Chapter 9

After getting his new black Chunin flak jacket and wearing it under his Neko Cloak, Hyto felt like he could finally tank a few hits, and felt slightly better about heading into his first real battle.

Having already discussed the plan and given the urgency of the mission, Team Tsunade, or rather, Hellion Squad, headed out to the outskirts of the Land of Fire that bordered with Iwa and Suna. This was Hyto's first time ever leaving the village and he was both terrified and excited. The show didn't really show events outside of the village much, but they showed enough of the world for him to know it's incredibly dangerous.

As they traveled at ridiculously fast speeds, Hyto found himself easily able to keep up, as he trained both his speed and his stamina at an early age. The only thing he needs to focus on now was his strength, but he's already bought some weights like what Rock Lee had and has been wearing them already for a few days.

One thing that Hyto immediately noticed that was different from the show, was just how massive this world was. The anime shows everyone traveling to all of these far places so quickly, but that was not the case in reality. A week. It took them a week of traveling at extreme speeds just to reach the villages at the edge of the country, and apparently that was them making good time!

'I definitely need to either find or create a jutsu to get me to far places quicker. Maybe I can ask Cherr for advice, I mean she teleports, right?' Hyto thought to himself.

It wasn't long before Tsunade, who was leading the team, to abruptly stop and signal for them to hold their position. Hyto was confused at first as to why they randomly stopped, then his ears picked up the sounds of battle, as well as a few subtle movements around them. They had just got there, and they were already surrounded!

Doing his best to remember his training and stay calm, Hyto subtly summoned his bow and was watching Tsunade intently, watching for her signal on their next course of action. Watching Tsunade's hands, he saw her subtly make the gesture they discussed beforehand which meant, "Stay alert and attack after I do."

A second later, Tsunade threw several shurikens into the forest around them, and the cries and sound of people dropping was all they needed to confirm that she didn't miss. With that, all hell seemed to break loose.

Having already activated his nekogan, Hyto already tracked 5 different shinobi close to his position, and feared there may be more. Not wanting to give them a chance to overwhelm him, Hyto got to work.

Pulling the string on his bow, Hyto produced an arrow made of stone with explosive flames coating it, then shot one of them at each of the five chakra signatures he tracked. Two of the biggest chakra signatures were able to dodge, which Hyto judged based on the size if their chakra that they're either high-chunin or low-jounin level shinobi.

The other three small signatures weren't so quick, and were blasted by the explosive bolts, blood and limbs spraying everywhere as the young-sounding shinobi, probably genin, screamed out bloody murder.

Hyto's stomach immediately turned as he saw what looked to be a young Suna shinobi exploding into pieces. Hyto was just a regular guy before he reincarnated, and this was the first time he's killed anything in both lives, and now he just killed three kids at once in a very gruesome fashion. It was a truly sickening thought.

Hyto used to dream of becoming a shinobi and having great battles, but the reality of it was horrifying. He couldn't understand how all of those MCs in the fanfics he's read can come into a whole new world and not grow any attachments or feel anything when they kill someone. Either the stories were just that unrealistic or all of those bastards were psychotic.

Unfortunately, Hyto didn't have the luxury to process what happened as the two high-level shinobi were already on him, making Hyto narrowly dodge two wind jutsu that devastated the area he was just in. Looking closer at the two Suna shinobi, Hyto saw that one was an Auburn hair man with a giant fan.

The other was a blonde woman with short hair and a creepy-looking puppet. Thanks to his nekogan, Hyto could see the chakra threads coming out of the puppet, which made him wonder if he could manipulate it somehow. If Aang could bend energy, why couldn't he bend chakra?

"Just stay still you bastard and let me kill you!" Yelled the man as he slashed several more wind blades at Hyto, each slash getting dangerously closer than the last.

Then, as they next blades soared towards him, Hyto used airbending to curve the direction of the wind to hit the blonde woman.

"Hey, watch where you blast your jutsu, you nearly killed me!" Yelled the woman who barely dodged the attack.

"It wasn't me! That brat did something, take him out quickly, I have a bad feeling about him and those eyes of his!" Yelled the man, who seemed to be the leader.

Given a small moment due to their bickering, Hyto was ready to finish getting his nerves together and was ready to end this. Using Earthbending, Hyto raised the earth into a round prison around the two and turned the soft earth into a ball hardened stone.

Just as the man was about to punch the wall of the dark, stone ball, a sharp spike came out, impaling the man's fist, causing him to scream out in pain as he jumped back.

Before the blonde woman could asked what happened, she felt a searing, stabbing pain in her feet, making her jump in pain, only to land on more spikes.

Outside of the spiked prison, the battle had ended and the team was cringing listening to the mortified screams if the two shinobi.

"Fuck, okay just...just let them out. We'll interrogate these two since they're the only ones left." Tsunade said as she shuddered at the thought of being repeatedly impaled like that.

Hyto was only a single chunin, but his abilities and the way he used them are what made him slightly terrifying and hard to deal with. With his Avatar abilities, could could essentially make any versatile jutsu he could think of. That's not even counting his deadly bow skills or his broken ability to heal from almost any wound.

After releasing the two shinobi from the spiked ball, Tsunade restrained them and healed them enough to not die during the interrogation. Seeing Tsunade use healing in front of him, Hyto saw this as his chance and asked Tsunade to teach him to be a medic-nin. Pleasantly surprised that Hyto was interested in learning medical jutsu, she promised to start teaching him as soon as things calm down.

