(May, year 54 AK)
Late at night the group reached the Shimazawa town and Kenichi led them to the inn where the rest of the merchant's group were waiting for them. The town was much smaller than Konoha, and as Yuta walked along its streets, he observed a few people walking here and there, the town looked desolate, since it was quite late at night.
Although it was the first time that Yuta visited any other settlement other than Konoha, and he was quite curious to see how other places would look like, but after following the road and actually entering the town, Yuta was left disappointed, since the town looked just like Konoha, but a smaller and cheaper version of it.
"Shisui-san, please wait here, I'll go inform boss of our arrival." Kenichi said as they entered an inn in the center of the town, then he left directly towards the second floor of the inn. It was quite late but there were still quite a lot of people there, eating and drinking, no one was bothered by some ninjas wearing headbands suddenly entered the inn.
"Might as well grab something to eat." Shisui said as he led the group to an empty table, and ordered some simple food and water, and as they started eating, Kenichi returned with another middle-aged man.
'That's the boss Kenichi mentioned? He looks older than Kenichi, but he somewhat resembles him, he is probably Kenichi's older brother or a father.' Yuta observed as Kenichi and the other man was walking in his direction, while chewing on one of the sandwiches they were served here, as apparently the kitchen was already closed for the night and that was all they had to offer.
"You are Shisui, the Jonin of the Leaf village, right?" The older man said as they approached the table, "My name is Taichi Oki, I'm the head merchant of the caravan." He said calmly, while he looked at Shisui and then at each of the Genins, then he sighed and sat down at the table without an invitation, while Kenichi remained standing.
"I sent Kenichi to hire ninjas for a C-rank escort mission, and I was expecting to get a Chunin-led squad of Genins for that price, but instead I've got a squad of kids led by Jonin, well, doesn't matter, as long as you, a Jonin, is here, I'm satisfied with this assignment." Taichi said calmly with a sigh. Hikari furrowed her brows after hearing that, while Itachi and Yuta stayed unbothered.
"My team was assigned to protect your caravan on its way from Shimazawa town to Degarashi Port in the Land of Tea, and that's what we intent to do." Shisui stated in a formal and emotionless tone, "When do you intend to move out?"
"Straight to business, huh? I like it. It's a pleasure doing business with a competent people, much unlike those ninjas that we hired while traveling through the Land of Rivers." Taichi said with a bitter expression.
"Oh, and who that might be, that you are talking about?" Shisui asked with a tinge of curiosity in his voice, but Yuta could tell that Shisui actually had raised his guard a little after hearing about "other ninjas".
"Just a little over a month ago, our caravan had traveled through the Land of Rivers, and we hired ninjas locally from Tanigakure to protect us at the time, although that wasn't a pleasant experience. When we were on route from one town to another, those ninjas stopped the caravan and demanded that we change the route and take a detour because of some rogue ninjas up ahead, or so they claimed. Because of that detour we were late by two days and had lost quite a lot of profits, can you imagine? Those incompetent ninjas from Tanigakure instead of protecting us, they were ordering us around!"
"Anyway, we will move out tomorrow early in the morning, I expect you to protect us well." Taichi said as he stood up and left with Kenichi.
"They don't take us seriously at all!" Hikari said angerly.
"Don't mind them." Shisui said as he changed his attitude from formal and emotionless to a casual one, "Civilians don't understand how we ninja operate, and they shouldn't, it's fine when they underestimate you, it won't change a thing, think only about your mission."
After that they rent a room for the night, and early in the morning, they went to the town's market and bought some food for the road, then returned and joined the merchants. It was a group of about twenty people, with horses and wagons, wagons were loaded with crates and sacks, and people walked alongside wagons instead of riding them as the caravan left the town and followed the road south, in the direction of the Land of Tea.
No one in the caravan had paid much attention to the ninjas accompanying them, and it seems like they are long being used to be escorted by some ninjas.
The caravan was only stopping at night and setting up tents for the night, only to resume moving early in the morning. Whenever they were passing by any small villages, they didn't stop at all, but in the past week of travel they stopped in two towns for one day in each town to do some business and resupply.
During this week of travel no one spoke to the Shisui or others, mostly ignoring them.
"Shisui-sensei." Yuta asked as they were following the caravan, "We are approaching the borders and we soon leave the Fire country, shouldn't we send someone to scout the area ahead of the caravan to spot any possible ambushes?"
