Lost Child Arc: Chapter 119 part 1

Action is the foundational key to all success. ~ Pablo Picasso

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"Okay, this was where her bag was sitting," Kiba said, pointing at a particular spot on the ground.

I eyeballed it. Imagined the scenario. A young girl – girls? – coming into the clearing, slinging their bags off and onto the ground. There was a tree there to prop it up against, out of the way to the side. Yeah. Made sense.

It was dark now, but we both had LED seals to brighten up the places we were looking. It didn't make much difference to Kiba but I didn't want to miss any visual clues, either.

"There've been a lot of people through here," Kiba went on. "All the searchers, I guess. The scent trails are a mess."

Akamaru prowled around on the ground, nose low in the grass. Kiba seemed to be shifting back and forth, looking for scent pockets or something.

I made a non-committal noise. You couldn't exactly expect people not to search, even if it messed up all the evidence and our ability to track. There was nothing here that I could use – the physical signs were well and truly masked, and there was no chakra nearby.

"There were five… no, six kids with her. They all smell similar. I think they must live together? Not family, though. It's a different kind of similar. Picking up scent from the same surroundings. I think they might be street kids."

"A child gang?" I asked, looking critically back the way we'd come. The town was probably big enough to have problems with homelessness. Kan had called them 'disadvantaged' which might have just been a polite euphemism, or she might not have known the full extent.

"Probably, yeah," Kiba said. He paced the edges of the clearing. "She wasn't with them when they arrived or when they left." He went around again.

I waited.

"She came in this way," he said. "I can scent her bag with her. Had a lot of food in it; it left a pretty strong mark."

"But which way did she leave?" I asked, because that was the important thing, and that was what he wasn't saying.

He went around again, then shook his head. "I'll spiral out further, see if I can pick it up."

Akamaru barked, pawing at a spot on the ground. Close to the tree line, but not that close. A couple of large steps away.

"Bad news?" I asked, voice calm. There was nothing to worry about yet.

"Trail goes dead," Kiba said shortly. "Right there."

I double checked my scent blocking so that I didn't add more problems to the pile and approached. I ran my hands through the grass but there was nothing there – no hastily dropped hair pin, no note, no clue. I hadn't really expected anything, but it was best to be thorough.

Then I closed my eyes and concentrated.

Was it wishful thinking or did I really feel it? Had there been chakra used here – carefully but deliberately – hours and hours ago, or was it just a fluctuation in the natural energy?

"Be careful," I said, though I couldn't say for certain if it had been or not. The possibility of it was enough to raise flags. "Potential shinobi interference."

No one had said the word 'kidnapping' up until now. No one had even suggested it. But that didn't mean it wasn't a possibility.

Kiba nodded and thankfully didn't ask if I was sure. "If it was anything like a replacement, then I'll be able to pick it up again," he said confidently. "And most people slip with scent masking sooner or later."

I nodded and ran through our options. "Point me in the direction of the kids," I said. "They might know something."

"Akamaru'll lead you to them," he said.

We split up. Akamaru led me on a fairly winding path, and stopped at a building that could be kindly described as ramshackle. I stepped over the piles of junk barring the way and peered inside. At first glance, there was nothing. Then I managed to pick out a shape here, a corner of a blanket there, and see the children who were reduced to hiding in such a place.

I bit my lip. Because, yeah, these poor kids. On the other, that was not why I was here at all and Makoto Kan might be in a whole lot more trouble. And really, it was a whole lot easier to find a lost child than to fix the socio-economic problems that left a whole group of children homeless.

I stepped soundlessly into the room, locating what looked like the oldest child. Presumably the one 'in charge'.

There was no good way to do this, really. Anyone would be frightened to be woken by a stranger in the middle of the night but I didn't actually want to wake all the kids. That kind of chaos would only slow things down.

So I shook him awake and clamped a hand over his mouth when he drew in a startled breath to scream.

As predicted, it hardly helped matters.

"Don't shout," I said, voice low and calm. "I need to ask you what happened to Makoto Kan."

I sat back, slowly withdrawing my hand.

He swallowed. "Who are you?" His voice shook with fear, but his eyes darted around. Panicked, yes, but canny.

He was maybe ten. Maybe twelve. Not so much younger than us, really.

"A ninja from Konoha," I said, though I suspected it meant very little to him at all. "I'm looking for Makoto. I know she was with you this afternoon. What happened to her?"

