An ambush...

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Sir. My name is Riku Hatake and this is my team." We had just arrived in front of the noble that had issued the mission to us. The noble was sitting in front of us on a sofa as we all stood in front of him.

"The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Hatake. My name is Haruo Abe. I am from the Abe family and as you all are now guests of the abe family, I invite you all to stay on our mansion to rest for a while." The Noble whose name was Haruo, said.

"Please forgive me for denying your generosity but as ninjas, we have a mission to fulfill and thus we cannot stay here as your guests." Sensei declined as the noble just nodded and said.

"Very well. Then I suppose you would want the Latter that is needed to be delivered?" Haruo asked.

"Yes, That would be quite nice." Sensei said as the noble then glanced at the maid that had brought us here and the maid nodded and left the room.

"Actually, I also wished to speak with you about the mission you have requested..." Sensei asked suddenly to which the noble replied-

"Hm? What do you want to know?"

"Can you please tell me a bit more details regarding why you decided to take help from Konoha? Your servants or guards should be plenty of capable to deliver this message if it was just any ordinary delivery, right?"

"Hm...I think I have already told Konoha about it when I had requested this mission but I will tell you as well. A few years ago, my abe family had good trading relationships with another noble family from Takigakure. I wouldn't call our families friends but we were also not enemies. but in the few years that had passed, some things happened that lead us to become enemies of each other. And now, it had became so bad that we both are preparing for war." Haruo stopped at this to let as digest his words.

We all had frowned expressions as we heard the noble's words. This war that these two families are preparing for is just going to be small scaled, it will not effect the elemental nations in any way but the lives of common people would be hell when this war starts.

"As the war was approaching, I started collecting intel about our enemies movement as well as the Intel about who could be our family's possible ally in this war and I found some really shocking Intel really...and that Intel is what I want you to carry and deliver to the 'supposed' enemy family of ours."

"What Intel are you talking about?" Sensei asked a bit hastily.

"...The Intel is that we both were pit against one another by a third party. When I was investigating here and there, I found out that another enemy family of ours that resides here in kusagakure as well as the enemy of the family we are going on war with, had formed an alliance way back a few years ago and were the ones scheming to make this war happen so that we weaken ourselves. And now that I have found this information, I can't let this war begin!" He said and then stopped, Deep in thought. sensei did not ask him anything else, so we all fell into our own thoughtful silence.

A few minutes passed and the silence was broken by a knock on the door. As the door opened, it revealed the maid that had gone out a few minutes ago. She handed an envelope to Haruo and then walked to his side.

Haruo opened the envelope and took out two letters which he read carefully to make sure that there was nothing wrong with them. After that he put those letter back in the envelope, sealed it off and then stamped it. Then he handed it to Riku sensei.

"In this, I have wrote the letter explaining about all the things that had led us two families to the brink of war as well as who are accountable for it and a peace treaty. Please make sure that you deliver this to the lord of the Abrila mansion directly. This will be enough to stop the brewing war for now."

"Please, don't worry. We will deliver it safely." Sensei said as Haruo then handed the envelope to sensei.

After that...We left that mansion. We moved out of the city that I still don't know the name of and stopped as sensei turned to us.

"From here to takigakure, make sure that all of you are extra vigilant as I am sure that we will be ambushed. There is even a chance that a jounin could get involved in this and if it is like that...then run. As fast as you can towards the konoha village. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Sir!" We all replied to sensei's question. No one from us is going to run away in a critical situation, except me, just because sensei ordered us to, but, for now, we all just nodded like we will.

"Good, then let's head out." Sensei said as he then started running at full speed as we followed him.

. . .

Its the third day since this mission has started. On the second day, we had arrived at kusagakure and met Haruo Abe. we had just entered Takigakure after a short break and until now there was no one that ambushed us. We were traveling in a forest currently by tree hopping.

And when it's about tree hopping I have to say, That I am getting the hang of it now as before, when I had to focus on not missing any branches, Now, I could do it effortlessly. And I was happy for that.

We were moving like that when sensei suddenly stopped. Both of my other teammates also stopped immediately but I had a bit more trouble stopping myself as I was moving fast. Fortunately, I was also able to stop myself.

"Come out, I know you are there..." Sensei said while looking towards a tree. I looked at it but couldn't tell if someone was hiding there or not but soon, a person or more specifically, a shinobi came out from the shadows of that tree. He was wearing a Iwagakure Forehead protector.

"You know already why we are here, So hand over the letter and we will let you go." The iwa shinobi said. My attention was on the 'We'.

"You already know that a mission is a ninja's life, And our mission is to deliver this letter, so Hell No!" Sensei said.

"I see...Then die-"

[Karan, Dodge!] Hearing Gaya's scream, I quickly stepped aside as two kunais landed on the place I was standing on.

I looked at my teammates to find them also dodging kunais that were fired at them. Suddenly that same ninja appeared in front of Riku sensei as they started engaging in close combat.

From the trees, three ninjas jumped down as they dashed towards mio who was at the side of me.

"So it's a four man squad!" Mio said making me count these ninjas. The ninja from Iwa that had first talked, was now engaging in a fight with sensei and now there are three more of them here...So it is a four man squad of ninjas.

I prepared myself to fight the three ninjas that were coming towards Mio but Gaya voice resonated inside my mind again.

[Karan, behind you!]

Hearing her voice, I jumped forward as I turned to see who it is.

"Now, You have some fast reactions." There was another person standing behind me and he was the one who spoke just now.

[Karan, don't just forget about the three from before!] Gaya said again. The three ninjas were coming from our front but I had just turned around to look at my back, so they were behind me!

I turned my head back to see a kunai coming straight at me. I was not fast enough to dodge this since it had already arrived quite close to me, and so I closed my eyes shut, surrendering to my fate.

*Clang* A metal hitting sound fell to my ears.

I opened my eyes to see Seiten standing between me and those three shinobi.

"Be more careful, Karan." Seiten said as he started moving towards those three shinobies.

I was thinking of going with him to deal with those three but I suddenly remembered that there was another shinobi behind me so I turned around to check up on him only to find Mio engaging with him.

Feeling like he was handled, I brought my attention back towards Seiten and the three Iwa shinobi. Seiten was engaged in close combat with two iwa nins and the third iwa nin was preparing a jutsu. I started moving towards the ninja that was preparing that jutsu and was just about to engage with him when Suddenly a Fireball jutsu came flying towards me which I barely dodged and looked at the place where that jutsu just came from.

"What in the..." I muttered in disbelief because There were another three shinobies other then the three that were engaged with Seiten there on a tree not too far away from me and one of them was responsible for the jutsu as well.

Counting them again, We were ambushed by eight shinobies. The first shinobi that showed himself was engaged with Sensei, The three ninjas that had attacked Mio were now engaged with Seiten and the one who tried to ambush me was now fighting Mio and now...There are Three more ninjas that had just attacked me...

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Hope you like the chapter.