Culling the weeds

Yami went near the corpse of the boss and pulled out the kunai that was stuck in his chest. The boss knew that if he had removed that kunai then he would have bled out faster. He even stored the corpse of the boss in a separate scroll.

Yami looked around with a pained expression as he said "Ugh...the cleanup is what I hate. Thank god for shadow clone jutsu." Yami performed some hand seals and 4 clones appeared in a puff of smoke beside him. Yami's clone who was transformed into a guard looked at Yami and said "I will stand outside like a guard so that no one becomes suspicious."

"What an ass" Yami and all the clones thought simultaneously. Yami started collecting all the corpses and then the shurikens he had thrown on the earth wall. He looked at his clones and said

"3 of you get rid of all the blood while one go inside the mansion and collect everything you think belongs to these mercenaries." he tossed an empty storage scroll to the clone.

Yami then went to collect the shurikens that he had thrown when the boss was outside the 1st-floor window. As he was about to collect he looked up in the sky and said "My bats have found the 2 groups of shinobis that came this afternoon. They are staying inside the jungle which means I don't need to waste time being sneaky."

After 10-15 minutes, the entire mansion was clean. Not a drop of blood could be seen or even smelled. Yami didn't want to make the same mistake that got him caught by the leader of these mercenaries.

The clone who was tasked with collecting the things inside the mansion came out and tossed the scroll back to Yami. He then dispersed itself.

Yami closed his eyes for a second and then opened it as he thought "Except for money and weapons, there wasn't much these people had. Not even a single jutsu from the hidden stone. The boss must have a base where he kept his main stash. These are just some of his people who came on Gato's request."

Yami then left the mansion in the direction which lead outside the residential area into the mountains. He now planned to take care of these 2 groups as well so that tomorrow morning all the people his and Sasuke's squad will be facing will be non-shinobis.

'Now that the future has changed to this extent, anyone can die including Tazuna and his family.' Yami thought as he was running. He was in a dilemma where he didn't know whether he did the right thing by changing the future or not. He changed it to avoid some unnecessary deaths but he might even make things worse than they were in the canon. If he shows too much power, he may attract the attention of black Zetsu and Obito and even Pain could focus on him. Yami was strong but nowhere enough to deal with Akatsuki members. The only one he felt he had a chance of defeating was Sasori.

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Tazuna's House...

In the backyard of Tazuna's house two people were sitting around a small bonfire. These two were Sasuke Uchiha and Neji Hyuga. Sasuke and Neji were both the quiet types and never had any contact with each other. Kakashi selected them both to be on guard duty for the first part of the night. From time to time Sasuke would use his Sharingan to look around in the darkness of the night while Neji would use his Byakugan to scout long distance.

"I am glad to see you two getting along." a voice came from behind them. Both suddenly went on alert. Sasuke held the grip of his sword ready to pull out in the blink of an eye. Neji activated his Byakugan and covered his palms with blue chakra but they both relaxed after a second seeing that the person was none other than Sasuke's sensei Kakashi.

"Sensei...why aren't you sleeping?" Sasuke asked.

Kakashi shrugged and said "I wasn't feeling sleepy so I decided to give you both company. Sit down both of you. There won't be any attack tonight."

Sasuke and Neji both sat down back on the rocks near the bonfire but they both didn't understand what Kakashi meant by his last sentence.

Sasuke looked at Kakashi with a question in mind but Neji beat him to it.

"Mr.Kakashi, what did you mean when you said that there won't be any attack tonight? Did you already scout the village before coming here?"

Sasuke and Neji both looked at Kakashi for the answer. Seeing the two kids confused Kakashi chuckled and said "Why do you think Yami hasn't returned yet?"

Neji and Sasuke looked at each other. They both didn't know the answer so they looked back at Kakashi.

"You both know him personally yet how come you don't understand him?" Kakashi said while shaking his head in disappointment which made Sasuke and Neji both a little embarrassed.

Kakashi looked at the fire in front of him and said "Yami doesn't like variables. He doesn't like it when he is uncertain of what he is going to face. When he found out that shinobis were also going to be joining Gato, he became uncertain of what will happen tomorrow. If he is doing what I think he is doing then tomorrow we won't have any problems. He will..." Kakashi stopped and looked at his side.

Neji and Sasuke followed his gaze and looked there as well. They didn't see anything for a second but then numerous bats assembled to form the figure of Yami.

They looked at Yami and saw that he seemed a little tired and he had a few spots of dust on his clothes which indicated that he might have been in a scuffle but there wasn't a single drop of blood or sweat on him.

Kakashi looked at Yami and asked "What INFORMATION did you discover?" he emphasized on the word information as a way to tell Yami that he knew that Yami didn't just go to get information.

Yami smirked and said "There won't be any shinobi coming to the battle tomorrow." and he went inside the mansion.

Kakashi smiled and then looked at Sasuke and Neji who were now connecting the dots.

They both widened their eyes and said "DID HE..."

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