BSNW CH 081 Seeing the Dark Side of the World

Kurenai assembled the teams that evening to discuss the contents of the mission. It was a patrol and searching type mission, involving search for a certain bandit group that had been a nuisance to the Leaf recently. They had been harassing various civilians and travelling merchants, even kidnapping and killing many of them. The mission was a high C rank mission, and the Merchant Union wanted results within a week.

Kurenai decided to inform them of what they might be facing in this mission, "Hinata, Naruto and Shino, this will be the first time you would be going out of leaf, and that too on a mission such as this. This mission will make you face some dark sides of this world. You might emerge from this scarred and changed, but as long as you are shinobi, such situations will pop up again. Go and talk to your families, that will help."

Kurenai left after saying that, failing to notice the depressed shadow that came on Naruto's face at that. Karin, Hinata and Bahamut did though, and decided to cheer him up. They took Naruto to one of the closest thing he had to familial comfort, Ichiraku Ramen.

After a few dozen bowl of ramen, the group was finally satisfied and departed for their home. Naruto invited Bahamut and the rest for a sleepover, and they agreed. Karin was not comfortable with leaving Naruto alone that night in the first place, hence his suggestion came as a welcome excuse.

They stayed over at Naruto's for the night, chatting a bit about various things. They even told Naruto a bit about Uzushiogakure, the one that they were rebuilding rather than the old one.

The morning soon came and their sleepiness was washed away through nervousness and excitement. Everyone assembled at their usual training grounds with everything packed and ready. Karin had gifted Naruto a scroll and taught him though to use it, so Hinata and Shino were the only ones with a bag. Naruto offered to carry Hinata's bag, making her blush.

Kurenai came soon and nodded on seeing them all ready to go "Good, you are all here. Now, this mission is a pretty straight forward mission. With the six of you working together it should not pose too much risk if you all stick to the plan."

"We got it sensei" Naruto said excitedly "So what is the plan anyway?"

"We will first be going to the last known location of this bandit group. From there we will search or traces and clues until we find the group. Oh, and I am only allowed to interfere when things get out of your hands" Kurenai clarified

She made sure they were discussing among themselves before whispering to herself "Although with Bahamut and Haku there, my two strongest assets of Genjutsu and Senbon-wielding is already countered. And Karin will be growing up to be a gorgeous woman. Honestly do these three even need a sensei? I cant imagine anything that will stump these three up."

The group of seven journeyed on foot after that, to the mountainous area southeast of the Leaf village, where the bandits were last spotted. This was supposed to be a mission that could last a few weeks, hence none of them were impatient.

The reason they were being so careful was because they knew this mission was beyond the boundaries of a regular C-Rank mission, at least most of them did excluding Naruto, who was happily sight seeing on their journey.

This mission was classified as a C Rank only because Uzu Team was participating with Team 8, making them a six-man group. Six man groups would usually be two Genin teams cooperating for B Rank or higher missions, or an ANBU squad on its more dangerous missions.

They mingled around in various smaller settlements and villages along their way, transforming and mingling themselves amongst the locals to gain more information.

They would get some scraps of clues once in a while, but mostly it was just generic knowledge about some merchant group being assaulted or some raids in some villages. In the Shinobi world, bandit were not exactly rare. The only reason they were even going after this particular group was that they were more organized, careful and vicious than regular ones.

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After nearly a week of hard work, they managed to track them down at a cozy spot surrounded by forest and mountain on all sides, serving as a perfect spot for the bad guys to gather.

They had made a rough settlement with metal, stone and wood. They even seemed to have a hierarchical arrangement, building at the center being better and bigger compared to those at the outer regions. In total there were over 50 bandits in the area, with possibly a few higher ranking ones that they had not met yet.

They kept a watch for nearly a day, marking few bandits who seemed to be more familiar with each other and interacted often. The next day, they captured the people they had marked, and killed them.

Naruto, and Hinata seemed very pale and shocked after their first kill, Kurenai had made everyone kill the target based in Bahamut's suggestion. They wanted to impersonate to infiltrate the place, so it was getting two birds with one stone, getting the transformation target and getting new Genin used to death.

"It is the way of Shinobi," Kurenai said sadly "As long as it is any thing that threatens our village, we can't hesitate to take care of it. Its sad but the light of the village needs sacrifice of our innocence and stains our hands in darkness and blood. However, never gets used to taking a life unnecessarily, killing is but a tool for the result, not the goal itself."

As the two nodded shakily, Kurenai rubbed their heads gently and Bahamut and others patted their backs to comfort them. Once they had regained their composure, they transformed into their targets to mingle among the bandits. Karin stayed behind to act as a communication link, hidden under Bahamut's Meikyo Shisui.

Their successful infiltration gave them a lot of benefit, if seeing kidnapped female villagers getting raped and kids being tortured and used for entertainment could be called benefit. Though they barely contained themselves, they didn't lose sight of their mission, although Naruto came very close, so did Hinata.

