Chapter 13 - Dangerous task, the shadows of a third shinobi world war (2)

Yuhi Kurenai

______________

My father is a Jonin. He lived his life on a battlefield and somehow survived long enough to even find love and have a child, me.

I love him from the depths of my heart, he is always reliable, always knows what to do, he is the man I respect the most, and I want to be like him, a master of Genjutsu with incredible skills and mind.

To this purpose, I trained day after day, doing my best to become a powerful Kunoichi, but I feel like my efforts are useless...

Despite my father's help, I can't surpass my colleagues in anything. Be it Asuma, Kakashi, or Tetsuya, all of them surpass me in everything but Genjutsu.

Why?

I train my body, I train my mind, and even my chakra control so why?

What am I doing wrong? Why can Tetsuya who doesn't even have real ninjas as parents perform Ninjutsu better than me?

I tried asking him the secret to growing so fast, and he told me that it's about understanding the system, he said that if I comprehended Chakra as well as he, then, I would probably grow stronger faster than him, and that if applied to either Asuma or Kakashi, they wouldn't just grow faster than him, they would leave him in the dust, and that part of the reason he is growing faster is also due to a trick Anko had developed by herself and taught him.

But...

I don't understand, what does he know about Chakra that I don't? Does he have books from other villages? Did Kakashi help him? How could Anko's assistance be of any use? She doesn't even have grades worth noticing so why?

In the end, I could only sigh helplessly and continue with my training, perhaps things would change one day, but I still couldn't help but look at him with envy.

Years went on like that and through my efforts, I graduated from the Academy at nine years old.

Surprisingly, I was assigned to Kakashi and Tetsuya's temporary team.

Working with the 'best rookies', as the others called them, proved to be a hard task, they took me directly to a C-rank task after joining, and due to only participating in these types of tasks I was quickly growing stronger.

My ability to fight grew so much that I was probably twice as strong compared to a year ago after I had just joined their team.

I still couldn't compare with either Kakashi or Tetsuya, but I was starting to notice what he had meant by understanding Chakra, I would have grown stronger much quick with my current knowledge if I had to start from zero, so it made sense that one who understood Chakra well would grow faster than one that did not.

Despite the doubts about the source of his knowledge, I had to admit that he was quite amazing, and I started to admire him a little.

But the main reason behind this was probably the way he treated me. Kakashi was gentle and reserved and was always pretending to trust me, but Tetsuya was very open and vocal of his true feelings, he never hesitated to speak his mind when it came to missions, so even though he questioned my abilities... unlike Kakashi that was just lying to protect my feelings somewhat, Tetsuya was being straightforward about not wanting me to suffer needlessly.

And that's why I started to feel like that, because unlike Kakashi, and unlike everyone else, Tetsuya didn't just lie, instead, he choose to help me and not because I was beautiful or a girl, but because I was his teammate! And... he probably didn't want anyone to drag them down needlessly...

This somehow made me look up to him even more than I did to Kakashi, who was chosen to be the team leader due to being stronger than Tetsuya. All because he seemed much more professional and mature about our status.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with what Kakashi did personally, but as a Kunoichi... It helped a lot that Tetsuya didn't hesitate to point out the problems I had so that I could train and fix those issues.

And now they finally came in hand as we were ambushed by a group of Iwagakure-nin, from avoiding the explosion to successfully trapping my enemies in my Genjutsu, it was all mostly thanks to Tetsuya selfless guidance to increase my performance as a member of his team.

And now that this issue has been taken care of, it's time to interrogate the enemy.

...

The team gathered together at the campsite, tied down on the ground in front of us were two shinobi of Iwagakure. Like the others, their whole body was warped in cloth and none of them carried a forehead protector, if it wasn't for them using Iwagakure's signature techniques, we wouldn't have known their identity.

"We should interrogate them, see why they attacked, and what their goals are," Tetsuya spoke. He was frowning and I could see that he was annoyed with them.

"Arata will do the interrogation," Kakashi started. "and you'll come with me to search around the perimeter. We can't make the same mistake again."

Kakashi was visibly unsatisfied with how things went, successfully fending the enemies off was different than preventing them from attacking. As ninjas, it was shameful of them for not being able to detect the enemies' traces when the strongest among them was barely at the level of a Chunin.

At least, that was how I thought he was feeling, saying we should have been able to do that is too much of a stretch. While we are all talented, there's no way someone of our age would be able to do everything perfectly when this is our first time going through such a situation.

Tetsuya and Kakashi left leaving me and Arata behind.

He crouched near them and looked at the shinobi in the eyes, and like magic, their gaze became unfocused they started looking at us groggily.

"How?!" I was astonished. How could he put them in a genjutsu so fast? This speed was so much that I didn't even have time to think about how I would do it in his place.

"The Sharingan, of course."

Although he only said that, I couldn't help but frown at that. Arata wasn't known for his genjutsu skills, when speaking of his reputation, people usually praised him as Quick Hands, as his speed of casting Ninjutsu was the highest among the new generation of Konohagakure-nin.

"I don't believe the Sharingan is this powerful!"

I said somewhat angered. Maybe my judgment was clouded due to him looking down on me before we left to complete the task, but I couldn't stand this guy, there was just something about him that made me want to punch him in the face, maybe it was that smug look on his face or the aura of arrogance around him.

Arata smiled hearing my words, I could tell he didn't care in the slightest. Being treated like that made me even angrier, and his next words made me flush with rage welling up in my mind.

"I never asked you to do it."

"You-"

I wanted to question why he was so rude to me, but before I could ask so he started the interrogation and treated me like air. If it wasn't for the sake of the mission, I would have surely taught him a lesson.

Watching as he interrogated the two, I vowed in my heart that I would one day humiliate him in the art that his clan most prided themselves in, Genjutsu! And I would do so even if it was the last thing I did in my life!

"What are you doing here? Who sent you?" Arata asked, completely forgetting my existence.

The shinobi he asked to struggled for a moment but he gave in to the pressure a moment later and said. "We... we were told to surround Takigakure, to prevent anyone from entering or leaving the village..."

"How many of you are there? What are the levels of strength?"

The man thought for a moment and then he answered truthfully. "I'm not completely sure, I only know that one Jonin is leading the search in and outside of Takigakure... Our search unity has a thousand Genin and ten Chunin in total. The only reason we didn't storm Takigakure is that they are rumored to have a powerful Jinchuriki and more than a hundred elite Jonin... on their side... the village can't afford to send its elite to Takigakure because A and Blue B have been spotted at the borderlands and we had some conflicts, the Tsuchikage is afraid that Kumo might be preparing to go to war..."

When he said those words, all the anger inside me disappeared as I felt my legs growing softer and losing strength. "Arata!"

"I know!" Arata replied quickly with a frown on his head as the seriousness and difficulty of this task seemingly grew to a whole new level!

Knowing that we looked at each other and nodded, this mission had just become more dangerous.

I took out my kunai and quickly finished the two, seeing them dying didn't affect me as it did in my first mission, but the blood on my hand still made me shudder a little, but there wasn't time to think about this, the sooner we finished this mission the better. The Hokage had to know what was happening!