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The link is also in the synopsis
———
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"Men of the Scorched Wolves mercenary group, in the name of the Hokage, I demand your complete surrender for your crimes against the innocent people who have suffered. Surrender peacefully or blood will be shed," Tern announced, her voice projected into the settlement via chakra.
A low barrier constructed using a rudimentary Earth Release ninjutsu, no taller than an adult, surrounded the village at the front, while a forest covered its back. She gazed out and saw a few men peeking from the tree canopies and the roofs of permanent tents, which served as the primary type of shelter.
They hid upon meeting her gaze.
She announced her intentions again, but was met with the same silence. She gave the signal to get ready for the mission party behind her. The pre-battle jitters had all but faded as they psyched themselves up in their own way.
She looked over to her squad leader, who had thick water tentacles floating behind him. He had removed his cloak and wore gear that covered his entire body up to his neck, leaving only his hands bare. She noticed that he wore jacket-armour issued to assault squad operatives. Unlike most, he looked relaxed but alert. She didn't know how strong he was. Unless an operative was in an assault squad, combat ability didn't mean a lot for chūnin operatives as long as they met the standard. A squad's lieutenant could be weaker than one of its operatives, and it wouldn't mean much.
Though on average, lieutenants tended to be stronger, they still lived in a society where strength was respected. Captains, however, were required to be jōnin. Ratel had just very recently survived an ambush by a duo of ROOT's top operatives, so she didn't think he was going to face trouble fighting two chūnin-level leaders of a mercenary group.
The third and final warning was issued, and when no response was received, she gave the order.
"Charge!"
A battle cry erupted from the Leaf shinobi as they breached the village. It was made without much planning. They had pitched their tents or huts wherever they pleased, clearing the forest behind them whenever they needed space or materials.
The mercenaries made the first big move. Just as the first wave of Leaf shinobi broke through the wooden gate or leapt over the walls, they were hit by a bombardment of pipe bombs and homemade incendiaries with a few D-rank ninjutsu to boost their firepower. It was effective. A couple of shinobi taken by surprise suffered injuries, while others immediately backed away.
A portion of the wall crumbled down as shoulder-height fires grew around the boundary.
Cheers erupted from beyond the fire as the mercenaries celebrated.
They had stopped the first wave while making the others who would've followed them hesitant and cautious. If the first wave had been successful, the rest were going to use them as cover to go in as well, creating a big wave that would've penetrated into the village, forcing them back.
However, as the first wave pulled back with their injured, the genin operatives charged right in, cutting through the fire. The frontline mercenaries rushed to prepare their next batch of explosives, but seeing the masked and cloaked shinobi made them panic. The operatives threw out smoke bombs that erupted in clouds of dark smoke, partially blocking the mercenaries' vision. The second bombardment wasn't as precise or coordinated as the first, and the operatives, knowing what was coming, spread out, thus thinning out the firepower.
The next wave timed their entry just after the second bombardment, when they would have some time before the next attack, and rushed in beyond the walls.
———
.
At the back of the village, Togaraki and his co-leaders watched the Leaf shinobi drive into their home from a height.
"Can you see him?" Loshi asked impatiently, gritting his teeth as he saw their underlings clash against masked operatives.
"There, that's him! With the tentacles," he pointed to the masked ANBU-nin with water tentacles floating behind him.
He gulped in nervousness when he saw the amount of chakra inside that man. Sensory-nin judged a person's chakra reserves by the level of naturally mixed chakra flowing through their body; people whose bodies naturally mixed more chakra generally had access to larger reserves. The tentacle ANBU-nin's chakra was a river in comparison to others' small streams. There were ways to throw off a sensory-nin's senses, but from experience, he didn't think the ANBU-nin was doing it.
The Scorched Wolves weredoomed, he thought—strengthening his resolve to ditch them as soon as possible.
Chakra reserves weren't a perfect indicator of combat strength, but an ANBU-nin with huge reserves was more likely than not to be extremely dangerous. Not to mention, he had lied about there being only one. There was another chūnin-level ANBU-nin. Even though they outnumbered the other side, they weren't going to survive this.
