"I have another mission to fulfill, you three head on out. When I return, I expect the camp to be demolished and those scrolls…" he pointed to the scrolls in their hands which they looked at as if it were the most disgusting thing on the planet right now.
"… should be filled. Do not disappoint me." he spoke and before any of them could utter a word, he vanished in a flicker of flames.
...
All three stood silently in a trance as if they weren't even conscious for a few moments. Naruto clutched the scroll so tightly, the tightly rolled up paper started to buckle under his grip.
"What are we going to do now?" Duy finally broke the heavy silence and Sakumo looked away for the first time not being able to answer his exuberant friend.
Naruto started walking away after turning around and as soon as he took his second step, his shoulder was pulled back harshly and his back met the bark of a tree roughly.
"You can't seriously be thinking of doing this mission, are you?" Sakumo asked his friend incredulously only to see the pure fury in his eyes, when in a moment of surprise Naruto caught his collar in his hand and pulled his face near his own.
"What do you think I'm going to do? He hasn't given us much of a choice now, has he?" Naruto snarled and Sakumo himself looked at his brother in all but blood with the same fury in his own onyx eyes too. He had half a mind to sock his friend to bring him back to his sense, had he not been utterly confused himself.
"Guys, don't fight. It's not youthful…" Duy whispered from the side, seeing the two ready to sock each other. Sakumo loosened his grip on Naruto's collar and the blonde pushed him back half heatedly before looking away a bit shamefully.
"I'm sorry…" both muttered at the same time and fell silent. Duy would have smiled any other day, but today he merely watched on as Naruto started his slow stride to the village where the camps were situated.
"Sakumo, what should we do?" Duy asked, not at all in the right state of mind right now and said boy didn't have an answer today.
"I don't know Duy, I just don't know…"
He whispered, hitting the bark where he had pushed his buddy harshly and clenched his eyes shut to bite back his nervousness but to no avail. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked back to see Duy smiling at him with a look of understanding.
"Let's go my friend. Naruto won't be able to do this alone, he needs us just as much as we do him…" he consoled him with a squeeze of his shoulder and Sakumo sighed, nodding himself in agreement at his words to see Naruto having walked quite a distance already and didn't seem to be in any mood for stopping right now.
"Yeah…" he whispered in defeat and started walking with the taijutsu specialist of their team to follow up their teammate, who himself was the most confused inwardly as much as he tried to show how firm he was to complete his mission.
No one noticed Sasuke watching them from afar, and how his grip tightened so harshly on the branch he was holding in his hand that the five inches thick branch splintered itself under his extremely tight grip while he made a cross shaped hand seal to complete his own part of the mission.
Naruto didn't even glance to his side as he stood atop a tree, hiding in it's bushy leaves to provide himself the cover to scout out the camp while his friends fell down by his side.
"There's the main camp…" Duy pointed to a large tent in the middle, surrounded by several smaller tents and Sakumo put a hand on his close friend's shoulder, this time without the harshness and instead a comforting one.
"Are you sure about this?" Sakumo asked one final time, if he was going through with this then so was he. Duy too nodded to Sakumo, understanding his silent question with a mere glance of their eyes and both watched Naruto look back to the camps with a space out look.
"No…" the blonde answered honestly and both boy blinked by his side, clearly not expecting this. "…but we have to do this. It's our mission, and it's not like those people are innocent.
They are bandits, meaning rape, murder and extortion is what they do for a living. I mean, the village will never sen us to kill innocents…" the blonde tried to comfort his friend's but more so himself with his wavering words.
"Besides, there is no place for emotions on a mission remember?" he asked Sakumo and he nodded back, reciting the 25th principle in the back of his mind.
"How are we going to do this then?" Duy asked, finally accepting the mission to heart and both boys looked at each other before Naruto saw Sakumo was in no state of mind right now to think clearly at all, so he decided to take charge this time.
His hand slipped back into the pouch strapped on his hips, and he pulled out a large bundle of red tags with cleanly brushed kanji lithographed over them. He split the small bundle in three equal parts and handed them one each.
"We'll go around the camp silently, with as much stealth as we could we will put these on everywhere we can without being seen, before meeting over there…"
Naruto pointed to a small abandoned bonfire covered with several logs that must have been used to sit last night, but would now provide the perfect cover for them to regroup before they initiated the second phase of their mission.
"And then?" Sakumo finally asked Naruto, wanting to hear it from his lips one last time to make sure he was really going through with it. Naruto merely looked on ahead and disappeared with a quick Shunshin to act out his part of the tents.
Sakumo looked on as Naruto had started rushing towards the northern part of the camp and his gaze turned to a confused looking Duy looking at him for any further details he might have missed on.
"You go for the eastern part Duy, leave the west to me…" he finally muttered and Duy nodded before rushing off to the eastern parts of the tents.
...
Back with Naruto
Naruto jumped up over the makeshift wall, his eyes narrowing in on his surroundings to avoid being spotted by anyone. He ran past a couple of tents, slapping on the tags over them swiftly with the grace of a dancer and rushed straight past the shadows like a hawk stalking his prey who roamed around unaware of the shadow of death that loomed over it.
