(July, year 54 AK)
Yuta and Hikari went back to town to continue their job of protecting the client, while Itachi's shadow clone canceled his own jutsu and disappeared, sending its memories back to the original Itachi.
Everyone's gone but Shisui, who remained hidden among tree branches, observing four ninjas who were slowly regaining their consciousness.
Jun's eyes snapped open and he jumped back to his feet and looked around frantically, and when he didn't see any enemies but his teammates who was slowly regaining consciousness on the ground beside him, he quickly approached them and checked their conditions.
Shuji and Hiromitsu were seriously wounded, but their wounds were already treated and their conditions weren't life-threatening, they even should be able to move, but not without help. Satoru, on the other hand, was uninjured.
Jun sighed in relief after seeing all his teammates alive like that. Previously, when he got caught and restricted by that kid's formidable genjutsu and being unable to break free from it on his own, Jun thought that it was all over for him and his teammates, so seeing that all of them are fine, more or less, Jun felt like he was being very lucky with that outcome.
"Captain? Where are we? What happened?!" Satoru woke up first and asked as he saw Jun crouching beside him.
Shuji and Hiromitsu were waking up as well, they tried to move and sit up, but then they hissed in pain instead, it seems that it would be hard for them to move even with their teammates' help.
"Shuji, Hiromitsu, you are injured, what happened to you guys?!" Satoru asked again right after his first question.
"Quiet!" Jun barked, "We need to get away from here as soon as possible."
Shuji rose slightly, fighting the pain as he moved. He asked frantically, "Where is that monster kid? Is he still lurking around in the shadows?!", a deep sense of fear was evident on Shuji's face as he said that.
As Hiromitsu heard that, he remembered what happened as well, and his face paled as he also frantically looked around.
"What are you talking about?" Satoru asked cluelessly.
"If you are talking about that boy that are skilled with genjutsu, he is not here, but we really have to go, now." Jun said, "Shuji, Hiromitsu, you are injured, but we really can't afford to stay here any longer, will you be able to move?"
"Yes, captain!" Shuji replied hastily, and Hiromitsu nodded, both of them seem to have a strong desire to run away from here as soon as possible.
"What even happened? What about our mission?" Satoru asked still clueless about what was going on as he stood up and helped Hiromitsu to slowly stand up, while Jun was helping Shuji as well.
Jun sighed heavily with frustration and finally said, "We were beaten up by that Leaf squad, that's what."
"What? Did their squad captain intervened?" Satoru asked, "I thought he stayed in the Kohei's mansion at all times."
"No." Jun said heavily, reluctance was fighting on his face with bitter acceptance, "We were defeated just by those kids. They didn't even see us as a threat worth finishing off, that's why we are still alive. But we better leave this area fast before they changed their minds."
"What?!" Satoru exclaimed. It all was quite sudden for him. One moment their team was in the middle of a mission, ready to confront that Leaf squad that stood in their way, and the next instant he was waking up outside of town, their team was beaten, half of his teammates are seriously injured, and they were forced to flee...
It was all hard to accept for Satoru, who only remembers how he was about to launch an attack on Kohei in that restaurant, he didn't even see that Leaf brat beside him as an obstacle, rather as just a slight inconvenience, and then the next instant he was already here, his team failed and being defeated.
"How did that happen?" Satoru mumbled, unable to accept reality.
"Those kids, no, their entire squad, they aren't someone we could fight against. That boy..." Jun said as they slowly moved out, Jun and Satoru were shouldering their injured teammates, "That boy I fought, somehow, he is more skilled in genjutsu than I am, and I trained with genjutsu for my entire life..."
Satoru took a deep breath in shock, his eyes widened as he heard what Jun said, while Shuji and Hiromitsu didn't react much, they already had experienced that firsthand and knew well what Jun was talking about.
"Also, that girl with a sword..." Jun continued as they moved, "Although her moves were somewhat inexperienced, her strength and speed were quite formidable, not weaker than my own. Also, that boy that were protecting Kohei at the restaurant, Satoru, he had knocked you down, just in an instant... Their whole squad is not simple, every one of them is not simple..."
Shisui quietly followed them as they were moving out. Jun led his team to circle around town and moved away from it without looking back.
Back in town, Yuta and Hikari resumed their tailing of Kohei from the shadows, and the boring routine continued.
In a few more days, Kohei finally was able to sell his business without any more accidents. That man who hired those ninjas, Yoshiyuki, he was the one who bought Kohei's business in the end.
After Yoshiyuki's attempt at snatching the business for free had failed, he ended up buying it legitimately after all. Yuta spent some time spying on Yoshiyuki from time to time just in case, but he quickly figured that after that failure with Tanigakure's ninjas, he didn't attempt anything more than that.