Haku found some records being maintained of the bandit gang's activities and managed to swiftly copy them before all of them left the settlement. Naruto even made some clones to take their place in the settlement so that the original bandits would not be missed.

They gathered in their impromptu gathering spot deep in the forest before discussing the findings.

"Our suspicion was right, this is an organized crime group" Haku said "they are not some band of misfits. Rather they are being trained by a bunch of rogue Chunin from various villages and a certain rogue Jonin who seems to be their leader."

"The rogue Jonin is from Takigakure and all this bandit activities are just to gather enough funds for weaponry to attack the village the Jonin comes from, Takigakure." Haku informed them gravely

"Takigakure, I remember that place. Was that not where Fu was initially from?" Karin said surprised

"Yes, they are after some secret resource of the village but didn't mention what. The only reason I even got news of this supposed resource was because the moron who made the records was calculating if it would be enough for them all. They also have hired some mercenary Jonin, but no names were mentioned."

"Okay, let's summarize what we know" Kurenai took the lead "We are facing a well prepared group right now, much different than our initial information. As this involves a survival of one of the smaller hidden villages, this mission could go up to peak A rank, or even an S rank."

Kurenai thought for a few moments before continuing "This is much beyond our pay grade now. We will keep a watch here to see if we can get more information on these Rogue-nin. But we have to get the info to Leaf too."

"I can help with that," Bahamut said as he quickly went through a few hand-signs rapidly "Summon Technique: Land Dragon!"

With a slight swirl of dust and mist, a ten feet long Komodo Dragon appeared, with shiny, hard and viciously sharp scales covering its thick skin and huge muscular body like an actual dragon. It had a special huge scale on its forehead, shaped in the spiral symbol of Uzumaki and Uzushiogakure.

"Chikara, I need a favor" Bahamut kneeled up to the Komodo Dragon while scratching its head "I will give you a scroll soon. You need to take it to the Hokage in the Hidden Leaf. If any Leaf ninja stop you then just point and show them the Spiral Symbol. Do that and you can tell your caretaker to give you fried chicken tonight, I know you like them a lot."

The Komodo Dragon nodded intelligently and waited while Bahamut sealed all the evidence and records into a storage scroll he swiftly made. Shrinking the scroll and tying it like a pendant around Chikara's neck, he indicated Chikara to get going.

After Chikara had left, Kurenai asked about him while the rest of Team 8 looked at Bahamut curiously.

"That is a latest addition to Uzushiogakure, bio-engineered chakra beasts. Based on preferences, all Uzu-nin are given their personal bio-engineered Chakra beasts as summons, as long as they have enough chakra to use the Summoning technique more than five times. After all, it is a Space-time technique and takes a bunch of chakra."

"So anyone can get any animal of any type?" Hinata asked excitedly, her eyes shining and glowing in a way never before displayed. Seeing Bahamut nod she almost squealed in excitement.

"Um, if it is not too much trouble, can I order one from Uzushiogakure?" Hinata asked hopefully "I can pay for it, my dad would surely agree to a personal summoning beast to supporting a ninja. It is not an elemental Ninjutsu so it should not go against his 'Hyuga Pride'." Hinata said hopeful tone that turned to depressed voice by the end.

"Don't worry, I will give you a special discount on my name. You will be able to easily pay me through our extortion, sorry I meant to say earnings, from D Rank Missions." Bahamut assured her.

"Well, can I impose on you too Bahamut kun?" Kurenai said in a sweet tone that somehow sent shivers down his spine.

"Sure why not sensei" Bahamut agreed "In fact, we can even get your personalized beasts to be intelligent and have access to perform their own personalized techniques. Except for Kekkei Genkai and Special body Mutation, we have available option for all basic elements, including Yin and Yang release."

Bahamut watched as this news made Kurenai and Team 8 go into a discussion frenzy to determine their perfect summon. He was glad that he could get Team 8 to get over the darkness they had faced in this mission.

In the end, Hinata decided on a rare kind of bird she had once seen in a market, a Quetzal. She also wanted to have it in a larger size if possible, so that it could fight as well as the largest bird summons.

Kurenai decided on a pair of peacocks, however she demanded them to be White and Red instead of the regular Blue-green. She even fervently agreed to pay double their original amount if they had access to Yin chakra and were intelligent.

Naruto's choice surprised Bahamut and also worried him a little. He wanted to raise 9 different species of Foxes as his summons, one from each species. The term 'nine' and 'fox' momentarily surprised Bahamut and Kurenai, sending cold shivers down their spine, but they hid their expression.

Though Shino was interested in a few rare bug species Bahamut offered, he said he would discuss with his father first, as they considered bugs as their companions rather than tools.

Bahamut assured them all that he would get their requests to Uzu and have them deliver the beasts as soon as possible. They spent the rest of the night discussing about the possible combination techniques one can do with their summon beasts.