Hey, just out of curiosity...
What level of lemons are you all expecting for this novel?
Light Ecchi, Ecchi, Heavy Ecchi, Light Hentai, Hentai?
---
"...even if you insist, your mission is rank C," Nezuko said boredly.
"But I'm just a poor old man. I can't pay for such an expensive mission..."
Sensei just stared at him and Sato shrank back, resigned.
Mika came over, giggling softly, and clung to Akihiro's back like a backpack.
"...what are you doing...?"
"Hehehe," she didn't answer, just stayed like a koala.
"I won." Sayuri's voice came next.
"Oh, I can't believe she fell for it..." Reika said sadly while passing what looked like a dango.
"Huh...?" Mika looked without understanding what was happening.
Sato looked over and let out a laugh. He spoke now like 'kids these days...', but no one paid attention.
"Girls, stop teasing Mika..." Nezuko-sensei said, but without emotion in her tone, her eyes stared at everyone with amusement.
Mika felt that something was strange and tried to get off Akihiro's back.
"...Mika, calm down, you can stay. I don't mind." Akihiro mediated; he didn't mind being teased, but the poor airhead? He felt sorry for her.
"...a-are you sure...?" Mika's little voice trembled, seeming to be holding back tears.
"Of course, you're light," Akihiro replied.
The girls started to tease them.
The morning sun barely touched the top of the trees when Team 69 set off, leaving behind the routine of cleaning Konoha and the safety of the village gates.
The level C mission, which now seemed to be much more, was taking them to the Land of Grass. The walk through the forest was smooth, and for a brief moment, the team finally seemed to be in sync.
Akihiro walked in front, with his senses sharp and his Byakugan. He performed his role as an indispensable sensory ninja, and he used his kekkei genkai to scan the landscape for any anomaly. He noticed that Nezuko was following them at a safe distance, an elegant shadow among the leaves. He felt like he was the bait, and the sensei was the fisherman.
"So, Byakugan-kun," Sayuri's voice sounded at his side, interrupting his thoughts. "Isn't this better than cleaning the river?" She smiled, her eyes sparkling with fun. "At least here, we don't have to worry about old perverts."
"How dare that strange old man spy on us while we were cleaning the river? I can't believe there's someone like that in the village!" Reika joined the conversation.
"Yeah, there are strange people out there..." Akihiro replied dryly.
'What if I told them it was probably... I'm not sure, but I assume it was Jiraiya.'
Mika, who was walking behind, tripped on a tree root and almost dropped a basket full of snacks that the Hokage had given them for the journey. "Oops!" she exclaimed, laughing at her own clumsiness. "Sorry~sorry, I'll pay more attention~"
Reika snorted, walking beside Mika. "You're unbelievable, Mika. If the enemy doesn't kill us, your clumsiness will." She looked at Akihiro. "And you, why are you so tense? Relax a little, we're going to the Land of Grass, not the Land of Lightning."
'As if the Land of Grass is an easy place...'
Akihiro didn't answer. He was focused on Sato, who was walking with the same caution as always, his cane hitting the ground. The behavior of a good, blind old man was so perfect that, for a moment, he began to distrust this 'perfection.'
The breeze carried a distant sound this time, a bird's note that didn't belong in that forest.
It was a specific sound. Sato's step, which was slow and uncertain before, became a millimeter faster. The cane, which he used to feel his way, stopped hitting the ground and began to be raised in front of him, almost like a weapon.
The naive smile disappeared. The tension in his shoulders was perceptible, and the smell of incense that surrounded him became stronger. He seemed, all of a sudden, to be more than twenty years younger, and the glint behind his dark glasses was one of pure concern.
The light mood broke. The air turned cold. The team stopped, the silence echoing through the trees. Akihiro looked at Sayuri, Reika, and Mika, and realized that they had also noticed the change.
Akihiro tried to find Nezuko for advice, but the sensei had disappeared.