He shook his head, a rapid twitching thing. "I dunno," he said. "I don't know nuffing about that."

"She's in trouble, isn't she?" I asked, voice calm and sympathetic. I tried to keep any hint of judgement or responsibility out of it.

"We didn't do nothing!" He insisted, quickly. "She was just… gone."

I nodded. "Okay. What happened?"

He hesitated for a long second and I waited it out. Patience. Patience. "She brought us food," he said, drawing up his knees and wrapping his arms around them. "She does that all the time. She's allowed."

He looked defiant, like I was going to protest. "She brought you food," I echoed, prompting the story onwards. "And then?"

"We were going to go down to the river to swim," he said. "She was with us! But she never made it to the river. We waited and waited for ages but she never showed up. We went looking for her but we couldn't find her and then all the adults came and they couldn't find her either-"

He cut himself off, looking miserable.

I sat back. It was nothing more than we'd expected, but it was still confirmation. 'Lost' had been upgraded to 'taken'. A bunch of civilian children weren't the greatest of witnesses – and I knew first hand you could take someone from a group of ninja and still not be seen – but they'd been there.

"I see," I said and pushed myself to my feet.

There was a shuffling in the darkness. A small pale face pushed itself out from behind a pile of rusted metal. "Are you talking about Makoto-chan?" she whispered, voice hushed. "She went missing just like nee-chan."

"Just like nee-chan?" I repeated. What was the saying? 'Twice is enemy action'? Whatever it was, it was suspicious.

The little girl nodded vigorously. "She went missing too!"

"No one cares, Emi," the boy said, sinking his chin down onto his knees. "Makoto's got her mum making people look for her. No one is going to look for kids like us."

And that was… well. True. I couldn't say that.

"When did your sister go missing?" I asked, crouching down again near Emi. "Recently?"

"Seventeen days ago," Emi said, with the certainty and tone of someone who had counted all of them.

Maybe related. Maybe not. If Makoto had been taken because her mother was an Ambassador, then there was no reason to suspect that this had anything to do with it. If Makoto had been taken just because she was here, at the wrong place at the wrong time… That was a different story.

"I'll keep an eye out for her," I said, but it was mostly an empty promise. I stood and fished my storage scroll out of my backpack, and released a stack of rations. Not all of them – I still had a weeks supply left, which would keep me going even if this mission stretched out. "Here. It's not much…"

It wasn't much. It was a small thing that cost me little but it was nothing that would change their situation in the long term, either. They needed more help than that, more than just food. But that wasn't my mission, wasn't my problem right now.

I gave an awkward shrug and walked away, mind already slipping back to focus on the task at hand.

I slipped through the town, returning to Kiba. "Find anything?" I asked finding him in the forest well away from the field where Makoto had gone missing.

He flashed a feral looking grin my way. "Yep," he said with satisfaction. "I found her trail."

I nodded. "Find anyone else's trail?"

The grin faded a tiny fraction. "Maybe," he said cagily. "I'm not going to say there wasn't anyone else…"

But he couldn't confirm there was, either. Too old or too faint or just too damn good to leave much of a mark behind. The blank spot in the trail was suspicious in itself, wasn't it? Then again, a scent trail was hardly like a paved walkway – it wasn't permanent or fixed, it could blow away in the wind or vanish.

Still. We had a trail now.

I nodded. "Well," I said, "I guess we should follow it and find out."

The trail wound through the trees with a kind of surety. It looped, but it didn't double back. It kept a north-easterly direction, driving us steadily closer and closer towards the border with Land of Hot Springs. Toward Land of Lightning.

That might have been coincidence. It might not. I didn't much like it either way.

We were travelling fast and the trail got warmer and warmer as we closed in. By that point, we were both certain there was at least one ninja involved, if not more.

"Hold up," Kiba said suddenly.

I obligingly slammed to a halt. There was no panic in his tone, nothing that indicated ambush or problem. My own chakra sense told me nothing of the sort, either. So I wasn't worried. But this was his show and I was following his lead. If he said 'hold', I held.

He twisted in place, moved back and forth, nose titled up to catch the breeze. Akamaru nosed at the ground, still following the trail we were chasing.

"The trail is still solid," Kiba said, finally. "We can keep following it. But I'm getting sent from the breeze – I'm pretty sure they're camped upwind of us."

