Aftermath

<Uchiha Kou POV>

"I will fight the jonins. You guys will have to take care of the rest." I yelled as I dashed towards the opponent closest to me.

'I should hurry up. For now all they can do is stall for time.'

My priority was to take care of the elite jonin, and then move on to the rest and help out the kids later....if they survive. Although I can say surely that they are cream of the crops among their generation.

Right now they are going up against ninjas out of their league. Yes, they might match them in strategy and tactics, but their opponents must have a ton of experience.

I threw 3 shurikens towards the enemy jonin, he parried them by jumping down from the tree. He started performing hand signs in the middle of air and soon as he landed, he slammed his hands on the ground.

"Earth Release: Flying Thrown Stones!"

A multitude of rocks from the ground flew towards me.

I dodged all of them under the dynamic vision of my sharingan. But immediately after the jutsu came to a halt, I was greeted by another one.

All three of exchanged a few blows.

'Their teamwork is incredible.'

Although they are lacking in this fight against me and sustained only a few scratches, they are making up for their fighting skills with their teamwork.

However that wasn't my concern. During all this , their leader just kept observing...no he was just watching with a smile spread across his face.

"What are you smiling for?" I asked looking up

He looked right into my eyes and said "Why wouldn't I be happy when I just hit the jackpot."

"Jackpot?" I asked

"Well you are an Uchiha, your eyes are worth too much. After this battle your eyes will fall in our hands and Iwa will gain a lot from that."

I felt intense anger rise from within me.

'The sharingan is the signature of an uchiha and he wants to take that away from me...AS IF!!'

"I would love to see you try" I said with anger clearly showing on my face.

"Ah don't get the wrong idea." he said while pointing towards the 2 jonins in front of me "These two will be enough to take care of you. I will be going after the rest of your team."

"I can't wait to see your face when I take their life in front of you." he said and then ran away

"YOU BASTARD COME BACK HERE!!"

My anger overcame me and I started to pursue him only to be intercepted by the attack of the 2 enemies I turned my back towards to.

Luckily I was able to dodge their attack in time and didn't suffer any injuries, except for a cut on my arm.

'I will have to take care of them first and then rush back to my team.'

I took out my sword and rushed at them with my sword radiating immense heat. 'The Uchiha sword style' "Uchiha Blaze Sword" I yelled.

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After a whole minute of continuous fighting, I was able to create an opening by trapping one of them in my genjutsu and taking care of the other one in the meantime.

I had consumed about 60% of my chakra in this fight. I am at a huge disadvantage, if I decide to fight against him.

However I have no choice, I want to save my team.

I rushed over the direction I felt the killing intent rising from.

I knew it had to be the elite jonin of the enemy side but 'what has gotten him so riled up? Who is he fighting?'

A lot of questions came inside my head which were answered only 10 seconds later when I saw the body of a chunin with a deep cut on his chest, lying in the pool of his own blood, the destruction in the surroundings, as well as after seeing Shirou's condition.

'Shirou had killed the elite chunin who happened to be the jonin's brother...How did he manage that???' I wasn't able to come up with a scenario where this young lad would survive.I had some hope for shisui and others but not him.

'I was prepared to let him die here and protect others but it seems I was wrong.....However this doesn't change the fact that he will die here.'

I don't have enough chakra for a frontal assault on the enemy. Right now I can only hope that he will show an opening and I will use that to bring him down.

"YOU KILLED KAZUMA YOU FUCKER!!!HOW DARE YOU KILL MY BROTHER!!"

He rushed towards. Shirou with pure intent to kill, but.....

'HE DODGED THAT??!!' I yelled mentally

I didn't even believe what just happened, yet he gave me another surprise through his next attack.

The bright hue and the speed and precision of his attack is way too fast for even the most experienced chunins to handle.

However, much to my expectation, his attack didn't work. The one facing him was no ordinary ninja. He was powerful, much more powerful than many shinobis I have fought in my career as a ninja.

He was blown away from his attack and crashed through many trees before coming to a stop, still struggling to even keep himself conscious.

I felt sorry for him to go through such kind of experience at such a young age, but I had no time to waste. Since the enemy's focus was solely on Shirou.

This was my opportunity to strike, I immediately began augmenting my sword with thinnest layer of chakra I could manage and masked the rest of my chakra so that he won't notice me and when he will it will already be too late.

I dashed at my top speed, reached the enemy's behind and stabbed him in his back.

He didn't even know how he died.

I looked at Shirou who was about to pass out and smiled at him with a nod, acknowledging him as a splendid shinobi.

I then looked at the slain enemy and quickly took out a storage scroll to seal his body.

