Satoru checked the pockets of the Sand leader, searching for any badges they might have. Meanwhile, Kaito and Chosuke dragged over the tied-up Sand ninja they had defeated.
Satoru opened the leader's storage scroll, sifting through its contents. Among various supplies, he found a single badge. His eyes narrowed—it was one they already had. Not much use to them.
Kaito glanced at it and frowned. "This name… it's from Kumogakure."
Chosuke raised an eyebrow. "So they haven't won a single challenge?"
"Either that," Kaito said, "or they just chose to attack others instead of competing properly."
With that in mind, Chosuke and Kaito began searching the other two Sand ninja. After a thorough check, they confirmed there were no additional badges.
Satoru exhaled and turned his attention to the ninja toolkits. He rummaged through them, taking out anything of value—poisons, antidotes, explosive tags, and other ninja tools.
Chosuke, watching him pile up supplies, asked, "Why are you taking all that?"
Satoru shot him a look. "You're a clan shinobi, so you wouldn't care, but tool prices have skyrocketed because of the exams."
Kaito nodded in agreement, grabbing a pouch from one of the downed shinobi. "Yeah, I could barely afford anything before we left. Everything's nearly doubled in price."
Satoru smirked. "And the Land of Wind has one of the best poison industries. These aren't easy to find outside their borders."
Once they finished looting, they tied up the Sand shinobi to a tree and left them behind.
Satoru activated his sensory jutsu, scanning for any other threats. The area was clear. With a quiet sigh, he motioned for the team to move.
—
They traveled the entire day. By the time evening arrived, exhaustion was catching up to them.
Chosuke trudged along, dark circles under his eyes. "I swear… I think I'm gonna die from sleep deprivation."
Kaito yawned but remained alert. "We should keep going."
Satoru studied them both. They were wearing down. He made his decision.
"Tonight, we take it easy," he said.
Chosuke cheered immediately. "Yes!"
Kaito, however, narrowed his eyes. "Are you sure? What if we get ambushed?"
Satoru smirked. "If anything happens, I'll wake you up."
They stopped in a clearing, preparing to settle in. While Chosuke and Kaito set up food and sleeping areas, Satoru focused on reinforcing their defenses.
Drawing his Arashi-ken, he began constructing the electric fence again. This time, though, he went further—charging it with significantly more electricity than before. The air around it crackled with tension.
Ichi turned to his teammate, his expression unreadable under the mask. "You're the only true combatant in this team," he said. "You'll be doing most of the work."
The man nodded. His gaze shifted to Satoru's camp, where the boy stood guard. "And you?" he asked.
Ichi's tone remained calm. "The ANBU assigned to watch over them will interfere the moment the assassination begins. I'll deal with them while you handle the mission."
The man accepted his orders without question. He turned to his two subordinates and motioned for them to follow. They moved toward the camp, silent as shadows.
Behind them, unnoticed, black fibrous tendrils began to form.
—
Satoru sat beside his teammates, his eyes scanning the area even as they rested. His gaze briefly landed on an empty syringe placed near Chosuke and Kaito's food bowls.
Then—movement.
The ground cracked beneath him.
A moment later, figures burst out from underground. The man leading them locked eyes with Satoru, his expression unreadable.
Satoru reacted instantly, shaking his teammates awake. Kaito and Chosuke bolted upright, eyes sharp despite their exhaustion.
At that same moment, high above in the trees, the ANBU assigned to observe them stiffened. He had sensed the intruders. His hands moved to signal an intervention—
Only for Ichi to strike.
A blur of motion, steel meeting steel. The observer was forced into immediate combat.
Satoru's focus remained on the three 'genin' who had entered their perimeter. Even in the dim light, something felt… off. Their movements were too precise, their presence too calculated.
"These guys aren't normal, pick your targets. We each take one."
The root nin unsheathed their tanto and attacked the team, Kaito brought out his own katana and counter attacked. Chosuke used his bo-staff and parried his opponent and kick him away, separating him from his team.
Satoru walked towards the man who was probably their leader, " I don't know your name, so I'm going to call you Jesse. Is that okay with you?"
"If your dying wish is to call me Jesse, then I'm willing to oblige." Said Jesse as he took out his katana, ready for battle.
'Should I use Fumikage? It's night time, so it'll be useful with it's stealth ability. Or should I use Arashi-ken? I have that strategy prepared for it. Fuck it! WE BALL!'
"Two sword style: shadow of the storm clouds!" Said said as he held both his swords at the same time.
Satoru rushed at Jesse like a madman and slashed at him with his Arashi-ken, Jesse blocked it with his sword and tried to punch satoru with his free hand, satoru ducked under his punch and slashed at it with his fumikage, making a small gash appear on Jesse's hand.
'There is a black sword in his hand? I couldn't see it." Said Jesse as he rubbed his hand, he turned to satoru and saw that there was a weird look in Satoru's eyes, 'He...he is born in blood. Is this why we are assassinating him? Is he going to be a threat to the root?'
Satoeu rushed ahead, uncaring for Jesse's thoughts, he swiped his sword from left to right, Jesse jumped over it and spin kicked satoru, the kick was blocked by his fumikage. Jesse landed back and set his sword on fire, and launched a fire wave towards satoru.
