"Find the Hidden Mist's hiding place first. The area is large, so search in pairs. If you find anything, report it immediately, do not engage. Keep the distance between the two groups manageable so you can support each other. Understood?"
The five of them had stopped at a cliff overlooking rocky mountain terrain. Yuji checked the map, looked out over the landscape below, and gave the order.
On the way here they had passed through a village that had been hit recently, the debris was still fresh, the scattered remnants of daily life not yet weathered.
The four nodded and split off.
The Hidden Mist needed somewhere to operate from if they wanted to work inside Sunagakure's borders without being tracked down. Years of activity along this coast had allowed them to establish concealed positions throughout the terrain, small, hidden, numerous.
Sunagakure had never managed to root them out completely, and the problem had only compounded over time.
Yuji moved alone. Finding the Hidden Mist meant a real chance of direct contact, which was also the point, let Pakura and the others apply what they had learned under conditions that were genuine, while staying close enough himself to intervene if something went wrong.
He worked through the broken rock terrain, eyes moving steadily across the surfaces around him.
Fifteen minutes in, he found something.
A crack in the rock face, camouflaged but not perfectly, something in the edges of it caught his attention. He narrowed his eyes and moved closer across the stones.
On the other side of the terrain, Pakura and Sakamoto picked their way through the same kind of broken ground. The environment gave nothing back. The sun pressed down overhead and Sakamoto was starting to feel the heat working on him.
"Anything?" he asked Pakura, already knowing the answer.
She didn't respond. The camouflage out here was thorough. Nothing presented itself.
Sakamoto closed his mouth and kept moving.
As time passed without result, Pakura's patience began to compress into something more impatient. Their movements gradually became less careful, they were covering ground faster now, trading caution for speed, trying to force a discovery.
A dark shape moved through the rocks.
"Watch out!"
The kunai were already in the air when she shouted. Both of them flipped clear, but the moment they landed two Hidden Mist ninja were already behind them.
The speed was beyond what Pakura had been prepared for. She threw her body sideways and still took the weapon through her shoulder. She turned into close quarters immediately.
Sakamoto screamed.
He went down hard, blood from his neck spraying as the kick took him off his feet and sent him skidding across the rock.
"One down." The Hidden Mist ninja who had taken Sakamoto out laughed, not bothering to lower his voice. "Has Sunagakure run out of real people? Sending children out here?"
He moved to flank Pakura from the side while his partner held her in close combat. His hands came up through seals.
"Water Release: Water Fang Blade."
The rotating stream wrapped his arm and extended into a blade, bright and sharp in the afternoon light. The look in his eyes as he fixed them on Pakura was completely serious.
Pakura felt the cold move through her despite the heat. She was tangled with one of them, injured, her shoulder not responding the way it needed to for seal formation.
Scorch Release was inaccessible. One opponent alone she might have managed. Two coordinating together, with damage already slowing her, she couldn't find the angle.
The real weight of it landed in her chest, and her movements went slightly stiff with it.
The second ninja charged.
Something struck him from the side with tremendous force and he shuddered violently, momentum broken before it could complete.
A flash of crimson passed through the space between them.
The crimson streak punched through the first Hidden Mist ninja's skull and he dropped without a sound. The second was already on the ground by the time Pakura processed what had happened.
Yuji, Yashamaru, and Fukushima Taki had arrived.
Two movements. Two dead. Yuji was already crouching over Sakamoto before the bodies finished settling.
The boy's face had gone the color of old paper, pupils losing their focus. His throat had been opened. Yashamaru looked at the wound and felt the pain of it settle into his expression, as a Medical Ninja he could read exactly what he was looking at, and what he was looking at did not suggest survival.
The Mystical Palm Technique required time. It could not reverse damage this severe fast enough to matter.
Chakra surged from Yuji's palm as he pressed it gently against the wound.
Seconds passed.
Sakamoto's breathing, which had been fading, began to steady. The torn flesh at his throat drew together and closed. The blood was still everywhere, but the damage underneath it was gone. No scar remained when Yuji lifted his hand.
Yashamaru stared.
What technique was that.
Sakamoto opened his eyes.
Yuji stood and moved to Pakura. He used the Mystical Palm Technique properly this time, working through her shoulder injury with steady hands. Pakura kept her head down and said nothing. She was waiting for the rebuke.
It didn't come. Yuji's expression stayed easy throughout.
"Now you know what they're actually like," he said, when he was done. "The Hidden Mist specializes in this, concealment, tracking, counter-reconnaissance, waiting. They had probably noticed you long before they moved.
They let you keep searching because they were watching you first." He looked between her and Sakamoto. "A search that obvious gives them everything they need and costs them nothing."
He studied the four of them for a moment.
"I think I overestimated what you were ready for. Real combat and daily training are different things, that's not a criticism, it's just true. For now I'll stay with you directly."
He said it without particular weight. Arai had done the same for him once, worked from the shadows, staying close enough to intervene, until the people he was responsible for had built enough experience to take care of themselves. Yuji would do the same here.
Yashamaru and Fukushima Taki had also run into contact on their side, two Hidden Mist ninja, dealt with well enough given that Yashamaru was present. His combat level had its limits, but two opponents with his experience alongside was manageable. Yuji had resolved that situation before coming to Pakura and Sakamoto.
"The area's clear. Eight Hidden Mist ninja total, their position destroyed. We can move on." He looked at the subdued faces around him and laughed. "Don't let it sit too heavy. First mission, first contact, this is what it looks like. You'll get better. I'm certain of that."
Yashamaru added something quiet and kind from the side.
Fukushima Taki looked up at Yuji. "You searched the whole area by yourself?"
"More or less."
"And the enemies..."
"Handled along the way. It wasn't particularly difficult."
The four of them absorbed this in silence, each arriving at the same arithmetic independently. Their two groups hadn't finished their assigned sections.
Yuji had covered the entire area alone, redirected to rescue both groups in the middle of it, and eliminated eight Hidden Mist ninja without any of them noticing he had been doing it.
"He's unreal," Fukushima Taki said under his breath, not quite meaning to say it aloud.
None of them had the framework to picture how it had been done.
...
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