Chương 117: Team Rina(P2)

Scouting, planning, monitoring and scheduling. Rina and her team didn't let up for four days until they could predict every move the enemy shinobi would make in their schedules. Yet as those four days passed Rina hadn't gotten word back from Fuguki and with how much progress the enemy had made revamping the port and ship, it was obvious the team would have to make their move tonight or risk losing the entire Nettou clan.

The missing four enemy shinobi still hadn't been accounted for in all their scouts and monitoring but time was limited and so Rina had to plan against those she saw. It was fortunate though, the enemy split themselves up into two teams of four. The logging and rebuilding team.

The logging team chartered Nettou clan members from the main camp at the fishing wharf into the jungle every morning without fail. There they would watch their prisoners chop down trees, bark useless orders and drink themselves to stupor before returning to camp for a large seafood dinner and more alcohol.

It was a blessing that the shinobi had the ingenious idea to isolate their logging area away from their camp, it was at least an hour's walk moving at civilian pace and so their screams, if any, wouldn't be heard by the rebuilding team unless one managed to escape. That wouldn't happen though.

There was only one opportunity to pull off the plan and ironically it needed all four shinobi to be alert and at least trying to keep watch over their prisoners. The only time all four of them bothered to put in that much effort was right at the start of their labour day.

Rina nodded at her fellow Chuunin and Sakai standing by, Akari and Haruka, the Karatachi twins were already in position and waiting for the signal the medic-nin would deliver once Rina had initiated the plan.

The start of it all would be the hardest part but it wasn't anything as troubling as [Water Clone]. Rina leaned against a tree as she searched for an appropriate target amongst the Nettou, the logging team had just returned and she had at least an hour or thirty minutes before they became lax and the plan would be naught.

She found one in time, a young, fatigued man heaving an axe against wet tree bark. Ahead of him, right in his line of sight would be three of four shinobi, he was the perfect target for the switch.

[Substitution] was a simple academy level technique taught and ideally mastered by all graduated shinobi, but even then, there were levels to its mastery and Rina had found early on she had an unlikely aptitude for the technique. She was yet to force a switch with an expectant subject but a fatigued civilian, even one wielding a Bloodline would be an easy target, even from a distance.

But first, she studied her target, memorizing his image to completion before his strained muscles could fell the tree he stood at and her fingers ran through the hand seals for both [Transformation] and [Substitution] in quick succession. In a blink of an eye Rina had stolen the man's place, she quickly snatched the axe before it could clatter to the ground and continued to chop at the tree, albeit very weakly.

The true Nettou clan man was safe in Sakai's waiting arms and for the sake of the plan going smoothly he was knocked unconscious the moment he took Rina's place; there was no time for explanations or hand holding, the true liberation would be hours away from now.

Hidden amongst the enemy Rina surveyed her surroundings once more, she'd done so from a higher vantage point but everything was different on ground. She spotted her targets pacing about with water bottles hanging from their necks and little more than a single weapons pouch strapped at their hips.

They'd gotten lax in their work and Rina couldn't blame them, the people they would fear or hide from were fighting some war miles away and several villages had already made it clear the Nettou clan wasn't wanted. They weren't expecting anyone to come looking.

She swung the axe again and appraised her fellow prisoners closer, all of the Nettou clan were dressed in the same rags they were captured in, each of them looking more malnourished as the days went by. Their shinobi captors had little interest in sustaining over thirty individuals and so they went by on leftovers or what little fish the rebuilding team sometimes caught as well as stray fallen fruit they'd pick up on the way back and forth.

In the four days Rina's team had monitored the Nettou clan, not even their Funato clan medic-nin could harden her heart against their plight.

She focused and waited. In the time between the switch and her swings one of her targets strayed away from where she needed them to be and already one of the shinobi was shifting his weight and would soon find a place to sit, drink and make a noise. She needed to act quick.

Her prayers were answered soon though as the shinobi wandered back into place and now she had all four within her line of sight or better yet, her sprint track. She tightened her grip on the axe and glanced at the Nettou clan member watching her curiously, their eyes met and the poor broken older man shook his head, mouthing something along the lines of 'Don't do it.' but what would he know?

Rina breathed and dashed out for all to see, she bellowed a keen imitation of a man's roar as she charged at the first startled shinobi in her way. She swung the axe at his head only for him to barely duck out of the way. She continued her charge, rushing past his two comrades and into the thick of the jungle even as the yelled out for her to stop, completely befuddled at how fast she was moving for a fatigued and will-broken prisoner.

"Get after him! Not one of you will escape us!" Rina heard one of the shinobi yell and soon after sensed two pursuers come after her as she leaped over fallen trees and spouting geysers. She was personally hoping for three but two would do as well.

As she leaped over another geyser she spied Akari and Haruka in her periphery and smirked, screeching to a halt as her Genin breathed a thick mist from their mouths in perfect sync with the geyser's rain of steam and water before slinking away into the shadows of boulders.

"There you are!"

"Just what were you thinking huh?" the shinobi had caught up right where she wanted but her act wasn't up yet, not until the technique her Genin put in place took hold.

She sneered at them with the Nettou clan man's face and fashioned the axe against them, "Stay back!"

Their clothes soaked with water rained from the geyser, one snorted as he waved away the mist blocking his sight, "Ugh you idiots never learn do you? I'm going to kill you with that thing."

He lurched forward only to fall flat on his face. His comrade looked in shock, "What are you doing? Git alp! Huh? Git alop? Wa is hiss?"

Just then Akari step out from behind a boulder and charged at the shinobi still standing while a flurry of kunai and shuriken flung by Haruka embedded itself in his comrade's prone body.

The standing shinobi moved to defend himself but his wires were so crossed rather than raise the hand wielding his kunai he jerked his leg back like a horse. He could only scream as Akari sheathed her kunai between his eyes.

Rina smiled as the girls panted, wide eyed with terror, rage and adrenaline rushing through their veins at their first kills beyond their Academy graduation, "Good job girls, now let's go see if Sakai needs any help."