(December, year 54 AK)
This current mission started as just another boring C-rank with the potential of turning out more complicated and to involve some fighting against some Genins, or maybe Chunins if they are lucky enough, or unlucky, depends on the perspective.
Yuta and his team arrived at the Land of Grass on the north-west border of the Land of Fire. It is a small country that borders the Land of Rain in the south, the Land of Earth on the west, the Land of Waterfall in the north, and the Land of Fire in the east.
Their team is supposed to have a simple protection job for a local wealthy merchant for two weeks since the merchant suspects that his rivals were targeting him, or so he stated in the mission description.
But this time it all went south really fast.
They arrived at Toyozawa town and met with their client at his mansion, Takashi Murakami, a middle-aged man who was quite fat to say the least, discussed the mission, simple protection, nothing special, everything looked ordinary. Then they stationed at the mansion and took shifts of watching over the man and the surrounding territory.
Shisui, as usual, had given them a free rein and left all the decisions and work for the three of them and stayed out of their way.
For two days it was quiet, nothing happened at all, but then, suddenly, in the middle of the second night Yuta woke up at his assigned room at the mansion, his expression turned serious and his eyes turned cold as he quickly rushed outside.
He had woken up because his chakra senses had picked up something big and unexpected. He sensed a big chakra flare in the area, someone had used a chakra-intensive jutsu, the chakra signature was unfamiliar.
Sensing that, Yuta woke up instantly and immediately rushed outside. Luckily, he was sleeping with his clothes and gear on just in case, so he didn't need to waste time preparing before going out. Not even a second had passed as the tremor spread through the mansion and Yuta heard some sort of a loud crash as he felt another big chakra flare nearby, this time it was Itachi's chakra signature.
Yuta deduced that they were being attacked and Itachi, who was on the night watch during this night, is engaged in a fight right now with the attacker.
Yuta concentrated his chakra senses on the entire area as he was running outside, he sensed that Hikari was also rushing outside a couple rooms away from him, Itachi was outside the mansion, facing a couple unfamiliar chakra signatures, Shisui's chakra signature is nowhere to be seen, Yuta can't detect him in the area at all, he assumed that Shisui is hiding somewhere, watching over them from the shadows.
The weak chakra signatures of civilians in the mansion and their client's chakra was still present and nothing seem to threaten them right now, so Yuta decided to go and back up Itachi instead of staying in the mansion and guarding their client, he believed that if someone were to approach the mansion, he would notice and come back fast enough. And he believed that protecting their client from outside the mansion would be easier.
Besides, the four unfamiliar chakra signatures in the area are all outside the mansion, facing Itachi, and their chakra levels were quite high, so Yuta didn't think that there would be any hidden enemy sneaking past his chakra senses, going to assassinate their client right now. It is more likely that the four enemies are the only squad that are attacking them, and they aren't going to do it quietly, not after how loudly and directly they approached the mansion in the first place, throwing a big and chakra-intensive ninjutsu right off the bat.
Even if such a decision has some risk in it, since it isn't guaranteed that there isn't one more hidden enemy that are sneaking into the mansion right now, Yuta, after judging enemies chakra amounts, decided that Itachi might be in danger and his life is more important than some C-rank mission that isn't even supposed to involve any ninja enemies in the first place, especially not such strong ones.
Besides, even if he misjudged and their client ends up dead, it's not like he couldn't fix it with time-travel, so Yuta wasn't bothered at all by just going straight into the fight without much care for the wellbeing of their client who he was supposed to protect.
Soon, Yuta reached outside and quickly flickered forward, ending up standing just beside Itachi, who was facing four unfamiliar figures some distance in front of him. Hikari appeared beside Itachi at the same time as Yuta.
Yuta looked around and saw the ground being torn up, there is sings of someone using quite big Earth Style ninjutsu in the area, and there is some fire here and there and the air is unusually hot for this time of the year, the usual signs of the Fire Style ninjutsu being used recently.
The four unfamiliar figures in front wore shinobi attire and also wearing ninja headbands with Stone village sign on it, openly displaying that they are from Iwagakure.
The three out of four of them looked at Itachi, Yuta and Hikari with apparent disdain and mockery in their expressions, they were looking down on Yuta's group without being bothered to hide it. Shisui is nowhere to be seen.
Yuta looked at them. It was one man in his thirties, who maintained a blank expression, two younger men in their early twenties, and one girl of the same age as the last two.
Yuta concentrated on sensing chakra strength of the four Stone ninjas more closely and discovered that the younger three have around 4C of chakra and the older guy, he was the real problem here. Yuta had a hard time estimating his chakra precisely, but he was sure it was somewhere between 12C and 15C, a genuine Jonin's level of chakra, Yuta was sure of it.
'Just great, a real Jonin from Stone village, it's not some trash as those guys from the Land or Rivers four months ago, they are the real bad news...' Yuta thought as he raised his guard significantly and mentally prepared for the life-and-death battle.
'That guy has more than 12C of chakra, my Shadow Chains is likely won't work on him since his chakra is more than twice bigger than mine...' Yuta analyzed, 'He is a genuine Jonin from one of the major hidden villages, so he has to be very experienced ninja, it would be hard to catch him off guard with my Shadow Cloak, and I will only have one shot with the advantage of him not knowing about my genjutsu. If he survives it for the first time, it would be even harder to catch him after that...'
But despite coming to the conclusion that the fight would be a very hard one, Yuta was actually very excited about the possibility of testing his skills against a genuinely stronger opponent.
It would be the first time after Mist ninjas that Yuta will have to go all-out. There was a huge difference between going all-out and those couple fights that Yuta had during the past months when he was holding back and even sparing the lives of his opponents whenever he could afford it.
Here, on the other hand, it would be a serious fight where he has to put everything on the line. If the slightest opportunity presented itself to claim the life of one of his enemies, Yuta would have to do so in a heartbeat without hesitation. Same as he did back with the Mist ninjas.
In such a fight, where even survival isn't certain, there is no place for hesitation or for holding back...
"Well, would you look at that, it's just some kids, tree-huggers, are they even old enough to be considered ninjas?" The one of the younger men said mockingly.
"Don't underestimate them, Daichi, their chakra is quite strong for their age." The older man said in a serious tone as he observed them closely, he was the only one who had a serious expression and didn't underestimated Yuta's group, staying on guard despite facing just the three kids.
'Well, another advantage just went down the drain, the Jonin of their group is not going to get careless just because he is facing kids...' Yuta thought.
"Captain Keisuke, you can't be serious, it's just some tree-hugger brats, what could they do?" Another young man said.
"Ryota, did you already forget that one of those kids just blocked my welcoming gift with his Fire Style ninjutsu?" Keisuke said, "It's not some weak kids here. It's likely that they are some talented geniuses from the Leaf, and their young age only shows how much potential they have. We should eliminate them here and now, don't let them get away. Our mission is secondary."
"Well, if it's about killing some tree-hugger kids, I'm all for it!" The girl said as she looked over Yuta's group with apparent bloodthirst in her eyes.
"That's the spirit, Maki. Everyone, attack, we don't have all night." Keisuke said, and they started moving.
'Well, I guess there is no need for introductions and long speeches. This should be interesting...' Yuta thought as a slight smile formed on his face.
--- AN ---
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