23 Off to the borders

One week later, Training Ground 30

Itsuki arrived at the designated gathering place for Reserve genins of 4th company. All reserves report at predetermined locations every month to accept any high ranking missions. Not everyone was selected for the missions but those selected could never refuse the mission. Usually, missions were border patrol or being a messenger between nobles but can be as dangerous as infiltrating another hidden village.

Itsuki looked around for familiar faces among the gathering crowd until sensing a familiar chakra signature and moved towards it.

"Yo Kuhara" He approached the fellow genin.

"Oh, Itsuki, great for you to find me. Ready for your mission?" Kuhara turned to face Itsuki as they made their way through the crowd of reserves towards the front of a large tree. The tree was much larger compared to surrounding ones and was rumored to be grown by First Hokage himself.

"As ready as I could be. What do you think will be our mission?" Itsuki questioned, genuinely curious. Kuhara's older brother was a special jonin and rather well informed about the affairs of Reserves. Kuhara learns a lot of useful titbits from him.

"I don't know to be honest. The situation inside the council is rather chaotic as of now." Kuhara said.

"Why, what happened?" Itsuki was intrigued.

Kuhara looked left and right before whispering, "My brother said that something big happened a few weeks earlier. Shikaku Nara, usually laid back clan head of Nara was suddenly nominated for the position of Jonin commander by many clans simultaneously. He too accepted to take the position if the commander agrees to retire. The current jonin commander is under a lot of pressure to resign and from the look of things, it looks that he most likely will, one way or other." Itsuki raised a brow, he did not expect this.

'Didn't Shikaku became the Jonin commander after Konoha Crush, five years from now? Why is he becoming jonin commander now?' He didn't even entertain the thought of Shikaku not being able to become Jonin Commander now that he had set his sights on it. He was just that terrifying. Anyone who had served under him in the Third Great Ninja war could testify to this.

'The butterfly has flapped its wings and the hurricane forms, steering the future off its course.' Itsuki thought, 'The first major change has begun and many will soon follow. Let's hope things change for the better.'

Itsuki was shaken out of his thoughts when a Jonin arrived on the branch of the large tree. Overlooking the reserves, he spoke, "All genins of 4th company are required for three-month-long border patrol duty. Report to your battalion commander to know your assignments. All chunin are not required for any compulsory mission and can continue their missions from the mission hall."

Saying his piece, jonin jumped down to the battalion commanders gathered in front and passed them mission scrolls. Chunin reserves left the grounds while genin gathered around their commanders.

Itsuki and Kuhara along with the rest of their battalion stood in front of a middle-aged Special jonin Daisuke as well as the battalion commander of the 12th battalion of fourth company.

"So as all of you know, you are assigned to border patrol." Daisuke said, before smiling, "You lads are lucky, we will be patrolling on the border of the Land of Hot Springs. Thank your lucky stars you were not assigned to the border of Land of Rain or Grass. Ame and Iwa nin have a nasty habit of keeping old grievances alive by attacking the border outposts ever so often. Compared to that, the border to the land of Hot Springs is almost a holiday."

"Everyone report at north Gate tomorrow at sunrise. We will be leaving at 6 am sharp. Pack your supplies for a three-month mission and some extra. Also, stock some food pills if you can afford em. Now, dismissed."

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The next day Itsuki and the rest of the battalion were standing near the north gate. It was nearly 6 am but there was no sign of commander Daisuke.

Kuhara looked towards visibly distraught Itsuki and softly asked, "What's the matter? Are you not excited about the mission?"

Itsuki lifted his head towards Kuhara and spoke with a puffy voice, "What is there to be excited about? I will have to leave Ichika alone for three months. Do you know how much she cried last night? Why could the mission not be shorter so I did not have to separate from her?"

Kuhara looked at Itsuki as he lamented about the mission when he suddenly froze and looked towards the village. Kuhara was puzzled and followed his gaze. Commander Daisuke appeared with what looked like an Anbu team of five.

Daisuke jovially introduced them "Ah genins, this is Anbu team Ro. They will be accompanying us to the border outpost." Laughing a little at the awed expressions of genin, he began making final preparation before setting off.

Kuhara was getting giddy with the excitement of leaving the village for the first time as well as watching Anbus in action until he caught a look on Itsuki's face.

Itsuki's visage was grim, sweat covering his forehead. He could no believe what he was sensing. When commander Daisuke arrived, he immediately sensed him along with multiple chakra signatures. But what frightened him was that all chakra signatures had one thing in common.

Each and every one of them had muted emotions, meaning every one of them was a former Root agent. Only five appeared in open but dozens of Anbu hid in the canopy of trees.

'This is definitely not a normal mission. I was expecting a misranked mission but this is way over the top.'

"Lets move out" Daisuke yelled. The entire battalion started moving through the canopy before splitting and following individual Anbu's and Daisuke in Diamond formation, completely unaware of large Anbu force tailing them.

Swiftly moving through the tall trees, Itsuki threw one last glance at retreating figure of Konoha over the treeline. 'Just wait Ichika, Naruto, I will definitely return safe and sound.'

Focusing inwards, Itsuki minimized the chakra consumption before starting channeling his chakra into seals on palm of his hands. An coin sized seals in shape of orange sun and silver cresent moon appeared on his palms. Under his headband, a purple dimond shaped mark materialized, ready to activated at any time.

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Hokage tower, elder council

Hokage and his advisors were sitting around a small round table, looking pensive. The reason for that was the scroll placed on the table. This scroll was delivered by crow summon few days prior containing an some disturbing intel from Akatsuki.

Itachi rarely sent back any intel but the ones he sent were very important. This was no exception. Akatsuki was hired by kumo for a high ranking S-class mission. This itself was not odd, what raised their alarms was that request was to attack multiple border outposts along the Land of Fire's and Land of Hot Springs border.

It may appear as a simple act of aggression on the surface but no one in the room reached here by being stupid. Border outpost's main purpose was to provide a place to garrison troops and supplies as well as forming a link in command line during war, but were redundant during times of peace. Maintaining borders is duty of state and hence falls under jurisdiction of Daimyo. Outposts are gaurded by samurai who maintain border traffic and a few ninja reserve battalions to relay information in case of invasion or other important events.

Attacking an outpost barely serves any purpose. Couple it with involvement of at least two S-rank ninjas and elders have all the reason to be suspicious. That is the reason multiple squads of Anbu were dispatched.

"Will dispatched Anbu be enough, after all they are up against two S-rank ninjas and possibly more kumo shinobi." The only lady among the four elders questioned.

"Koharu, their objective is not to engage but recon, we need info about activities of Kumo." Homura said. Danzo and Hiruzen did not comment. The room was once again filled with oppressive silence. No one choose to bring up the fate of ninjas at the border but all understood what it meant.

They were on their own.