“You have got to be kidding me.” Izumi said blankly as she looked over her next mission’s details.
“I know right?!” The administrative Chunin chuckled as he made some notes on another scroll. “I’ve handed out some weirder missions, but it’s always funny seeing what nobles are willing to waste their money on.”
“The mission costs nearly one million ryo, they could have just hired a courier for a fraction of that!” Izumi sputtered. “Even first class ones don’t cost that much!”
The Chunin shrugged. “Yeah, but then the letter gets screened at the front door and opened there, not in the guy’s bedroom. So, are you going to take it or pass?”
“...I’ll take it.” Izumi sighed, resigned to the stupidity of rich people with nothing better to do.
“The Village thanks you for your sacrifice.”
-o-
“You’re going on another mission?”
Izumi paused her restocking of her mission bag at the sound of Sasuke’s voice behind her.
She looked over her shoulder and gave him a smile. “Yeah, I gotta keep taking a few until the Elders stop trying to keep me locked up in the village all the time.”
She shrugged. “They’ll give up sooner or later and then I’ll be able to choose missions I want instead of being forced to pick what’s available.”
“What is it?”
Izumi hesitated to answer which Sasuke immediately noticed.
“Is it dangerous or something?”
“Worse,” she said, cradling her head in her hands. “It’s so stupid I can only assume the higher-ups were hoping I’d refuse to do it out of embarrassment.”
Sasuke said nothing but tilted his head, silently demanding an explanation.
“...I have to deliver a love letter.”
Izumi watched as all interest in her mission immediately drained out of Sasuke and he began moving towards the door.
“I’m heading for the training field, see you when you get back.”
“Sure, have fun!” she called after him.
Unfortunately, that meant there was nothing left to distract her from restocking her bag and hitting the road.
-o-
“So this is the ninja Konoha has sent to aid me?” The unfortunately haughty sounding noblewoman announced more to the room than any single person in particular while Izumi kneeled in front of her.
It was probably meant to show Izumi the woman’s dominance or superiority or something like that, but all it had really done was raise the blood pressure of the two unfortunate samurai who were forced to let someone generally trained as assassins so close to their charge.
“Yes Ma’am, I’m–”
“Silence girl! Do you not know better than to interrupt your superiors!? I assumed you had some sense because you had the wisdom to cover your no doubt hideous face, but that seems to be in error!” The woman shrieked.
Izumi was starting to understand why she needed to pay a ninja to deliver a letter instead of a courier.
“...”
“Well? Speak up! Are you the ninja We hired or not?”
Izumi’s eye twitched at the command but was thankfully hidden from the client due to her position.
“Yes Ma’am, I’m a ninja from the Village Hidden in the Leaves sent to ensure that your package is successfully delivered.” She said, making sure to keep her voice flat.
“Hmph, at least you managed to be somewhat timely in your arrival. Any longer and I would have been forced to re-write my letter.” The noblewoman sniffed. “And speaking of… Hachida, present the letter.”
The older of the two samurai silently moved closer and presented an envelope with an elaborate wax seal on it. Izumi simply accepted it but made no move to put it away. If her read on this client was right, she was going to complain about literally any way Izumi stored it even if she broke out a velvet lined, jewel encrusted box.
An instinct that was proven correct when the woman huffed in annoyance and snapped, “Well, what are you waiting for Ninja? Go perform the task I have assigned you! I expect my dear Tenchi to receive this before the end of the week!”
“As you command.” Izumi replied and before the irritating noble could say anything else – vanished with a shunshin.
Technically, that was considered a minor breach of decorum but Izumi couldn’t really find it in herself to care. At most the noble could complain to Konoha, get a prewritten apology note in return saying they would be sure to discipline the ninja in question, and then it would be completely forgotten about by everyone that mattered.
That wasn’t important though. Now Izumi had another noble’s house to find and break into, just so she could traumatize him by leaving a letter from that woman in his home and prove that he wasn’t safe from her just yet.
That shouldn’t be too hard.
Right?
-o-
“I jinxed it.” Izumi muttered as she observed her target’s mansion from the shadows.
Structurally, it wasn’t all that different from many of the other mansions built by samurai families. Classy and expensive enough to show off their wealth, but unlike the mansions merchants or politicians tended to own – actually defendable against an enemy attack.
It also looked like it was on high alert and expecting an attack from an invading army.
A squad of guards at the gates, more guards moving around the walls and courtyard, and even some lookouts in wooden towers.
Izumi had definitely underestimated how difficult delivering this letter would be, but ironically she found her mood improving at the sight.
Simply breaking into a mansion to deliver a letter was a waste of her time. Sneaking into one on high alert could actually be a challenge.
She just needed to do some scouting first.
-o-
Izumi was very happy that she decided to stake the place out and wait for nightfall before trying to break in.
Because after a day of observing the patrol routes and manor defenses one thing became very clear. Whoever was in charge of security definitely had experience with ninjas. Izumi guessed they were either an older samurai that had learned the hard way how to keep ninja out or a ninja themselves that had been hired to guard the manor. Because that was the only way she could explain how the gaps in the guard’s patrols and schedules that initially looked like perfect times to try to infiltrate suddenly had another group come out of nowhere to cover the gap at inopportune times.