"...and now what do we do...?" Reika asked uncertainly.
"We continue, but on alert," Akihiro replied softly.
"Mika, stay close to Sato. But remember, your own safety first." Sayuri, in a serious tone, positioned herself between Akihiro and Reika.
"Uh!" Mika said nothing, but followed the instructions.
Everyone was on alert.
Sato walked with slow steps, his cane touching the beaten dirt ground with a soft rhythm. He seemed content in his own company, until, without warning, he stopped.
"Ah... I'm lost," he murmured, scratching his head with a wrinkled hand. "I'm used to the road that goes through the orchard, but this one... doesn't seem right."
He said, turning his head slightly. "This road... isn't the one to the orchard. The one to the orchard smelled like plum."
Sayuri, with a patient smile, took a step forward. "Mister Sato, this is the most direct route from Konoha. It's the path the Hokage instructed us to follow. It's the best way to ensure your safety and minimize problems."
Sato looked in her direction, his opaque eyes seeming to see beyond the surface. "Safety... Ah, yes. Youth always thinks about safety... But beauty, Sayuri-chan, beauty is in the path less traveled... I've seen incredible things on shortcuts... For example..."
'I somehow feel uncomfortable with the way he talks...'
He began to tell a long, rambling story about how, one day, he got lost and found a cherry tree with bark that glowed at night. The story had no clear end, and every time the team tried to redirect him, he simply ignored them and kept talking.
Mika rolled her eyes. "He's going to make us walk in circles."
Reika grunted in frustration. "He's stalling us. Let's take him by the hand and follow the path. What's he going to do? Kick us?"
"Patience, Reika," Sayuri whispered, her hand on her friend's shoulder. "The goal isn't just to get there. It's to get there with him happy and without breaking anything."
Mika crouched down to observe a shiny stone. "Look! It looks like a beetle, but without legs!"
'At least Mika is relaxed...'
Akihiro watched the scene, his mind on high alert. It was what the sensei had said: a mission that would test their patience.
A few minutes later,
Sato stopped again. "I'm thirsty. There's a stream around here. I remember the sound of the water... like bells..."
Without waiting for a response, he turned and entered a thicket.
'...I've never seen a more annoying old man in my life.'
Akihiro frowned. The sound of the water was almost inaudible. But Sato walked as if he knew exactly where to step.
Sayuri sighed. "Here we go again."
Reika cracked her knuckles. "If he falls, I swear I'm going to carry this old man on a skewer."
Mika ran after him, tripping over roots and laughing.
Akihiro hesitated for a second. Sato's chakra remained weak. But there was something... out of place.
"Sir, please, the path to the stream is in another direction," Akihiro said, his voice firm. He activated his Byakugan and clearly saw a small creek on the right. The old man, however, was walking in the opposite direction, into an area with small thorns and fallen branches.
"Ah, but the water here is purer," Sato said, without stopping. "It always is. The water that comes from the heart of the forest..."
Reika clenched her fists so hard that her knuckles turned white. She wanted to grab him, beat him up, and put him on the correct path. Sayuri, in turn, tried a softer approach.
"Mister Sato, this area is dangerous. You could hurt your feet," she said, her voice soft as silk.
"My feet? Oh, don't worry about them," Sato laughed, a dry, raspy sound. "They've seen everything. They've walked on broken glass, through flames, even on boiling water... Life has a funny way of hardening you, my dear."
Mika, without a second thought, ran ahead of Sato, like a little sheepdog. "This way, sir! This way! It's easier!"
She gestured toward the correct path, but in the process, she tripped on a tree root and fell, hitting her head on the ground with a dry thud. She didn't cry. She just got up with a confused smile. Sato, however, seemed to ignore her completely.
"What was I saying?" he rambled. "Oh, yes. About the water... it's like a ninja's mind. If you force it, it doesn't flow. But if you let it follow its own path, it finds the ocean."
