(late April, year 54 AK)
Inside the hidden room under the Naka shrine, Shisui stood firmly with a calm resolve in his eyes, as he looked directly at Fugaku without diverting his eyes even for a moment, while Fugaku was looking back at Shisui seemingly deep in thoughts.
Most of the people in the room were staring at Shisui with disbelief and rising anger, three people in particular, Takeshi, Satoru and Kazuo who were also standing, were staring at Shisui with outraged expressions, their Sharingans were spinning fast, the tension in the air was suffocating.
"What are you saying, Shisui!?" Takeshi rebuked harshly, his face was filled with blind hatred, "Are you trying to protect them!? Those people who had disrespected the Uchiha so much!?"
"Shisui!" Satoru said angerly, "Despite becoming an accomplished Jonin at your young age, this is important clan matters, you shouldn't speak casually here like that!"
"Shisui!" Kazuo said in a grave tone, "You had become a Jonin instructor, and you even have two outsiders in your squad now, you had been summoned by the Hokage multiple times recently. I'm wondering where is your loyalties lies..."
As Kazue slowly said the last sentence, the tension had risen sharply, and the air became filled with hostility.
Shisui felt that right now if he moves even slightly, the three Jonins that are staring at him with hatred, Takeshi, Satoru and Kazuo, will attack him at that same moment.
Those three Jonins aren't the only Jonins in the Uchiha clan, and the other Uchiha Jonins are also all present here in this room, but those three are the most influential and renowned among them, many Uchiha clansmen are respecting them the most, since they are considered the strongest Uchiha members, right after Fugaku, the clan head, and now also after Shisui, now that after Shisui had proven himself in the last war at the very young age, as well as in the turbulent years after the war, claiming the moniker – the Body Flicker.
As Shisui was about to reveal his Mangekyo Sharingan to suppress the others and to prevent the fighting from breaking out, Fugaku spoke.
"That's enough! Kazuo, if you don't have any evidence against Shisui – you should drop the accusations, it's not the time for us fighting against each other!"
"Yes, patriarch." Kazuo replied respectfully, as tension decreased and Kazuo and the others sat down, their expressions are still filled with anger, but not as much as before. No matter how radical, they aren't radical enough to go against their own clan head, at least not yet.
"This matter needs further consideration, we cannot act rashly." Fugaku stated calmly, and as Shisui sat down as well, the discussion continued, filled with complains, sharp remarks, the air was filled with resentment towards the village, but there were no more heated calls to action, at least for now...
'The clan head didn't take my words as the direct attack against him, this is good, that means Yuta was correct about him, since if he wanted to move along with the coup, that was the perfect time to suppress me, but he didn't. Anyway, me putting myself in the direct opposition to the coup won't delay them forever, but I'll at least have more time...' Shisui thought as he was still hesitant to follow Yuta's suggestion of trying to suppress his radical clansmen with force.
...
Early in the morning, Yuta came to the Team-Shisui's reserved training grounds, as he approached the usual meeting place, Yuta saw Itachi and Hikari that was already there.
"Morning." Yuta casually greeted them as he came closer.
"Huh, did you get sick or something?" Hikari said suspiciously while Itachi simply nodded to him, "You are five minutes earlier than usual, and why are you smiling like that, it's creepy!"
"Am I smiling?" Yuta touched his face in confusion, "Well, I guess I am..."
'Damn, this is nostalgic. I didn't see them in two years or so, after all.' Yuta thought as he calmed down.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Hikari said with visible irritation, but Yuta didn't respond to that.
After a few minutes of waiting, Shisui appeared beside them and said, "Are you ready? Let's go, the Hokage are waiting for us."
As the group went in the direction of the Hokage Tower, Yuta thought, 'I think I sensed a vague feeling of chakra appearing the moment before Shisui showed up, but it was so miniscule that I'm not even sure if it wasn't just my imagination, damn he is good at chakra concealment... Meanwhile I'm doing my best to just suppress my chakra partially so no one would notice that it had grown, I'm not even close to the level of concealment that Shisui casually shown a moment ago...'
...
As Team-Shisui entered the Hokage's office, they respectfully greeted him with a bow.
"Lord Hokage."
"Ah, it's you, Shisui." Hiruzen said in a friendly manner, "Are you sure they are ready?"
"Yes, lord Hokage, please assign us a higher rank mission." Shisui replied respectfully.
"Well, if you believe they are ready, then I have no objections to that." Hiruzen said that after a few moments of thinking, then he retrieved a mission scroll from his desk and handed it over to Shisui, who stepped forward to receive it.
'Huh, I guess he was already prepared it beforehand.' Yuta thought.
"I wish you luck on your first mission outside the village, stay on guard and do your best." Hiruzen said.
"Yes, lord Hokage." Yuta and others respectfully replied and left the office.
