44 "Money is power"

Ayaka was surprised by Rei's sudden outburst of ninjutsu, since he didn't look like a genin at all with all the techniques he unleashed towards their enemies. Aside from being in awe she worried that Rei would exhaust himself at the beginning of battle, so she advises him to calm himself down.

What Ayaka didn't expect to happen was Rei's reply since she thought Rei was really fighting blindly, Rei's calm reply put her mind at ease. With their opponents moving closer and attacking them relentlessly, she has no choice but to make big moves of her own.

Ayaka: Rei, cover me.

Rei: Gotcha.

Rei covered Ayaka who is performing hand seals for her ninjutsu. A second later Ayaka exhaled fire from her mouth with the use of her ninjutsu "fire release: Fire dragon bullet".

The flame thrower like move of Ayaka burnt through their opponents and reduce their number, some of their opponents are even scared of fighting them that they decided not to risk confronting them while they still have the stamina to do so.

Seiji felt left out by the prowess of his teammates, since all of them had the skills of using basic nature transformation. But this situation only motivated him to get stronger, to pull his own weight Seiji use a shurikenjutsu of his own modification.

Seiji took out a fuma shuriken with an attached wire, he then threw it towards their enemies and enlarge it using "transformation technique". The sheer size of the fuma shuriken was enough threat to everyone that was in the its path, some that were hit were bisected or critically wounded. Seiji manipulated the fuma shuriken to take out more of their opponents so that his chakra invested on it wouldn't be wasted.

When things are finally moving towards their favor three men walked out of the crowd of bandits. The first man who walked out looked to be in his thirties with a brown hair and a scar on his face that looks to be like a claw mark, the other two looked to be in their late teens with white hair. When the three moves in the team noticed that the two teens are actually twins because of their resemblance to each other. On the other hand, Hayama thinks that they are in big trouble and it is showing on his face.

Teen with white hair: Look what we have here...

Brown haired man: Tsk, Hidden leaf ninjas.

Hayama: Are you sure of your actions? -he said in a threatening manner.

Brown haired man: Too late now we'll just have to kill you all to avoid troubles.

Rei knew that with the current odds they are just going to lose their lives by fighting in their current situation. So, he is now making plans for retreat and come back another time to settle the scores.

Hayama looked at Rei signaling at him to lead his teammates out along with their clients. Since he knew for sure that he could somehow beat the three new arrivals, but base on his calculations the presence of the cannon fodder bandits somehow tilts the favor against them.

Besides that, Hayama was not sure about the capabilities of his opponents aside from that he is not sure of the number of capable individuals against them. As the jonin team leader, Hayama had no choice but to let his students retreat and hold back their opponents.

When Rei saw their teacher's signal he knew then that he was planning to hold back their opponents on his own, though he has a high chance of escaping alone he didn't want to risk that since they have no idea what the strength of their enemies are.

Rei then threw pills to his allies and signaled for them to eat it. After confirming their consumption of the pill, he quickly formed hand seals and used "water release: Hiding in the mist" but this time the mist that was being release in his mouth was modified using his medical-nin.

The mist formed by Rei is a hallucinatory gas, when their opponents inhales it, it wouldn't take long for them to start hallucinating. Once their opponents start hallucinating it would be much easier for Rei to use genjutsu though the chance of them winning that time would be high, he would rather escape for now.

When the three men saw Rei's counter action they quickly retreated and didn't risk being trapped inside a mist, since they already know the danger of assassination skills of ninjas. Although they have no idea of their opponent's skills but it is normal to be cautious against the ninjas of hidden leaf.

Hayama quickly took their client and carried him, while Ayaka dragged Seiji to escape. Rei on the other hand didn't want all the equipment they brought to be used against them later on, so he took out three bombs and place them beneath the weapons. The bombs Rei placed are motion trigger type, something that he asked specifically when he was buying.

Rei quickly took off as well and followed his teammates waiting for that sound of explosion to ring. A few minutes later when that explosion finally sounded, Rei and his teammates were already far from their enemies.

Seiji: Damn! that was a loud one!

Hayama: What exactly did you leave?

Rei: Oh, I tend to over prepare so I sort of bought bombs. You'll never know when you need it.

Ayaka: Bombs?! where exactly did you get those...

Rei: Explosive tags are sold, so you could definitely buy something like that.

Hayama: You should tell me where you got one of those.

Ayaka & Seiji: Definitely!

Rei: Ok!

