Chapter - 22 Teaming Up

Not long after, Guy, who had already lifted the effect of the Hachimon Tonkou, slowly walked into the grove.

Seeing Guy lifted the Hachimon Tonkou, Kuroto also breathed a sigh of relief, but said coldly, "Under my perfect defense, any attack is ineffective. You should have experienced this."

Guy gasped, and said, "Kuroto, your Hyuga Clan's Byakugan and Gentle Fists are indeed well-deserved to be called one of the best bloodlines and combat techniques. I feel that my every move was under your attention, it felt that no matter what I did it couldn't escape your eyes."

In the fourth-gate state, both the attacks Guy initiated on Kuroto were blocked by him very easily, at least that's what Guy believed seeing the unaffected state of Kuroto. This fact led Guy to believe that he has no chance of winning this mock battle even if he continued to fight.

Kuroto's face was still indifferent: "Of course, all your attacks have been seen through by me."

Guy sat down on the ground: "Hey, I still lost."

"Humph, you should be proud of yourself to be able to force me to use Revolving Heaven, your secret technique is indeed commendable." After a pause, Kuroto said again: "Take a good rest today. See you at the mission center tomorrow morning."

Guy was taken aback for a moment, and then said in surprise: "You... you don't mind making a team with me for going on missions!?"

"Don't be late, because I don't like waiting!"

After Kuroto left a word, Guy no longer said much and Kuroto simply walked towards his house. At this moment, he was about to fall apart, and he couldn't stand any longer, if he didn't leave, he might have fallen unconscious because of all the pain he was feeling.

The nervous Guy seemed to have nothing to say, he was only cheering and bounced back home in excitement for tomorrow.

Not long after Kuroto and Guy left one after another, a team of Anbu appeared in the woods where the two fought.

After a brief survey of the scene, one of the Anbu's said: "There are no traces of using any ninjutsu, nor does it seem to use any genjutsu. It is a pure-taijutsu battle."

The leading Anbu said solemnly: "Is the identities of the two fighting parties confirmed?"

The Anbu member on the side replied, "Well, one is a chunin from the branch part of the Hyuga Clan, name: Hyuga Kuroto, and the other is Might Duy's son, Chunin Might Guy. Looking at the traces, it seems that the kid from the Hyuga clan has won!"

Looking around the surrounding trees and the pits of different sizes all over the ground, the Anbu team leader said: "They have caused such big disturbances by using only taijutsu techniques, report it to Hokage-sama, these two boys are worthy of attention!"

On Kuroto's side, when he returned home, he found that Yue was cleaning his house, seeing her Kuroto's heart suddenly felt warm and he forgot all the pain he was feeling.

Yue hurriedly came out as soon as she noticed Kuroto: "Kuroto-kun, welcome home!"

Kuroto smiled: "Thank you Yue for taking care of my home while I was away!"

In the presence of Yue, Kuroto puts away all his acts, if there is anyone in the Konoha Village that Kuroto can trust unconditionally, it's the girl standing before him.

As soon as Yue came out, she noticed the reddish and swollen arms of Kuroto, and exclaimed in surprise: "How come you got injured Kuroto-Kun? Come, I'll bandage you."

"It's no big deal, I just accidentally got slightly injured during a mock battle, not something to be worried about."

However, Yue didn't listen to Kuroto and pulled him onto the tatami, and started cleaning the wounds.

The two sat in silence while Yue was doing her work.

After most of the work was done suddenly Yue spoke, while still applying the medicine to Kuroto's hands, "Kuroto-Kun, Hizashi-sama asked me to apologize and ask for your understanding."

[Hyuga Hizashi is the twin brother of the current patriarch of Hyuga-Clan, he is responsible for assisting the patriarch in managing the Hyuga branch.]

Kuroto was a little confused because of what Yue said: "Apologize!? Apologize to me for what?"

Yue said: "Aren't you angry? Everyone in the clan thinks you are angry at them, so during this period you didn't return to the clan, nor did you interact with anyone, it seems like you are avoiding them."

Hearing Yue say that Kuroto immediately reacted.

Undoubtedly, the clan misunderstood.

The clan obviously thought that Kuroto had grievances against the Clan and complaint that the clan did not speak for him during his involvement in the Orochimaru defection incident, so he probably alienated himself from the rest of the clan.

