(June, year 54 AK)
As Shisui and his team entered the Hokage's office, Yuta saw that there were some other people in there beside the Hokage.
"Lord Hokage." Shisui greeted Hiruzen respectfully.
"Shisui, there is an urgent matter I want you to take care of." Hiruzen said slowly, and Yuta felt the tension in the air, then Hiruzen looked at Yuta and the others as if only noticing them now, "You have brought your Genin teammates here I see, but the mission I'm going to assign to you is too dangerous for them, I have summoned your previous teammates to assist you on this mission."
As Hiruzen said that, Yuta looked at the three other people in the office, it was three men in their twenties, all of them was wearing shinobi attire, Konoha headbands and green vests.
'Shisui's previous teammates, huh, that's Chunin vests they are wearing.' Yuta thought as he focused his chakra senses on them, 'That is impressive chakra levels for Chunins, I can't estimate this level correctly right now because it's too much higher that the levels I'm used to, but it is somewhere in the range between 4C and 8C, I guess they could be considered the elite Chunins, not too far from becoming Jonins, quite impressive.'
"I'm certain that they are ready, all three of them." Shisui stated firmly and the tension in the room increased, as the three of Shisui's previous teammates looked at Shisui with surprise, then they looked at Yuta and the others with confusion.
"Shisui-senpai, you can't be serious." One the men said with confusion, "They are just kids."
But as he said that, Shisui didn't react to his statement in any way and continued to look at Hiruzen intently.
For the next few seconds, the tension in the room was gradually increasing, but then, Hiruzen sighed tiredly and said, "If you believe in them this much, then I will trust your judgment. You can bring them along on this mission, but you will also bring your old teammates with you as well, you'll form a temporary special seven ninja squad for this mission."
"Yes, Lord Hokage." Shisui bowed gratefully.
The man that said something before, now looked at the three Genins with shocked expression, as if he couldn't believe of what just happened.
"Itachi, Hikari, Yuta." Hiruzen said in a serious tone as he looked at them, and Yuta felt the pressure on him, but it wasn't enough to shaken his spirit, after all Yuta had faced much worse multiple times already, for example, when Shisui was pressuring him with the Mangekyo Sharingan was much worse than this.
"This will be a very dangerous mission, I want you to give it your all and be ready for anything." Hiruzen said slowly as he continued to put the pressure on them, "You or your teammates might even die during this mission, are you ready to carry it on no matter what?"
"Yes, Lord Hokage!" Yuta, Itachi and Hikari replied in unison with resolve.
"Good." Hiruzen said and the pressure subsided as Hiruzen returned his attention to Shisui, "I've received an urgent report from the eastern border patrols, there is a team of ninjas of unknown origins sighted there, trying to infiltrate the Land of Fire. There is about a dozen of them and they aren't simple ninjas, our border patrols tried to pursue and ambush them multiple times, but they swiftly escaped each time, our border patrols can't handle them, that's why I'm sending you, Shisui, to track them down."
"Understood, Lord Hokage. Anything else we should know?" Shisui asked.
"Nothing besides their unusual ability to escape our border patrol squads even before our ninjas could close up on them, they should have a strong sensor type ninja in their group." Hiruzen replied after a few seconds of contemplation, "You should move out immediately, I already informed Shinji and the others of the enemies supposed routes and possible points of infiltration, as well as about the border patrols area of operation where you can meet up with the squads that tried to engage with the enemies."
"Understood, we will move out immediately." Shisui stated.
Hiruzen nodded and Shisui led the six ninjas out, while Hiruzen looked at the three young Genins backs with some worry in his eyes, but then as they left the office, he pulled out his pipe and started smoking, his expression was a bit tense.
"I hope you know what you are doing, Shisui..." Hiruzen mumbled quietly as he stood up and looked into the window, observing the setting sun while being deep in thoughts.
...
Shisui led the group outside of the Hokage Tower, as they moved some distance from the entrance, he said.
"Shinji, Yohei, Isao, if you are ready, we are moving out immediately." Shisui said without stopping as he glanced at each of his old teammates.
