Behind the Waterfall

#37 Followed

Watching the sun rise, Naruto and Fuu smiled, standing on top of a tree, not far from Takigakure's gates. Smiling, the pair saw the three merchants come out of the gates. Even though they were still a bit suspicious about the trio, they had not found anything incriminating while spying on the woman to find out about her two companions. They didn't know why she didn't want to tell them, but had decided that they would ask her while they traveled to Janpugakure. It was clear that all three of them had a basic understanding of chakra and how to use it, since they seemed to have their wares sealed away in storage scrolls somewhere on their body, which didn't lessen Naruto and Fuu's suspicions.

Pulling down their masks, they jumped down from the tree and waited for the merchants to make their way to them.

"Hello you two. Wolf, Eagle, these are my two companions Mr. Akemi Jurkian and Mr. Ringo Testuo." They nodded at each other in greeting. Of course, Naruto and Fuu already knew their names from their clones that had spied on the woman, Mi Kuramoto. After a few pleasantries, they began their journey, not walking in any particular formation. Naruto had a group of clones out of view of the others that formed a perimeter around them, allowing for Fuu and himself to be a bit more relaxed while traveling.

"So, I have to ask, why did you refuse to tell us about your companions before we met them?" Naruto asked Mi, earning a confused look from the other two males.

"I wanted to see if I could trust you to trust me. It wouldn't be good if you had not agreed to my wish, because then I couldn't be sure that you would follow my commands when we were out." The woman replied. Naruto nodded, although he still had a feeling that she was not telling them something. Looking at the two young men that accompanied her, he couldn't really figure out what their relationship was. They seemed much more comfortable around each other than they would be if they had only been merchants, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. Shaking his head slightly, he put the thoughts away, focusing on his primary job for the moment.

They took a few days to reach the border between the land of waterfalls and the land of earth, Naruto and Fuu having decided to take this route, since it would only mean that they needed to cross two borders. It also enabled them to travel a bit quicker, since the vast plateaus that started a few kilometers into the land, provided easy paths and hard ground. For Naruto and Fuu it also held the advantage of their path being easily observable, which meant that the red haired teen could send his clones further out, expanding the perimeter around them. Walking along the stone, the sun had already set as he listened to the chatter between the three merchants when suddenly a clone of his destroyed itself.

Perching on a small ledge, the clone looked around before closing his eyes and relaxing his body. Reaching out he tried to find any chakra signatures in his vicinity. The first two he felt were the real Naruto and Fuu, which was to be expected because of their tenants. Trying to ignore the two massive chakra pools, he increased the accuracy, finding the chakra signatures of the three merchants, showing that they indeed had a good understanding of chakra, since their reserves were almost on the level of a chunin or well experienced genin. Shaking his head, the clone ignored these three as well, widening his senses again. At first he found nothing, but then he felt it. It was only a small spike in chakra, but it was definitely there. Focusing on the area where he had felt it, he found three very weak signatures. Because of the earlier spike in chakra, the clone was sure that these were being suppressed. Opening his eyes, the clone looked around for one last time before exploding into a cloud of smoke.

Naruto stopped for a moment, sorting through the memories of the clone, before two more clones popped up beside him. They nodded and jumped away already knowing what Naruto wanted them to do. Fuu looked at him with curious eyes, while the three merchants seemed to be in fear at what his actions might imply.