บท 20: A Difficult Choice Part-1

Four years passed since that mission,

Kakashi showed outstanding talents in the academy. So, he graduated from the academy in just four months of his entrance. An year later, Kakashi took the Chunnin exam and was promoted to a Chunnin. It was a record in the history of Academy and Sakumo was proud of his son.

Today an important meeting was held in Konoha with the council of Elders. The issue of the meeting was the increasing invasion by the Kumogakure. The Kumo had been strengthening its military forces despite the peace treaty signed during the previous war. At the start of this year, many Kumo ninjas were spotted infiltrating the land of Fire with their motives unclear. This meeting between elders was held to address this issue.

The meeting lasts for an hour before it concluded. It was decided that they will deploy a specialized team to track the Kumo ninjas and figure out their motives. The objective of the team was to retrieve any information stolen by Kumo ninjas and if possible, get rid of them. It was an S-rank mission. Hiruzen agreed with the rest of the elders and proposed Sakumo as the Team Leader.

All of them agreed with his proposal and an Anbu was sent to summon Sakumo. Shortly, Sakumo arrived at the meeting room. Hiruzen began to explain the details of the mission as a large map of borders was placed on top of the table.

"The Kumo ninjas have infiltrated the border of Land of Hot Water and the Land of Fire."

He marked a spot on the map as he continued,

"Their recent hideout had been spotted around this place. We aren't currently sure of their motives, but we want you to stop them at any cost. Sakumo you will be the team leader for this mission."

Hiruzen rolled the map and passed it to Sakumo. Sakumo nodded and went back to his house to prepare for the mission.

Kakashi had gone on a mission earlier with his team. Sakumo wrote a note addressed to Kakashi to inform about the S-Rank mission as he prepared his ninja gear, scrolls, and medicine.

After three hours, the team was ready as all of them were gathered at the Konoha's entrance. Sakumo nodded to all of his team members as he spoke,

"This is an important S-Rank mission and I will be your Team Leader for the mission. I will fill you on the details of the mission as we move towards our destination."

None of the Ninjas had any problems with the arrangement. All of them simultaneously left for the Land of Hot Water as Sakumo began to fill them on the details of the mission. the journey to the Land of Hot Water took them two days as they arrived at the Border. They were filled up on the recent development by the Captain of the Squad deployed at the border for patrolling. All of them were pretty tired and they decided to rest in the Patrol Camps.

Their team consisted of Sakumo as the Jounin Commander and team leader, four jounins, and five special Jounin specialized in tracking and medical Ninjutsu. One of the Jounin is a sensor-type ninja.

Early in the next morning, Team Sakumo left the camp as they began to move towards the hideout of the Kumo nins. The marked area was a waterfall of hot water with a small hot-spring at its base. There was a cave carved out behind the waterfall. Team Sakumo immediately got into the action as three special jounins began to open scrolls as they prepared to make a barrier to block the exit of the cave. The special jounins weaved some hand signs and slammed their hand on the scroll.

Various fuinjutsu markings began to spread out from the scrolls as they continued to crawl towards the waterfall. The markings were unaffected by water as they weaved together to form a kanji word for 'seal'.

'Fuinjutsu Scroll: Naka Sealing Barrier'

They sealed the entrance of the cave with a barrier. The three special jounins continued to supply their chakra to the barrier as one of them forked out a small scroll with a kanji word 'gate' imprinted on it. He passed the scroll to Sakumo. Sakumo took the scroll and together with other jounins begin to move towards the waterfall. He placed the small scroll on the seal as a small gate opened in the seal.

All of the jounins including the Sakumo went inside the cave to inspect the cave. It was very dark inside the cave as there was no lighting in the cave. One of the jounin took out a glow stick from his pocket as he twisted it to generate light. It is dangerous to use fire type jutsu as enemies may plant various explosive tags in the caves which can trigger from the heat of fire jutsu and explode causing the entire cave to collapse on their enemies.

The other jounins took out their kunais as they were ready for an ambush. The continued to march forward until the end of the cave but weren't any signs of enemies. In front of them lied a rock table surrounded by many rock seats. The smell of charcoal was still apparent in the cave. Sakumo bent down to check the nearby ashes. The ashes were still warm which mean that it hadn't been too long since the enemy left this place. Most of their signs were destroyed as the enemy team seemed to be in a hurry.

Sakumo shook his head as he shouted to other jounins,

"There is nothing useful here. The enemy nins deserted this place just a while ago. It seems like somehow they came to know of our arrival. Let's get out of here and search somewhere else. I am sure we can track their trail."

All of the jounins nodded as they prepared to move out. The light from the glowstick faded creating darkness in the cave. As they moved forward the jounin prepared to take out another glowstick. One of the jounin stepped on a stone.

Click... Kacha…Kacha…

The jounin accidentally triggered a trap mechanism as the gears wheered and initiated some mechanism. A rock cabinet from the side of the cave opened as a mechanism launched some kunai. the shinobis easily dodged the kunais as the kunai lodged into the wall.

Srrr…

The sound of the burning of a paper echoed in the cave. The kunais had paper bombs attached to them as they began to burn.

'Earth Style: Rock Dome'

'Earth style: Mud wall'

Sakumo and one of the other experienced shinobi immediately made hand signs as they erected a double barrier of mud and rocks. All of them ducked inside the rock dome as the explosion was triggered.

Boom...

A loud explosion occurred inside the cave, the barrier at the entrance of the cave began to shake as the special jounins were unable to hold back the explosion. They immediately stopped supplying Chakra to the scrolls and collected the scroll and jumped back. The cave shook violently as it collapsed. Rocks, debris, and hot water began to pour inside the cave as it was blocked completely.

The special jounins looked worriedly at the remains of the cave as they couldn't hear any noise from the remains. The rocks and debris began to shake violently as they saw a jet of water breaking the rocks and opening a passage.

'Water Style: Water Dragon Bullet'

A huge water dragon was spurted out by Sakumo as the dragon launched a jet of water and began to break the rubbles. After clearing out the rubble, Sakumo and the rest of the Jounins broke free from the cave. The special Jounins heaved a sigh of relief as they approached the group.

Sakumo immediately stopped them as he signaled the sensor ninja to check their surroundings. The jounin immediately made hand signs as he placed one of his hand on the ground and created a seal,

'Sensing Hexagram Seal'

He began to detect the nearby area for any Chakra signatures. He spotted a Chakra signature getting further away from them.

"Two o'clock in the east around four hundred meters away. The rest of the jounins immediately went on alert as they began to dash in the direction of the Chakra Signature."

As they ran in the direction of the Chakra signature, Sakumo began to contemplate over the events.

'Enemies lured them in a trap to deal with them in one go. Now the question is, had they prepared the trap to intentionally lure us, or is there a spy among us?'

Sakumo began to analyze all of the information he gathered during this time. The ashes inside the cave were still warm which meant they left the cave a few hours ago. All of the shreds of evidence and trails were haphazardly cleared inside the cave which means enemies were in a hurry.

'My team arrived at the camp late in the evening and spent the night with patrol guards. This means, there is only one possibility, there is a spy among the Patrol Guards who informed the Kumo ninjas during the night time.'