Chapter 12 - Dangerous task, the shadows of a third shinobi world war (1)

Team 1 was among one of the most successful groups of Genin teams, of the more than hundreds already present at Konohagakure, they were amongst the few capable that completed no less than eighty C-rank missions in the span of four years.

Unlike their peers who could at most finish between four to five of them a year, their performance was out of the charts.

Team 1 current temporary members were Izumi Tetsuya, Hatake Kakashi, and Yuhi Kurenai who joined then earlier that year as a novice recently graduated from the Academy, this, of course, was a temporary measure, as their official team will change once the official genin graduation test that they were supposed to take if they hadn't graduated earlier is finished.

Due to their level of experience, the team leader that had once been Ikkaku was now Hatake Kakashi.

Both he and Tetsuya had received special promotion orders directly from the Hokage, their current status is equivalent to a Chunin but that won't be officialized until they participate in the Chunin exams.

Having long prepared themselves, the trio gathered at the Village's entrance gate. Of the group, Tetsuya's appearance changed the most, he was ten centimeters taller than Kakashi, standing at 1.60 meters tall, and his hair had grown quite a lot, now being shoulder-length and somewhat unruly.

Strapped to his back was a long spear with a blue shaft adorned with white marks cast in relief, although they seemed to be there only for decoration purposes, anyone who yielded the spear would notice that they assist in increasing the grip of the spear.

"Where to, Kakashi?" Kurenai asked.

"The target is somewhere at Takigakure."

Tetsuya frowned hearing that. "Wasn't the mission supposed to be an escort one, why are we going to Takigakure?"

Kakashi shook his head with a solemn look on his face. "This is an emergency task given to us by Hokage-sama, I can't explain much yet, only that because only our team is available, we were entrusted to complete this B-rank mission!"

Hearing his words, Tetsuya frowned even more as he turned to look at Kurenai who gulped and clenched her fists. "Kurenai has only participated in ten C-rank missions with us... Do you think that's enough?"

"Don't worry, Kurenai's genjutsu is very formidable even for us, so long as we aren't careless it should be fine to take her with us."

Kurenai nodded. "I know you are worried, Tetsuya-kun, but please rest assured! I won't be dragging you down!"

Tetsuya hesitantly nodded and choose not to speak anymore, unlike Kakashi, he didn't think that she was ready.

"Then, why are we still waiting here? Are we expecting someone?"

"Yes, the enemy this time can be very troublesome, so we will be getting help from one of the members of a temporarily incapacitated team."

Just as he finished his words, someone flashed in front of them, turning to look, Tetsuya was surprised seeing who it was.

"Arata, what are you doing here?" Tetsuya asked somewhat surprised and confused about his timely arrival.

Arata smiled at the trio without minding the strange looks he was getting from them. "I was ordered by Hokage-sama to come and help you with your task, maybe he doesn't think your team can complete it?"

Kurenai frowned at that, it felt like the boy was questioning their abilities, and while Kurenai was just a recent addition to the team, not even once did she drag them down.

Kakashi cut them and explained before the discussion could grow. "Our mission is to escort a spy from our village that escaped from Iwakagure, he seems to have important pieces of information but he was discovered and fled to Takigure. Due to the sensitivity of the information, he was unable to send it back and needs to go back to Konoha in order to inform the Hokage personally."

Konohagakure and Iwakagure have been at each other's throats for quite some time now, there have been many missions related to this conflict in recent times.

Everyone nodded in understanding and the team left the village without another word, there were some small conflicts between them and Arata, but it wasn't anything big enough to distract them from their goals.

The travel from Konohagakure to Takigakure was a long one, even at their best speed, it would still take them about two weeks due to the rough terrain full of chasms, giant trees, and rivers and forests full of tall dangerous beasts.

Tetsuya didn't feel tired at any moment, his physique among the four is the best, after all, his everyday training ensured that his body was always strong, some even say that he is much stronger than someone his age should be.

Kurenai, on the other hand, had the worst physique of them all, with their pacing, it only took her ten hours to start sweating and breathing heavily.

With the group continuously jumping from tree branch to tree branch, Tetsuya silently slowed down his pace a bit so that he could talk to Kurenai. "Kurenai-chan, are you okay?"

