Chapter 49 : Consecutive Rank C Missions

They soon reached the village. On entering the village, the girl on Renjiro's back got a few curious looks. The squad entered the Village Chief's house again and laid the girl down on a bed in his home. Renjiro said, "She needs immediate medical care." The Village Chief nodded and went out to send someone to call the village doctor. 

At that moment, a middle-aged man came running towards the Village Chief house. On seeing the Village Chief, he quickly asked while sobbing, "Chi… Chief, m..my daughter? Is she…?" The Village Chief quickly calmed him and said, "Yes, she's safe. Enter my home." He quickly ran to the house and rushed to his daughter. On seeing him running, Renjiro stopped him and said, "She's injured, don't hug her or hold her tightly." The man finally stopped and sat down next to the bed and began sobbing after seeing the bandages on his daughter. 

Soon a doctor arrived and began attending to her. The father and the village chief thanked Renjiro and the genins again and again. After a few minutes, the Village Chief handed Renjiro a paper, and the squad left the village and moved back to the town. 

After reaching the town, Renjiro said, "Take today off. Explore this town. However, stick together. We'll meet in the same restaurant as yesterday's at 1 pm." After he left, Hoka said, "You know, because so much happened, I didn't notice that we completed the mission and returned back to this town in merely two hours!" Mieko nodded. Fujin sighed and said, "Yeah, and the actual fight didn't even last for a couple of minutes. Even though killing was hard to adjust to, the fight itself wasn't a challenge." 

Hearing that, Mieko asked for all the details. Hoka had already seen it all with his Byakugan, so he didn't ask for it. After giving out the details, Mieko felt a bit anticlimactic about the rank C mission. Fujin chuckled and said, "Next time you snap at that guy, force him to give us a rank B mission." Hearing that, Mieko loudly replied, "Hey, who snapped?" This yell attracted the attention of nearby people and made Mieko go red with embarrassment. She thought for a bit and said, "But yeah, I guess we should ask for rank B missions." 

The kids then toured around the town. They tried some of the local food there and played a few games. At 1 pm, they met up with Renjiro in the restaurant. After occupying the seats, Renjiro looked at Fujin and asked, "So, how are you doing?" Fujin said, "I am doing fine sensei." Renjiro nodded satisfactorily and said, "Good. You have handled your first kill very well. I am proud of you." He then looked at Mieko and Hoka and said, "Next, it'll be your turn. Prepare yourselves." The two young ninjas nodded nervously. 

Lunch came and the team started eating. While they were eating, Mieko suddenly asked, "Sensei, when can we do Rank B missions?" Renjiro squinted his eyes and asked, "What brought this on?" Mieko said, "We want to fight against the enemy ninjas. Just fighting bandits is not much fun." Renjiro scoffed and said, "Hmph. You guys ain't ready." However, he saw Mieko's determined face. Knowing the trouble she'll cause, he quickly added, "If you ask this again, or pester me for rank B missions, I'll make you do rank D missions for an entire year." This threat made Mieko quiet down quickly. 

Team Renjiro didn't do much for the rest of the day. The next morning, a similar procedure was followed. Team Renjiro was hiding in a Bamboo forest, while looking at the Bandit hideout. The bandits had cleared out a small area, and constructed 3 small huts and 1 medium-sized hut to serve as their base. The medium-sized hut was in the centre, while the other 3 were around it. Fujin had sensed 12 people inside those huts. Renjiro asked, "So, who wants this one?" Mieko beat Hoka by saying, "ME!" Renjiro nodded and said, "Alright, we'll leave this hideout to you." 

Mieko began walking forward stealthily. But soon she stopped and returned. She looked at Hoka and asked, "Hoka, do they have any hostages?" Hoka checked and answered, "No, all 12 seem to be bandits." Mieko asked, "How many are there in each of the huts?" Hoka answered, "There are 9 in the central hut, 2 in that hut, 1 in the hut on the right and the last one is empty." Mieko nodded and used Earth Military Movement jutsu to stealthily move forward. 

She stopped 5 metres away from the hut which had 2 bandits and appeared out of the ground. The bigger hut was exactly behind the small hut from where she was standing. She quickly made the hand signs, 'Fireball jutsu'. The fireball quickly moved through the smaller hut. As soon as it moved through it, 2 people screamed loudly. Since the fireball didn't explode, it just burnt them and didn't kill them right away. 

The fireball moved through the smaller hut to the bigger hut. It exploded right at the centre of the bigger hut. The explosion completely demolished the hut. Fujin saw 4 bodies being thrown out due to the explosion. The explosion killed 7 bandits on the spot. 2 bandits, who were thrown out, were still alive and were screaming due to being on fire. The status of the 2 bandits in the smaller hut was the same. Due to the huts being made of bamboo and leaves, they offered no resistance to the fireball. Hearing the screams, the last remaining bandit got out of his hut, only to see 2 huts on fire. He looked around and saw one of his fellow bandits burning and screaming. The view horrified him. Before he could decide to do anything, Mieko flickered behind him and used Fire Release : Four jutsu to produce a heat ray that stabbed him through the heart and killed him. 

Now that all the bandits were killed or incapacitated, Mieko looked around her. She saw the dead bodies on fire. She could smell the flesh burning and hear the dying screams from 3 bandits. That scene immediately made her vomit. Renjiro quickly appeared behind her and consoled her. Fujin, having already killed, was able to look at this scene without much struggle. Hoka however, struggled due to the smell and the screams. 

Soon the screams died down and all the bandits were dead. After giving Mieko a few minutes to adjust, Team Renjiro retreated from there. Before leaving, Renjiro buried the whole place underground using an Earth Release jutsu. 