Akihiro clenched his fist. The man was using metaphors to justify his erratic behavior, and what was worse, it was working. He deactivated the Byakugan and settled for just following, his mind in a whirlwind.
'...this damn old man is driving us crazy.'
The journey turned into a series of micro-challenges. Every few feet, Sato stopped to tell a story. Each story led him to a detour away from the main path.
Reika was at her limit. Her skin seemed redder, and her fists were clenched tighter. At one point, Sato stopped on a part of the trail full of small stones.
Reika took a step forward, her shoulders tense, as if she was ready to carry the old man in her arms. Sayuri intercepted her with a light touch on her arm—a firm one.
"Ah, stones. I don't like stones," he said, shaking his head. "They're like Konoha's problems. Small and numerous. If you try to remove them all at once, you end up exhausted. The best thing to do is... find a new path."
He then began to walk toward a stream, where the path was wet and slippery.
Reika let out a low growl. "This is ridiculous. I can clear all those stones with a single kick."
"No," Sayuri said, her voice tense. "If you do that, he'll complain. Remember, the goal is discretion."
Akihiro, meanwhile, was trying to focus, but his mind was divided. He was so worried about keeping his focus on Sato that he wasn't paying attention to anything else. The Byakugan was a tool to see danger, not to guide a lost old man.
Luckily for them, Mika found a shortcut. She started to fidget, wanting to go to the bathroom, and ran behind a tree. When she returned, the team noticed that she had cut a path through a part of the bush that was much easier to get through.
Sayuri and Reika exchanged a look, and in a moment of pure silence, they saw that Mika's chaos had, by pure luck, solved a problem.
"What?" Mika asked, confused. "I just... was in a hurry."
Sato, who had heard the conversation, smiled. "Ah, haste is a form of wisdom, isn't it?"
The team stopped walking, and Akihiro felt the tension. That man was observing them. He knew what he was doing.
'...I'm just not going to pay attention to what this old man says anymore... he is...'
The sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. They were approaching the most treacherous part of the forest, an area with protruding roots and rough terrain.
"My feet are tired," Sato said, his voice full of weariness. "I think I need a break."
Akihiro activated the Byakugan out of habit. He saw, with crystalline clarity, a dangerous slope and a hidden animal trap just ahead.
"Mister Sato, be careful! There's a... hole in front of you!" Akihiro exclaimed, reaching out his hand to the old man.
Sato, however, shook his head. "I don't see any hole, my young man. Life is full of holes you don't see. The trick is not to be afraid of falling."
He stepped on the beaten dirt ground, but instead of falling into the trap, the earth gave way. The ground liquefied for an instant, and he slipped, losing his balance in a slow-motion fall.
Akihiro, in a moment of panic, felt uncomfortable with the scene, activated the Byakugan with all his strength, not to see the hole, but to check Sato's chakra.
Sato's chakra pulse was neutral and weak, exactly as it was before. But his posture was perfect, his body in total control, the muscles of his leg contracting with the precision of a high-level ninja. His eyes, though opaque, showed no sign of fear or surprise. He wasn't falling. He was allowing himself to fall.
In a microsecond, the farce was revealed. The man was not blind.
Akihiro jumped, grabbing Sato's hand before he touched the ground, and pulled him back to the safety of the trail.
"Are you okay, sir?" Reika asked, her voice full of genuine concern.
"Yes, I'm fine," Sato said, smiling. He straightened his clothes and turned to the team. "Thank you, Akihiro-kun. You're an impressive young ninja. It seems you can see what others can't..."
Akihiro didn't answer. He just stood there, staring at the man, now with a new look. He saw the irony in those words.
'Son of a bitch.'
The sun had completely set. The forest was plunged into a cold, purple darkness. The team, for a moment, didn't move. They had just gone through a test, and they didn't even know they were in one, much less what it was about.
Akihiro looked at his companions, each processing the event in their own way. Akihiro's Byakugan had finally revealed what the sensei wanted him to see: the danger behind the facade of innocence.