Chapter 5: Of Murder and Paperwork

Itachi awoke to the usual message about his HP and MP being restored. He went through the same motions he had the day before: change out of his pajamas, fold them, store them, eat breakfast, leave. Among the many perks his power brought him was the lack of need for food. Itachi remembered the strangeness to have a body unfettered by hunger.

But he still ate food, mainly to keep up appearances. That, and for the minor HP recovery it gave if he'd been on a mission or if he'd even hurt himself throughout the day. Itachi couldn't spend too much thinking about miscellaneous thing though, he had to meet up with Kakashi for today's mission. And so, it felt like barely any time had passed before he met up with him.

"Today will be something more suited to your skills. There have been reports of a missing nin attacking homesteads on the fringe of Konoha. It's our job to eliminate him." Kakashi said.

Mandatory Quest

Eliminate the Missing Nin

A missing nin has made himself far too comfortable preying on innocents. Set him straight, permanently.

Completion Award: 3500 XP

Increased Standing in ANBU

Completion Failure: Decreased Standing in ANBU

Possible Dismissal

"Lead the way." Itachi said, dismissing the quest information window. Kakashi leapt up into the trees and Itachi followed. Their journey was short. Soon, they arrived at a small group of houses.

"This was the last place he attacked. The villagers managed to draw blood when they engaged him. We're stopping to get the missing nin's scent." Kakashi explained. Itachi merely hung back while Kakashi collected a bloodstained kunai. He took a moment to use Observe on it.

Bloody Kunai (Quest Item):

Someone got hit with this in battle. The wounded person's scent should still be on it.

There wasn't anything else of note about it. Kakashi summoned a small dog, talking to it for a moment before letting it sniff the kunai. They leapt back up into the trees and followed the dog towards their target.

"I know this is fairly basic, but there's only so much to go around." Kakashi said as they made their way through the trees.

"I understand." Itachi replied.

"So what do you make of our target?" Kakashi asked. He wasn't letting the conversation die yet.

"I'd say he won't be a challenge. The villagers back there couldn't have been above chunin level. To be hurt by them, our target can't be that skilled." Itachi remarked.

"We still have to be careful." Kakashi said. "We don't know if that wound was a lucky break on the villager's part. And I suspect he's prepared. You can't just pillage from a shinobi nation without expecting retaliation."

"I still have faith the mission will be-" Itachi was cut off by Kakashi's signal to him. They'd found their target. He had just finished bathing, and was getting himself dressed. Itachi noted a small cut on his arm that was beginning to heal up.

Other than that, there was nothing overly remarkable about their target. He was of average height and of average build. Itachi took note of the target's level.

Missing Nin

LV 9

It confirmed his suspicion that he couldn't be that much of a threat. A quick look at his stats placed his skill at comfortably below Itachi. As he had guessed, his skill as a shinobi was also average. Itachi's thoughts were interrupted by Kakashi.

"I've heard a lot about your abilities as a Shinobi. I'm glad I get to finally see them in action." He made a motion to indicate the kill was Itachi's. He gave nod, and moved in for the kill. Itachi was not one for showmanship, and so, flung a kunai at his target.

Battle!

Whatever Itachi's personal opinion on efficiency, his power had other plans when it came to fights. When the kunai hit the man, the world felt like it blanked out for a moment, and when it came back, the two were standing opposite of each other in the clearing, which acted as a battle zone.

Preemptive Strike! Opponent Unaware!

It'd been awhile since Itachi had been in a battle, but the way battles were conducted came back easily. Attacking an opponent to start a battle put damage on them before the fight had actually started. Better yet was if the opponent was Unaware, as it increased the damage done by the Preemptive Strike.

You take the Initiative.

Another benefit to attacking first was that it always him a full Action Bar at the start of the fight.. Part of the oddity of Itachi's power was that battles weren't normal. Each person in the fight couldn't attack or use skills until their Action Bar was filled up. The speed at which it filled up was dictated by a person's Dex.

Itachi had taken out a quarter of the target's health with his Preemptive Strike. He selected the Attack option and then used Kunai. Training his Thrown Weapons ensured his accuracy was pinpoint, and that he could launch more of them per attack. His opponent's HP bar drained quickly under the barrage of kunai.

Battle Victory! You gain 350 (+105) XP!

