my generation. Though I have been feeling pretty dumb today. Naruto here is being trained by one of the Legendary Sannin so you won't have to worry about him at all. And Ino is like a delicate flower, at first all you see is the pretty rose petals but then you realize too late that the flower has thorns. So there's no need to worry! You're in good hands I promise!"
"And what of… Alvarcus?" Sandayu asks. He's had a hard time taking in all of this. Half of them aren't even acting professional. But isn't that a good thing? They're all that confident in their skills that an escort mission isn't something to worry about? That's what he's hoping at least.
"He's strong." Shikamaru assures the client and Yukie. "Probably only Anko and Kakashi are better than him."
"Actually it's probably just me." Kakashi cuts in. "Anko may have landed a blow on him but Alvarcus didn't fight anywhere near his maximum capacity. He's good at taijutsu, to stand on even ground with a jounin - special jounin or not - is not something that's easy to do, but it's ninjutsu that he truly excels at. I think that I might be hard pressed to win a battle with him if he truly went all out. Even then it's only because I know him so well, I hate to admit it but he could simply outlast me. That kid is a stamina freak."
"Hear that Ino?" Anko suggestively wags her eyebrows. "Stamina freak."
"Shut up!" Ino shouts at the older kunoichi.
"Consider my worries abated!" Sandayu claps his hands together with a pleasant smile on his face. "We leave ourselves in your care."
"Speak for yourself." Yukie mutters under her breath. Every shinobi heard it, Yukie underestimated just how finely tuned shinobi senses are.
But none of the shinobi call her out on it.
"Well then!" Sandayu continues speaking pleasantly. "We should be setting sail soon. This is all so exciting!"
"Yeah." Shikamaru doesn't return anywhere near the same energy level Sandayu has. "We will leave you alone for now. When we get closer to Snow we'll step up our presence around you."
The rest of the shinobi leave the room, it's just Yukie and Sandayu left.
"Why are you so insistent that I go back there?" Yukie rounds on her manager. "You and I both know there's nothing left for me there! Nothing!"
"I am hoping that you will find something there." Sandayu softly speaks her. "Something that you've lost a very long time ago."
"And what is it? What is this mysterious thing I'm supposed to find?" Yukie angrily asks, showing more emotion in this one moment than she has all week.
...
Guys, I seriously need your Power Stones :(
The story still hasn't reached the rankings in 8 months, so every single stone really helps.
...
if you want to read ahead of the public release you can join my p atreon :
p atreon.com/CarriePoppins