sunshineverse | [Closed] Mission to Moon

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[Closed] Mission to Moon

Who: Itachi and Abel
Where: Land of Moon
When: July 22
Notes: It's just a simple mission.

Abel leaned against the wall, dressed in nondescript clothes with the only indication that he was a shinobi was the senbon he was twirling between his fingers. When the mission had hit the Ame Mission Office, he had volunteered for it, needing to get out and about after a few months of border patrols and serious inactivity. His delight at receiving the mission had been increased at the realization that Uchiha Itachi from Konoha was to be his partner on this. He had known this mission was going to be big as it was requesting two shinobi from different hidden villages, but with the client being the leader of Moon, it was bigger than Abel originally thought.

He glanced over at Itachi, curious to see how his partner was holding up as they waited for the client in question to arrive for their debriefing of the mission. This was going to be interesting as while they were friends, they had never fought before, either in a friendly sparring match or side by side. It had been a long time since Abel had actually fought next to someone. He just hoped that he remembered that Itachi wasn't Sephiroth in the heat of a fight.

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Itachi had been relieved and possibly a little nervous when he’d realized he wouldn’t just be working with someone from Ame, but with Abel. On one hand, he felt certain he could trust Abel with his back. The man seemed calm and competent, and Itachi had no reason to doubt Ame’s standard for Jounin. Whether they could fight together without friendly fire remained to be seen. Hopefully Abel wasn’t squeamish about genjutsu. Some people were funny about being friends after they watched you turn someone into a sobbing mess with a “simple” genjutsu. Messily killing someone was one thing, but mucking around in someone’s brain--twisting them enough so that they killed themselves of their companions, that was a different thing entirely.

Time would tell.

In any case, Itachi was here with a mission on mind, and he had only guesses for how Abel would perform in the field. It seemed strange to Itachi to hire people from two villages instead of a small group from one village. It meant Itachi had to put up a good front for not only their employer, but for the other village. Friends they might be, but Itachi didn’t want anything negative getting into the reports on Konoha’s agents competence (or on the Uchiha heirs incompetence, for that matter.)

Itachi gave Abel a formal bow from the waist as he saw him. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Abel-san.”

Abel straightened from his slouch against the wall and returned the bow. "And you as well, Itachi-san. I am glad to see you in good health."

He rose to his full height and a soft smile curled his lips as he resumed twirling the senbon between his fingers. "It will be a pleasure to work with you on this mission."

"May you not come to regret those words," Itachi replied without any hint of a smile. "Have I missed the meeting with out esteemed employer?"

Abel shook his head. "I'm waiting for him as well," he said with a slight shrug. "I thought I may have been early for the meeting."

If they were being made to wait, then this mission was going to get off to a lovely start, wasn't it? Working undercover gathering information as much as he did, Itachi had the luxury of not dealing with a lot of clients.

"Ah." Itachi kept his face perfectly neutral. "Better early than late."

He chuckled. "Not easy to wait for the client is it?"

Abel himself wasn't use to waiting for a client as more often than not, he was handed the mission information from the Mission Office in Ame and that was it.

The man that swanned in was... flamboyant in a way. Over the top in mannerisms even though when he spoke his words were no nonsense. It was a very confusing picture, but there was no denying the high quality of his single colored attire.

"Hello hello, I see you've both arrived. Now, I got you both for this because I didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket, so to speak." The man looked over Itachi and pressed his lips together, obviously less than thrilled, and Abel got a rather similar look. "I see your respective villages sent the bare minimum... no matter!"

Clapping his hands together, he gave the pair a stern look, clearly settling into the mindset of explaining to someone lesser. "I have an enemy. This enemy is trying to unseat me from my position, and she's very persistent in trying to get my head. I want you to go stop her. She's a delusional fanatic and needs to be dealt with. She also has a few followers." He fished out a picture of the woman, blond, brown eyes, scars over her shoulders. "So I suppose you'll need to take care of those too. Here's here picture. Questions?"

"Where are they located and do you know how many she has with her?" Abel asked, ignoring the slight against his talents. He walked over and took the picture, committing the woman's face to memory.

