Chapter 76: Joint Mission - Bandit Extermination
(2 Days Later)
B-Rank Mission – Bandit Extermination
Location: Ruins of an Old Hyuga Fort – Land of Fire
Teams Assigned: Team Guy and Team Yugao
Standing on a hill overlooking a large, stone, castle-like fort, two genin teams gathered to execute their assigned mission. This group of bandits had been preying on local merchants, kidnapping influential civilians for ransom, and even ran a side business as hired muscle for less-than savory individuals. They were originally based in the land of earth, but recently moved to the land of fire for whatever reason.
Normally, Team Guy would have been enough for this mission, but due to a tip from one of Jiraiya's informants, it became known that this group had been seen with multiple chunin-level combatants and even potential ex-jonin. Of course, these 'ex-jonin' weren't necessarily rated using the five great nations' standards, so the title wasn't fully indicative of personal strength. While Might Guy, Team Guy's sensei could likely handle most of this mission himself, his team would be mostly unprotected during the process and with their future combat potential being rated as high as it was, their missions weren't allowed to be too risky.
That's why Team Yugao was sent as the main infiltration force, while Team Guy would work to kill the runners. The only caveat and the reason Team Guy was needed at all was that the building wasn't allowed to be destroyed. A side mission of assessing the building was also a goal for Guy's team. With them having a Hyuga member, any hidden mechanisms requiring a byakugan to detect would hopefully be found. Normally, there'd be a larger Hyuga presence, but with recent events, Hiashi delegated the responsibility to one of his more trusted clansmen, Neji.
"Do we really need another team to take out some bandits?" asked a young girl fair-skinned girl with dark brown hair and eyes. She wore a high-collared, white qipao-styled blouse with maroon trimming, maroon hakama-styled pants, and dark blue sandals.
"Yes Tenten. As youthful as our team is, I cannot guarantee your safety against multiple chunin, especially if the rumors of jonin being present are true." Might Guy calmly replied.
"Yosh! That is fine. There is no shame in working with others. Still, if I must take a lesser role, I will do it masterfully. If I let even a single person past, I will do ten laps around Konoha on my hands and if I can not do that, I will do 300 pushups on my fingers." An energetic, younger voice echoed out from a younger, skinnier version of Might Guy.
"Right you are my student and I will be with you all the way." Guy determinedly stated, mirroring his student's enthusiasm.
"Guy Sensei." The mini-me whispered with tears in his eyes.
"Lee" Guy did the same.
"Guy Sensei!" Lee did it louder.
"Lee!" Guy did the same.
Finally, the two moved to hug, only to be stopped by a silver stiletto-tipped chain whipping between them.
"Can you two shut up!? It's already annoying that you're being wearing those gaudy outfits and you want to scream at the top of your lung too? Hell, if it weren't for the sound barrier we put up, this whole province would know our position by now." Naga bitingly stated, her frustration blatantly obvious to all.
"Well, they're definitely a unique pair." Kamui commented, amused at the spectacle.
"Yeah… you shinobi are weird." Himiko made her discomfort known. "I mean… I understand you guys allowing anyone to wear anything they want on missions, but… really? Full body green spandex?"
"Hey, don't lump us all together! Lee and sensei are a lot; that's true, but Neji and I aren't like that!" Tenten quickly rebutted, offended at the accusation that she may be in the same category as the two weirdos.
While the group was bickering, another genin sat away from the group, silently. He had long black hair, pale skin, and white pupilless eyes. He wore a white kimono-shirt with long, loose sleeves, matching pants, a navy-grey apron tied around his waist, and black shinobi sandals.
He would occasionally glare menacingly at Kamui as if her presence was the greatest threat they faced. He hid it well though, not being noticed by most of the group due to his byakugan's omni-directional range. He was already using it for the mission, so he had a good excuse to use it here. To others, it simply looked like he was menacingly looking at the stronghold. Unfortunately for him, all three genin on Yugao's team had their own means of seeing this, which alerted Yugao of it too. Might Guy, being his sensei had also noticed the change, so Lee and Tenten were the only ones truly unaware.
As such, most of the team was on guard in some way. Seeing as how the boy wasn't acting on it, they silently decided amongst themselves to deal with it after the mission.
Five Minutes Later
"Enough! Let's get this mission over with." Yugao interrupted the banter, getting everyone back on track.