"There is no need." Shisui replied, "If there is an ambush, we will be able to react in time and deal with it, and during the escort like that, the main force should always remain with the client, so I can only send ahead one of you guys, but if there is a formidable enemy there, that would be too dangerous to send you, and if the enemy is not that formidable – we will deal with them as they showed up, no need to scout for them ahead of time."
"That make sense." Yuta replied as he thought about it, while he thought, 'I wonder what count's as "formidable" in Shisui's understanding though...'
"This mission is boring, I wish someone to attack us already." Hikari complained, and a few merchants glared at her angerly as they overheard the conversation.
"I'm enjoying this peaceful mission just the way it is." Itachi said suddenly.
"Haha, I don't mind a peaceful mission like that either for a change." Shisui said and laughed a little.
"You two... Hey, Yuta, say something, I know you actually want something to happen so we would need to fight, right?" Hikari looked at Yuta demandingly.
"Don't look at me like that you brute, why are you always so battle-hungry?" Yuta replied with a scowl.
"I know you also would like a good fight, you can't fool me." Hikari said, "Don't tell me that you are one of those tsundere-types, who always hides their true feelings?"
"What? Where you even learned that word?" Yuta blurted out while being quite speechless.
"I read it in some story book back in the village."
"Read books? You? That's shocking. I thought all you do is throw punches."
"Oh yeah? You've got a death-wish or something? I could throw one of those punches right now since you are asking for it." Hikari said threateningly, while cracking her knuckles.
"Eh? Hey, we shouldn't fight in front of our client, that would be highly unprofessional, if we do that, we won't be allowed to go on higher rank mission in the future!" Yuta said quickly and loudly, totally without any fear or worry in his voice at all, even in the slightest.
"That's more like it." Hikari said, being visibly satisfied with Yuta's reaction, that wasn't being cowardly in the slightest.
After that they continued escorting the merchants.
After a few days the caravan crossed the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Tea, Yuta didn't see any outposts, or any other infrastructure along the border, it was just a road, and at some point there was less and less trees on the sides of the road and then the environment changed gradually into plains with occasional forests, rivers and lakes.
When the caravan approached the border, at some point Yuta sensed three ninjas chakra approaching the caravan during one of the times that Yuta concentrated on his chakra senses, since he was doing that with regular intervals to check his surroundings.
But as Yuta sensed the ninjas and was about to signal to Shisui, Shisui said, "Don't worry, it's Konoha's patrol, I'll go chat with them, you guys stay here."
As Shisui said that, he left and then returned after a few minutes.
The days were passing by, and finally, after a long three weeks of journey, the caravan finally approached the big town, the Degarashi Port.
As the caravan approached the town's entrance, Taichi came to them and said, "The caravan is already entering the town, so your mission is over. I wish you a safe journey." And although Taichi looked friendly and grateful, Yuta was able to notice that Taichi was actually hiding his true feelings, it was like he hated them for some reason.
"Thank you, Taichi, we will take our leave then." Shisui replied in a formal tone and led the group in the way they came from.
"Is it over just like that?" Hikari asked with some discontent as they walked some distance away from the merchants.
"Yes, our mission is over, now we return to the village, and we will be moving fast this time." Shisui replied.
"Why did he hate us?" Itachi asked suddenly with a puzzled expression.
"Taichi?" Shisui replied, "He doesn't hate us, he just didn't like that he has to pay so much money to ninjas for protection, that's all."
"But it was just C-rank mission, it wasn't that much money, right?" Itachi said.
"To us it might be not that much, but to a group of merchants who has to travel around the world to buy and sell stuff to make profits, it is quite a lot of money to be paid frequently if they don't want to get in trouble during their travels." Shisui explained, "In his point of view, he paid a significant chunk of his profits that he is going to make on this trip, and all of that was just so we will accompany his caravan, and we didn't even have to work to earn that money."
"I see." Itachi said thoughtfully.
"Ninja missions not always require you to fight and risk your life, in fact, majority of the missions is like that, the routine of escorts, patrols and things like that, and while it might seems boring, someone has to do it, and there is always a possibility that something goes wrong at any point, so you must stay on guard all the time."
"Yes Shisui-sensei." The three Genins replied, one thoughtfully, one neutrally, and one being dissatisfied.
"Now, let's pick up the pace." Shisui said and the team starts running fast on their way back to the village.
--- AN ---
Did you expect something big to happen during the mission? Well, not this time. This chapter and the part of the previous one is more about world building and about shinobi missions' routine and a little slice-of-life, I hope you won't be against that kind of stuff from time to time.
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Thanks to Loalola, Krishna_Razz and Eyes_Of_The_Void for the power stones.