C Rank Mission

PS: Let me know if the writing quality has downgraded. I know it's been nearly a year since iv wrote so let me get back on the hang of it again.

Ok, enjoy the read.

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"Where's that other fellow."

I closed in on the location, only to hear a couple of voices. It was exactly 9am, just like the commissioner had said.

In front of me were bushes, parting them, I entered an unfamiliar field. Immediately, I noticed a few people directly facing me. "He's finally here it seems."

One of them spoke; it was a man wearing a long tube behind his back. He wore no flak jacket, carried no weapons so I could only presume he was the messenger.

Standing directly next to him were two others. Both wore flak jackets, looking a few years older than me. They eyed me up and down, unconsciously scanning me which I didn't mind. I did the same thing too, familiarising myself with these two would be the best thing possible.

So, I immediately walked up to one of them and put out my hand. "I'll be in your care. The names Yokuma."

He reciprocated it with a brief smile, but I was analysing his movements. Hmm, he's a chunin for sure. I could definitely beat him with some effort; his strength is much more than mine too.

"My name's Ishiki and the one next to me is Goza," He said with a sheepish smile.

"Yokuma… Heh, nice to meet ya kid," Goza finally spoke.

"So you're the kid who's escorting with these two," The messenger doubtedly stated. "You seem to be fresh out of the academy."

I didn't speak too much and just smiled. "I'm more than qualified for this task sir."

Goza joined in, "Who knows maybe the kid's something special."

"What was that other kid's name, I forgot."

Ishiki replied, "It was… Kakashi Hatake. He's the same age as this kid too."

While these two conversed, the messenger looked quite impatient. "Okay, okay. Forget this, let's just head on."

"It's already been five minutes since he's arrived."

Immediately, they stopped and nodded seriously. It seemed their personalities didn't get in the way of the mission.

"First, we will be travelling in a triangle formation," This time Ishiki was dead serious. "We're not going through the supply line. It's already being used up so we've got to go through the outskirts."

The supply line was where rationings and other stuff was brought to camps. This was very important to enemies to try sabotage and vice versa.

Although, it was hard for them to do it. That's why it's the safest place for messengers to travel through. The outskirts is where wandering shinobi or enemies ambush to get spoils of war. Despite this, shinobi go there. Especially missing-nin.

They reap the benefits while taking the least risk. In comparison, its high risk for the people who travel through there. Cautiousness is paramount, otherwise you could never survive.

"Now, I'm going to be at the front. Mori's in the middle and Gozas on the left."

From the looks of it, that's all he had to say. I'm surprised he's a sensor. It's very rare to come across one, but they're essential pieces on these missions.

Finished, he then started moving through the field with us behind.

Moving closer to the forest, we began to tighten up. The messenger moved in the middle while I stood a few feet on his right and Goza on his left. Directly in front of him was Ishiki on high alert.

We travelled through this terrain without any mishaps; it was expected though, we still had yet to arrive in dangerous territory.

"A few hundred meters till we have any sort of trouble, get ready." Ishiki quickly spoke before going back to full focus.

Twenty minutes passed and we met some sort of resistance. Just not the kind you'd expect…

"A bear… quickly take care of it," The messenger spoke like it was some fly.

Straight away, Goza did a few hand seals before puffing his chest and deeply breathing in. Out came three fast travelling water bullets that could not be seen by naked eye. Consecutively, they all directly hit the bear in the head, instantly making it fall flat.

Not stopping anymore, we carried on. This time at a faster pace as even the messenger started to sprint. He definitely had some shinobi training.

"Give us the ryo, and we'll let you go."

Up ahead, a few malicious voices spoke. As we came closer, there were a few people ganging up on two people. Mostly likely missing-nin or wandering shinobi stealing possessions of the weak.

But everyone remained indifferent as they kept moving. It was expected, this was war.

"We're closing in on the outskirts," The messenger spoke. "There will be a few explosions nearby from infighting but the real trouble is nearby."

He explained that there were traps and ambushes ready for anyone that passes. Despite this, there were lots of ways to avoid it. But it all mattered on luck, some days could be the worst, others could have no danger.

After we had arrived; we carried on the same as usual. But this time, there was something unusual. I fed chakra to my eyes, activating my sharingan and to my surprise there was a chakra flow imbalance in everyone's bodies.

I lowered my brows and side eyed the messenger as I snapped my fingers. They all saw my sharingan, but paid attention to my fingers which spelt code.

"So, Yokuma, do you see that territory?" Ishiki asked, secretly asking me something.

"No." I simply replied.

"But I know it's there."

He glanced back and said, "I see."

Despite having activated my sharingan a few times before, I hadn't noticed till now. Maybe we had been in a genjutsu for quite long then. Luckily, I had found out now and all we had to do was wait.

Wait, isn't he a sensor…. Was their objective to hide their presence from us, but how did they manage to keep it up all this time? Even my sharingan did not see through it.

This seemed planned the more I think about it. So they were following us over a few hours, which is the worst worst case scenario.

"Let's stop here, I've got some rations for us," Goza slyly grinned.

We all got the message as we followed him behind a tree and sat down. Immediately, I made the genjutsu dispel hand seal to Ishiki. He followed my instructions and carried it out, although his face turned sour as soon as he did.

"Enemies southwest, 300m away."

He said in a low voice as he chewed his mouthful of food. Now, we just needed to create some kind of plan. On the other hand, we all had the same thought; why would they wait this long to ambush us.

"They must have some kind of plan to wait this long," The messenger, Mori, exclaimed.

"It's most likely to lure us in a specific spot," Goza continued. "People must be waiting for us there or worse."

Ishiki added, "They knew I was a sensor, cutting off my sense of direction."

"Most likely a genjutsu specialist."

If they planned all this time and waited for us from the beginning, then were they just scouts?

We all had options to take, brainstorming as we reviewed them.

Attacking head on was an option, although we don't know the enemies strength but considering it was a lure, they weren't much stronger than us.

Stealthily wrap around which could alert them. They surely had a contingency if we found out about their genjutsu.

Despite these options, we never chose either.

After some more exchange of words, improving our plan and adding a few contingencies, we all nodded. It wasn't perfect, nor did we know if it was going to work. Only strength mattered in the end, and I was confident in mine.

"Let's move, all of us have roles to play," He exclaimed, throwing his ration can away.

Just like before, we kept the same formation to keep the enemy lured in and not suspicious. As long as they thought everything went their way it was more advantageous for us.

On the way, I swiftly planted my strings with all sorts of weapons with a sleight of hand and I carried on doing that for a while. Still the strings were wrapped around my ankle. What we noticed was that they kept a distance of a hundred meters but got closer as we travelled further.

A few minutes later we stopped and turned around. They were exactly eighty meters in front of us; it was now time.

The strings around my ankle were pulled, and a series of consecutive lashes sounded throughout a distance of two hundred meters. Strangely, the sounds were slowly getting closer.