"Very well. Come team. Let's take our positions, but first…" Guy exuberantly replied, sticking his hand out.
Seeing this, Lee followed suit putting his hand on Guy's with a joyful grin on his face
"Hmm…" The two slowly turned toward Tenten, who looked back with resignation and reluctantly joined. The part that caught the whole team off guard though, was when Neji silently joined in without prompting. He wasn't focused on them; he was just going with the motions out of habit.
Before Tenten could make a big deal of it though, Guy decided to push forward, not wanting to let Tenten open that can of worms at present.
"Alright! Onward with the power of youth!" He shouted.
"Yeah!" Lee replied. The rest were silent.
"Attack!" He pumped their hands.
"Yeah!
"Attack!" He pumped their hands.
"Yeah!" Lee replied.
Team Yugao looked on silently, in near horror at the spectacle in front of them. Their eyes actively burning out of their eye sockets at the tacky show of enthusiasm.
"Alright, let's go!" With that final declaration, Team guy body-flickered to their assigned positions around the compound.
"Yeah… I could have gone my whole life without seeing that." Naga dryly commented earning a chuckle from the group.
"Well, at least they have some personality. I mean, most shinobi I've met over the years are so boring. They're silent, broody, and complain on how hard the world is. That green spandex weirdo may be strange, but I prefer him any day to those 'victims.'" Kamui casually rebutted.
"Joining the ANBU will probably be out of the cards then. They're all like that." Yugao dryly commented, receiving chuckles from the group. She continued, "Now, I believe it's time to do our part and by 'our', I mean your part." She stated with a grin.
The three nodded, not having any illusion to the contrary. They wouldn't have it any other way.
Himiko was probably the most hesitant of the whole thing, but her mistress had made the whole ordeal much easier by simply ordering her to do it. Well, she did so before Himiko joined Konoha. It was a blanket order to fully participate in whatever shady missions Kamui accepts. She was allowed to provide council, but her words would carry little weight if she herself lacked experience in the craft. Of course, it helped that the Fourth wouldn't assign his daughter any missions that weren't morally defensible and that she herself was previously an heiress to a country. Being merciless when needed was among the first lessons she learned.
"Himiko, you'll storm from the front, Naga, you approach from the top floor and Kamui will do so from the middle. It's a three-story fort, so Himiko will take the first floor too. I'll supervise. Any questions?" Yugao ordered.
After waiting for a few seconds in silence, she nodded.
"Let's begin then."
(Naga's Point of View)
Stabbing into a boarded-up window on the third floor was a flying thunder god kunai. The good thing about space-time ninjutsu is that, to a certain extent, it can ignore walls and barriers. The flying thunder god kunai for example had a small range the user could teleport to around the kunai.
Suddenly, Naga appeared within the fort, having been teleported inside by Kamui.
At a glance, the inside was different than most structures she'd encountered in this part of the world. Everything was made of stone and covered in layers of vegetation. Of course, compared to the outside that had almost become part of the surrounding landscape, the inside had clearly been cleaned to a certain extent.
Of course, the most important detail was the two shocked gaunt faces of bandits who saw her enter.
'They're the only ones in this room. Good.' She thought, glad that erasing her presence would be so simple.
"He- "Before either could fully articulate the first word, their throats, hearts, and brains were pierced with a chain each. With a thought, the chains returned to Naga's outstretched hand.
"To easy." She coldly muttered.
Listening to the next rooms, she heard people joking around, grunting, and snoring; they were sounds she was unfortunately very familiar with.
Sighing, she thought, 'Really, somethings never change. I'm suddenly really appreciative of Konoha's atmosphere.'
Shaking her head to clear those thoughts from her mind, Naga focused on the task at hand. Having received a rough outline of the place from Neji, she already knew the layout. Now, it was just a matter of executing.
Taking a deep breath, Naga prepared herself. A few seconds later, her dojutsu activated and she walked up to and opened the door. From there, she propelled herself forward.
'Two shinobi talking casually in this room' She noted, her hearing informing her of what was inside the closed room ahead.
'Summoning: Snake Nest Jutsu' Slapping a hand against the wall, an ink mark crawled out of her hand and wormed its way through the crack in the door, making the seal appear on the other side. It was one of her 'father's' favorite tricks.
From the seal, a puff of smoke burst into existence, startling the two bandits. Unfortunately for them, while they were high chunin in combat potential, they found themselves trapped with at least 30 small, black summoning snakes with small blades extending from their gaping mouths.