"Pretty sure," I repeated, not quite a question. We were potentially hours behind Makoto and her kidnapper, and following directly in their footsteps wouldn't help us. It was the slow and steady path, sure to take us to them – but take us there in time? That was unknown. If they were heading across the border, if they headed into Lightning Country… we might not be able to follow. If we could save time with a shortcut, it would only be to our benefit. But cutting away risked losing the trail.

"Pretty sure," Kiba affirmed. "Your call, team leader."

His tone of voice was, perhaps, not entirely kind. I stifled a grimace. Yeah, my call. I hated making calls like this. Hated it even more when it wasn't our lives in the balance, but a blameless little girl.

"Do it," I said. "Find us the camp."

We sprung off, turning into the breeze. Anxiety churned in my guts as I hoped I'd made the right call. There was no way to tell yet.

The longer we ran for, the tighter the knot twisted. How far could they be? Kiba had seemed so sure.

And then people pinged on the very edge of my range. Oh, there had been people, as we'd run. Even rural areas weren't deserted. We'd passed houses and waypoints. But not like this. This was ninja.

I re-angled us, homing in on them. Kiba had done well to get us this close but now it was my game.

"Two adult shinobi," I murmured, quietly. I reduced my pace, gave us more time to plan. "Two civilian children."

"Two?" Kiba asked, darting a look at me. "More than we expected."

Since we'd only expected one. Meant this was bigger than we'd thought. In what way, I didn't know just yet.

I nodded in acknowledgement. "How's your stealth?"

He looked away. "Okay."

Fair enough. "I'll get closer, see if I can work out what they're up to," I said. "Keep sharp, okay? They took her a long way just to make camp. And they weren't dragging the other kids with them this whole time. There's probably more ninja around."

"If they're here I'll find 'em," he promised.

I nodded sharply. Then I checked my scent suppression, pulled my chakra in good and tight, and slunk carefully towards the enemy camp.

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Once I was into position and overlooking the shinobi camp, there were two problems.

Firstly, the shinobi in question were wearing blank featureless masks. ANBU. Not Konoha, obviously, but the point of ANBU was that they weren't all that easy to identify. If I had to pick, I would have said they were from Hidden Cloud, from the asymmetrical line of their vests, but they could have just as easily been Hidden Rock. Or not from one of the big five at all.

Secondly and most importantly… neither of the two children was Makoto.

Shit. We screwed up.

The two kids were huddled together, unhurt but tired and scared. They weren't tied up, but that almost didn't matter – there was no way they could hope to escape anyway.

Who they were and why they were here… I didn't have a clue. The obvious assumption was that they were still kidnapping victims, in which case we should probably help them. It was the only explanation, though, as to why they might be here with an ANBU guard. Sadly, said ANBU weren't expositing at each other to allow me to overhear and find out. Because they were professionals.

I stayed crouched in the treetops a little longer, aware that the clock had started ticking down again. I was chewing frantically through my options. Makoto was our priority and we'd screwed up and lost her. We'd have to backtrack, try and find the trail again, try and catch up an even greater distance.

I began to back away and then froze again. There was an incoming ninja approaching the camp. The two ANBU exchanged handsigns – unfamiliar to me – but seemed to be expecting it. For good reason; the new comer was wearing the same uniform.

They were carrying another child over their shoulder. And this time, I did recognize the small dark-haired girl.

Makoto.

She looked slightly different from the picture we'd been shown, and her face was blotchy from crying, but she didn't appear to be hurt.

The surge of relief I felt was unsurprising. We were in the right place after all. What was going on, I still didn't know, but we hadn't lost her.

Now we just had to get her back. And that didn't make me feel a great deal of relief. There were three ANBU down there, skills and motives unknown. We had to protect and rescue three very helpless hostages.

'Nightmare' didn't quite cover it.

I waited until the ANBU seemed marginally occupied and retreated backwards with as much stealth as I could muster and carefully avoided all the layered traps around the camp. Kiba was well away from the camp, downwind and out of sensor range.

"You want to play the good news, bad news game?" I asked.

"That's real inspiring," he said dryly. "Okay. Good news?"

"Makoto is there," I said promptly. "Now ask me for the bad news."

"I dunno," he said. "I feel like that's enough to be getting on with. Are we going to get her back or what?"