Chapter 19
Yahiko was assured that it wasn't a circus. But it sure felt like that with his fellow caravan members displaying their skills, juggling knives and torches while dancing at the same time. Still, since they told him it wasn't a circus, he believed them, and that's why he was one of them doing the same thing.
Their performance, no matter how good it was, didn't attract much attention. At most, they got only glances, and it was simply because they were three not very good-looking men who performed. Yahiko was sure that if they were women in revealing clothing, they would get far more people watching them.
But Yahiko knew that aside from women, people loved to see children perform something that even adults had a hard time doing. Though Yahiko didn't know how to dance, flipping a few things between his hands wasn't very difficult after all the training he had done with Jiraiya.
And he got even more attention for himself by walking on a tightrope while juggling a bunch of knives and burning torches. He became the center of the performance as the three men danced around him and threw more and more things for him to juggle.
If nothing else, Yahiko sure earned quite a bit of money. Since his performance attracted everyone, from children to the elderly, women and men alike, the tips were generous in this prosperous town.
"Great job, Yahiko." He was slapped three times on his back as the original performers were more than happy with the yield of money they got. "Take some extra from us too, buy some candy for your friends with it."
They didn't even try to swindle Yahiko out of his money. Every tip he earned, he kept, and they even gave him a portion of their money, too. Yahiko couldn't remember the last time someone gave him money with a smile on their face. Weird, since he had never borrowed any money in either of his lives.
After their performance, the singers came in next. Maybe it was because the singers were two pretty girls, or maybe because of their talent, the crowd that had gathered for the performance didn't disperse as they sang and used various musical instruments.
At the end of the day, all the caravan members were happy with what they earned at the camp just outside the town. Not only the performers, but even the traders were smiling from ear to ear, and not in a creepy way. Yahiko more than enjoyed the atmosphere he was in.
The town itself was also very pleasant. The people were kind and considerate of others. Children could play in the streets without anyone saying anything. And when he bought candy, he was given extra because the vendor saw his performance, but he didn't have any money to tip him at the time.
Yahiko thought people wouldn't like a bunch of strangers suddenly showing up in their town, but the reception was completely the opposite of that. It felt like this place had completely escaped the horrors of war and didn't have any problems other towns Yahiko knew of.
Yahiko found Konan showing off her paper figures to people who gladly bought them for pennies. Nagato was close by with stacks of new books he had bought. Yahiko would be fine with that if any of them were novels and not history or scientific books.
Nagato didn't seem to be able to stop studying anything and everything he came across, but Yahiko kept his distance from it. He tried, he really did try, to read some history books or physics books that seemed interesting, but within two pages, they completely lost him, and it became a boring jungle of words he didn't understand and didn't want to understand.
What Yahiko liked was the various new candies he found. He was a child; nobody cared how many sweets he ate. It would only become troublesome once he got older, so he had to eat as much as he could now while he still could.
"Hmm? That's pretty good, I give it eight out of ten."
"More like six out of ten, barely above average," Konan disagreed with Yahiko.
"Two out of ten, barely edible," Nagato added his wrong opinion.
"None of you have any taste buds, that's why I'm the cook," Yahiko got defensive over his obviously right opinion. "So, none of your opinions are valid."
They were sitting in the corner of the camp, mostly away from others. As much as they enjoyed the rest of their company, sometimes they became too much for the three kids who had lived by themselves for years. They needed to have some space sometimes.
One moment, they were laughing, tasting candy, and talking about their day. The next moment, they felt it. Jiraiya had told them once that all three of them were perceptive, and they shouldn't ignore their instincts, as they told what they couldn't comprehend at the moment.
Yahiko felt the hair on his arm rise. Both Konan and Nagato were tense as they could feel it too. Something in the air had changed, and it wasn't the night that had come. It was the stillness and the silence that made them react to it.
"I smell it," a girl's voice within the darkness answered what they were wondering. "This chakra, coming from them. It is the same I smelled all the way back then."
"Pretty good for a bunch of kids," another voice, a man, joined the first. "They were able to react to us before we even revealed ourselves."
"Daiki, Maeki, don't fool around," and then finally a third one, a woman's voice, came through. "Capture them alive, I want to know who is responsible for them being here."
"No." It was too late.
Yahiko desperately tried to stop him, but the arrow was faster than his words. Well, it wasn't like the shinobi who came out of nowhere were trying to hide themselves. And the guards were always vigilant and too nice to let anything happen to the kids.
The man came into view now as he slashed the arrow in the air. The alarm was sounded, more arrows flew at the trio that came out of nowhere, and Taka came running. The three uninvited guests didn't look perplexed or worried about anything.
"Yahiko, get back. We will take care of them," Taka said, standing before them.
"Oh, a samurai?" That woman's voice was filled with venom. "It has been some time since I killed one of you."
Her nails seemed to shoot out of her fingers. Against the weak moonlight that came through the clouds, Yahiko saw how sharp and long they were. And something was dripping along them. Yahiko could guess what it was, and he didn't like it one bit.
"Captain, do I have to remind you that we don't have time?"
"You're right, Daiki, let's finish this quickly," the captain of the trio replied with a smile, putting her hands to her mouth. "Secret technique: Poison Mist."
