บท 93: Chapter 92-One Look is all It takes
True to Renjiro's words, once the Anbu squad returned to the village, none of the initial missing civilians were among the bodies retrieved. But missing thirteen in over three hundred was not enough to force Konoha to make a move.
It was not even enough for the idea to be brought before the third Hokage, so the only Konoha Council member who knew about was Daichi for obvious reasons.
But that was only the case until a certain fact was unearthed concerning the missing civilians.
"Have you found anything yet?" Fugaku asked Kobayashi. Aoi Kobayashi was a member of Konoha's intelligence corps. He had been tasked with figuring out what the missing civilians shared.
Since it was not an official Mandate, Daichi had to call in a few favours from the intelligence corps for this work.
"Yes, I-I think... I found something," Kobayashi stuttered as he collected himself.
"What is it?" Fugaku asked.
"All of them had loose relations with various clans in the village," Kobayashi stated.
Kobayashi went on to explain that each of the missing civilians was somehow related to a major clan in the village. The majority of them had parents who were born to civilians and shinobi from clans in the village.
Most of them either died during the shinobi wars or never decided to pursue a shinobi career.
It was one of those situations where one had to draw lines in the sand to ascertain their family tree. At first, many did not think much of this, but when Daichi revealed to Fugaku that those kids still had chances, though slim, of gaining abilities from their bloodlines, the situation changed.
While such people were not considered worthy investments by their clans, there was a place that thirsted for kekkei genkais, especially those belonging to clans.
That place was Kumogakure. While it was a strong shinobi village on its own, it still lacked the number of kekkei genkai users, particularly clans, when compared to the other four villages.
The other reason that supported this claim was that the base of the cult group that was framed was located on the west of the Land of Fire while the Land of Lightning was on its east. So Kumo had planned on sending Konoha on the opposite side.
Once Daichi joined the dots, he didn't even need to convince Hiruzen to approve a mission as the latter quickly agreed. This time, the squad taking up the mission was led by Fugaku and Renjiro was allowed to join the squad since he was the one who pointed out the situation to them.
'Kidnapping children? Well, I know they are used to it considering that they already tried kidnapping Kushina and would even try to kidnap the Hyuga princess in the future. But still, they are already a strong village with the likes of their two Jinchurikis and ridiculous Raikage.' Renjiro thought as the squad assembled.
"They already have a head start on us, so we will have to move quickly," Daichi instructed the squad as they prepared to leave.
"Fortunately, they were also transporting civilians, so that must have slowed them down," he said as the squad departed the village.
It was not hard figuring out the route Kumo Shinobis used because after they narrowed down their searches, Konoha's spy network provided information about it. The squad only had to track them down.
It was only after a week when they reached the borders of Shimogakure, deep within the Land of Snow, that the squad finally caught sight of his targets.
The shinobis in question were well over the moon as they had accomplished their mission and were close to home as the Land of Snow was one of the two nations between the Land of Fire and the Land of Lightning. The other nation was the Land of hot water.
'I am sure Lord Raikage will be proud of what we have done. With these people, the village might have a better chance to awaken kekkei Genkais than we currently have,' Kaori Hata thought.
She was an Elite Jounin Kunoichi who was tasked with an important mission that would help the village in the future. It was already at night, so they were setting up camp after using a few Earth jutsus, to set up a temporary base.
Everything was going on well until one of her subordinates ran to her informing her that they were under attack.
'It can't be Konoha, they should be dealing with that cult group. Even if they discovered our plan, they won't have enough time to catch up to us.' Kaori consoled herself as she went to see who was attacking them.
As soon as she saw the enemy team attacking them, her heart fell as a chill ran down her spine. It was not because of the number of shinobi they were facing, it was because of who they were facing.
"No... It can't be!" She muttered. She recognized the young brown-haired shinobi blasting fire jutsus at them. It was Fugaku, someone who she had fought against in the previous war.
"Don't look at their eyes, it's Fugaku of the Wicked eyes!" Kaori shouted to her subordinates.
'Hopefully, they haven't fallen for his Genjutsu, otherwise, we should just surrender our lives.' She thought.
While Kaori was thinking of ways to counter Fugaku, Renjiro was experiencing a different sight!
'Were we even needed for this mission? Fugaku is strong enough to handle this on his own. He barely even broke a sweat.' He thought.
Once the Konoha squad caught the whim of Kumo shinobi, they hastened their pace and eventually caught. With one look from Fugaku, all five Kumo shinobi were trapped in his genjutsu.
The Kumo shinobis did not even know that they were already trapped in a genjutsu, but this was exactly what Fugaku wanted. He took this opportunity to get more information from them as he asked some questions.
"What were you doing in Konoha?" Fugaku asked.
"We were on a mission to get civilians from Konoha," Kaori answered.
'I can't even sense that she is under someone's control. Fugaku could basically use her to cause a lot of damage in Kumogakure if he wanted to. If he is this powerful now, then how strong was he after he got his MS? The coup that the Uchiha were planning would have been more one-sided than I thought. That's if we remove Shisui from the equation.' Renjro thought.
"What were you going to do with them?" Fugaku continued with his questioning.
"We were going to force them to breed to see if we could awaken one of the kekkei genkais from Konoha."
"Why did you do this?"
"To get more chances of gaining a kekkei genkai,"
At this point, Kaori and the other Kumo Shinobi skirted over the fact that they wanted more kekkei genkai which showed that they wouldn't get more information from them.
"What are we going to do with them?" Renjiro asked seeing that Fugaku was done with his questioning.
"Of course, we are going to kill them. They are of no use to us because we can get more intel from their memories."
"Can't the Hokage use them to negotiate with Kumo?" Renjiro Inquired.
"They are just average jounins with one of them barely being an elite Jounin. The Raikage would not stoop to that level." Fugaku replied with a smirk.
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