Yuta even suspected that the man was smart enough to understand, that after his hired ninjas disappeared, making another attempt to hire someone while the Leaf ninjas were still there was futile, so he seemingly accepted his failure and bought Kohei's business legitimately, not showing any malicious intentions at all.
Then after couple more days Kohei's caravan with his man and his family finally prepared to move out from town, and Yuta's team had accompanied them back to the Land of Fire.
Nothing else happened on the way, and after a week of travel they reached the Fire Capital, they parted ways with Kohei's caravan, and without entering the city they moved straight back to the village.
On their way back to the village, Hikari said, "I still think we should have taught that guy Yoshiyuki a lesson. He hired ninjas to kill an innocent man and to steal his business, why we didn't do anything at all to him?"
"And what do you think we should've done?" Shisui asked.
"At the very least beat him up." Hikari replied instantly.
"And what would've happened if we were to do that?" Shisui asked.
"We would've been reported to the local feudal lord and end up in trouble." Yuta commented from the side, "Our mission would've been in danger because of that."
"And hiring ninjas to assassinate an innocent man is fine?" Hikari retorted.
"Yea, seems like it, at least until it is handled properly and discreetly, I guess." Yuta said calmly.
"That guy attacked Kohei in the middle of a restaurant, how is that 'discreetly'?" Hikari asked.
"It would've been, as long as they would clean up the scene right away without leaving any witnesses." Yuta said.
"... I don't like that at all." Hikari said and the conversation ended.
'You say it like our village isn't being hired for jobs similar to what those ninjas were hired for.' Yuta thought to himself but didn't voice it out loud, 'It was completely possible for us to end up being hired by Yoshiyuki and those guys to be hired by Kohei under a slightly different circumstances. Although I assume Shisui won't accept such a mission for us, but there are plenty of other teams in Konoha who would. For ninjas it's just business, after all...'
...
'There is not much law in this world to stop such individuals like Yoshiyuki after all. There are Daimyos, the rulers of each Land, like the Land of Rivers, they are basically the rulers of their own countries. Then there is feudal lords of the lands that actually governs the territories, towns and villages, they are the ones who enforces some rules and laws of the land, but all those laws are pretty basic and wasn't enforced strictly, compared to what I was used to in my previous life.'
'Basically, as long as there is not much evidence against an individual, or there isn't someone influential that actively accusing an individual of breaking the law, there is usually nothing that was being done, and individuals like Yoshiyuki usually just getting away with stuff like that.'
'If someone has money, they could hire ninjas for basically anything. There is almost nothing that is forbidden, except harming feudal lords, that are the nobility of this world. As long as ninjas isn't targeting them, they are fine with anything it seems and they allow ninjas to roam free and complete all sorts of jobs for anyone with money.'
...
'What a strange power structure...' Yuta thought on his way back to the village, 'Theres is Daimyo, and there is Kage of the hidden village, and both of them are equals, at least officially. But in reality, Daimyo is the one who is paying the hidden village money and issues them to fight for their land in case of war. And when a new Kage is being selected, Daimyo has to approve the candidate before he could be named a Kage of a hidden village. Even if they called equals, no matter how I look at it, Daimyo seem like the superior in this power structure and Kage seem more like a subordinate of the Daimyo, although with a lot of freedom and autonomy.'
'And this strange power structure somehow works on the scale of this entire world for more than fifty years already, since the establishment of the Konoha and the end of the Warring States Era. Before that, there were only clans and no hidden villages. But there was still Daimyos and their Lands, only ninjas were scattered with their respective clans everywhere through the lands, like tiny hidden villages of their own.'
As Yuta thought about the history of this world, his thoughts naturally gravitated towards Hashirama and how he had changed the world by establishing Konoha village, pushing the entire world to establish hidden villages of their own so they could compete with Konoha. The rest of the world had no choice in the matter. If they wanted to survive, they had to do the same thing, and all the clans had to join forces and build hidden villages of their own to stand any chance against Konoha.
Yuta remembered from the history books and from the original story from his previous life, that this world had lived for about a thousand years in that Warring States Era, where there were no hidden villages, and then one man changed everything.
Yuta remembered that he was used to criticizing Hashirama for his naive moves like distribution of the tailed beasts and establishing some sort of power balance throughout the world. And he still felt that way, but now, gaining new perspective after living in this world for a while, Yuta understood that Hashirama did something no one had done before, he put an end to the thousand-year-old era of Warring States and established a new world order.
Even with all the criticism Yuta still has for the man, he also has a lot of respect for the man who changed the world on such a scale...
--- AN ---
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