39 More time-skip for the same reason

Some more time has passed, and I am nine now, my team has mostly spent this time doing missions behind enemy lines, most of which remain thankfully uneventful, though I did gain a few more scars over the year. Though thankfully I don't have any scars on my face since medical Jutsu can heal small cuts without scars.

I did pick one of the kiddies to join my squad, and he's been with us for a little over a year now, meaning he got his face fairly recently, Elk.

A few days after that I had a session with Yamada, where she brought up that I might have picked a kiddie instead of a seasoned ANBU because I had subconsciously hoped that he would die on a mission.

Upon reflection, she was probably right, but I'm over that now, and even if me and Elk aren't besties, we get along well enough, kinda like Fox, but worse, cuz Fox is actually fun to be around sometimes.

Ok maybe I'm not completely over it, Hounds face on the back of my head is a heavy enough reminder of that.

I don't know why I did it.

But I modified my ANBU masks hood so that I could have Hound watching my back.

Yamada says it's probably not healthy, and it probably isn't, but other than her, no one's called me out on it.

I guess everyone else in ANBU understands.

Anyway, my modified uniform aside, I have improved all around in everything, though I don't really have anything new, unless you count Fuinjutsu.

I am no master, not by a long shot, but I've made quite a few seals now, and I asked Mito about Fuinjutsu tattoos, but she said that it's something I have to figure out myself, because it needs to be unique and 'match' my chakra or something.

Basically, it needs to feel right and only you can tell if it does, so I'm mostly on my own for that, which sucks because I want my personal Hammar space damnit!

But none of that is too important right now, see something interesting is happening.

Me and around 200 ANBU have been called to gather by Takeshi, who says the Hokage himself has a mission for us all.

It must be something big, because this is like a quarter of our number or something like that.

Right now, we're all in a big meeting hall, waiting for someone to take to the stage.

Normally in a gathering like this there would be a loud hustle and bustle, but we are all professionals, so naturally it's even louder.

To be fair, we've been waiting here for half an hour, and we are all crazy or broken in some way, so it didn't take long before we made a ring in the middle of the room where people started duking it out, pure taijutsu, while the rest of us placed bets.

So far, I'm down thirty thousand Ryo.

I shouldn't pick up gambling.

It's not my fault.

One of the guys was super big and the other was small but looked super confident, so I figured it'd be one of those cliche don't judge a book by its cover kind of moments, where it turns out the smaller guy is actually a master assassin or something.

But I forgot we are all trained assassins, so the big guy destroyed him and my monthly salary at the same time.

It would be times like this that I'd whine to Hound until he gave me some money, usually it was because I blew it all on sweets though.

Breaking me from my thoughts is the sound of Takeshi's annoyed voice.

"OI!! You call yourselves professionals?"

The clamour stops, but some wise guy returns.

"nah, you call us professionals, we just kill people!"

I mean, he's not wrong, apparently Takeshi agrees with me if his wry smile is anything to go by, but his face gets serious, and we all immediately get into line and stop messing about.

See, we can be disciplined.

We're just easily bored, since we're so used to such a high intensity lifestyle.

"The Hokage will be here in a few moments, along with Tsunade-Hime of the Sanin to give you your mission brief."

Damn, wonder what it is, also Tsunade?

We have actually spoken a few times since that day in the hospital so long ago, honestly my bias against her is mostly gone, I still wouldn't want to spend prolonged amounts of time with her, but we've come to an agreement of sorts, she holds herself back from being pointlessly loud around me, and I stop being disrespectful, or throwing veiled insults.

That last part kinda sucked, it was fun when she would pause at something I said and turn it over in her head for a bit until she figured out what the insult was then getting super mad, it was even better later when I would say something, and she would be like 'I know whatever you just said was an insult' and I'd just smile until she figures it out.

Now our meetings are mostly respectful until she throws an insult and I return the favour, at least it's all in good humour now so she doesn't get mad anymore.

Speaking of the devil, Tsunade and Hiruzen have just arrived, and it seem Hiruzen will start this speech, what a shock.

"I'm sure you are all wondering why you are gathered here today, allow me to put those curiosities to rest, approximately two days ago, north of Konoha in a village known as Totsukawa, a new threat has emerged. An organisation, supposedly a collection of Shinobi from each of the great nations has appeared, and declared war against all five great nations, unfortunately for us, that means they wanted to be in the middle of all five, which puts them in our borders. In an opening act they have destroyed the village of Totsukawa, Tsunade will explain further, as she was there at the time."

Saying so, Hiruzen steps back as Tsunade steps forward, her face a mix of fearful and confident that really confuses me.