'I have to go back and seal the body of the other two as well' I made a mental note to myself.

I picked up Shirou on my back and went towards the rest of the team to see how they were holding up.

<END POV>

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I woke up to find myself in the place I was most familiar to ever since I came to this world....The Medical camp.

I had learned from experience to not move as soon as I wake up especially after waking up in the med camp.

I tilted my head to see myself properly and well, it was safe to say that I wasn't looking much different from a mummy. I had a cast on my left arm, my right leg, stitches on my left leg and chest and bandages all over my body.

I looked at my right side to see a watch showing 6.00 AM. I had slept for more than 12 hours.

'I guess the war will resume soon....This truly is a fucked up world'

"You are up!" I heard a familiar voice

I then looked at my left to see another bed with a familiar figure sitting over there, it was Ayane. I lifted my head up to see two more adjacent beds to see Akane and Shisui sitting over there as well.

"Yeah" I let out a sigh.

I was grateful that all of them came back safely as well.

but when I looked closely, I noticed that Akane was missing his right hand. My heart sank as soon as I saw that.

Noticing my gaze, he made a smile which I could tell was fake and said "Oh this, don't worry about it, this is nothing what matters is that each one of us survived and came back safe and sound...well most of us anyway."

While he was saying this, I also noticed the expressions of the faces on Ayane and Shisui as well. Shisui looked at him with pity as did I since his career as a ninja will come to a halt. He will be allowed to do <C> ranked missions at most from now to the rest of his life and that too inside the Land Of Fire.

While Shisui and I looked at him with pity, Ayane wore an expression of regret and muttered "I-I a-am Sorrrryyyyy." she was on the verge of crying.

I could already tell that Akane had sacrificed his hand in order to save Ayane.

The mood of the entire room turned somber. None of us said anything for a few minutes until someone barged in.

"Yo! How is everyone holding up?" Captain Kou yelled, trying to make the place more lively and cheering up our mood.

"Well, we are alive" I answered for all four of us.

"That you are. And congratulations for that by the way." We all looked at him weirdly and with confused expressions on our face.

We failed our mission and we will probably be on bed rest for a month and won't be of any help to anyone. We are just dead weight right now.

"Now,Now although we did fail our mission. In fact we never even got close to it, we still managed to deal the other side a critical blow. There aren't many jonins in any village and elite jonins are even less."

"So what we have done isn't anything short of giving our side a huge advantage over the upcoming battles. The enemy side has lost 2 jonins, 1 elite jonins, 5 elite chunins and 7 other chunins in a single day. And since this was one of the the main team attacking our supply line, after getting rid of them, the rest of the ninjas stationed at the supply route will have much easier time dealing with everyone else trying to attack us."

Hearing this, all of our faces lit up with joy and smiles visible on our face.

'At least all of this wasn't for nothing.' A single thought came up in everyone's mind

"Hah! I can laze around for 2-3 months without feeling guilty." I joked which was greeted with laughter from everyone.

"Oh and by the way" Captain said gaining everyone's attention. "Shisui and Shirou. Because of the excellent performance in this mission and showcasing you talents as a Shinobi..." He paused for dramatic effect I guess.

"You both are being promoted to the Tokubetsu Chunin!!" He said witha huge smile bleaming on his face.

If the mood just now was good, then right now it was amazing.

Coming in the ranks of a Chunin at the age of eight is an amazing feat, one that has not been accomplished by many ninjas before us.

The brother sister duo both had shocked expressions as they were also regarded as geniuses but they became chunin not long ago and they were 13 years old right now.

After they digested the information, they turned to us and congratulated both of us on this achievement.

"Yes congratulations to both of you. But this is not the end" Captain said

"There is more?" Akane asked

"Yes, after the war is over or if you two are to go home for a few days during the war, Both of you will be properly evaluated where you fall in the ranks of a Chunin, i.e. whether you are tokubetsu Chunin, mid-Chunin level or elite Chunin level. All of that will be evaluated in front of other ninjas. Since my word of recommendation can only let you go so far."

"This is good and all, but wouldn't they still fall under tokubetsu chunin level, I mean, they are only eight. Getting a higher rank than that at their age...I don't think anyone other than Kakashi has been able to do that." Ayane said

"Well if either of them are able to rank higher than this, it will certainly be amazing." Captain said and then turned away to leave us. But before leaving, he muttered under his breath which went unheard by everyone but me since I was the closest to him."It will be amazing for anyone other than those two....they are already at the level of an elite chunin."

A smirk appeared on my face when I heard this.

'I never expected to get one good news after the other' I was genuinely happy after hearing all of this.