บท 48: Return

As Hanzo watched Shiran drop from chakra exhaustion after the battle, he smirked at the three of them passed out together.

"You all were overconfident, and it worked against you this time. If Kiyoko hadn't rushed in head-on, you would've been able to easily take the chunin out. Granted, he was much closer to a special jonin than he was to a chunin, but still."

Sorting through all the dead bodies and confirming that everyone was dead, he turned back to his genin.

"It's a good thing you brats are as strong as you are, especially at the time you are entering the ninja world. A lot is about to happen, and you'll need every ounce of teamwork and personal power to survive it."

Looking around at the carnage his students created, Hanzo sighed and went through a couple of hand seals.

'Lava Release: Scorching Earth Flow.'

Molten lava started to rise and break through the ground, flowing with surprising speed toward the camp and dead bodies, melting and swallowing everything it possibly could. The lava cast an eerie crimson glow across the landscape as it spread everywhere.

Walking over to the three of them, he kicked each of them in the ribs, jolting each awake as they looked at him with disgruntled eyes.

"Time to go, twerps. Any more time, and the old man will be on my back, and you all know what our training is like when I start to get annoyed," Hanzo-sensei said, the threat in his signature nonchalant attitude he always has.

All of us scrambled to get up and get ready to head home. Looking around and seeing all the scorched land and hardened rock, I looked back at our teacher.

"Did you clean up the rest of the camp?"

"No, the fairies did," he gave me a flat stare.

I turned to walk back to the camp we were staying before we initiated the plan to take all the bandits out.

Grabbing any belongings we had gotten out while we stayed at the small camp into storage seals, we set back out to return to the camp.

"So how was our first mission, sensei; did we do good?" Benimaru asked him, curious about the feedback.

"Well, the plan was a really good idea," Hanzo said, looking at me. "Instead of forcing a square peg into a round hole, you crafted a plan around your available personnel, which is a great thing to be able to do. All of you also did a great job at eliminating and making sure no one got away during that whole mission. That being said, you guys still sucked when it came down to the most important job: protecting yourself against stronger enemies."

Kiyoko, in particular, cringed and looked at her feet.

"I'm sorry, sensei. I don't know what got into me. It's like after all the work I put in, I wanted to show it off and test myself, but I didn't even get one punch in."

"And that's an acceptable feeling, but you didn't even listen to your teammate when he was trying to tell you something that could've possibly been deadly to you," Sensei turned to me and asked, "What were you trying to say at that time, Shiran?"

I looked at my three squad mates. "I was going to say, 'Wait, Kiyoko, he has around special jonin level chakra. He's going to be much tougher then the bandits we were just fighting.'"

Hanzo grunted and looked at Kiyoko. "And because you ignored that, you could've been taken down for good. In the future, you need to listen and trust your teammates. In this situation, the most ideal solution would've been to retreat." Benimaru looked like he wanted to respond, but Hanzo cut him off first.

"Sure, you guys could've taken him down as a team, and you did do it, but there's a problem there. You don't have any idea if they've got backup waiting; therefore, you should've taken a step back to secure yourself first, then proceed with caution. The mission can always be recompleted, and the village can always recover from a failed mission, but we can never get talented shinobi back from the dead."

'That's strange, aren't shinobi supposed to complete the mission no matter what?' I though tto myself

"I am impressed with the chemistry between both of you two. The combination of jutsus you guys employed while you fought against the chunin was interesting and effective," he said while looking at both me and Benimaru. "If you two weren't so annoying, I'd tell you about how well you guys work off each other, and that if you hone that chemistry in, you guys could be such a dynamic duo, but you're not, so I wont."

Benimaru scoffed while making a face and pointed toward me. "As if I want to be in a duo with Rusty over there."

I rolled my eyes at his antics. "That nickname will never catch on. Besides, why wouldn't you want someone strong to carry you in a duo? All you would have to do is stand there and look good while I take care of all the strong enemies."

"Alright, shut the fuck up, you two. I want to get home without a headache," Hanzo looked over to us, giving us a death glare.

Running for a day, resting for a couple of hours, and then continuing on with our journey back to the village, we didn't encounter anything exciting besides a few animals. Thinking about how we lived on an island, it made perfect sense. The only people that would truly want to be here would be missing-nin looking to get away from their country.

Coming up to the gate of the village, we had to provide our ninja IDs and mission certificate, as well as the storage seal with some of the bandits' heads in them. We were allowed back into the village.

"Alright, we are going to head back to the Uzukage office, and you're all going to learn how to give a report."

We all nodded and looked up at the spiraling building in the middle of the village.

I smiled while thinking about how beautiful this place was. 'It really does feel like such a tight-knit family in the village. I can totally see why Kushina felt unsettled by the feeling in the Leaf village when she first got there, especially when coming from a place where everyone treats each other as family.'

Thinking back to the conversation we had over the seal, I recalled what she told me. 'Although the thing that really intrigued me was the fact that she said it felt so fake and artificial in the village. Almost as if the villagers never really cared for the shinobi or each other.'

Shrugging, I followed behind the group. 'I have a feeling I'll get a chance to experience it eventually, especially with who Kushina is destined to be.'

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