Itachi was more than happy to let Abel take the lead in pumping their employer for information, glancing at the photo long enough to memorize it before turning to their employer and watching him carefully. He was going to hope delusional fanatic was an overstatement. Dealing with fanatics could get...messy.

"They always come from the South when they attack, and I've personally seen her with no less than five different people." He paused, then shook his head. "That's all I have for you. It's not exactly my area."

Abel nodded and bowed. "Then we shall be on our way," he said, handing the picture to Itachi with a small nod to the door.

Time to find a map or three and narrow down the 'south' area if possible. He had been on missions with less information, but not since he left Kiri.

Itachi fell in behind Abel, hiding the frown he felt trying to creep onto his face. At least six people to take care of, probably more, from a Southern direction.

This was going to be more work than expected, it seemed. As the door closed Itachi gave Abel a wry look. "Perhaps we should see what information we can gather and meet back in few hours?"

"Yes, but meet where is the main question," sighed Abel as they made their way outside. He glanced at Itachi. "Any suggestions?"

Because it had been too long since he had someone to work with.

"In front of this building, perhaps?" Itachi suggested. They both knew where it was, and it seemed like a more-or-less central location.

Abel nodded. "Return in two hours to exchange information?"

He didn't know how long Itachi needed to collect information, but he was going to try to be as thorough as possible.

Itachi didn't know the area. He didn't know how much talking it would take to get people to spill their secrets. Would it take two hours? More? Itachi didn't like heading into a situation armed with only vague facts from a flamboyant employer who thought Konoha and Ame had sent the "bare minimum."

Oddly Itachi didn't feel he could trust this man's judgement.

"I'll aim for three, please don't be alarmed if I'm late." Itachi gave Abel a little smile. He had a tendency to be...methodical about his information gathering.

Abel nodded. He didn't want to depend on the employer's information scant though it was. "Three hours it is then. We may want to take a room in the city just for the night as we plan."

It was mid-afternoon now, which would give him plenty of time to hit the market and a few restaurants for rumors. Especially those along the southern part of the city.

Itachi nodded. Hopefully Abel was adept at information gathering. "I'll see you then."

It would probably be a long afternoon.

Three hours later, Abel was standing at the meeting spot, eating a rice ball and digesting what he had picked up around the city.

The Princess, as she was being called, had more than a few followers. Closer to a small village's worth than the six they had been told about. The six might be advisors, but there was the rest of them to consider. Also, it was less of a small group of rebels and more of a cult that honored the dead. She also had fighters, and it was a debate on if they were the local shinobi or if they had just been trained by them.

He sighed and frowned at his rice ball. This whole mission was turning into a clusterfuck, and Nagato was definitely going to be receiving a personal mission report from Abel about this if only to warn about this employer's lack of information.

"That is not a very encouraging expression Abel-san," Itachi said as he walked up. He expected that meant Abel had found out much the same Itachi had, and all of it made Itachi think they didn't even know the half of it. He wished he had someone whose skill set he knew better. That would have to be something they discussed.

"Perhaps you wouldn't mind if we had a private discussion?" Itachi asked. He was done listening around the town, and the sooner they decided what they were going to do with this mess, the better.

"Let's go find that hotel room and see what we can put together," Abel said with a wry grin. He held out the paper bag in his other hand. "Rice ball?"

They were going to have to do some serious brainstorming to pull this one off. Abel softly sighed. Yeah, he was definitely going to have to show off his bloodline just to keep Itachi from freezing at the wrong time. That could definitely be done in the hotel room.

"No thank you. I have greedily stuffed myself all afternoon for the sake of gathering information from multiple sources." Itachi admitted without a trace of shame at all. He ate a lot, although he probably shouldn't eat so many sweets.

"I already found a place that looked suitable, if you don't mind." It was small hotel, and he'd found a room that he thought would be easy to secure, not that he was expecting any attacks early on, but a paranoid ninja was a living one.

"And I was more active in the market where the gossips gathered," Abel murmured with a small laugh.

