Red Is A Pretty Colour

38

Hiko's pov

Time passed as normal, everyone got used to life without Sasuke. We got back to missions and training and just living life. I was out training in one of the fields when I was approached by Neji.

"Hey, early morning training too?" I asked.

"You didn't strike me as the type." Neji replied.

"People think I'm lazy because they don't see me training, I just prefer to train in the morning when there's no-one to bother me." I explained. "Believe it or not I've been out here since 4 this morning. I have other things I have to do duringthe day, if don't train now then I won't have the time later."

"I see. We've been asked to meet at the K.I.A stone, I believe we have a mission." Neji said.

I sighed in annoyance before pulling my hoodie back on.

"Well, let's go I guess. Unless you need to pick someone else up first." I said.

"No, it was just you." Neji said.

The two of us made our way to the meeting point where everyone else was meeting.

"Where were you!? You're late!" Sakura yelled.

"Sorry for being late. I got caught up enjoying my last few minutes of not being here." I replied.

"This is important you Tomato! This isn't the time for this!" Sakura yelled.

"Jeez, I was joking." I said raising my hands in mock surrender. "I didn't know we were meeting until Neji came and got me."

"Naruto, you were supposed to tell her to come here an hour ago!" Ino yelled at him.

"She wasn't home! She's never home when I wake up!" Naruto said, trying to defend himself.

"I was out training, give me a break." I said. "Now someone fill me In before I slap someone."

"As I'm sure you're all aware by now the village has been placed under an S level security alert. You're probably wondering why." Shikamaru said.

"Last night's smoke screen, right?" Kiba said.

"It was pretty bad, I haven't seen a smoke screen that strong in a while." I said.

"You guys knew that was a smoke screen?" Naruto asked.

"Of course." Neji said.

"My insects made quite a fuss over it." Shino said.

"Really? That's funny, I never noticed anything." Choji said.

"Maybe you should stop eating and open your eyes!" Ino yelled.

"Maybe you should stop yelling and be nicer to your teammate." I said, stepping infront of Choji protectively.

"Lee, do you have any idea what caused this?" Tenten asked.

"I know it had something to do with Anbu black ops so I did not get involved." Lee said.

"You're right, the Anbu were at the scene." Shikamaru said.

"So I was right." Hinata said.

"This is as much as we know, the Anbu have had a man under constant surveillance for the past two weeks, he had broken into the construction foreman's house. Once inside he found the chest containing the blueprints for all of the important structures in the village and he stole them." Shikamaru explained.

"Blueprints?" Tenten questioned.

"So what's the big deal?" Naruto asked. "What can this guy do with a bunch of stolen blueprints?"

"What could he do with them!?" Ino exclaimed incredulously.

"He could steal things, kill people, plant bombs, litteraly anything." I said.

"If they had the blueprints to Lady Tsunade's mansion it would be child's play to devise an attack on her room." Neji said.

"And if they were to fall into the hands of assassins..." kiba trailed off.

"You're right, I never knew how dangerous this could be." Naruto said.

"That smokescreen last night was something the suspect used to cover his get away." Shikamaru said.

"I see." Shino said.

"Despite all the smoke the Anbu black ops were able to corner him in the Eastern forest but before they could get him to say anything he blew himself up. Anbu searched the blast sight but they concluded that he wasn't in position of the blueprints at the time of the explosion. We have to hope they were not in the hands of the enemy or the hidden life village could be history. You can see why lady Tsunade issued an S level security alert." Shikamaru explained.

"So, what's our mission, what are we to do?" Kiba asked.

"Since he didn't have them when he died our mission is to find our where the their hid them and recover them." Shikamaru said.

"It's like finding a needle in a haystack." Neji said.

"If we wanna find the blueprints maybe we should start off by retracing his steps." Choji said.

"Thing is, this guy had a reputation for setting pretty nasty booby traps. Chances are we'll run into some when we're looking for those Blueprints." Shikamaru said.

"Id say it's pretty probable." Shino said.

"We understand, just give the order and we'll get started." Ino said.

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Naruto asked.

"You'll need some background information, we checked around some and found out this guy snuck into the village a few months back posing as a carpenter." Shikamaru said before tossing us a photo of an old man each.

I swore I had seen him before, I must have passed him in the village at some point.

"Wait, this guy is..." Sakura muttered.

"The guy's name was Gennō." Shikamaru said.

"Like Gennō the trap master? The one from Kagerō Village?" I asked.

"Who?" Ino asked.

"He was a shinobi from a small village in the land of mountains, they used to be at war with us about 30 years ago. A cease fire was declared between our two villages but two weeks later Kagerō was destroyed by the village hidden in the valley and everyone was killed. Gennō was renowned for setting inescapable and deadly traps throught the war but after Kagerō was destroyed he disappeared." I explained.