Ch19- Mainforce

It had been a few days now since the fighting had started. After they defeated their respective enemies, they decided to retreat in order to rest.

While the three Chunin were tired, Kakashi had exhausted his chakra since he had his Sharingan constantly restricting his reserves.

***

"Alright team, today our position will be with the main force. We will most likely see one or two Jonin who will be taken care of by someone else. However, if we end up facing one, you will support me while I take care of them. If we are attacked by more than one, you need to take care of one of them."

Although Kakashi knew it was very unlikely for them to have to fight an enemy they couldn't handle, he still made sure to instruct them on what to do. The life of a shinobi was riddled with danger and a small misstep could cost one's life.

This was especially so in a war, even if it was a small-scale one like this. His team consisted of quite the talented fellas that could take care of an average Jonin if they worked together. However, he knew they stood no chance if a rouge-nin on Itashi's level were to be their enemy. Luckily, that was his job since he could fight against someone of someone on that level without too much trouble.

Nonetheless, he still hoped he didn't have to bring back a corpse at the end of the mission.

(----> Quick clarification, he is talking about Itachi before he left the village, where he was still Kakashi's Junior in terms of experience.)

***

"FUCK! Be careful! Those three are all Jonin!"

Kakashi could only curse their bad luck. Everything had been going fine until someone suddenly assaulted them, which turned out to be a group of ten Jonin.

Although their side also had some, they were not enough to deal with all of them, and two of them attacked Kakashi simultaneously, while a third went after Semaru.

Luckily, Namaki was close enough to help him defend against the attacks or they would have a dead teammate already.

"You damn Hyuga swine, I'll kill you for what your clan did to me!"

They all felt despair at his words. They now had to deal with a Jonin only because that guy had a grievance against the Hyuga and was able to recognize Semaru as one. Luckily they were away far enough to not be heard by anybody else, which calmed them since it would be problematic to deal with such a situation otherwise.

As Namiko looked into the enemy's eyes, she felt herself freezing due to the anger and hatred she saw there. The most likely cause was that he lost someone important or was injured by a Hyuga, maybe during the third shinobi war.

"Be careful, that guy is Suzuma Tamatsuna, a missing-nin of the leaf. During the third shinobi world war, he fell in love with his teammate, a Hyuga from the branch family. Months later both disappeared and were proclaimed as missing-nin."

However, this confused them even more. Was the Hyuga woman still alive and if not, did the Hyuga clan have something to do with it?

"Shut your fucking mouth! You know nothing! Kakashi Hatake!"

All of them panicked, aside from Kakashi. They were scared not to be able to return to Konoha if this got out, signifying the need to kill him quickly.

While it might not seem like it, Namaki attacked first as she was the person that had the most to lose. Having to go rouge because of a mere Jonin and letting him disrupt her long-term mission would be something, she would never let happen.

It didn't take long for her to appear behind him, surprising everyone with her speed. The speed of her flicker had surprised her enemy, but he was experienced enough to dodge, slamming Namaki into the ground with a well-placed punch.

This yanked her team out of their state of observation, as they advanced together to keep their teammate alive.

"I lost everything! Only because those damn Hyuga pricks couldn't get the sticks out of their ass!"

They had noticed that the fight wasn't to their advantage. No one had yet to fight using higher-level Ninjutsu, but they knew that they had a disadvantage in that area.

Although all of them were able to learn a few B-Rank Jutsu, they were still behind by a lot when compared to their enemy, a war veteran that had been classed as a Jounin 8 years ago.

At least non of them had any dangerous injuries since Namaki was able to defend herself in the last second, causing their enemy's punch to be met with a chakra-generated armor which no one was able to notice.

While Semaru tried his best to defend against the onslaught of attacks, Namiko and Nazami used Suzuma's focus on the Hyuga to attack him from all directions.

A kunai here, a Ninjutsu there, or just a dropkick in self-defense. Not their fault he was an orphan and lost his girlfriend.

Most attacks didn't land, but the dropkick successfully interrupted his attacks, causing him to stumble forward and get assaulted by Semaru, using the famous gentle fist.

"H-How?! It's not working?!"

While Semaru was losing his cool because his gentle fist had become useless, Namiko was able to see a small smirk on their enemy's lips while Namaki was analyzing how he did it to give the information to the Tsuchikage.

"n-nha-nhanhaHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! IT WORKED! MY DECADE OF RESEARCH!"

She had finally figured it out, he had honed his chakra control to a level, where he was able to build clumps of chakra in front of his chakra points.

While it was less effective than the chakra armor of the Raikage, it did its job at exterminating the usefulness of the so-called 'strongest Taijutsu technique'. As if something so easily negated could be called the strongest.