He saw a man walking past the tent he was hiding behind and crouched down, his eyes narrowing when the man stretched and turned his back to him. Instantly Naruto slapped a tag underneath his arm pit, while the man was none too wise and Naruto went on to slap several more before he regrouped.
He jumped up on to the top of a tent, his eyes peering over the edge and his eyes flickered crimson for a moment to check if he had made the grip of tags as perfect as he could under the circumstances.
He had given them his own tags since unlike normal tags, these were made by him and Mito herself and were a lot more concentrate than normal ones which were merely used to make brushing burns or distracting foes in combat. These ones could take down normal sized walls if need be, so he knew at least their deaths would be swift and painless, it was the least he could do for them.
He slid down the tent quickly and ran past several tents to their meeting point in crouched sprint, dodging a couple of watcher on his way as he hopped over the log and jumped behind the three way cover only to see Duy and Sakumo hopping a moment later.
"Alright, you guys done?" the blonde asked and got a nod from the both of them, and he nodded back. Peering over to see the tent they were looking to infiltrate being looked after by two guards standing at it's front entrance.
"Come on…" he whispered and both his teammates nodded, hoping out from their cover positions and following their teammate in the same crouched sprint as him while keeping an eye around for anything and everything.
Naruto reached the back of the tent and put his left arm over his shoulder to catch the handle of his sword and unsheathed it.
The blade hummed softly, with the metal conducting the wind chakra it's wielder was pushing inside it and Naruto put it's tip on the thick canvas that no normal weapon would be able to slice, but his sword sliced through it as if hot knife through butter.
He made a 'U' shaped cut and lifted it's helm. Duy slipped in, with Sakumo following and Naruto went in before checking they weren't being watched and stepped in while letting the cloth drop down and look as if it had never been cut in the first place.
The boys slowly walked in half a crouch, hearing the laughter's coming from the middle and intelligently decided to not go near there.
Sakumo grasped Naruto's shoulder and pulled him back in a makeshift room within the tent, only for him to see a laughing man walking past him and both sighed in relief.
They once more walked around, slapping around explosive tags in places where they won't be seen and find themselves their targets.
"Tsk…guys…" Duy whispered, stopping in front of a room and pointed in with his finger with a nod. Naruto and Sakumo slid beside the edge to it's entrance to see six people sleeping in there and the strong essence of liquor in the air.
Sakumo nodded his approval and the three slid in the room quietly as a silent breeze of death.
Sakumo put his right hand above his shoulder and pulled out his own white blade with a soft sling while Duy pulled out a simple kunai from his pouch and the three took their positions by the bedsides of the three sleeping people on the left side of the room. The three on the right snoring away peacefully, unknown to them what threat loomed over their companions heads.
Sakumo changed his grip over his blade to reverse sided one with the two teammates following his example and doing the same with their own.
Naruto put his sword above his target's unaware head, his long blade held with both hands over the man's neck with it's tip pointing straight on to his jugular.
Sakumo mimicked the blonde's posture while Duy gripped his kunai in a reverse grip in one hand and put the other over it's hilt for the extra force to make it clean and swift at the same fatal point on his target.
Naruto's hands trembled in fright, his eyes widening at what he was about to do. A bead of sweat rolled down his right eye, completely unblinking, his gaze was straight n top of his target's peacefully unaware face. He gulped down a thick sob, his eyes watering and he could feel his resolve trembling for a moment.
"What am I doing? Am I really going to…" his thoughts trailed off when he saw his target's eyes flicker for a moment.
"Ugh, Wh-" was all he could whisper when he started focusing in on Naruto.
SQUELCH…
Naruto, on instinct upon seeing his cover being blown pushed down to a knee and brought his blade down along with him,it went past it's obstruction efficiently in his steel like grip after years of practicing with a blade.
Duy and Sakumo, hearing the sudden sound did the same on instinct and fear with another couple of soft sounds of flesh piercing ringing in the room.
Naruto's eyes widened as he saw the man's eyes rolling in the back of his head, his body twitching a few times in soft gurgles before it fell completely limp and his left hand fell down lifelessly to his side.
He fell down on his butt, his left hand was pulled up shaking like a dry leaf and upon the right side of his face. He traced it upon his numb skin, and pulled the hand in front of his eyes only to see it have crimson streaks upon it and his eyes widened in horror.
"I killed him…" he chanted inside his head, over and over. His whole body trembled in fright and his breathing became labored while his eyes lost focus upon everything and the blade fell down by his side while he hyperventilated.
Duy and Sakumo were in better conditions that their friend, but in their shocked states they couldn't see what was happening to the blonde while they still couldn't believe what they had done. Both had a thick scarlet fluid tracing upon their palms and looked at it horrified to realize they had killed someone.
Naruto's Sharingan flared to life, the three tomoes in each of his pupils spun wildly while they glowed with a new vigor, and even more crimson that ever before.
The last thing the three felt were three chops to their necks simultaneously before their eyes rolled to the back of their heads and they left the realms of consciousness.
...
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