He gave a small wave as he tucked the bag under his arm for now. "After you. I confess to be a bit too preoccupied with information to think about scoping out a hotel."

Itachi traveled a lot, so it was second nature for him to scope out a place to stay for the night just in case. He didn't really think that was relevant, so he kept that to himself and lead Abel to the small, neat little hotel where he's already reserved a room, and then to a second floor room with only one small window and two beds.

It was very small, but it was clean. Itachi preferred clean places to large places. "The walls, I was informed, are very thick." That he had been told the walls were thick let Itachi know what this place was most often used for--or maybe the woman at the front desk had been reading too many of the bright orange novels stashed away supposedly out of sight of customers.

Abel nodded and shrugged out of the small pack he had. Dropping it on a bed, he began digging out the usual small traps he used whenever he had to sleep in civilization. It only took a few minutes to put some over the window and around the door.

"I'm not picky which bed to take," he murmured, keeping his voice down more out of habit than any need.

"I'd rather have the one by the door, if it's all the same to you," Itachi admitted. He'd watched Abel set up traps, and realized he usually only set a simple alarm trap, as he was often travelling in a civilian guise. Abel's traps looked competent enough, so Itachi would take his first leap of faith with his partner. Itachi did pull out a small scroll to stick on the wall, which accompanied with a few hand signs would turn all conversation into murmurs with a few innocent words litter audibly here and there.

"What did you hear?" Itachi asked.

"The princess as the leader is called, is actually the head of a cult that honors the dead," Abel said with a frown, the usual senbon twirling between his fingers again. It was all he could do to not start pacing. "The six we were told about may be advisers or her bodyguards. There's also some debate on whether or not she has the local shinobi village backing her up."

He pointed the senbon at Itachi. "This is a lot more complicated than the employer told us about."

Itachi nodded. He'd heard as much himself, though not the suggestion she had local shinobi support. "We are not equipped to take on an entire hidden village, no matter how small. If she's housed somewhere other than the village, we may be able to eliminate her and her cults core members, which is what we were contracted to do." If that caused the hidden village ride up in protest, then it could be considered outside their contractual obligation. Their employer should have researched his enemies better.

"We need more information," Itachi said, which really went without saying. "Preferably as close to the source of our problems as possible. Most everything we pick up here will be second hand at best." But, infiltrating a small cult group or a small hidden village would be difficult to impossible.

"The easiest thing to do would be pose as civilians, either outsiders who got 'lost' or potential recruits," Abel said with a frown. He glanced over at Itachi. "If I say something that you already realize, I apologize. I've gotten in the habit of planning out loud to find any holes in said plans."

He sighed. "But you're right. Even with bloodlines, we can't take down a whole hidden village by ourselves. Nor would I want to in all honesty."

"There's a lot of trade in the area. We might be able to find ourselves hired by someone going in that direction." Depending on how quickly they wanted to move, that was.

"Abel-san, please excuse my bluntness, but how much experience do you have working undercover?" It would help Itachi decide how detailed they could go with their roles, and how carefully he'd have to watch Abel or how much he'd have to cover for him.

He agreed with Abel on the Hidden Village point. It might set a bad precedence.

Abel shook his head. "Not much at all," he confessed with a slight shrug. "My looks and bloodline made me a bit too memorable for me to go constantly undercover before I ran for Ame."

He looked at Itachi before driving the pointed end of the senbon into his hand. "Originally, my name was Abel Nightlord and I was from Kirigakure."

With a small bit of chakra, the blood pooling in his hand grew into a kunai that he twirled around and offered to Itachi, curious to see how the other would react to such a bloodline.

Itachi had to admit, he was surprised that the gentle seeming Abel was from Kiri. His eyebrows went up a little, though he thought he was more surprised that Abel was telling him where he'd originated from. Itachi tried to keep up with major clans in other villages, but Kiri was mostly a mystery to him. No one was going to send the Uchiha heir undercover there, ANBU or no. He'd sort through the more subtle implications of Abel being from Kiri at a later date.