The next day, Team Renjiro again repeated a similar mission. This time, the mission was to arrest the bandits. Hoka completed it by knocking out all the bandits and tying them up. However, Renjiro made Hoka kill 2 bandits so that he could get his first kill too. Renjiro gave the squad off on the fourth day. 

On the fifth morning, Renjiro said, "Today will be our last mission. You three have done well. Let's move out." On the way he said, "Today's bandit hideout will be much bigger. So you will have to cooperate with each other." The genins nodded in agreement. Continuous drills for 2 and half months had made their teamwork very good. And being there for each other when they made their first kill had brought them much closer. So working together wasn't an issue for any of them. 

On reaching the hideout, the genins noticed that the entire hideout was actually underground. Fujin scanned the entire base. He said, "There are 63 people I can sense." He then looked at Renjiro and said, "And 5 have higher chakra levels. Though they are only Genin level." Renjiro nodded, whereas Mieko exclaimed cheerfully, "Yes, finally we will fight ninjas!" 

Fujin asked, "But Sensei, aren't missions that involve ninjas ranked B?" Renjiro nodded his head and replied, "Yeah, but they are only Genin level. There are many cases of people outside the hidden villages unlocking their chakra and reaching genin level by themselves. There are also many cases of genins defecting from the village. Anyways, they are barely ninjas, and many times rank C missions include dealing with them too. So be careful. After all, there are over a hundred thousand ninjas in the world, so who knows where one can be." 

The genins nodded. Fujin thought, 'Hmm, this is unexpected. Though it makes sense I guess. If the village begins ranking missions as rank B for only a chance of having to deal with a rogue Genin, then rank C missions will probably not exist at all.' 

The team began by first mapping the base. The base was quite big. There was one big room at the center of the hideout. Fujin suggested, "Let's call it the main room." There were 3 exits to the main room, all almost equidistant from each other. These exits were connected to one big corridor that surrounded the entire main room. On the other side of the passageway, were many smaller rooms. Hoka commented, "I guess they use the main room as a common room for planning, celebration, etc., while the smaller rooms are their personal rooms." There were a lot of traps all over the base, which were spotted by Hoka. 

Of the 5 ninjas, 3 were together in the main room, while the other 2 were in the smaller rooms. Mieko said, "Hmm, both the ninjas in the smaller rooms have their rooms very close to that exit from the main base." Fujin nodded and said, "Yeah, we will have to be careful while killing them. If they make a lot of sound, it'll alert everyone in the main room." The bandits too were all over the base. In all, there were 4 exits from the hideout to above the ground. One was located in the main room, while 3 were just outside the exits from the main room to the corridor.

Fujin thought, 'This base is very well built. I wonder if it started with something small and was slowly expanded as the bandit group grew larger. Or, if the base is something that naturally existed and was just occupied by these bandits. Also, if we didn't destroy those bandit groups, would they have grown in this manner too?' 

Fujin looked at his teammates and said, "So first, we have to decide from where to attack them." Mieko replied, "Let's just attack the main room. Most bandits are present there." Hoka nodded and added, "Yeah, this way we'll deal with the majority of them in one blow, and we can then pick out the scattered bandits one by one." Fujin replied, "Yeah, good idea. But if we do that, then the scattered bandits can try to escape." Hoka replied, "Yeah, but we can just chase and kill them." Fujin replied, "But it'll be very troublesome to hunt them all down one by one. Especially if all of them run in different directions. Also, by destroying the main room, the bandits in all the other rooms will be alerted, and the ninjas will be alerted too." 

Hoka thought a bit and nodded in agreement. Mieko asked, "Then, what do you think?" Fujin pointed in a direction and said, "That room there is at one edge of the hideout. And also has one of the five ninjas there. Let's start with that room. We will sneak up on the ninja and kill him. Then we will clear the nearby rooms and slowly and stealthily head to the main room. This way, this direction will already be cleared when we destroy the main room. So killing them all will be much easier." Mieko and Hoka thought for a few seconds and agreed with the plan. 

The genins then discussed the plan further and decided on the details. Once everything was planned, they checked their weapons, and were about to begin their attack. But Mieko suddenly asked, "Wait, who will kill the ninja?" Hoka quickly replied, "I'll kill him." Mieko rebuked him, "Why you? I will kill the ninja." They then looked at Fujin. He said, "My sword provides me with a longer range, I think I'll be more suited to killing him." However neither Hoka nor Mieko agreed to that logic. 

The argument about the kill went on for a minute. Renjiro observed his genins and sighed. Fujin then said, "Well, all three of us can kill him. So let's just decide with Rock, Paper, Scissors." On hearing that, both Hoka and Mieko looked at Fujin with a deadpan expression. Mieko said, "That's so childish! We are ninjas!" Fujin scoffed and asked, "Well, do you two have any better ideas?" Hoka and Mieko looked at each other. Not having any other idea, they reluctantly agreed. 

They soon got in the posture to play the game and began playing. Renjiro now looked over with amusement. The first three rounds were tied.  Fujin thought, 'This is fun. I guess that's why Goku and Vegeta did this so often.' Mieko thought, 'I am not sure if I'll wi….. Wait!' 

As the trio began the 4th round, Mieko's eyes suddenly turned red. She saw that both Fujin and Hoka were about to do Rock, so she went with paper. And said, "I win." Hoka quickly protested, "Hey, no sharingan. That's cheating!" Mieko rebuked him, "Well, there were no rules stating that we couldn't use sharingans." Fujin, who just wanted to start the mission, chuckled and said, "Well she got us there. Remember to set the rules properly next time." Seeing that he didn't have Fujin's support, Hoka reluctantly agreed. 

They then looked at each other and nodded. All three made hand signs and disappeared within the ground. The bandit base, which was properly hidden and even well defended due to being underground, was about to feel the terror of being hunted by a squad, in which every member could freely move underground.