When we finally reached the Uzu island and started getting off, we suddenly realised that Sakura is not with us. Neither is Kurenai Sensie. Suddenly, we are surprised by 2 shouts of "boo" from behind us. Revealing Kurenai Sensie and Sakura.
Sakura thanks Kuranai Sensie. She figured that every time Kiba and I were able to detect getting into genjutsu was because we suddenly stopped feeling her (heartbeat/body heat, etc) or smelling her.
So, this last time, she carefully reduced her presence, very very slowly, so that we don't notice the sudden drop in presence.
After getting off our ship, the client's messenger bird guides us. We go inward to find a forest. Inside a forrest clearing we found out clients.
They are uninjured, tired but still capable enough to have made themselves a shelter. I recognise the bodyguard to the imperial archeologist she's Piku. She's one of the orphans from my orphanage. One of my close freinds.
She's 2 years my senior. She didn't get one of the inuzuka trained birds at the graduation because she didn't learn the mystic palm jutsu by graduation. She did adopt one directly from the nest of magpies at the orphanage terrace.
She has been able to train it significantly and separately from the inuzuka vet. Her bird is primarily a messanger bird, not a hunting support bird like I train.
Piku barely graduated, and soon entered gennin squads at the communication department. They train messenger bird there.
Piku had already adopted a magpie, long before graduating. She trained that magpie among other messenger birds, but this one remained her personal bird named Maggie.
Piku had adopted Maggie from one of the first batches and by the time she became gennin, the magpie had already spent 2 years under her.
In those two years as an academy student, she didn't teach the bird any hunting or even flying. She only used the bird as a friend and pet, talking to it like it was a human. She even read loudly her academic text books with the bird on her shoulder. She liked to pretend that she had a study buddy.
One day, in her final year, She asked a exam question to herself loudly, her Magpie 'Maggie' repeated her question. She didn't know magpies could mimic speach and this freaked out. She actually came to me back then for help. I had congratulated her on training her Magpie for speach.
I even helped her train her magpie to act as flashcards, by making the magpie remember a sheet full of questions and answers. By the time she was graduating, her Magpie could not only Mimic and memorize, she could practically talk.
I took her to Inuzuka head personally to help her understand weight of taking Care of sentient Animal. She did tease Piku about her bird not being able to fly. Piku pouted and said, " Atleast it can play chess". Touche
But she did take that insult to her heart. I was already training birds at the inuzuka vet by then, so she asked me to train Maggie with the rest while she prepares for her final exams. She explained that maggie would be more help than hinder, since she can talk and understand. It's only for a week anyways.
It was actually more difficult to train Maggie than other birds, because she asked questions, rather than just follow instructions. That's what made it more fulfilling too. I finally got some feedback on my training methods from a students prospective.
Even after Piku became gennin, she would visit the vet often and let maggie help us. she even went to the training ground 0 to continue training with Eveie, even though she was already a gennin at that point.
Her bird could already talk when she became a Gennin and the bird could lead other, bigger birds, forming a small flock under piku's control.
She gained enough merit that she was promoted as specialist chunnin and sent to Imperial City as one of communication Ninjas that help maintain communication between fire Damiyio and Hokage.
That's how she found herself in mission to act as communican envoy for the imperial Archeologist on this expedition.
The Imperial Archeologist is a powerful and Wise Elder Samurai named Kanzo. He is a close advisor to the Damiyo and foremost Fuinjutsu (Sealing) expert in the imperial city.
He was hunting some uzumaki treasure . He did find the treasure while they were stranded here. He even sealed it before we arrived. Now that we are here with a boat, they can come back to the city.
I ask Kiba and Akamaru to look for any other survivors of the crash, but they couldn't find any. We get on the boat again and started our journey back.
On the journey back, I asked the Kanzo Sama and Piku about the life at the capital. I was engrossed in conversation with them.
Kuranai decided to help kiba with his Genjutsu: Translucence, while Sakura became the main lookout and joined our conversation.
I asked the archeologist about Fuinjutsu and how one starts such a journey. Kanzo sama said " My family specialises in Fuinjutsu so I have been learning it from a young age. "
He said " I started with storage scrolls and illumination seals. When I became an official samurai, I choose to specialise in Barrier Fuinjutsu ."
He encourages Piku to share her story, as he belives it is much more impressive what she has achieved starting from the bottom, directly considering she is only 16.
Piku started out of practical need . " While the whole nest at communications department has many handlers,I had taken to training a specialist few birds as my own personal messenger pets. " She says.
" Despite training these birds, I also had to took on foot messenger duties from time to time . Just training birds didn't have an impressive promotional ladder "
" As a messenger my primary goal was always to escape trouble rather than confront it. Foot messenger ninjas are highly recommended to perfect their substitution jutsu to the point of but requiring hand seals."