And then Abel stabbed himself. Itachi had to admit he tensed, Sharingan activating, unsure where this was going. He supposed to trusted Abel to an extent, but he didn't know the man well enough to know if he were being impersonated, or if something else were up. His mind was clicking through causes and responses the second the senbon pierced Abel's skin. A bloodline demonstration also wasn't what he was expecting.

Itachi was impressed, just a bit. Pulling out the Sharingan when not in a combat situation was rude, but he watched the demonstration with it anyway, intrigued. Chakra and blood to make a weapon. Itachi took the kunai that was offered, half expecting it to crumble in his hand.

"I can't say I've seen that before," Itachi admitted, the barest sliver of a smile on his face. It was a completely boy-ish smile, fascinated with his friends new trick and thinking how useful this could be.

"It's half of what I can do," Abel admitted with a wry grin. "It's limited due to bloodloss, but to show you the other half, I'd need your assistance. I promise I won't take much."

He gestured to the blood kunai Itachi held. "You just need a cut deep enough to draw blood."

That made Itachi a little nervous. Not only did this seem like a great way to pass on blood borne diseases, Itachi was hesitant about handing out tissue samples or blood to anyone. Still, Abel hadn't done him a bad turn yet, and the would need to trust each other for this mission, possibly more than either of them were comfortable trusting the other yet.

And he was curious.

"How much blood?" Itachi asked as he looked at his arm, deciding where would be least troublesome and the easiest explained place to make a cut.

"Paper cut will do," Abel said, bringing his injured hand up to his mouth to lick the blood away. The wound was oozing slightly but it wasn't as bad as it had been. He was a touch nervous about this, but better to have this happen now when Itachi could digest the information than in the heat of battle.

Itachi watched Abel carefully, Sharingan swirling just a little as the man moved. If this was show and tell, Itachi was going to keep the Sharingan on. It wasn't as if he could copy a bloodline limit anyway, but it made him feel a little more comfortable. Itachi chose the side of his forearm, making a small slice a little deeper than a paper cut with the blood kunai.

Abel offered a wry grin, staring into those now red eyes. "This is the reason the Nightlord Clan is feared."

Holding his still injured hand above Itachi's wound, he called the blood to him. His own eyes flared demonic red as the blood lifted off of Itachi's skin to vanish in his own. After only a few seconds and barely any blood, Abel stopped pulling on Itachi's blood. He then turned his hand over to show unmarked skin.

Itachi couldn't help a minor flinch. He was keyed up, not knowing exactly what to expect, and he hadn't been expecting that. Itachi's eye narrowed, Sharingan spinning madly as the blood transfer took place, quieting as Abel showed off his now healed hand.

Wasn't that....unique.

If you could draw someone else's blood out to heal yourself, how far could that be applied? How much blood could you draw from some else's body, and could Abel form someone else's blood into a weapon? Were Abel an enemy, Itachi might have been concerned. Now, he had time to observe Abel as an ally and perhaps see his talents in use in true combat. He'd ba able to counter it better after that...not that he expected to have to, but one could never be too careful.

"I cannot say I've seen that before," Itachi admitted. It seemed like one of the stranger clan talents, and Itachi could see how an affinity for controlling blood would get one feared.

"I have drained some dry before," Abel admitted, closing his eyes briefly as the red glow in his eyes faded. He opened now-blue eyes again. "I am also one of the rare ones who has mastered my bloodline." An ironic smile twitched his lips. "Something that wasn't encouraged in Kiri. My Lord actually helped me."

Taking the blood kunai back, he held it in his hand, letting it slowly be absorbed back into his body. "As I said, I'm limited by the blood in my body, but once I absorb another's blood, I can use it to resupply my own."

Once the kunai had been reabsorbed, Abel wiped his hands together and smiled at Itachi. It was a pleasant mask for any who knew him. "But that is why I wasn't sent on undercover work very often. Easy to remember someone when they start absorbing all the spilled blood in the area."

The tension in Itachi's beck eased a little as Abel's eyes shifted back to blue. Itachi deactivated his Sharingan, eyes a placid grey again. Itachi wasn't surprised to hear that about Kiri. They didn't seem to be fond of clanners.