Satoru charged his Arashi-ken with wind chakra and threw it towards the fire wave, the sword crashed into the wave and ignited the winds charged in it.
BOOM!
A massive explosion spread high amounts of dust and debris around as Jesse tried to sense satoru only to find satoru right below him.
Satoru swung his sword upwards as Jesse used his bare hand to block it with ease, Jesse gripped the sword and tried to stab satoru, the sword went through satoru but he remained unflinching, the shadow clone dispersed as fumikage transformed into satoru.
"Wind Style: Breakthrough!" Satoru launched out a powerful gust of wind with several wind blades approaching Jesse with high speeds waiting to cut him.
Jesse blocked the wind blades with just his chakra augmentation, as the most the blades did was create scratches. Satoru took his Arashi-ken and retook his stance.
'No matter how hard I hit him, all it does is paper cuts at best. Do I need to bring out my big guns? What happens if even that isn't enough? What if I...'
Satoru's thoughts were interrupted as Jesse rushed forward with his sword and slashed at satoru, satoru caught off-guard, switched places with a boulder using Boogie-Woogie, Satoru's shadow clone kept Jesse busy while the original satoru hid and began cooking.
Satoru prepared handsigns and used Texture-Surprise to become invisible, he took out a tag and placed it in himself and used a handsign to activate it
'Just hold the guy back for 3 to 4 minutes, please don't die.' Satoru thought as he saw the shadow clone clash swords with Jesse with difficulty.
Kaito blocked a punch from the root nin 2 and feigned punch just to land a liver kick at the dude, the root nin staggered as he weaved handsigns for "fire style: fireball!"
The fireball rushed at Kaito with high speeds, Kaito also weaved handsigns and absorbed the fireball into a scroll and then sneaked behind the root nin with pure speed, he turned back to see Kaito smiling ear to ear while opening a scroll.
"I think this belongs to you!" Kaito said as a huge fireball opened up from the scroll and hit the root nin with full force, burning him alive.
Kaito wiped his sweat away as he saw the root nin's broken katana and his cracked katana lying on the floor, " that costed so much, I had to save up for 20 missions for be able to buy that!"
Kaito then saw chosuke being flung away from a jutsu as the root nin who was fighting chosuke weaved more, Chosuke maneuvered himself in the air and landed and saw several rock spikes rushing towards him.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Chosuke saw that Kaito threw several explosive tags to destroy the spikes, "hey! We should deal with this quickly, Satoru is getting his ass beat by that guy." Kaito said as fireballs started appearing around him.
Chosuke nodded, "I'll be your defence and hold him back, find and opening and end this." "Okay, lead the charge Chosuke!"
"Partial expansion jutsu" chosuke muttered as he rushed towards the root nin who responded with throwing massively large rocks at him with earth style jutsu.
Chosuke punched away the rocks as he grabbed a rock himself and threw it at him, the root nin jumped over it and threw kunai with explosive tags on it, Kaito launched a fireball to destroy the tags as the fireball exploded taking the kunais with it.
The root nin landed and rushed towards him Chosuke with earth gauntlets, he shot forwards a left jab towards him as chosuke punched it away and landed a right hook straight into the root nin,
The root nin was about to attack chosuke but the explosive tags stuck on his hand and on his mask activated, he couldn't even react to it as a explosion lit him up,
The root nin struggled to stand up as he heard "fire style: Fire arrows." Before he knew he was impaled by the arrows in his chest and stomach.
Chosuke and Kaito went to help satoru, and saw the guy basically run for his life and 'Jesse' chasing after him,
suddenly Jesse turned and saw fire arrows shot towards him, he converted the chakra coating his body to water and made the arrows useless, but it gave Satoru's clone just enough time to escape and shoot him with a lightning bolt,
Jesse, who coated his body water to defend from the fire arrows didn't expect that it was part of the trap, the electricity surged through Jesse as he grunted in pain, he stood up and suddenly he was punched by chosuke, sending him flying into the electric fence.
Zztzz zztzz (I don't know how to do the lightning sound effect)
Jesse's entire back was burnt, he fell to the ground spasming, satoru had completed his preparations and stood beside his team ready to bring out his big guns
"Chosuke do you want to see another of my combination jutsu, it's super flashy!" Satoru said as he opened a scroll, " hell yeah! I wanna see it."chosuke replied,
BOOM!
Jesse rushed forward and punched satoru with all his strength, sending Satoru flying, chosuke couldn't even react as he was backhanded into the ground, Kaito had completed his handsigns when Jesse rushed to attack him,
Kaito shot fire arrows and Jesse chose to coat himself with stage two augmentation, and easily tanked all of the arrows, Jesse was about to punch Kaito away but Satoru swapped Kaito with one of Jesse's comrade,
Jesse looked at Satoru with intense anger, "Why is he looking at you like that? Just which family member did you insult that this guy wants to kill you?" Kaito asked while evading several punches from Jesse and then used a smile bomb to escape.
"I thought he was a smart, stoic, calculated dude so I used a poison for confusion on him, turns out he's just a simple minded guy. The poison backfired and now he has gone completely feral." Said satoru as he redied himself to shoot Jesse with his big gun.
"Do you guys have any experience with genjutsu or anything to stop him from moving?" Satoru asked, as his jutsu was ready.