From the moment he felt something was wrong, Yahiko was preparing himself. As Jiraiya had taught him, his chakra went to his feet. And once he saw the woman trying to use a jutsu without any consideration for anyone else, Yahiko moved.
With a flicker, he disappeared and appeared before the woman. His hand, outstretched, covered the woman's mouth, stopping her from unleashing whatever jutsu she was about to use. She could only look down at Yahiko, unable to do anything at the moment.
Yahiko ignored the sword that was coming for his outstretched hand. A second later, Yahiko would have lost his hand, but a pillar of stone hit the man, sending him away. Nagato, with his hands on the ground, glared at the shinobi.
The other woman tried to jump at Nagato as she saw what he had done, but the paper got stuck to her limbs, restraining her from moving more than a few steps. And more paper gathered around Konan, as she was ready to do anything she had to do to stop them.
"Taka, sorry for deceiving you. We are leaving now," Yahiko said to the shocked guards, as Yahiko tightened his grip around the woman's mouth and wouldn't let her go, even as she clawed at his arm with her nails. "And for you, let's go somewhere more private to talk."
Yahiko jumped away from the caravan, bringing the woman with him. Her comrades followed them, and so did Konan and Nagato. After a few good seconds of running and jumping, Yahiko determined they were far enough, and he threw the woman away from him.
"Who are you?" the woman asked after landing on her feet and coughing up a green mist coming from her mouth.
"See, it isn't so hard to ask. So why didn't you ask first before making a move to kill?" Yahiko asked back, looking at his arm that was cut by the woman's nails. "What is this poison that I feel coming up my blood from my arm?"
"Don't worry, it won't hurt you." Her words reminded Yahiko of another woman who had almost killed him once.
"Captain, they aren't ordinary," the swordsman said. "Though we were caught by surprise, if we let our guard down a second time, we might be finished here."
"Where are you from?" the woman asked.
"Born and raised, right under these grey clouds," Yahiko replied. "Now it's your turn to answer. What do you want from us? We have done nothing, nor were we planning to."
"We only need one alive. Kill the boys; we'll take the girl back to the village." Rather than answering his question, all Yahiko heard from this captain was something she shouldn't have said.
How uselessly stubborn did they have to be to pursue them when they had done nothing at all? Well, they did something a couple of years ago, but Yahiko thought that since they hadn't been found back then, they had hidden themselves well enough.
Though it didn't matter now. They were left with no other choice but to face these shinobi. And from the numbness Yahiko could feel in his arm and the cold eyes those shinobi showed them, he didn't think they could avoid this fight.
Daiki, the swordsman, was the first to move. Now, since he was prepared, he expertly dodged around pillars of stone coming from the ground or simply cut his way through them. But Yahiko knew that Nagato could do far more than this, so he wasn't worried.
The other woman, Maeki, didn't even have a chance to charge at them, as Konan attacked her with paper shuriken that could cut as well as steel ones, keeping her at a distance and unable to interfere for now.
That left the captain, who faced Yahiko. But looking at their skills, Yahiko wasn't particularly concerned. They had more than enough skill to protect themselves, and they weren't fools to let their guards down. So, Yahiko moved as soon as the woman made her move.
Though his arm felt numb, he could still use hand signs, and that was more than enough for him to be confident in himself. Lightning traveled into his fingers as he and the woman met. Yahiko evaded her nails as she evaded his hands.
"I call this jutsu Lightning Executioner's Hands: Level One: Painful Awakening," Yahiko filled the silence by explaining what jutsu he was using. "One touch from it and the part of your body it touches will jolt in immense pain. Don't worry, it isn't as lethal as it sounds. Well, unless I hit your head or heart, then I can't guarantee your survival. So, please be careful."
He received his reply when her nails cut his shirt as he leaned back to avoid his chest being slashed. Then a stab of those long, razor-sharp nails almost gouged his left eye. He answered that with a kick to her stomach. Now, remembering that the name of the jutsu was quite misleading since it worked through his feet too, he thought that since he was wearing boots, it wasn't as bad.
"Shit, Captain!" Daiki, seeing his captain fall, tried to rush to her side but was stopped by a wall of stone appearing right before him.
"Lightning Release," Yahiko, seeing his chance, weaved another set of hand signs. "Lightning Chain: Level Four: Lightning Cage."
It was his most advanced technique, and against someone faster, he wouldn't have been able to finish the hand signs in time to use it. But since his opponent was weaker than he expected and she fell after one good kick, he had plenty of time.
Putting his hands on the ground, a chain of lightning traveled through the wet ground, surrounding the woman before the lightning shot out from the ground and wrapped around her like a rope.
Since "rope" didn't sound as cool as "cage," he didn't use that word in naming the jutsu. And he had already used the word "chain," so he couldn't repeat it twice, leaving him no other choice but to use the word "cage" in the jutsu's name.
"Mphm!" The other kunoichi didn't even have a chance to do anything as she was wrapped in Konan's paper from head to toe. The poor girl couldn't even let out a sound as her mouth was covered, too.
Leaving only Daiki, as he struggled against Nagato's earth release and couldn't get close to either his teammates or his opponent. In the end, seeing the situation, he stopped struggling and surrendered with a sigh. It was their total loss.
A.N. As always. Thanks for reading and supporting me. If you want 7 more chapters of this story and 42 chapters in total with all my current stories, please consider supporting me on pa treon ironworlf852. Thanks in advance.