Kaida and Kimimaro slowly made their way toward the business city. The journey was neither rushed nor slow, just fast enough to reach the location before the clone ran out of chakra.
On their journey, Kaida did have to take some detours as he was smuggling one of the most wanted people in the Land of Water with him. Though after observing Kimimaro for the whole journey, Kaida didn't have a single doubt in his mind about whether what he did was right or not.
The boy who was meek and frightened was now slowly coming back to normal. Each stop at a shop on their journey reinforced Kimimaro's growing belief that the world didn't hate him.
For this, Facing an S-rank ninja—half genius, half madman—armed with deadly jutsu and powerful allies was probably fine... probably.
'There is no use thinking about that. For now, I have to think about how I will handle introducing this boy, because for them I was always with them... looks like we have to do this the old way,' Kaida thought with a sigh.
"Kimimaro, do you know how to hide your chakra signatures?" Kaida asked.
"Yes, but I am not too good at that. I was not trained to be stealthy, you know," Kimimaro said with a chuckle, which surprised Kaida very much. This was the first time he had tried to make a joke in their long journey.
And even though Kaida knew the harsh truth behind this joke, it was still better than his gloomy self.
"Well, even a little is better. I can't introduce you to my team yet, as I am technically with them at the moment. It will be difficult to show how I could rescue you when I was with them the whole time," Kaida said.
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, I used a jutsu to make a clone of myself which I left with them and then went to rescue you." poof
A shadow clone poofed next to Kaida to show what he meant by a clone.
"It is like there are two of you," Kimimaro said. Having much better battle sense than even some chunins, he was astonished by the jutsu.
"Yeah, it is something really close to that. This aside, I am planning on presenting you as a talented orphan I found in the city, if that is okay with you," Kaida asked.
"I don't have any problem with that," Kimimaro said nonchalantly. Even with his clan, he lived his life inside a cage, so for him, the feelings for family were not that hard.
"Good. Try to suppress as much chakra as you can. We are going to enter the city now," Kaida said and took Kimimaro near the wall. Even though the city was a neutral zone, it was actually protected by both factions, so at the gate there were two Kiri chunins checking everyone who entered the city, as well as some hidden ninja inside the city who would come to the gate at a moment's notice.
It was much simpler to just enter the city through the wall, just like how he exited it. Placing a hand on Kimimaro's shoulder, Kaida used body flicker to directly enter the city. No matter how secured it was, it was not at the level of a ninja village, so entering it through walls was not that difficult.
After placing his hand on Kimimaro's shoulder, Kaida flickered right inside the city, and Kimimaro was shocked. This was the first time he was in such a big city. The most he had seen was small port towns his clan had destroyed just before their extinction. Compared to that, this was not even comparable. As the country's only major business hub and a neutral zone, the city had expanded rapidly, rivaling the capitals of other nations. Though if actual currency was to be taken into account, it would not even be half of the Fire Capital, but still, the scale and size of the city was definitely comparable.
"Like it?" Kaida asked, seeing the amazed expression on Kimimaro's face.
"Yes, this is so huge."
(A.N: control, don't say it)
"Yeah, it is. Now, how about we meet my teammates? Remember, you are a shy orphan I found here in this city, okay?" Kaida asked.
"Got it," Kimimaro said with a determined expression, like this was the most important mission of his life. Kaida just chuckled at that and went towards the hotel they were staying in. He had already created and dispersed a shadow clone to send the message to his other shadow clone about this whole plan. Now the only thing remaining was to wait and see.
Soon the memories of two days came to his mind. As he had already expected, there were just some meetings with both other merchants as well as ninja regarding the supply of weapons and food. The deal was almost finalized, but the merchant was still here, and from the late night lights in his room and sudden call for the captain, it was almost certain that he was also presenting his offer to rebels, showing how wars were the most profitable times for a merchant.
Selling his services to both sides, he was truly a wonderful merchant—not trustworthy but a good merchant. The kind who dies on a bed made of gold – alone.
Leaving those thoughts behind, Kaida began preparing for the small act he had planned. At night, he purposefully asked Fushiro to accompany him for a stroll, where he accidentally found out about a rumor of a new beggar in the town who was unusually powerful, and when other beggars tried to harass him, things did not end well for them.
Curious about the rumors, Kaida dragged Fushiro to the spot people had mentioned. Sure enough, they found a young Kaguya clan member. It was not much of a secret how powerful that clan was, and jonin-level ninja also had an idea about the possible extermination of that clan.
So finding that boy there was suspicious, to say the least, but Kaida asked the boy why he was there. Getting the sad backstory of Kimimaro's powers and how his own clan had placed him in a cage, how he somehow survived, and how he ran all the way over here to hide from pursuers, Kaida then took the chance to ask the boy to accompany them to Konoha. At this, Fushiro wanted to object, discussing with the team and all, but Kaida said he would take full responsibility for the child.
And surprisingly Kimimaro agreed to accompany Kaida to Konoha.
After the whole drama, Kimimaro officially entered the hotel with Kaida and Fushiro and got to share his room with Kaida. Naturally, Taizen was also informed about the whole event as he came to Kaida's room to meet the boy.
"You are sure you want to bring him to Konoha? What if he is a spy and wants to infiltrate Konoha?" he asked after meeting and asking some questions to Kimimaro. Though there were no problems in the answers, it was also true that the boy was from the enemy village nonetheless, resulting in the spark of doubt in Taizen's heart.
" I'm sure we can handle a kid until we reach the village. Besides, once we're there, we have experts who can confirm if he's a spy or not," Kaida said with a smile.
"Fine, but it will be your responsibility to handle the boy," Taizen said and left the room. None of the members of the team were truly against the idea of bringing the boy to Konoha in reality.
Aside from the unusual amount of bloodlust, the Kaguya clan is a pretty powerful clan. If Konoha could get such a powerful clan on their side, the future would be much more secure for the village.
So Kimimaro easily got the permission to accompany the team to Konoha.
"Hoh, I never knew acting was harder than fighting," Kimimaro said.
"And what did you actually act?" Kaida asked, raising his eyebrow.
"About this whole beggar and orphan thing."
"Hahaha."
"What?"
"You didn't act. All these people who came here to ask you questions have much more experience than you and could have easily found out if you were lying. It's just that you presented the truth in a different way. It is true that you are an orphan, even when your clan didn't perform their duties.
It is true that you lost your family recently, and about the beggar thing—when I found you, you were living in worse conditions than a beggar. So you didn't act," Kaida said. The only reason he could easily mention Kimimaro being an orphan was because during this whole time he was with him, he noticed Kimimaro had very little feeling toward his own clan.
"Well, that's true. So, are we not going to your village?" Kimimaro asked, changing the subject.
"Soon. There are still some meetings left for our client we were tasked to protect, so in 4-5 days, we will begin our return journey. Till then, rest in the room and order anything you want. If you get bored in the room, don't go out alone.
Wait for me till night, and I will take you out in the night," Kaida gave the general instructions to the boy, and after getting a nod from Kimimaro, left to join his team for Ryozo's next meeting.