Itachi took this all as a show of good faith, especially the explanation. Itachi made a note to attempt to keep Abel out of any fights unless they wanted their cover blown. ANBU had forced Itachi to learn a radically different fighting style that didn't rely on his Sharingan at all, which hadn't been that hard because he'd been memorizing other techniques since he'd gotten his Sharingan. It was unlikely anyone would recognize Itachi in a fight, either as an ANBU operative or as the Uchiha heir.

"I'll keep it simple, then," Itachi responded. He should feel nervous, he knew, about Abel's technique. Frankly it just reassured him that Able could most likely hold his own in a fight. "I was going to ask your strong points in combat, but I think you've shown me that already."

He chuckled and shrugged. "If anything, my bloodline points back to Kiri instead of where we're from," he remarked. "And I use my blood weapons with lightning jutsus. They give me a bit better control over where the lightning strikes."

There was a weight that was gone from his shoulders at Itachi's easy acceptance of his ability, and he felt like partially collapsing from the lack of it. He hummed and grinned. "At least you'll know we'll never be unarmed even if they strip us naked."

"You're not exactly subtle, are you?" Lightning and blood--that had to smell wonderful, didn't it? Maybe it was because he'd seen Kakashi's chidori, but Itachi associated lightning techniques with light and sound and that interesting ozone smell. He had no doubt that all packed quite a punch, though. Itachi was less about strength, more about out thinking his opponent, so it was nice to know someone with a little more raw power would have his back.

Itachi almost snorted. He hadn't thought about that, and if it came to it he wouldn't hesitate over using a weapon made of Abel's blood if he needed to. "Not only are you an excellent source of free food, you're also almost incapable of being disarmed. I should make friends outside my family more often." Itachi gave Abel again a half smile, rather pleased with the situation despite the uncertainty of the mission.

"I'm afraid my own bloodline limit isn't so impressive," Itachi admitted.

That got a soft laugh out of Abel. "Subtle was Sephiroth when we were a team." He shook his head. "Yours may not be as flashy as mine, but it is still impressive from the rumors I heard."

He grinned at his friend. "Do you really steal souls with your gaze?" It was a light hearted tease instead of a serious question.

The name Sephiroth sounded familair. Itachi tucked the name away for later research. "It's only as impressive as one's ability to utilize it. It does give you an edge if you've got mastery of it," Itachi admitted.

Itachi sobered. "It's how I keep my healthy glow," Itachi said blandly.

That got a bigger snicker from Abel before he sobered. "Okay, all joking aside, it sounds as if you have more experience with going undercover than I do, so I leave that up to you."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I've been a civilian caravan guard before for a short term assignment if that helps any."

Itachi nodded, it was better than no experience. "Until we know more, civilian will be our safest option. Moon does a lot of trading so it won't be too strange for foreign civilians to be around. We'll keep our story simple." Something that would allow them to stay close and have private conversations when they needed too without rousing suspicion.

"We could pick up with a caravan making a delivery to the area, but that would take a while. Alternatively we could try to pass ourselves off as people travelling to the capital for work who got turned around. If, in the meantime, we discover the cult is recruiting, all the better." But, being in the cult might make them more noticable, perhaps more closely watched.

Abel nodded, twirling the senbon again as he leaned against the wall. "That makes the most sense." He tossed a teasing grin at Itachi. "Much easier than walking up to the Hidden Village and asking if they're involved in a cult."

"Less likely to get you taken in for questioning or outright dead, in any case." Itachi glanced around the little room.

"I think I'll spend the night on the town and pick up what we'll need for disguises," Itachi said. Sometimes there was different gossip around at night, as a different crowd took the streets.

Abel nodded, straightening. "I'll see about hitting a bar for a few hours for any information from the rougher crowd. I may get something on any caravans heading out that we might be able to attach ourselves to."

He nodded his head at the traps. "Figure just leave them up since we know where they are, and that way we don't have to worry about anyone snooping around our room while we're out."

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[Closed] Mission to Moon

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