"What the fuck!" "What!" They cried out in a terror-filled shock.
By the time they got around to making hand seals, it was too late.
"AAAHHH!" Could be heard in the hallway.
Naga pushed forward, wanting to kill a few more before the screams rang out.
Approaching the door where she heard multiple men grunting, she kicked down the door, startling a man who was in the middle of using a bench press, another who was doing weighted squats, and one who was doing weighted pull-ups, a welcome surprise considering what she previously expected. Before any of them could get their bearings, chains shot out of a hand she extended in their direction, piercing their heads. From the wounds, their skin started turning a mixture of black and yellow, which spread from the point of impact.
With them dead, she moved forward. Unfortunately, groups were pouring out of the rooms, entering the center corridor to confront her.
Smiling at the prey who were presenting themselves on a silver platter, Naga willed two chains from her back into her hands, their stiletto tips pointing forward, running along her extended index and middle fingers.
In a burst of speed, she flashed forward, plunging both into the hearts of two bandits. Feeling knives coming from her sides, she pulled back the chains, ducked, and threw them to pierce the two attackers. Feeling a few more coming from the front, she backflipped and took a deep breath.
'Venom-release: Stillness.' From her mouth a black pellet flew and burst into a cloud of mist that shrouded the crowd.
Panicking, they looked at themselves and then each other for a moment to look for something wrong.
"Hah, whatever ya did, it ain't work." One of the bandits smugly commented, his eyes ravaging Naga's body.
"Didn't it?" She replied with the same smile, her confidence unchanged.
"Course it didn—" Another of the bandits replied, only to be interrupted by a sudden inability to speak.
Suddenly, the group reached for their throats, hoping to relieve themselves of their sudden inability to breath. They felt nothing wrong with their throats. Their bodies simply stopped demanding oxygen. Eventually, a cold feeling spread to the rest of their bodies as more muscles stopped responding. Everything relaxed to a state of non-function, including their hearts.
Her smile unchanged, Naga mused to herself, "It's been a long time since I got to use that one. It's a little sad though. I didn't even get to try the new formula for that jutsu… Well, maybe next time." Her thoughts shifted to the shinobi she'd offed so far.
"That said…" she mused. "I was hoping there would be a jonin or two. It doesn't look like that's the case. Well, either that or they died before they could collect themselves, which would be a shame... Oh well. Hopefully, the other two are having fun."
(Kamui's Point of View)
Teleporting inside the building the same way Naga did, Kamui immediately noticed a lack of bandits in the room she arrived in.
The first thing she did was to run her chakra through the ground beneath her and connect with her surroundings, particularly the wood in the building. With the only really exposed wood being on the boarded windows, it was neither time consuming nor challenging.
Pulling out Dragon Song, she pushed her chakra through, eliciting the emission of a silverly white blade of chakra letting out a low hum. Right now, the blade itself was just sounds release, not having either fire or yin added. Still, its potency was raised from the complimentary power provided by the hilt.
Of course, for this crowd, it was enough.
Already knowing where her enemies were, she burst out of the room.
With her off hand, she made a one-handed snake seal (mostly as a mental aid).
'Wood Release: Splinter Bullets.' Everywhere on her floor, the wooden boards on the windows burst into a hail of splinters that shot inwards, pelting any who was close.
After a chorus of screams, doors started opening, which yielded a few bloody bandits running into the 'safe' hallway.
'Secret Technique: Lightning Steps.' Flashing forward, Kamui spent the next minute cutting through bandits. It was sickeningly easy, like mowing down grass. She found her sword bypassing flesh and bone as if it weren't even there. Regardless of whether the bandit was at the level of a civilian, genin, or greater, their flesh offered no resistance.
Without trouble, the bandits who survived the hail of splinters became cold cuts and in the fallout of the whole ordeal, Kamui's shocked mind was forced to consider, 'I can't ever share the secret of this sword's creation. It's too dangerous.'
For the first time, she contemplated the danger she birthed into the world through her jutsu. Looking down at blade, her hands trembled at the raw killing power it just displayed. With such little skill, these people became like grass, and it terrified her.
(Tenten's Point of View)
"This is sooo boring." Tenten whined.
