Chapitre 172: 171-Flipping Boards
The squad's target for this mission was Silent Blade, Iron Fang's biggest competitor in No Man's Land. While the squad was not tasked with annihilating the Silent Blade as they did with the Iron Fangs, they were tasked with infiltrating the group and seizing control from within.
The moment Renjiro heard of the mission's objective, he was almost shocked to his core. Not because of the mission objective but because he could clearly understand the intent behind the mission.
'I always thought that Danzo was ruthless, but being here is making me realize that Hiruzen is almost the same, if not more ruthless,' Renjiro thought, observing the strategy in play.
'Instead of just supporting the Silent Blade and hoping that when either Iwa or Suna use mercenaries, they use Silent Blade so that we can sabotage them, Hiruzen limited their options so that they have to use Silent Blade. This isn't even a case of chess or checkers, Hiruzen just flipped the board the game was played on. And he did all this with a squad of five shinobi.' Renjiro couldn't help but think, marvelling at the display of strategic prowess.
'At this rate, it would take a lot of years for this region to stabilize if we succeed in this mission,' Renjiro concluded as Hiro asked how they were going to complete the mission.
Minato replied, "This is going to be much easier but also harder than the previous mission. It's going to be easier because we will need to target only three or four mercenaries in the upper echelon of the organization."
"And why would it be harder?" Sama asked.
"It will be harder because we have to do this without being noticed. The only issue with that is that we might come across spies from either Iwa or Suna who I am sure are in the group. We did not come across them in the Iron Fang because we dealt with them too quickly for them to foil our plans," Minato said.
'Huh, that is actually smart of them,' Renjiro thought before asking, "But how are we going to ensure that our targets remain under our control?"
Yano immediately said, "Just leave that to me."
Renjiro did not ask any more questions, and they spent the rest of the day studying the Silent Blade mercenary group and identifying their targets.
By the time night fell, the squad made their move. They were under a time constraint since they had to move before news of the Iron Fang spread.
At this point, the Jounins who found their base empty and nearly ruined had not spread the information since they were still investigating the cause behind the attack which worked in Minato's and the squad's favour.
Fortunately for the squad, they silently managed to abduct their targets, with Minato teleporting them out of the base. Immediately after they secured the four mercenaries, Yano got to work.
He placed a seal on them before Minato teleported them back to the base as if nothing happened. They did not come across any spies from Iwa or Suna, much to Minato and Renjiro's disappointment since the two wanted to come across the spies, so that they could eliminate them, but it seemed that they were not fated to.
When Renjiro saw Yano get to work, he thought, 'Surprise! A Shimura knowing Juinjutsu. I kinda thought that it would be some kind of big reveal. But aren't they basically doing what Iwa and Suna are doing by having their people in the group?' Renjiro thought sarcastically before concluding,
'I guess adding a little bit of chaos in the chaotic mess that is the leadership of Silent Blade will help since now Konoha, Iwa, and Suna will be fighting for control of the group.'
And that's how the squad completed their third A-rank mission. Their next mission also involved them sabotaging another village, much like the majority of the actions in their previous three missions.
They had to create distrust between Amegakure and its allies by planting false evidence of betrayal since Konoha felt threatened by Hanzo's control in the country, especially after the last (second) Shinobi War.
To achieve this, the squad had to rely on information gathered by their spies in the region. Their plan was to infiltrate the village, plant falsified documents, and create a scene that would make it look like Hanzo was plotting against his own allies.
They moved under the cover of night, using their skills to avoid detection. Minato's teleportation jutsu proved invaluable as they slipped in and out of secured locations without a sound. Renjiro used his Sharingan to memorize the layout of key buildings, while Hiro and Sama planted the falsified documents in strategic places.
"Everything is set," Hiro whispered after planting the last document.
"Good, let's get out of here," Minato ordered as the squad left the area.
The squad's last three missions were different from the others, focusing on rescuing two high-ranking defectors from both the Land of Water and Lightning.
Outwardly, that was what it looked like, but the squad was just rescuing two of their spies that they had planted in the capitals of both countries. The only issue was that they had to travel quite a long distance to rescue the two spies.
They were still close to Amegakure, which was to the west of the Land of Fire, while one of the two spies who needed to be rescued was close to Kumo, which was to the northwest of Konoha, and the other was in a port town close to Kiri, which was to Konoha's east.
The squad took a whole day travelling to the borders of the Land of Lightning to save their spy, even with Minato teleporting them intermittently.
Minato did this to save some of his chakra in case of an emergency. The detail that was transporting the said spy was not too powerful, which made things easier for Minato and the rest.
They saved the spy but immediately parted ways as Yano and Minato exchanged information with them before informing them that they were reassigned to another location.
A similar thing happened with the other spy who was in a port town close to Kirigakure. Seeing this happen, Renjiro thought,
'I wonder what mission rank these long-standing infiltration missions these spies undertake are.'
After not coming up with a logical answer, Renjiro decided to focus on their last mission, which involved the squad getting some scrolls containing sensitive information from a port town neighbouring Kirigakure.
The squad was not informed of what the scrolls contained, but Renjiro suspected that Minato or Yano knew what it was.
'Anyway, not my problem,' Renjiro thought as the squad completed the mission and secured the scrolls.
"We completed our mission faster than I expected," Minato said to the group once they possessed the scrolls. The good thing was that the port town was close to the Land of Fire, so the squad only took hours to get back to Konoha much to everyone's relief.
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