" When I started trying to masters substitution jutsu, I used Maggie as journal and soundboard for My theories and progress. When my own understanding reached a level where I could perform it without handseals, Maggie told me that she thinks she can do it to if I can train her chakra, some she completely understands the theory."
" I loved that idea and started training maggie in basic chakra controll. Sticking leaf to your forehead. With all the theory in her, it took Maggie 1 year to finally learn the substitution jutsu practically, she doesn't even need to use handseals to perform it." Piku said smugly.
" By the time maggie learnt substitution jutsu, I was already an established foot messenger and a pro messenger bird trainer at the communications department. With a bird with substitution jutsu, I became much too valuable. "
"I was drafted into anbu, to act as Paige between anbu teams on mission. I was attached to a powerful anbu team. Whenever their teams would split, me and Maggie would split too. Whenever split half encounters unexpected trouble, the messenger, be it me or Maggie, would run to the other team to ask for back up. "
" Because of her speed , Maggie was usually part of forward reconnaissance team, while I stayed behind with the backup. "
"During this time , I was forced to face the deadly realities of ninja life like never before. With the resources of anbu at My disposal, I started training harder, focusing on speed ."
" It was also during this time that I started dabbling into seals. I had seen an dog faced Anbu ( anbu - Code Inu, kakashi) summon dogs and asked him about it. He put me on the right path , teaching me a bit himself, while also telling me about other resources like books and shop. "
" I'll list some of the books for you, they should be available at shinobi library. Some of these might be more obscure, limited to ambu library." Says Piku. I didn't reveal my status as ambu, but still ask her to list the books.
She continues " When I finally reached a level where I formed a summoning contract with Maggie and her lackies, I was promoted to chunin. The summoning contract expanded My roll within the communication department and anbu. Now I could summon multiple birds and act as a communication network instead of a single line of communication. "
" That's when I was sent to the imperial city, to help the communications teams there. I'm still a ninja of the leaf, so i still take on missions from time to time. That's why I'm here "
She was selected to go with the Imperial Archeologist on this expedition as a communication tool. While on their trip here, She bonded with the grandfatherly Kanzo sama over Fuinjutsu.
She impressed him further when she was able to send her fast bird to call for backup after they were shipwrecked on Uzu. I'm impressed by Piku's journey. I make a mental not of trying to recruit her into root under me later on.
As we got off the boat, 2 birds landed on me. One of them, My new personal bird named birdy, was sent by me after we found Kenzo sama to inform the Hokage about his well being. He was back with the message from hokage " Escort him home".
The other bird was Twi, one of my 3 orignal birds. He was co-handling a big network of spy birds between Fire nation and Water nation for me. He is here to report me. He met birdy on his way and followed him to me.
I listen to twi's report and send him back with an order " Bring back few of your best reconnaissance birds, tell them they could be working for Maggie the Mic. ".
Maggie had acted as the translator between a lot of birds and me, acting as teachers aid at inuzuka vet training for many birds and helping me establish a effective training regime. She was popular among my birds.
We start our journey to escort our client back to the capital city. Soon for a flock of 5 answer my summon. I introduce them to Piku and Maggie. Maggie was already close with these guys and Piku even knew few of them , making it a happy reunion.
Piku showed me as she signed a contract with her birds. I ask Piku If she can help me create a summoning contract with my birds. She is happy to oblige, seeing how i just gave her 5 pro reconnaissance magpies. These 5 can help train others too, increasing the level of the whole flock at the fire country capital.
These 5 birds are also part of my orignal spy flock between fire and water country. They can even tap into that network as they talk to their freind to find out the general news. My flock will also gain a foothold in fire capital with these guys soon to take leadership roles among nesting birds.
Later on, Piku can even sell the Young birds they train at communication tower as hunting assistants for noble samurais.
We finally reach the capital and escort them to the palace gates. Kanzo sama handed over the mission compleat scroll to Kurenai Sensie. We tell both hanzo sama and Piku to call on me if they are ever in konoha.
We spend our day exploring the city while our client presented themselves to the Damiyo. I use up all my savings buying fancy and expensive clothes for my girls , buying a pair each for Sakura and Kurenai as well, for helping me shop .
That night, Piku comes to me with a scroll. It has summoning contract Fuinjutsu in it. I just have to write my name in blood to become it's master. Later on, my birds need to stamp their talon with their own blood to become my summons. Since twi and birdy are with me already, i already form the contact with them.
Kiba has actually gone ahead to a brothel while we went shopping. Next day, he was bragging to me how he and akamaru split roasted a whore. To each, his own, i guess.