This is obviously not true because Kuroto never thought as such, because he knows, what Hyuga? what Uchiha? and what any other clan? On the front, these clans surely do have high political standing but it is not possible for them to influence the final decision-making authorities, i.e. the Hokage and the Elder Council, unless of course, they have a member of their clan a part of it, which is not the case here.

The death of Hyuga Hizashi is a clear example of this. Even in the case of legitimate defense done by Hiashi-sama, the clan couldn't influence the village to refuse Cloud Village's demand and ended up sacrificing the twin brother Hizashi-sama in Hiashi-sama's stead.

In such a case what authority does the Hyuga clan has to be able to protect him during Orochimaru's defection? Therefore, Kuroto doesn't resent the Hyuga Clan because he also knows that they are powerless.

The alienation from the rest of the clan is only to protect his secret to have awakened the Tenseigan to be accidentally discovered, but now that he knows that the clan has misunderstood his intentions, he can use this misunderstanding as an excuse, otherwise, an unreasonable alienation from the rest of the clan will inevitably arouse the suspicion of the elders.

While all this was going on in Kuroto's mind, Yue's innocence didn't allow her to discover kuroto's absent-mindedness while he was cooking some plans, and she continued to speak, "Hizashi-sama also said that at today's Jonin Council, the Sannin Jiraya-sama also praised you, even in the face of Cloud Village's Jinchuriki, you mode sure to not to affect village's reputation by running away or giving up a task."

Looking at Yue who seems to be quite happy while informing Kuroto of his great deeds, he asked gently, "Jiraya-sama has returned to Konoha?"

"Hmm. Jiraya-sama returned to Konoha today."

'Sandaime-sama should have called Jiraya-sama back to stop his tracking of Orochimaru, this shows that the trouble the village is facing is much bigger than he has calculated.' Kuroto thought in his heart.

In the third Shinobi war itself, Konoha didn't have the advantage it did during the second shinobi world war while it was facing the combined attrition from the four great villages.

If it were not for the emergence of Namikaze Minato, Konoha's Golden Flash, who was able to reverse the situation on several battlefronts, the war might still have been in the stalemate period, so when the rest of the villages learned that one sannin defected, Yondaime and second-generation jinchuriki both sacrificed themselves, they naturally started having some thoughts of taking advantage of Konoha's weak situation.

Anyway, all that aside. After Yue applied for medicine on reddish swollen parts of the body, Kuroto took a rest early.

The battle with Guy can be said to be one of the hardest battles he fought since he had awakened the Tenseigan, but at the same time, this battle also gave him much-needed experience.

As a taijutsu sparring partner, Might Guy is simply impeccable.

In the early morning of the next day, Kuroto wrapped his arms and legs with bandages before rushing to the mission center.

A short night of rest isn't enough to recover from the injuries, but for the sake of his face, he doesn't want Guy to see him covered in bruises.

By the time Kuroto arrived at the mission center, Guy was already waiting at the gate and greeted Kuroto as soon as he saw him coming. "Kuroto!!! Here, here, here! I am! I am here!"

Looking at Guy who was bouncing around, at the gate of the mission center, Kuroto suddenly felt embarrassed as he also became the center of attention along with Guy.

Kuroto obviously didn't reply to Guy's overly excited greeting and directly entered the task room and started flipping through the available A-level task list.

Guy didn't seem to notice Kuroto's embarrassment, whispered from the side, "Kuroto, isn't his A-level task list that only Jonin can take?"

Kuroto casually explained, "I just led the team to complete an A-level mission a couple of days ago, so I was granted permission to be able to take on A-level tasks."

Guy was obviously surprised: "What!? You completed the A-level mission?"

For Might Guy who has only dealt with D-level and C-level tasks, being able to complete B-level tasks is already out of his expectation much less the A-level task that is simply a dream come true. So naturally, he was quite surprised to hear that Kuroto led a team to complete an A-level task as a chunin himself.

Kuroto glanced at Guy and pursed his lips and spoke in fake annoyance, "What's so strange about it, I and the Uchiha kid were part of the team, so it is natural for us to complete an A-level task easily."

Guy smiled seeing Kuroto's arrogance, "That's right I forgot, you are a genius!"

Kuroto nodded in satisfaction. He just wanted to establish his strong image in Guy's mind, even though the of being called a 'genius' irked him a little, but he doesn't have any other choice if he wants to achieve his purpose...

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