Chapter – 35: Truth behind the Kidnappings

This is the chapter for Wednesday, 5th May. See you guys on Thursday!

-----------------------------

[Rei POV]

"Something is wrong…" I ponder, "If the Nazo were really mad at Konoha for getting in their way, they could have just killed one of the hostages they already had with them, but no!"

"They first returned Kurata Shigeko to his parents. Then took the risk of getting caught to kill Yaguchi Reizo to express their anger?"

"No sane person would do that unless their original intention was never kidnapping but to kill Yaguchi Reizo! And all this kidnapping is just a facade to drag Konoha's attention away from the real matter!"

"More importantly, why destroy his body after killing him? All that was left was only his hand! I know that a lot of information can be obtained from a human brain in Naruto world, even after the person is dead! So, the only reason I can think of is to conceal some kind of information that Reizo knew of, it can't be simple as the identity of his killers as they had way too many ways to hide it before the kill!"

"But why Yaguchi Reizo? He was only a Tokubetsu Jonin, what did he know that brought the Nazo to hunt him? And more importantly why now of all times?"

"I have too little information to make any guesses."

"It's already midnight, I won't be able to gather information right away. But Reizo, if he knew of something and knew that the Nazo will never let him go then…"

I start to ponder by putting myself in Reizo's shoes, "If I know of a big secret, and I know I am about to die because of it, what would I do?"

"If he didn't care for his son, he could have run away, which apparently is not true…"

"If he truly loved his son, even if the chances are slim, he would have tried to negotiate. What better leverage to use other than the information he had? So, he must have made copies of the information he had and hidden them somewhere to threaten them. In addition, he should not have kept them in just one place too…"

"But the Nazo didn't believe him, they killed him and took his body to get information directly from his dead body!"

"If that's true then I have the advantage. The Nazo has to find and destroy all the copies, but I just have to find one!"

"I have to act quickly. Although I don't know about others, there is at least one man in Konoha who is better than me at analyzing stuff, I believe he should have his hands full currently handling the aftermath, I don't have much time before he makes the same guess as me…"

"I have kept my eyes on Reizo the whole time after his son was kidnapped, what did he do these days? who did he meet?" because of the A. I chip, there is nothing that I can forget.

The first day, everything was normal, he went to meet some friends, then to the market, then to the pub, etc. Even if he had given the information to someone, it will be too difficult for me to get those. I also saw his maid come and go twice that day. Now that I look at it carefully, the maid who left for the first time somehow seemed odd, her mannerisms didn't seem like a female at all. Should be Reizo's clone! too bad I don't know where he went or what he did as I didn't follow him.

The next day, he stayed at home all day, made breakfast, then some practice, then he made a grave for his wife behind his house and paid respects, then … Wait a minute… his wife's been dead for long now, why did he think of making one only now?

"One of the copies should be hidden there!" I shout out loud and send one of my clones there immediately. I don't know how long it will take for Nazo to get the information from the dead Reizo as people with such abilities were rare. I just hope it won't be so quick, it's only been less than twelve hours.

When my clone reaches the place and sees the intact grave, I have no words to describe the joy. Controlling my emotions, 'A. I chip, scan this place!' I say pointing to the ground below the grave.

[Beep! Initializing scan … 1… 2… 3… Done!]

[10%… 20%… 80%… 100%… Done! Generating 3D model… Done!]

Blue light fills my eyes and I see the 3D model of what's underneath the grave. Looking at the metallic box two feet below the surface, I smile.

I quickly have my clone dig the place and extract the box. After taking out the box, I try to return the place back to how it was before. Although there will be some differences because of the lack of time for me to perfect it, it's still enough to not let anyone else be suspicious for a while.

As soon as that is done, I rush back after taking a long route through the streets of Konoha, I pass the box to a different clone who is already waiting and dissipate this clone. I repeat the same process multiple times until I am sure that they will not be able to track me and return back home.

Inside the Origin space.

I am holding a metallic box in my hand. There is nothing special about the box itself, just a normal crudely made box. 'What's inside is much more valuable' I think with a smile and open the box.

Just like I had predicted, inside the box is a scroll. There was no seal or anything and anyone could read it. Might be that Reizo wanted people to be able to read it.

I open the scroll with great expectation and start to read it.

'If you are from the Nazo, know that even if you destroy this scroll, you will never be able to find them all!'

'If not, Hello! My name is Yaguchi Reizo and I am a Tokubetsu Jonin of Konohagakure.'

'I don't have much time, so I will get straight to the point. Two weeks ago, I went on a solo mission to the Land of Tea. The mission itself proved not that difficult and I was able to complete it before time. As I had some time in hand, I decided to enjoy some days of a quiet life and stay there.'

'Second day after I decided to stay, I was in a tea shop when I saw a Merchant from Konoha chatting happily with a Kiri Shinobi and a Missing nin from Kiri, whom I later came to know as a member of the infamous group Nazo! I immediately got suspicious and followed them.'

'After listening to their conversations, I got to know of a massive plot against Konoha! If it goes according to their plan, it will definitely be a huge disaster for us.'

'It seems this merchant or perhaps the one who is working for him has sold a huge number of explosion tags to Konoha. The problem is, they have mixed in a bunch of faulty tags with them that will explode in the hands of shinobi using them. As it is not possible to test every explosion tag we will use beforehand, usually, during the inspections, we only check some of them randomly and see if they work as expected.'

'With many faulty explosion tags, imagine a scenario during the war where our explosion tags explode in the hands of Konoha shinobi killing them and those around them while being surrounded from all sides by enemies! Konoha will lose a lot of capable shinobi…'

'When I got this information, instead of informing Hokage-sama, I acted on greed and tried to blackmail the said merchant. It didn't take them long to figure out who was present in the Land of Tea recently. It turns out there were only two, me and Jonin Hayato Masashi.'

'They have kidnapped both of our sons to confirm who it was, and I know when they find me, they will not let me live. Even if the chance is small I will try to save my son. I will tell you the name of the merchant, but please do not act in greed like me and please inform Hokage-sama.'

'The name of the merchant is … Kurata Hoshiko!'

'PS: once again please don't act on greed, the future of Konoha might be in your hands!'

"OH MY GOD!" were the only words I could say after reading it.

-----------------

Were you able to guess the truth?

- Silver