After threatening to send the two shinobi back into the spiked ball if they didn't tell Tsunade what she wanted to hear, they quickly spilled the beans, giving Tsunade all the information she needed.

Apparently, both Iwa and Suna were planning to raid Konoha's outskirts in revenge for Konoha's past transgressions and to claim land for themselves, but they ran into each other first. Due to Iwa and Suna being so close to each other, they often have skirmishes and have a deep hatred for each other. So, as soon as they saw each other in the outskirts, the two fought immediately, gaining the attention of Konoha.

After getting some valuable information from the shinobi, they killed the shinobi and quickly went on their way to link up with Sakumo's last known position. While the interrogation was being conducted by Tsunade and Hiashi, as he was able to look at their chakra and tell when they are lying, Hyto was on the side getting his mind right.

As things somewhat calmed down, he quickly went of to the side, pulled down his half mask, and vomited all of the contents in his stomach. The screams and the images of limbs and blood flying played over and over in his mind, haunting him as the thought that he was now a murderer at 10 years old made his blood run cold. Hyto knew this world was fucked up, but the reality of it was something truly horrifying.

After he cleaned himself up and sat on a large boulder to take deep breaths, Hyto suddenly felt arms wrap around him as he was pulled into a warm, heavenly embrace that could be no one besides Tsunade.

"Hey, just take deep breaths. I know we haven't known each other long, and though you seem to be a little pervert, I can tell you're not a bad kid. You remind me a lot of my brother Nawaki and a little of my cousin, Kayama. You want to be an adult so badly, but it's important you keep that light of youth burning as long as you can. At the end of the day, you had no choice but to kill them, as they were trying their hardest to kill you, right?" Tsunade asked, as she pulled back Hyto's hood and started lightly stroking his hair.

At this point, tears were already trailing down Hyto's face, as the reality of the situation was settling in more by the second, but he still nodded his head. His brain went into overdrive at that moment, and the one conclusion he came up with was that if he hesitated in the slightest, either him or one of his teammates would be killed, and that was just something he couldn't bear.

Hyto quickly calmed down after that, and they were soon on their way back to the mission. Besides embarrassing himself in front of two beautiful women and being brother-zoned by Tsunade, Hyto was actually starting to feel a little better. Still not completely over it, but at least he won't be a burden in the mission now.

A short while later, the team came upon a village that looked like it was the scene of a small war. Shinobi wearing three different uniforms were in fierce battle with each other, the bodies of many villagers and some shinobi littered the village.

"Hiashi, Hyto, I want you two to use your eyes and track down Sakumo's team so we can make contact!" Tsunade ordered as Hyto and Hiashi both nodded. Activating his eyes, looking around the whole village, identifying each chakra signature.

Hyto will never claim to be a genius, but the one smart thing he's done that he will always be proud of, is as soon as he was able to Mark and store more chakra signatures, he went around the village to Mark every important person from the show that he could think about, and luckily, Sakumo just so happened to be one of those people.

"I found Sakumo! He's a few clicks west, towards what looks to be the edge of the village. I'll lead the way!" Hyto said, taking the initiative as he knew that no one else could track like he could. With his eyes, it was like he had a wispy trail leading him straight to the signature he wanted to find.

Now with Sakumo's exact position, it didn't take them long to find him and his team, and it looked like they came just in time. Sakumo's position was being overwhelmed, as it looked as though Sakumo had taken in the last living villagers to protect, but having to watch over them and fight two different enemies were costing him dearly.

When they got near, Tsunade took the lead and flared her chakra in a certain sequence that told Sakumo they were friendlies, not that he didn't recognize her. But in a world where anyone can transform to look like anyone and anything, you can never be too careful.

"I'm so glad to see you guys, but where's the rest of our backup? The village is swarming with enemies!" Sakumo asked gratefully at first, then grew confused as he saw their low numbers.

"This is it. The Hokage didn't want to send too large of a force and risk a war, so he made a team of heavy hitters instead. Don't worry, you'll find that we are far more useful than a large team of fodder." Tsunade said smugly, though she honestly did have the right to be smug, as she probably had one of the most stacked team's in Konoha's history.

Sakumo wasn't happy by being shorted on reinforcements, but he was a hardened veteran, so he knew this was just how things boiled down sometimes and he just had to make the best of what he had.

"Fine, quickly, tell me your teams capabilities so I know what I have to work with." Sakumo said quickly as he raised an earth wall to block a slew of jutsu thrown his way.

"As you know, I specialize in medical jutsu and pack a mean punch. Mikoto possess the Sharingan and is adept at shurikenjutsu. Hiashi possess the Byakugan and is an expert in taijutsu. And finally, Hyto possesses the Nekogan and is a master marksman and tracker." Tsunade said with a small smirk, knowing the reaction she was about to get.

And she wasn't wrong, as those who heard the stacked lineup nearly had their jaws drop. Never before has there been a team of different dojutsu users who were so powerful in one unit. When they heard how talented the backup was, the Leaf shinobi who felt abandoned were starting to feel hopeful.

"Okay, that's one hell of a stacked team, but that's all the better for us. We have the last living villagers already in our protection and the village is already in shambles, so there is no more reason to hold back. We've been conserving our energy while they have been tiring themselves out this whole time. So, I think if we make one final, overwhelming push, we can either force them to retreat or just eliminate every last one of them. Are you ready?" Sakumo asked, to which Hyto and the others nodded solemnly.

No further words needed to be said, as they all knew what they needed to do. This was going to be one hell of a battle, and it will be when the legend of The Huntsman will be born and spread all over the shinobi world like wildfire.