Your level increases by one!

Itachi had almost forgotten about his experience boost from his traits. His power placed value on being an Uchiha, which awarded him a bonus 10% on all non-quest XP, and being a Prodigy added another 20%. He ignored the list of mostly useless things he'd gotten from defeating his target and the world resumed as it had before the battle had started.

He was still next to Kakashi, and their target lay dead. Itachi had never figured out what other people saw while he was in a battle. His stat points could wait until he wasn't busy with something. He liked to think thoroughly about where they'd go.

"That took no time at all." Kakashi remarked. "It was a pleasure to see even a brief show of skill."

"Thank you." Itachi said. It was mostly out of courtesy. Fugaku always praised him for his accomplishments, and Itachi felt nothing from compliments. He went down to collect his kunai..

"We'll need to collect the body and report back." Kakashi said. He looked up and saw that it was still fairly early in the day. "Maybe we'll even get another mission," he added.

"Perhaps…" Itachi mused as he sealed the body away. "It feels like a waste of a day to do only one short mission."

They were soon on their way back to the village. The journey didn't take very long, and upon their arrival, Kakashi lead Itachi to the the ANBU office. It was a simplistic room, with just enough in it to ensure reports could be processed in a timely manner. Itachi was all for letting Kakashi do the paperwork, but Kakashi insisted that he learned.

"Part of our job is filing reports for missions completed. I won't always be here to do it for you." Kakashi said in response to Itachi's reasoning. "Besides," he added, "as your teacher I expect that you do it occasionally for me." Itachi could tell he was smiling behind the mask.

"I suppose learning now is better than learning later." Itachi conceded. "Where are the forms?" Kakashi produced one he'd gotten earlier and gave it to Itachi.

"It's an easy process, just a bit long." Kakashi told him. Itachi looked at the form. Kakashi was right, none of the fields were complicated, there was just a lot of them. He began writing and was done within half an hour.

A skill has been created through a special act.

Through filling out paperwork, the "Paperwork Completion" skill has been created.

Itachi found himself not pleased by this skill. It'd most definitely level up quickly with the frequency at which he'd need it. That meant he'd get better, and Kakashi would have an excuse to dump it onto him. That'd just lead to him getting even better. This would be one skill he'd have to try and keep suppressed.

"Not bad for your first time." Kakashi remarked. "But it could've been done a lot faster. You'll have to do more to get better." Itachi was under the distinct impression Kakashi was enjoying himself a bit too much.

"Can we just try and get another mission?" Itachi asked.

"Eager for that paperwork? I'll see what I can do." And Kakashi made himself scarce. Itachi felt stupid for not seeing that coming until after the words had left his mouth. Fortunately, Kakashi wasn't gone for too long. "We've got a mission to tail some Konoha nin and protect them on their journey." He said upon his return.

"What's the catch?" Itachi asked.

"These people are on their way to a negotiation." Kakashi said in a lowered voice. "There's a high chance that they'll be attacked on their way to the meeting."

"What else?" Itachi pressed for more details.

"In the case they should try to betray Konoha, we are to eliminate them." Kakashi explained. It was at this moment that Itachi got the quest alert.

Mandatory Quest

Escorts and Traitors

Some Konoha nin need protection on their travels. It's your job to keep them safe unless they try to betray Konoha.

Completion Award: 5000 XP

Increased respect from Kakashi

Increased standing within ANBU

Completion Failure: Decreased standing in ANBU

Konoha information leaked

Quest: Corrections

This was a first for Itachi. He'd never had a quest where the objective could change based on the actions of others. However, the more troubling thing was that the quest window told him that the Konoha nin would betray them.

Did his power give him limited sight into the future? It was troubling to consider. More importantly, what should he do? He felt obligated to tell Kakashi about the outcome of the mission, but he felt like Kakashi wouldn't trust him. Nor did he want to seem any amount of strange or to draw attention to himself.

No, he'd keep this a secret. But he'd be prepared when the time came. He could put Kakashi on edge by talking about the possibility of betrayal frequently. Not a perfect plan, but it would work. He wouldn't withhold the information, at least, not completely.

"Itachi?" Kakashi asked, snapping Itachi out of his thoughts. "Are you ready to go?"

"Yes." Itachi said and the two left the building, heading towards their escortees.