Team Guy had gone through and silently killed the patrolling bandits, but there weren't many. There were five at best and she personally only got to kill one. What's worse was that bandits weren't soldiers. They didn't evenly rotate their shifts to let the stronger members take a turn. No, the stronger members were inside with Team Yugao. The ones they dealt with, on the other hand, were the bottom of the barrel whose only major skill was shouting at the top of their lungs if they weren't killed first.
The most entertaining thing for her now though was watching the red-haired woman who, from what she heard, recently joined the village. The girl took an interesting approach to the whole extermination bit, one that eliminated their role almost completely.
Her sword ignited, extended into a whip-sword form, and seemingly twisted the space around the building, allowing it to travel further than its length should allow. Somehow, with this, she managed to wrap her word completely around the fort. Then, she retracted the ignited sword across the path it had traveled, creating a ring of black fire encircling the building.
"Seriously…? Couldn't she have left a few for us? What are we even here for?" She whined, seeing any chances of shinobi escaping go to nothing.
"That's a most unyouthful conclusion my anxious student. Seeing another team's passionate, youthful flames burning with such intensity should stoke our own to match them. We may not shine today, but by learning from their example, tomorrow, we will burn even brighter!" Guy passionately expressed.
"*Sigh…* Yeah, I know. It's just… you know… I was hoping to do more. Missions have been slow in the last two months. Well, missions that we can take." Tenten admitted, silently glad her green-spandex-wearing teammate wasn't here to 'stoke her sensei's flames of youth even further than they already are'. He had volunteered to run around the perimeter to spot any stragglers while they kept watch from here.
"Their strength is incredible." A serious voice commented from next to her, prompting her to turn to her long-haired friend (crush).
"I'm not surprised considering why they were chosen to join us in the first place." She absentmindedly stated. "Still, how do you think you'd fair against them Neji?" She asked, having been curious about that since they got here.
The boy sat silently for a while, his activated byakugan making it clear where his true focus was. Finally, after a while of silence, Neji responded.
"I wouldn't stand a chance." He somberly replied. "While the purple-haired girl's fighting style makes her the most vulnerable to the gentle fist, what I'm seeing suggests she's using some type of powerful semi-chakra-based poison. Combining her speed, skill, and poison adds up to a quick loss in most situations for me. The red-haired one also fights at close range, but I simply don't know enough about her to judge accurately."
They all agreed on that last point. The three of them could see the bandits from the first floor charging at Himiko, who blocked the entrance. Since she couldn't use fire inside the building to smoke them out, she simply used a strong and far spreading tear gas. Then, she waited and killed any who tried escaping in her direction. It was a simple affair with most of them being too impaired to see her. As for anyone who tried escaping through any of the other directions… well, they don't even have a corpse left to bury; the flames saw to that.
Himiko's was a simple, but effective approach. It showed a lot, yet very little of her overall prowess, which made judging her very difficult.
"As for the anomaly." He pensively stated, garnering the other's attention at his choice of words.
"I don't know how to explain it, but she's using a chakra blade to cut them down like grass." He slowly explained. "I've… never seen anything like it. It's like she made a sword out of pure chakra and its power is frankly… terrifying." He finished, a disturbed look marring his face.
Guy frowned as well. While his student's opinion wasn't what he would endorse, he agreed with one thing. All three of those genin were terrifying. What was concerning to him was the ease at which they took life. Although it really wasn't his business, he would argue that it simply wasn't healthy to be that comfortable with taking lives at this early of an age. Although it was necessary for the mission, it shouldn't be this easy for them.
"Sensei, why did they put those three on the same team? I thought the Hokage traditionally tried balancing the team's strengths. It couldn't be favoritism, could it?" Tenten asked, voicing the question that had nagged her thoughts since they first met the trio.
"I am interested in the answer as well." Neji commented.
Guy replied with a smile and explained, "Well, that's rather complicated. The simple answer is that both Naga and Himiko joined Konoha to be on Kamui's team. Specifically, they're her retainers and got in on her recommendation. As an exchange for the streamlined entry, anything they do, both good and bad, reflects on Kamui. So, they're not a traditional genin team. Officially, Kamui is Yugao's only genin and the others are her retainers."
Neji nodded in acknowledgement, familiar with the concept due to his belonging to the Hyuga Clan.
"Retainers? What are those?" Tenten asked.
Guy proceeded to give Tenten a short explanation on how the system worked, while they waited for Team Yugao to finish their mission. From the looks of things, they would be finishing soon.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone