5 Days After the Chūnin Exams
“So, this is the place.”
Blending into the crowd by the circus owned by the Prince of the Moon was a particularly handsome young man that appeared to be no older than sixteen. His medium length hair was a cool shade of silver with fringes that were just enough to barely past his eyebrows. It was shorter beneath his ears and longer up top. Contrasting the color of his hair were iridescent blue-violet eyes, which constantly moved around as his glance subtly shifted from person to person. Anyone that passed him would just see a friendly closed smile that
strained completed his charming face.
As for the rest of his look, the man wore a well-tailored, button down, short-sleeved shirt. Most of it was painted a dark navy blue besides the golden floral design above his heart and on the sleeves. With the shirt worn unbuttoned, the white shirt he wore underneath could be seen. Further down his well-toned body, he just wore the basic ninja pants, along with some scrolls and two weapons pouches on each side of his waist. It was mainly thanks to those items and white bandages over his wrists that indicated that there might be something more to him. Otherwise he just looked like the son of some high class family spending the day out here. The only thing missing now was probably a woman or two on each arm.
Of course, the point was to remain casual to the common folk and hard to be recognized immediately by other ninja. Pronouncing to everyone in the vicinity that he was a ninja there to protect the Prince would immediately be a failure after all. Only the Prince should know who was protecting him, which would prevent possible attackers from knowing who they needed to watch out for. Especially if they ended up being a higher rank than expected. This way they wouldn’t be too confident about attacking blindly. By looking older, it also made him seem more experienced as well.
The first thing he noticed while he ventured deeper into the caravan and towards the circus tent was just the amount of people in the area. For a team of bodyguards, this could be quite troublesome. For an assassin, or anyone else trying to go for the Prince, this was perfect. It was quite simple for him to blend in with the crowd and pretend to just be another passerby while gathering information. Like any visitor, the teenager looked around curiously.
Noticeably, he had also avoided touch anyone with his hands. The only things he did touch were the setups of a few vendors and some parked carriages that were nearby. When he did discreetly touch them, like when he was talking to a worker, a few sealing tags would seemingly appear before disappearing into whatever had been contacted. A simple jutsu he had learned to go along with his first nature release a few years back, but very effective. Whoever watched the later rounds of the recent chūnin exams would know.
“Hey, what are you doing over there?”
As expected, someone finally caught on. A worker from one of the stalls seemed have to have seen what he had done. Judging by their confusion, they probably didn’t know what exactly he was doing. They just seemed to be a regular civilian, so they were probably just questioning his suspicious behavior. Either way, that didn’t really matter to him. He was done with most of his setup anyway and just looked the man in the eye.
“Excuse me, can you tell me where the owner of the circus is?”
At first, the worker seemed on edge after hearing this question. First, the teen had acted suspiciously and now he was a asking about the location of the Prince. That was quite concerning and should be enough to let one of those bodyguards know to look out for him. At least, that was the idea the worker had before looking into the glimmering blue-violet eyes of the teenager.
“Prince Tsuki and his son would be in the main tent over that way.”
All of a sudden, all tension had suddenly been erased from the worker as he gave the teen directions. It was like he had completely forgotten about everything he just saw. Perhaps this was just due to the amount of charisma the teen had. Who knew what was hidden behind those contacts?
“Thank you.”
With that, the teen headed off towards the main tent. He would’ve found the Prince himself, but this way his job was made easier. Besides some clown flipping around, handing some people some flyers, nothing else really caught his attention. However, that would change when his eyes landed on someone that caught his full attention as he drew closer to the main tent. A girl. All of a sudden, talking to this girl he found rose up his list of priorities. But why? Well, this black-haired girl wasn’t just any girl. She was a Hyūga, wielder of the byakugan. Anyone who watched the chūnin exams should be able to recognize her. At least, if they watched it closely. As for the guy beside her, for all he knew, that could be her boyfriend. They seemed to be quite close from where he was standing. He did think they’d know better than to come looking for the Prince and essentially revealing to everyone they were there to protect him. Who knew who was watching? Well, it was a benefit for him that let him know who everyone was, at least.
He waited until they went inside before making his way towards the tent himself. They were also two other bodyguards who had come out as well. They didn’t seem to be all that strong, though, considering their chakra levels. At the front of the tent was also another girl, with a red yukata to match her hair. There was something else he saw in her that increased his interest in her as well. Maybe he could ask about that later.
Before he could go inside, however, he heard something fall with a thump. Did someone already get to the Prince before he did? Thankfully, another voice was asking if he was going to be okay. There was a young that spoke about setting up a patrol to keep watch and asking if more ninja were coming, so he took that as his queue to enter. He used his hand to push aside whatever was covering the entrance before heading inside.
“Yo. Looks like I came just in time.”