Meanwhile the bandits who got Rei's gift of explosion are cursing the hidden leaf ninjas. The bomb Rei left didn't just give them an explosion, it actually destroyed the weapons in the cart to be brought in Yashina village.

The destruction of weapons was a loss for both sides but it became countless shrapnel that took away the lives of the bandits. Luckily the brown-haired man used earth release and formed walls of earth to protect themselves from the explosion, which saved his life and the twins along with others.

Brown-haired man: Bastards! -eyes turning red with fury

Teen with white hair: Tsk, everyone who's still alive prevent them from going back to the hidden leaf at all cost!

Rei and the team are moving towards the forest with no direction yet, since they haven't decided what to do after retreating.

Seiji: I think we should go back to our village - He said with a tone of fear.

Ayaka: I think so as well this mission doesn't look like a genin's.

Rei: That's a bad idea... they're probably spread a net of thugs and bandits to prevent us from going back to the hidden leaf.

Hayama: Rei's right, we have to risk it and go to Yashina village itself. They wouldn't expect us to go there.

The team quickly set their directions towards Yashina village, since it would be their best action on preventing themselves to be caught on being outnumbered at the same time they could wait for their reinforcement.

The journey towards Yashina village isn't easy since the group has to move in a roundabout way to avoid bumping into their enemies. The two days on foot the could've been traveled by civilians became a long trip for the team.

All this time they could only hope that somehow the village could spare them some reinforcements since fighting outnumbered while protecting non-combatants is a huge disadvantage. When they were about to reach Yashina village their client told them not to enter it in broad day light, since bandits has informants all over the place.

Rei: How bad is the situation, seriously?!

Servant/client: It's really bad young master... the only reason they aren't taking over everything is because of your father.

Rei: Dad's already there?

Servant/client: Yes, he is somehow of a deterring force... since the ring leader of this group thinks he is on par with him.

Hayama: If that's the case why are things this bad?

Servant/client: It is better for the lord himself to explain.

Waiting for the moon to rise, the team hid themselves on the forest. Once it was time to move they sneaked in into Yashina village like how they were trained as a ninja dragging along their client.

When they finally arrived got inside the village, Rei saw how different it was the time when he visited last. The village was now a bit desolated compared to before, years ago when he visited with his family even at night the villagers were quite lively. But now the joyful atmosphere is now gone and only the tension of impending battle between the inhabitants and tyrannical bandits could be felt.

Upon arriving to Hatano household, the was quickly welcomed by Keiji, Mokichi and Yoichi. What the three didn't expect to see was Rei along with the team that escorted their servant.

Mokichi: I didn't think your team would be taking up C-rank missions already.

Rei: Well Dad, things happen and I didn't think things would have gotten this far in this village.

Mokichi: that---

Keiji: It is bad... I'm sorry Rei for not telling you as well. I thought that group wouldn't dare do this, since we are just two days away from Hidden leaf.

Yoichi: They have the guts to do this... if only we knew earlier we could've had prevented this.

Servant: I'm sorry my lord... the weapons we aren't able to bring them.

Mokichi: This is really turning into a bad day.

Hayama: Don't worry senior... Rei made those things explode and took along a huge number of lives with them.

Mokichi: Is that right?

Keiji: We need to make a plan.

Mokichi's suggestion is to take out the ring leader right away, since once they lose their head the weak ones would have lose their confidence as well. But Hayama and Rei recounted their encounter with the bandits bringing up the topic of three more possible skilled bandits.

They concluded that it wouldn't matter since Hayama is already here along with Mokichi, the Hatano household has their own fighters as well along with their family head who has accomplishments in kenjutsu. Aside from that Mokichi is confident with his son's capability, Rei then took out all the weapons he bought from the hidden leaf exhausting all the money he saved up from all his allowance. Don't underestimate his allowance, since he is an only son of a wealthy family, Fuyuki has sort of spoiled him. What Rei took out was artillery of long range weapons that shootout javelins and such along with devices that shootout shurikens.

Mokichi: How come you have the money to buy all this?

Rei: I saved up all the allowance Mom gave me.

Seiji: just how rich are you?

Ayaka: I'm from a ninja clan but I don't think I have the allowance to buy all that.

Rei: We own a clothing shop...

Rei was stopping himself from shouting "money is power" all this time. If he took out all these things earlier today he could've wipe out all those bandits in a short time, but he didn't since all the weapons he took out are his trump card. Well the bombs definitely took out a lot of bandits so really Money is power for now.