(July, year 54 AK)
Yuta opened his eyes...
The next instant the Jun in front of Yuta becomes a blur for a second, and then Hikari appeared on his place, she held her sword pressing against Yuta's neck and her expression was a bit bitter. Yuta figured that she was intending to keep fooling around a bit longer, but Yuta wasn't about to let that to happen.
"How... Impossible..." The real Jun that had appeared not far away said with difficulty, there was shock and fear on his face, he held a kunai and by the look of it he was intended to slowly close the distance and finish Yuta and Hikari off soon, if not for Yuta's genjutsu that had stopped him firmly and restricted his movements.
Yuta turned around, not paying any attention to Hikari and her sword on his neck, and Hikari moved her sword just in time to not let it cut Yuta's neck.
Yuta looked at Jun with irritation and barely contained anger, and said, "Impossible? Why so? Your genjutsu is interesting, but it is not that impressive, it's full of holes and unrealized potential, even Hikari was able to see through it from the start." Yuta said as he slowly walked closer to Jun, Hikari followed him as well.
Yuta looked at him more closely, a man almost in his thirties, an experienced ninja no doubt, and a genjutsu specialist no less, but his genjutsu... Although it was interesting, Yuta saw there was a lot of time and effort that was being put in it, and he understood that Jun was probably working on this jutsu for more than a decade, but still...
It was lacking in many aspects, it has holes in it that any competent genjutsu specialist would see right through.
Even someone like Hikari was able to see through it instantly...
'Wait a minute, how exactly did Hikari figured out it was all a genjutsu?' Yuta asked himself as he glanced back at her with a bit of suspicion.
"What?" Hikari asked as she stood beside him, "Nice job, by the way, you ruined my fun and stole my fight, now I'm pissed at you." She said annoyedly.
"Yea, right..." Yuta said but didn't ask her, there was a more pressing matter for him right now. Jun was still there, and his Shadow Chains genjutsu was draining his chakra quite fast, so Yuta had to take care of him first.
But as Yuta turned back to Jun, Hikari stepped in his direction first as she lifted her sword and said, "At least let me finish him off."
"Wait." Yuta said quickly, before Hikari could swing her sword and end Jun's life, "I didn't kill any of his teammates, there is still no blood between our groups yet. Don't you think it would be appropriate to let our captain to call the shots on how we deal with them?"
As Yuta said that, the look in Jun's eyes turned a bit more alive, the coldness had a bit faded from his eyes, leaving a reluctant acceptance of defeat and a slight hope that this could still end well for him and his teammates.
Yuta doesn't have anything against killing those guys, but still, they did win the battle and the other group lost and doesn't pose any threat to them anymore, so Yuta doesn't see any reason to kill them either.
And killing them just for the sake of it felt wrong to Yuta.
Their mission here is to protect their client until he finishes his business in town, and these guys who were on the opposite side, they are defeated now and if handled properly, they won't pose any threat to them any longer, besides, Yuta still doesn't know from which hidden village they are.
"Sigh, fine." Hikari said as she changed the grip on her sword and smacked the back of Jun's head with the handle, knocking him unconscious.
As Jun lost consciousness, Yuta's restrictive genjutsu broke and Jun's unconscious body frely fell to the ground.
As Yuta looked over Jun's unconscious body, he remembered in what state he left the others, and he hurriedly said, "I probably should return before those guys die from the blood lose, watch over this one, will you?"
"Whatever, it would be much easier to just kill him though..." Hikari said reluctantly.
'How did she become so bloodthirsty?' Yuta thought puzzled.
Then Yuta immediately ran back and found three unconscious enemy ninjas on the ground, two of them that Yuta had stabbed previously were already treated and their torsos were already bandaged, their bleeding was stopped by someone already.
Yuta looked around surprised and quickly spotted a familiar silhouette among the tree branches above him.
"Itachi?" Yuta said surprised, then he doublechecked with his chakra senses and quickly recognized Itachi's distinct chakra, although it felt much lover in volume than Itachi has before, "Shadow Clone?" Yuta guessed.
Itachi simply nodded in response.
"I see, so you are the one who treated them? How is everything on your end?" Yuta asked.
"There weren't any more enemies, my main body is still watching over the client." Itachi responded as he jumped down and stood beside Yuta, "What do you plan to do with them?" He asked.
"Let the captain decide on that, I don't want to kill them just like that, especially now when there is no need." Yuta said.
Itachi nodded with some relief in his eyes, he clearly doesn't want to kill anyone either here.