Kurenai lowered her head slightly shamed and nodded. "Don't worry, Tetsuya-kun, I can still follow you guys."

"You don't have to force yourself so much, Kurenai-chan, here take this."

Seeing the small round pill Tetsuya was holding, she raised an eyebrow in confusion. "What's this?"

"It's an energy replenishment pill. Have you heard of the pills produced by the Nara clan? It's somewhat similar, but I concocted these on my own. They can nourish the cells and boost your body's ability to recover stamina, the only side effect is that if you consume too much of them in a single day it can cause internal bleeding." To prove that he wasn't trying to trick her, he ate the pill he had been holding and took out another one for her.

Kurenai hesitated for a moment but still chose to eat it. A few minutes later, her complexion got a lot better and she felt full of energy. Surprised by this result she turned to Tetsuya with a grateful look on her face and whispered. "Thank you, Tetsuya-kun."

He smiled at her and they continued their journey.

Eventually, the quartet stopped near the edge of a ravine. At its depth ran a long river that seemed to go on without end towards the horizon.

"Let's rest here for the night." With those words from Kakashi, they got busy setting up camp.

At this point of the journey, they were already halfway to their goal, and as expected ten days have passed.

While working on the food, Tetsuya was approached by Arata.

"Hey there, it's been a while since we last fought. I heard that your team never had to do D-rank missions, that's quite the accomplishment."

Tetsuya smiled slightly hearing that. "That's the benefit of hard work."

"Is that so?" Arata didn't deny nor did he agree with his words, he just sat down on the ground and watched the burning flames used to prepare the fish they had caught by the river of the ravine.

"How is that girl, Anko? I thought that she would have graduated by now as well, but..." Arata smirked. "It seems that I was wrong."

Tetsuya looked at him curiously. "Do you despise her?"

"Her?" Asked Arata. "No. What I despise are weaknesses."

Tetsuya frowned and didn't answer. He just sat there waiting for him to explain.

"You see, in this world, being weak is sin. When I was at the Academy and I saw that bunch of kids wasting a spot without doing their beasts or putting in the effort to grow stronger, I would always get a little mad. They claimed to want to become Hokage, to become great ninjas, or to protect their families, but they never tried as hard as their goals demand. Do you think I was messing up with those kids because I didn't like them?"

"That doesn't seem to be the case," Tetsuya replied as he took out a stick with cooked fish out from the fire and handed it to Arata.

The Uchiha smiled as he took a bite from the fish. "En, I wasn't doing that just because of my personal feelings towards them. Since they wouldn't work hard on their own to achieve their goals, I wanted to give them a reason to grow stronger... The Uchiha who could beat them up without repercussions because of his clan, only if they could be stronger than either me or my followers would they be able to have some peace. That's why I didn't mess up with any of you anymore after understanding you two."

"I still don't get why you wanted to help them."

"As I said, weakness is a sin, I was just helping them get rid of it."

Tetsuya chuckled at that, this guy was more kind than he himself realized. An Uchiha worried about people who aren't from his clans... a pity that his intentions would be misinterpreted and many would grow to hold a grudge against him and his clan.

Arata stood up and looked at the moon.

"Did you notice?" He asked in a low voice.

"Yeah." Replying, Tetsuya sighed as he stood up as well. Warming up a little, he stretched his arms, and as quickly as lightning, his hands passed through his pouch and something flew away at incredible speed.

The sound of metal colliding resounded and five men wearing wraps around their bodies, as well as tattered clothes, appeared.

Arata flashed above their heads, his hands clasped together in a seal as his deep voice echoed. "Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"

The giant ball of flames descended upon the group but they were not any slower than either of them.

One of them quickly finished a series of hand seals and spat a large amount of water from his mouth.

Water Formation Wall!

Seeing the appearance of a B-rank Ninjutsu, Arata and Tetsuya raised their guard.

From afar, they heard a big explosion and knew that both Kakashi and Kurenai who were responsible for preparing the traps and alarms had also been caught in a fight.

Caught unprepared, Arata was thrown towards the sky by the water formation wall that quickly receded.

Running towards them with the spear in his hand, Tetsuya performed a single Tiger hand seal using only one of his hands, and the flow of his chakra merged towards the spear coating it in a layer of sharp red chakra.