He planned to escape into the forest behind him while no one was looking in the chaos. With his chakra senses, he could sense the people's general position, so if he moved accordingly, he could avoid them. But even with that ability, it was difficult to evade too many people because they cast a wider and tighter net. He wanted to leave immediately, but he needed to improve his chances of escape by thinning the herd because when the balance tipped into the Leaf's favour, a lot of deserters would head to the forest, looking to escape, which would cause the ANBU and Leaf shinobi to pursue, and put him in jeopardy even if he left earlier than the deserters.
If he could eliminate four or five genin and injure a few more, the number of people in the forest would decrease significantly. Not only would there be more injured individuals to tend to, but on top of the minimum personnel needed inside the village to detain prisoners, there'd barely be anyone to enter the forest. Sending too many shinobi into the forest could leave the village short-staffed, making it difficult to contain captives if someone notices and tries to escape.
"Go. I'll protect our guys and thin the herd," he said to his co-leaders.
He had managed to convince them that, due to his chakra senses, he was better suited to help their underlings by sensing when they were being outnumbered or in danger, or when their chakra was dangerously fluctuating. He would protect them while killing the other side. Kill enough, and the Leaf would have to retreat, giving them a chance to flee as well.
Unfortunately, none of that was going to happen.
I gave you all so much; it's only fair to ask this in return, Togaraki thought as he saw his co-leaders heading towards the ANBU-nin.
———
.
Loshi, the co-leader of Scorched Wolves, was once a Hidden Rain shinobi. He was a respected chūnin with power and influence. Under the rule of Lord Hanzo, he lived like a lord. He did whatever he wanted, and others bent over backwards for him. As long as he pleased his superiors—wealth, booze, women—there was nothing he lacked.
All of that changed when a bounty was raised on his head.
He already had a bounty on his head for a very long time. It was an honour. In fact, he had done things to specifically raise his bounty value to get attention from a jōnin who liked that kind of thing.
This new bounty, however, was different. It was raised by Akatsuki, a mercenary group rebelling against Lord Hanzo and the Hidden Rain. The amount they had added to his bounty was a fraction of his total amount, but his life changed the day it was announced. People began crawling out of the woodwork to kill him. They tracked him down when he was out on missions, they blew up his home even when they knew he wasn't at home, tried to poison his food and drinks, a whore tried to kill him in bed—civilians, who wouldn't dare meet his eye, were trying to kill him.
His luck was the only reason he had survived.
He tortured the harlot for information. According to her, Akatsuki had helped countless people, and apparently, enough that the people who supported them saw him as an ultimate evil who needed to be killed.
He tried to get help from his superior, but there was nothing they could do. In truth, they didn't care. Getting targeted by Akatsuki was trouble; the mercenary group grew stronger each day—they had even killed a Hidden Rain jōnin—and no one wanted to get targeted by them through association.
And one day, he'd had enough of the attempts on his life, deciding he was no longer safe in the Hidden Rain Village; he wasn't safe in his own country. He could feel that if he stayed, his end was near—he had survived one too many times for Akatsuki not to send someone strong. He didn't know what he had done, but they weren't going to stop until he was dead. If he wanted to live, he had to escape the country—and that's what he did. He came to the Land of Fire and eventually met Togaraki to create Scorched Wolves.
It was a shit life. Far worse than when he was a Hidden Rain chūnin, but it was safe. And eventually, as the group grew, he felt a sense of belonging because this was something he had built with his own two hands.
He wasn't going to let it be over without fighting for it.
Loshi rushed through the small village he called home with his co-leader and arrived near the Leaf ANBU. In truth, he was scared because it was an ANBU-nin; even if he was from Hidden Rain, he knew they were dangerous. But it was two against one, and he trusted his own and his co-leader's strength. And as long as they held out long enough, Togaraki would eventually join them, and perhaps they could even kill the bastard.
The ANBU-nin was surrounded by four of their underlings, who didn't realise they were fighting someone they couldn't beat. It was the reason why a number mismatch between higher-ranked fighters almost always ended up being a nightmare for the lower-ranked one.
He was about to yell at them to back off when suddenly they screamed in horror with their eyes rolled back until only the whites were visible, and they fell to the ground like lifeless puppets. It was a terrifying sight, seeing four men just drop to the ground. Neither side touched each other; the ANBU-nin hadn't even moved from his spot. It could only be genjutsu. But what kind of genjutsu was it? What had they seen that caused them to scream so horrifyingly before making them lose consciousness?
"There are two of us. If we keep an eye out and snap each other out, we'll be fine," he said.