"Then I'll go find the captain." Itachi said and was about to leave, but then another person showed up suddenly.
"There is no need." He said. Yuta was a bit startled with the sudden appearance of someone else here, but he quickly recognized the man, it was Shisui.
"Good job you guys." Shisui said with a satisfied smile, "Itachi, go help Hikari to bring the other guy here, I'll interrogate them with my Sharingan genjutsu."
As Itachi nodded and disappeared, Shisui said in a more serious tone, "You were reckless, Yuta. Your calls were correct, but you shouldn't have played along with that genjutsu specialist. You noticed the genjutsu right away and was able to dispel it, but you didn't..."
...
'Sigh, yea, it was kind of a risky move on my part, but if something were to go wrong, I would've time-traveled to fix it, but I can't say that to Shisui, can I?'
...
"Would you believe me if I were to say that there wasn't any real danger?" Yuta said with a bit guilty smile.
"Well, if you say that, it must be the case then." Shisui replied, dropping his accusatory expression completely.
'Didn't though it would be that easy to convince him, he must've chalked it off as one of my future foresights or something.' Yuta thought as he looked back at the Itachi and Hikari who were dragging Jun's unconscious body back here. Now all four enemy ninjas are here, laying on the ground unconscious, two of them had bandaged torsos, and the other two were seemingly uninjured.
As Itachi and Hikari dropped Jun on the ground, Shisui said as he came closer to him, "He is their captain I assume? Let's see what he knows..."
Shisui's eyes changed to the bright red ones with the Sharingan's pattern, he crouched beside Jun and opened Jun's eyes with his hands as he looked into them.
Yuta felt a surge of Shisui's chakra flared from his eyes as Shisui activated his genjutsu on the unconscious Jun.
After just a couple seconds Shisui let go of Jun's eyelids and stood up, his eyes turned back to normal.
"I see." Shisui said, "They were the ninjas from Tanigakure, the hidden village of the Land of Rivers. They were hired by Yoshiyuki Matsuda, the man who had a meeting with our client and brought one of those ninjas with him to the meeting place. That man represents one of the wealthiest families in town and he is the one who is in the process of buying our client's business."
"But why try to kill our client then? What was the point?" Hikari asked curiously, "The deal wasn't even finalized yet, there is no profit in killing him, right?"
"It seems that everyone in town knows about the deal between Yoshiyuki and Kohei. With that, and with Yoshiyuki's hired ninjas planning to steal the business ownership deeds afterwards, that man Yoshiyuki was planning to convince everyone that he had paid our client, Kohei Ishihara, and that now he is the legitimate owner of the business. With Kohei being dead and the deeds stolen, there won't be anyone who could refute the legitimacy of the deal." Shisui explained.
"Despicable." Itachi commented coldly.
"Well, that won't happen now that we are here." Hikari said, "What should we do with these ninjas now? And what should we do with that man Yoshiyuki?" She asked.
"We won't be doing anything to Yoshiyuki, don't forget our mission, it's just a protection of our client, nothing more than that. Besides, this mission has already become much more than what it was supposed to be. Now that you had to fight other ninjas for the sake of the mission, it is considered no longer a C-rank mission but a B-rank one." Shisui explained, "And for these ninjas, we don't have to do anything either, just let them go."
"Won't they try to attack our client once again when they woke up?" Hikari asked.
"It's unlikely." Yuta commented thoughtfully, "With two out of four of their members being seriously injured like that, and after being completely defeated by us while our team captain didn't even participate in any of the fighting, if they aren't idiots, they should just abandon the mission."
"Yuta is right." Shisui said, "Besides, after reading Jun's memories I figured out their mission details and intentions, and I have a good understanding of what they would do next. They would abandon the mission right away and retreat. They absolutely won't interfere with our mission any longer." Shisui said with confidence.
"But of course, just to be sure, I would keep an eye on them for a while until they leave, so you don't have to worry about them." Shisui said.
"And what if that man hires some other ninjas again?" Hikari asked a bit enthusiastically.
"There is not much time for him to hire another squad." Shisui said, "Also, with these guys going back after being beaten, their village won't accept another mission from Yoshiyuki, at least not for the amount of money Yoshiyuki was willing to pay for the job. There shouldn't be any more complications like that."
"Sigh, I see..." Hikari said reluctantly as she looked at Yuta with some resentment.
"What?" Yuta asked.
'Is she still angry at me for interfering in her fight with Jun or something?' Yuta thought.
"Nothing." Hikari replied harshly.
'Definitely still angry...' Yuta thought, 'What a drag...'
--- AN ---
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