After they exited the building, Shisui opened the scroll and gave it a brief look and put it away.
"Follow me, we will be meeting with the client at the gates." Shisui said as he led the group.
"What is our mission, Shisui-sensei?" Itachi asked curiously.
"Will there be fighting?" Hikari excitedly asked.
"We will be escorting the client back to the Shimazawa town that is to the east of the Konoha village, then we will be escorting the merchant's caravan from that town to the Degarashi Port in the Land of Tea."
"That's quite a journey." Yuta thoughtfully commented as he remembered the maps and calculated the distances, "The Shimazawa town is on the route to the Degarashi Port, so there is no detour, but still, since we will be escorting civilians all the way, it will take quite a while to get there... Maybe two weeks, or even three..." Yuta calculated aloud.
"More like three weeks, and then about four days to get back to the village, we will be out for almost a month." Shisui said.
"That long?" Hikari exclaimed shocked, "Please tell me there will be at least some fighting along the way, maybe there is some enemy ninjas that are after our client or something?"
"I hope not." Shisui simply said as they approached the village's gates, "This is a C-rank mission, means that it estimates that there will be no enemy ninjas."
"This is lame, why we have to waste a month on this?" Hikari complained, and while Yuta wasn't saying anything, he was totally with Hikari on that.
"This is the mission that has being entrusted to us by the village and the lord Hokage himself, and every mission is important, no matter how insignificant it seems." Shisui patiently replied, "There is our client."
As the group approached a middle-aged man at the gates, Shisui said formally, "Nice to meet you, you must be Kenichi Oki, the merchant we are supposed to meet here. My name is Shisui and this is my team."
"Huh? A teen and a bunch of kids? This is what the village is assigned to us? We paid a lot of money for the protection!" Kenichi spoke in resentment.
"Tsk." Hikari's expression turned annoyed, while Itachi and Yuta didn't react at all to Kenichi's words, staying calm and professional.
"I'm Konoha's Jonin and having a Jonin to accompany you is already more than you paid for, and they aren't kids, they are trained Genins, you can rest assured of our competence, skills are more important than age in our line of work, and by assigning this mission to them, the village shown a full trust in their skills as a shinobi."
"I sure hope so." Kenichi said with a bitter expression on his face as he picked up the massive looking backpack from the ground and put it on his back, "Let's get moving then."
"I didn't introduce my teammates yet." Shisui said calmly.
"No need, I don't care what the names of those kids are." Kenichi said and started moving.
With that, the Team-Shisui and one grumpy middle-aged man with a heavy backpack moved out of the village, they passed a brief check on the gate where Shisui briefly showed the mission scroll to the gate keepers and they had written something in the journal and with that the group swiftly left the village and moved in a fast walking pace along the main road.
Yuta, remembering the training and Shisui's teachings, took the position in the middle of the group, by Kenichi's side, as Itachi and Hikari positioned themselves on the sides and Shisui walked slightly ahead. Although they are just outside the Konoha village and there can't be any enemies or ambushes at this point, Yuta put up his guard anyway and stayed vigilant.
It was early in the morning as they moved out, they walked at a fast pace for the whole day in silence, only stopping briefly by the river to eat some food they had packed up beforehand. Yuta had prepared some rice balls for a couple of days of the journey, and although he didn't know the mission would be this long, he also bought some food ration pills that could substitute for the normal food for the whole month for Yuta if need be.
Everyone else also seemed to have prepared some food for the road, so they didn't cook anything or make the fire, and after a quick lunch they continued moving. Kenichi was in a bad mood all the way and he didn't say much during the whole day.
...
"It's getting dark, shouldn't we camp for the night?" Shisui calmly suggested.
"No, Shimazawa town is just ahead, we will get there in an hour or two, if you are as skilled ninjas as you claimed you are, it's sure is not a problem for you to walk a little longer even if it is hard to see." Kenichi replied grumpily.
"No problem." Shisui calmly replied, and the group continued walking.
'It's being a whole day of walking with nothing but trees everywhere.' Yuta thought, 'I'm not tired physically, it's not nearly as exhausting as an actual training, it's more like a rest than anything. But staying on guard all the time is actually mentally exhausting, I'm not used to this, to constantly look out and check the surroundings, to listen carefully to any suspicious sounds around us and to check the surroundings with chakra senses frequently, all of that is exhausting when I have to do it for a whole day non-stop. Well, I'll just treat it as a different kind of training.'
During the trip Yuta noticed that Shisui was on guard as well, although it was hard to tell, since he appeared calm and casual all the time. Itachi, on the other hand, was also constantly and diligently on guard, while Hikari was seemingly slacking in that regard, although Yuta wasn't sure if that's the case.
'Almost a month-long mission, if it all goes just like today, it will be easily the most boring experience in my life...' Yuta thought as he continued walking forward.
--- AN ---
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