As he stared at them, still reeling from the sight, the ANBU-nin turned around to look up at them as though he knew they were there all along.
Loshi took a step back and instinctively put his sword in front of him to assume a defensive position.
The ANBU-nin looked at both of them and seemed to be in thought before one of his tentacles pulled out the sword from the scabbard on his back and handed it to him.
And then he came at them, sword bared.
———
.
"No, no, no," Togaraki whispered to himself in panic as he dodged a flaming sword coming for his neck. He stumbled back, feeling the intense heat as he let himself fall to the ground, and then rolled to the side as the female ANBU-nin, the other chūnin, stabbed her sword where he had been a moment ago.
His chakra senses weren't as sharp as those of his other peers. He could handle a good number of people present in a small radius, still able to differentiate between them, but when nearly a hundred chakra users were fighting each other, actively using their chakra, things got too 'bright' for him to keep track of. He was aware of that beforehand, and that's why he only kept his focus on the two ANBU chūnin so that he was always maneuvering himself away from their position on the battlefield and only targeting the genin.
It was going to be difficult, but he was confident he could manage it.
He failed. He had barely managed to injure a group of three and was about to kill them when she leapt across the village and came right at him with a flaming sword. He had no idea how she found him because he was as far away from her as he could be and hadn't used any flashy moves that might attract attention.
Did they recognise him from his picture; he was a rogue-nin after all—but he had changed his look, grown out his beard and hair and looked much different because of it. Whatever it was, she still found him, and once she caught him, he couldn't shake her off.
She was fast. He was barely managing to avoid her sword. Each time her blade clashed against his kunai, the intense flames would burn his hand. He could already feel it getting worse and knew that soon, his hands would start breaking down until he couldn't use them—that is, if he wasn't stabbed before that.
They clashed, and he kicked her in the side, but she spun around like it hadn't hurt her and smashed her foot into his chest, sending him back. Spittle flew out of his mouth as he croaked in pain while flying back. But this was no time to writhe in agony; his eyes darted around, looking for something he could use to loosen her and saw the three genin he had injured as he flew past them.
Yes! If he targeted them, she would have to do something to protect them. While she did that, he would take the opportunity to disappear in the chaos. His plan to thin the herd was out of the question. Now that she had clocked him, he had no choice but to risk it and leave immediately.
The moment he was on the ground and in control of himself, he hastily weaved hand seals for a C-rank ninjutsu and poured the highest amount the ninjutsu would take. He wanted to preserve his chakra, but he wanted her to work to defend the genin, so it could earn him more time to escape, even if it were only a few more seconds.
Fire Release: Exploding Flame Shot
He spat out successive balls of chakra at high velocity, which sparked into flames as they left his mouth, curving through the air towards their targets. One of the genin was in good condition and tried to defend himself by weaving hand seals for a ninjutsu, but it was too late.
Even as the fire shots rocketed towards the genin, Togaraki pleaded to the gods that the ANBU-nin would defend them because there was a chance that she would be heartless and only focus on her target, because that's what he would have done.
A line of fire raced across the ground and formed a circle around three genin before erupting into a tall, flaming wall just as the fire shots slammed into it, exploding on impact.
"Yes!" he cheered as he made a mad dash away from her, slipping into tents and huts, intending to hide in the chaos to lose any tail before heading straight for the forest. His only regret was that he wasn't able to pack his valuables that were buried in a safe in his tent below his bed. He didn't have the time to pull it out and seal them in a storage scroll without anyone noticing.
He recognised the jutsu. It was not a defensive jutsu. The jutsu was supposed to surround the target, trap them within the circular wall of flames, and absolutely drown them in fire to burn their bodies into a sludge. The ANBU-nin, with only a few seconds to think, had turned an offensive jutsu into a defensive option by disrupting the jutsu using the fire shots before it moved to the final stage. Even if he ignored everything, just that was enough for him to know that she was more skilled than he was and that it was absolutely the right decision to exit the battlefield.
He identified a good spot to escape, and half a minute later, he sprinted towards it while ignoring his underlings, many of whom were actually weaker than academy students, getting cornered and defeated by trained shinobi.
Just as he was about to reach the trees, he felt her chakra suddenly leap across the village right in his direction. She had found him once again. The how of it didn't matter. He had a choice to make—was he going into the forest or confronting her? He decided to go into the forest and see if he could fight here and there.