However, she also figured that one had to truly put a lot of work into mastering said technique to make it effective. Using too much chakra would easily drain one's chakra pool in seconds and using too less would be a waste since the chakra points would still be blocked.

On another hand, a chakra armor would just block all the damage, which naturally had a higher chakra cost, just with way more uses.

"Those damn Hyuga, it took me SEVEN whole years to come up with this technique. Finally, will I be able to revenge you, Lin."

Although they had been fighting for only a few minutes, it had gotten clear that their opponent had clearly gone insane. Naturally, this was an abusable weakness, which they promptly decided to exploit.

"Sir, might I ask you why you hold such a grudge with the Hyuga? I don't like the clan particularly either but you seem to want to exterminate them."

It was Namiko who had asked that question, which got her an approving look from Namaki since she had truly learned a lot in the years they had been training, which not only consisted of physical exercise but also psychical.

"Exterminate? No! They deserve a fate far worse than that! Why you ask?! Those bastards killed my wife because she married me, someone they deemed unworthy of marrying into the Hyuga.

Not only did they kill her, but they also tortured me for WEEKS with her having to look saying it was a consequence of her actions causing her to almost commit suicide.

When they finally decided to stop, I had to watch how they activated her curse seal! I couldn't do ANYTHING while she was suffering and dying just a few meters away from me!"

This time not only Namiko but also Kakashi looked shocked. While Semaru knew how the Hyuga were, Namaki was rather surprised that they were that ruthless and stupid. They just killed one of their shinobi, which was dumb in her opinion. They could have just let her slave the rest of her life as a shinobi and keep the civilian as a captive, or at least let her be used to breed the next generation with another Hyuuga as the father.

There were hundreds of better ways to take care of her than killing her, be it with her being a servant, slave, or just child dispenser.

Although they were stunned, they regained their combat readiness again shortly after and were able to catch the still rumbling enemy off guard.

As Namiko dashed ahead, she noticed Semaru changing towards a different Taijutsu technique, which their late sensei had forced him to learn, while Nazami took out a few senbon and threw them near Suzuma to cut off his escape routes.

With all three of them catching him off-guard, they were successfully able to critically injure him.

"DAMN YOU! Even if I die today, I'LL TAKE YOU WITH ME!"

"[Earth Release: Great Trap Pit], [Summoning Jutsu: Challenge of Sun and Moon]"

"NOOOOO!"

Kakashi freaked out as Namiko pushed aside Semaru and was hit by a beam of glowing light while Nakami too was unable to dodge the incoming attack.

He was just able to finish off the last of his opponent when he was able to hear the cursed summoning Jutsu being cast.

Why cursed? Because no one ever returned. The only thing known about this Summoning Jutsu was, that it challenged the user's compatibility and no one had ever returned. The only reason something was known about them was because of the records of two entities that were said to have been just below the God of shinobi and the Ghost of the Uchiha. Though they had lived more than 200 years before those legends, causing most records to be lost.

The known things were puzzled together with the remaining records from all of the clans of Konoha and and the records of plundered and exterminated clans.

"[Chidori!]"

As he pierced through the missing-nin's chest, he noticed how his lifeforce had already almost disappeared. It seemed he had traded his life to cast this Jutsu since he didn't know how to do so correctly.

"Sensei? What are we going to do now?"

Kakashi knew that the chances were slim for them to come out alive, but he still hang on to that tiny ray of hope.

"Finish the mission. After that, we will report to the Hokage and hope they make it back somehow. Unfortunately they will probably be proclaimed dead after between a week to a month."

"Yes sensei."

Although Semaru looked unbothered by this whole ordeal since they weren't that close to begin with, he still felt guilty.

Guilty because he was too weak to protect his team, guilty because Namiko needed to sacrifice herself to save him.

Though he had an inkling that Namiko didn't do it to save him but to accompany Namaki, he was thankful nonetheless.

***Meanwhile in Konoha***

"Oi! What the fuck! Nozomi just disappeared! HEY, Yui!"

Pakura was freaking out. She just had a conversation with Nozomi about them possibly closing the restaurant for a few days since she wanted to check up on her student in Suna when Nozomi suddenly disappeared.

It didn't take long for them to realize that she was truly gone, with them not knowing where to. Thus it was decided, that the restaurant would be closed for a few days until they knew what was up.

A few days later the news were delivered to them. Namaki and Namiko had been forced to enter a challenge that no one had come back from since over 200 years or more and the chances for their survival was slim.

Thus the restaurant was temporarily closed while they had to explain why Nozomi had suddenly disappeared.