Good enough for dealing with even standard Chunin, but she was willing to bet she could get in.
“Alright, let’s go.” She whispered to herself as one patrol was briefly hidden by one of the decorative trees surrounding the manor. A Body Flicker into the tree followed immediately by another to the top of the wall got her past the perimeter.
Izumi immediately crouched into the shadows created by a nearby lantern, using both the light and the dark to hide from anyone searching for intruders. Unless the guards were extremely careful, even looking into the lantern for a brief moment would destroy their night vision and make it even harder to spot her than a normal ninja hiding in the shadows.
Which gave her a perfect spot to observe one of the doors into the manor.
She’d seen guards coming and going through it, so she was pretty sure it was being used as some kind of barracks, but at the same time it was the most consistent way inside since none of the other entrances were reliably opened without eyes all over them.
The biggest risk was that Izumi had absolutely no idea what was beyond the door, but sometimes risks just had to be managed instead of eliminated.
She watched as a squad started approaching the door and prepared herself for a sprint.
The door opened and Izumi dashed from her hiding spot until she could jump and attach herself to the wall just above it using her chakra. Unsuspecting people tended to not look up, and Izumi took advantage of that to slip inside before looking around the room she found herself in to see if anyone saw her–
Her heart rate spiked as she saw an unremarkable black haired man looking directly at her. He started to get to his feet while opening his mouth to yell – and Izumi’s eyes flashed crimson.
The man paused, looking confused before tiredly rubbing at his eyes and grumbling to himself.
“You alright there Dai?” One of the guards Izumi had followed in asked.
“Yeah, just all the late nights starting to catch up with me.” The man – Dai – responded. “We’ve been on alert so long I’m starting to jump at shadows. Thought I saw someone come inside with you.”
The squad very quickly looked around the rooms themselves, only to find no one else in the room with them.
“Looks like you’re losing it old man. Maybe we’ll ask the Captain to move you to the dayshift rotations, that way you won’t stay up past your bedtime anymore!”
“Shut up, you idiot, I’m only five years older than you! Now get a move on, I’ve got more things to do than listen to what you consider comedy.”
That kicked off a round of bickering as all of them moved deeper into the manor.
In one corner of the room, Izumi waited several more seconds even after they had gone before allowing her Nukuregure no Jutsu to peel off the wall and reveal herself.
The Jutsu, or hiding in cloth technique, might literally be just hiding under a camouflaged tarp but its speed and ease of use made it one of Izumi’s favorites. Also how silly it could be to trick people by essentially just hiding under a blanket even if it took a bit more skill than that to pull off reliably.
She was relieved it worked though. If the man waiting for the squad had been trained to detect genjutsu, her cover would have been blown and the whole manor could have gone on alert.
Even using the Sharingan, Izumi wasn’t at the level where she was confident those with sufficient training couldn’t break out of her genjutsu, but a random guard? She wouldn’t be able to call herself an Uchiha if she failed to put him under a genjutsu with direct eye contact.
In any case, she was now inside the manor.
All she had to do now was find Tenchi’s bedroom, leave the letter, and exfiltrate.
Still easier said than done, but nobles tended to not like being around random people with weapons even if those people worked for them. There might be a handful of trusted retainers inside, but Izumi should mostly only have servants and staff left to deal with.
Thankfully, not much of an issue considering it was the middle of the night and all the normal staff should be asleep. So Izumi was pretty sure she found what she was looking for when she spotted two guards standing next to one of the doors looking bored out of their minds.
Now how to get in?
Izumi didn’t see anything in the hallway itself that could help her get inside, but she did know of one potential way. The manor was built in an older style that had some decently large rafter space between the roof and ceiling for temperature control and ventilation. After backtracking a little bit to find a way up into the rafters, she was able to bypass both the guard and some fairly old looking traps up there that someone had previously put in place to catch careless ninja.
No one had maintained them any time recently though and she was able to sneak her way around them with no issue.
Just when she reached what should have been right above the Noble’s bedroom and was preparing to enter – she heard voices coming from below.
“–main on alert forever, my lord. Eventually we will need to let the men rest.” A deep powerful voice said.
“They can rest when they deal with whatever scheme that crazy woman has planned next.” A younger voice replied. “Whether a band of mercenaries or a personal army, I won’t just let her do as she pleases!”
“Well said, my Lord. but I fear this time she has used subtlety over force. Why don’t we ask the one listening in what that woman has planned?”
“What?” The younger of the two asked as Izumi’s eyes widened.
They knew she was here!
She dove to the side just as an arc of pure cutting force passed through the area she just occupied and destroyed most of the ceiling in the process.
Izumi dropped down into the room below and quickly glanced between the young noble and his older samurai guard – though most of her attention was on the second man given that he had his sword drawn and pointed at her.
“Well, ninja?” The Samurai continued. “What do you have to say for yourself?”