Seeing the uncommon appearance of the spear, one of the men tried to attack him using his sword, but the moment the spear and the sword came in contact, the spear seemingly cut through it, separating his body into two halves.

Surprised by this, the other three that chose to fight him kept their distances against him and started performing midrange ninjutsu against him.

One of them used Wind Release: Great Breakthrough, forcing Tetsuya to stick his spear into the ground as to not fly away.

Arata who was facing the person capable of casting B-rank Ninjutsu wasn't much better and was forced to activate his three-tomoe Sharingan. With their battle in a stalemate, the battlefield was divided into a 1 x 1 and a 1 x 3 battle.

The ones Tetsuya was facing were clearly very experienced elite Genin, but if it wasn't for their sudden arrival, he would have a lot more ways to fight them.

With him locked in place, one of them used Earth Release: Bottomless Swamp and managed to sink Tetsuya's feet beneath the ground.

Now that he couldn't move, the trio nodded and after stopping the Great Breakthrough, they performed the same seals together and started spitting bullet-sized bits of rocks from their mouths. Seeing this infamous Ninjutsu, Tetsuya instantly discovered their identity, no one but Iwakagure nin knew how to perform this, and since he knew what the Earth Release: Rock Gun Technique did, he didn't waste time and increased the flow of chakra in his spear while using the Chakra Enhanced Strenght.

The moment those bullet-sized bits of rocks reached him, they suddenly grew in size, with all of them being between 2 to 3 meters tall, it was like Tetsuya was facing a rain of boulders.

Waving his spear he broke all of them into tiny pieces using a single strike for each. Not giving them time to react he, spun his spear and hit the ground with such force that even with mud underneath his feet, it still caused a great explosion that launched a big cloud of dust upwards.

Falling next to one of the Genins, Tetsuya moved swiftly with his spear and pierced him in the heart, instantly killing him, the other two didn't panic and started casting what seemed to be a Combination Jutsu.

Because they were very fast, Tetsuya didn't have time to approach them and had to jump back as a powerful whirlwind of flames swept towards him. Given its high speed, he had no choice but to meet the technique head-on with his spear.

A big explosion once again resounded, launching a powerful shockwave towards Arata and what he believed to be a Chunin from Iwagakure.

"Tetsuya!" He cried in shock. Knowing that danger was only increasing with each moment, his fist tightened, and he increased his pace.

With a clash of Kunais, he spun on the place delivering a powerful kick that threw him up towards the sky, without wasting time, he took a group of shurikens and threw them towards him. With a single hand seal, they multiplied and he followed up with another set of seals which allowed him to spit flames on them.

The kunais that seemed to have eyes moved towards the Chunin shinobi who had no way of defending himself, they struck his body cutting his flesh, and killed him mid-air.

Seeing that the man was finished, he turned around and rushed towards Tetsuya.

On Tetsuya's side, he managed to withstand the tornado but didn't expect the explosion that threw his spear away, unable to reach it in time, he had no choice but to try and close the gap on his opponents.

Knowing that they would keep retreating in order to not fight him in hand-to-hand combat, he gritted his teeth and decided to try a new fighting style that he had been practicing. Chakra gathered on the sole of his feet and when he pushed forward his body accelerated to unbelievable speeds, but dodging the trees and other obstacles on the ground became twice as difficult as he followed behind his enemies.

When they noticed how fast Tetsuya was it was too late for one of them. Before he could even react, all he could see was Tetsuya finishing a seal and his hands being covered in fire. The moment Tetsuya's punch landed on his guts, a wave of flames exploded towards him, engulfing his body and a few trees behind him.

The other Iwakagure Genin didn't stop to help and just pressed forward hoping to escape.

By the time Tetsuya turned to him, it was too late as he had already sunk under the ground.

Sighing at that, Tetsuya leaned on a tree to catch his breath with a smirk on his face. When the tree behind him deformed slightly and a shadow slowly emerged from it with a kunai in its hand, he didn't even have to look, his hands still covered in flames just touched the tree and it exploded in fire, forcing the Genin out of his new hiding spot.

In the end, he just fell on the ground crying miserably in pain. Tetsuya didn't pity him in any way, since he tried to kill him, this guy might as well experience the pain of becoming ashes on his way to the grave.