Maybe the dense cover of the trees could work to his advantage.
Yes, that could work, he told himself—but he knew…
Just as he was about to reach the trees, he felt heat on his back and immediately leapt to the side, but not before a flaming sword left a gash in his upper arm, setting his arm on fire.
He knew it was over.
———
.
Tern knocked the man out with the blunt side of her blade.
The Leaf rogue-nin was crafty, almost giving her a slip, but he was weaker than she had expected. He was a sensory-nin who didn't see much action. He made chūnin, which meant he had the strength, but combat was just as much about experience as it was about raw power. According to his records, he had never traded for a B-rank ninjutsu, and if he hadn't gotten one in the village, the chances of him getting one as a rogue were close to zero.
Maybe because his job involved intimidating civilians, he had let himself go. She was expecting the battle to be harder.
"Whatever," she said to herself and carried him outside the village, where the iryō-nin and fūin-nin were ready to seal him right up for transport.
She went right back into the village to support Ratel, only to find him standing before the two chūnin. One of them was on his knees, holding his side, his clothes and hands dripping red from a slash wound, with utter agony gripping his face. The other chūnin was lying unconscious on the ground with more than a few shallow cuts all over his body, which she suspected were from the eight bloody kunai held up by the eight water tentacles.
Three more men from the mercenary group stood by the side, looking utterly terrified. They had just seen their leader defeated, and their opponent didn't have a single scratch on him.
"Pick them up and follow me," he ordered them, looking like he hadn't broken a sweat.
"Are you alright?" she asked just in case.
"Yes, please go support the others," he replied
Seeing that he was fine and had things under control, she went out to support the mission party only to see two clones of Ratel already roaming around.
———
.
Once the chūnin leaders were taken care of, the battle was all but over. People began surrendering in droves, and while it took some tedious effort to chase down and bring back those who had run into the forest, as well as those who thought it was a smart idea to escape capture by hiding somewhere in the village.
"What's the situation?" Ratel asked as he sat under the shade of a tree, looking over the Leaf shinobi who were being treated, and the mercenary men were being tied up and sealed.
"Seven injured, no deaths," Tern replied, utterly happy with how everything had gone. Injuries were part of the job, so as far as she was concerned, they had gotten out of the battle scot-free. Not only that, but they had captured the three chūnin leaders of the mercenary group. "I'm confident that we'll be able to get the names of all the fixers they're in contact with."
"I trust that you'll take care of it," he said.
"Of course!"
"Good, just remember, this is only the beginning."
She nodded. First, she needed to go after the fixers, then identify the influential figures who had employed the Scorched Wolves, and how many of those jobs were requested by a single person—a ROOT agent like Ratel had encountered in his Maizuru Assassination case, and hopefully catch one this time—and then go after those identified influential figures and dig into every shady thing they had done and see what they could get them on to create as much trouble as possible. It was going to be a political hellscape because these people were well-connected, which made them very hard to prosecute under the law. If they were shinobi, they could've put pressure on them in the shinobi circles where ANBU held ample power, but because they were civilians and their connections were with the Fire Daimyō's court, it would take a lot of work and rejection to find some substantial ways to put them in enough trouble that they would come to despise Danzo.
For the first time in forever, she felt so much work ahead of her. She didn't think she would have much free time in her near future, and she was absolutely thrilled about it.
Tern nodded seriously. She paused before continuing earnestly. "Thank you for trusting me with this. I'm not sure if I can adequately convey what this means to me. I will do my best not to disappoint your trust and make it so that you feel confident in trusting me with more important matters in the future."
It was a vulnerable moment for her because not only did she not know how to reply, but also whether his words would match his true actions in the future. She had heard sweet words before, but then she had seen actions that contradicted everything promised to her.
Ratel gazed at her for a moment, his face hidden by his mask, before standing up and handing his water canteen to her. "If you wish to earn my trust, then all I ask is for you to do your job well and stay out of unnecessary trouble. As long as you do that, I'll treat you fairly and ensure you feel properly acknowledged and rewarded for the work you do. And I, too, hope that I'll earn your trust someday.
"To new beginnings, Tern," he said, patting her shoulder as he walked away.
She looked down at the water canteen in her hand, uncapped it, and took a swig.
It was just plain water, but to her, it truly did taste like new beginnings.
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———
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