'Is he not going to ask us if we are ready?' Yuta thought, 'Well, we were training for a whole day with him, so I guess he already knows about the state of our ninja tools and supplies and such. Each of us has enough ninja tools and some emergency food pills, so we are always ready to move out at the moment's notice. Although it is a bit harsh to move out on a dangerous mission like that at the late evening after a day of training.'
"We are ready to move out." The man apparently named Shinji replied, "But are you sure about bringing them with us?"
"Yes. My teammates might be young, but I have full trust in their abilities, they won't disappoint you, Shinji, you have my word." Shisui replied confidently.
"If you say so." Shinji replied as he glanced at Yuta and others one more time with a bit of worry in his look, although it was unclear to Yuta if Shinji was worrying about them getting hurt or if he was worrying about them getting in the way and dragging them down.
"Let's speed up. Shinji, tell me the details about the mission on the way." Shisui commanded and they jumped on the roof of some building and started running in the direction of the village's gates, jumping from one roof to another to avoid street traffic. As they ran, Shinji described to Shisui the details about the enemy's supposed routes and the details about border patrol squads encounters with the enemy.
From the moment they entered the Hokage's office onward, Shisui had acted formal, calm and focused, never returning to his usual casual attitude he used to have when he was with Yuta and the others. It was quite interesting for Yuta to observe Shisui when he was in formal and commanding mode like that and looking at Shinji and the other Shisui's old teammates he noticed how much they respect him.
Yuta was keeping up with the others, although it was the first time he was moving through the village this way. From time to time during his life in the village Yuta saw other ninjas running and jumping above the buildings to move fast, but Shisui had told them to avoid doing that if there were no urgent matters. And now as Yuta was running through the roofs of the village, the whole new perspective opened up to him, he saw the village from a completely different angle. It was huge, vast, and full of people. Yuta also saw multiple other ninjas who were also running through the roofs here and there.
Yuta only started truly admiring the view, but shortly they had already arrived close to the gate and jumped down to the streets and moved through the gate. This time there weren't any check-ups at the gates, as Shisui signaled something to the gate guard ninjas and they moved out without wasting any time on check-ups.
As they ran through the forest, hopping from one tree to another, Yuta felt as fatigue was slowly accumulating in his body, due to the full day of training and the pace they were keeping was much faster than the one Yuta was used to.
Yuta glanced at Itachi and Hikari by his side and saw that Itachi was as calm and collected as always, as if they were not running fast towards a dangerous mission but just taking a stroll in the park, it was hard to tell what was going on his mind because of his usual emotionless expression.
Hikari, on the other hand, was clearly having a very hard time suppressing the excited grin that was constantly trying to emerge on her face.
'At least it is very easy to tell what is on the mind of this violent brute... And now this beast has a sword...' Yuta thought half-jokingly, 'Well, she didn't experienced the real fight yet, and didn't killed a single enemy yet, so maybe it all just a facade, and when she has her first experiences with those things, maybe she will change and stop acting like that, but who knows.'
...
'Yea, like I'm the one to talk, since I'm as well never had those experiences before... I always knew what it is going to be like, I always knew that I will be going into battle at some point, and I will have to kill whoever the village commands me to kill, there is no avoiding that, as long as I want to be a ninja. Will I be able to do it without hesitation when the time comes? I sure hope so...'
--- AN ---
Last few chapters I've being posting at random time, but starting from the next chapter it will be on schedule, same as before - 9 PM EST (so the next chapter is about 36hours after this one, it's not that the next chapter will be late, it rather this chapter is early). I will be posting new chapters each day for a while, to compensate a bit for the two and a half months of absence, but at some point I'll have to return to 4 chapters a week or so.
If you like the story, please consider writing a comment, a review, voting with power stones, or check out my Patreon, 4 advanced chapters is currently available there (patreon.com/SycoreNovels)
Thanks to Eyes_Of_The_Void, AdamD4C, Zen_Slacker, Shadow_reader_ and Loalola for the power stones.