"Indeed, it is as Sensei says, but the village wasn't just destroyed, it was done so with a single attack. Reduced to nothing but a crater. The people claiming to be from the 'Land of the sky' who's hidden village somehow floats in the sky, as the name suggests. This flying island unleashed some kind of beam of chakra that completely obliterated Totsukawa, in addition to this, they seem to have some kind of ability for flight, likely from the packs on their back."

Having said her piece Tsunade steps back again, clearly reliving whatever she saw, that woman is too fond of flashback chapters, personally I don't like flashbacks most of the time. This reminds me of when-

Nah, just kidding, dear mystical voices, now stop distracting me, the Hokage is talking.

"Now, these people from the land in the sky have come here, daring to challenge us five great nations, as if such a thing is a simple matter, but we will show them the err of their ways, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 will show them their error. We believe that they must be using a powerful energy source to allow their village to fly as it does, for that reason the two hundred of you present here today, are charged with the duty to show these people why there are only five great villages, and you will show them why choosing to start their fight in Konohagakure's borders was a mistake, 𝘺𝘰𝘶, here today, will make haste to this land in the sky, and you will destroy whatever their source of energy is and bring them down to the ground with the rest of us, to slaughtered for their transgressions against our glorious nation!"

Wooo! Speech! Yeah!

So, in summary, go to the sky island, break it, come home and kill anyone who gets in the way.

Well, I've always been good at breaking stuff.

It's kind of awkward now, clearly Hiruzen is used to receiving a standing ovation after his speeches or something, but we're not the masses, who can so easily get worked up, instead of cheering, everyone is just silently thinking on the fact that we've basically been tasked with destroying an entire hidden village, all by our, well not lonesome, more like two hundred-some.

But still, that's a rather tall order, then again, they aren't a great village, and they are flying in the sky, which is just stupid, because all we have to do is break whatever is letting it fly, then any of them that can't also fly will just die.

Deciding to break the silence I whisper yell out, using genjutsu to project my voice away from myself, just in case.

"whoooo!!! yeah!! hokage-sama!!!! such a moving speech wooooo!!!"

A lot of my fellow ANBU members started laughing and I think a saw Takeshi facepalm, Hiruzen just chuckles a little before giving some parting words.

"Well, I see you're all eager to get to business, so I will leave you to it."

Saying so he and Tsunade both leave, letting Takeshi take to the stage again, after which he just glares at us all for a bit.

"Alright, alright, enough, everyone with the captain designation stay behind, everyone else get lost."

A moment later and it's just the fifty of us and Takeshi.

"Alright, the Hokage has given the most pertinent information, all you really need to know is that you set out first thing tomorrow, and I will make sure you will know where exactly you will need to go before you set out. Now for how this will work. We have with us here a summoner of the Hawks, a summoner of the Vultures and a summoner of the Roc's, all three of which have agreed to aid us by carrying our men and women up to the flying village, once there you will split up, most of you will stay together fighting with guerrilla tactics, while a select few of you who are best at stealth will break off to search for the power source and break it, though if it is possible it would be even better to steal it."

After that we spend some more time simply discussing the logistics of the mission, what recourses will be available to us to collect from inventory, and what we will be required to bring.

Me, Mantis and eighteen others will be doing the infiltration while the others stall.

All said, the mission will probably only take a week, optimistically.

Of course, we make plenty of plans and backup plans, and after two hours of logistical and strategic talking we are dismissed to prepare ourselves and our squads on what the plan is.

I just tell my squad what they need to gather, which is just everything they made available to us from inventory, I mean it's free so why not? We can always just keep everything we don't use after all.

Oh, you want me to return any spare explosive tags? Sorry I used them all.

What, these tags? No, no, you're mistaken, I bought these on my way over, since I was all out of tags.

Man, there is nothing I love more than free stuff.

Still, this is unexpected, I've never heard of a Land in the sky, but then again, I didn't watch the show or read the manga, so I hardly know shit about anything really.

Though, destroying a country? Sounds fun.

I end the day by gathering all of my equipment in various storage scrolls, I can't make library scrolls so I can't do the ol' bag of expanding inside a bag of expanding trick.

Then I spend the rest of my day making even more explosive tags, even having to briefly go out to get more Fuinjutsu supplies to make even more tags.

If I'm to be taking down a flying island, I feel explosions will be a must.

Besides you can never truly have enough explosives.

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A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!

I thought about making mc the jinchuriki of the zero tails but it felt like an asspull and I dont want him to become too op too quickly, so nope to that.

Also yeah, land of sky, I know it's probably not canon but im not really sure since i havent watched naruto, and honestly i dont really give a shit cuz having destroyed a country would look cool on his resumé, even if said country is just a city sized island

also also, sorry if it seems like i'm rushing the plot but i dont want him to be a kid anymore :( also im moving house tomorrow!

https://ko-fi.com/bored_works