First C-Rank Mission (I) [Chapter 25]

God! I hated my new life… I cursed inside my mind as I stared at the mission scroll in Yoruichi’s hands. This was supposed to be our first C-Rank mission, but the mission was much more complicated than that… I can’t believe they are expecting a team of two Genins and a Chunin to complete the mission, especially when we were not an infiltration team.

“Fuccckkk…” I groaned as I dropped my face in my hands.

“Yeah, fuck indeed…” Yoruichi agreed with a nod of her head. She sighed before putting away the mission scroll. “Look, I would have dropped the mission if I had a choice, but they practically forced this mission on me” Yoruichi growled in frustration before running her fingers through her hair. To be honest, I didn’t blame her from the start, instead, I blamed this world.

“Is the mission really that dangerous?” Namaikina asked with a frown.

“Incredibly so” Yoruichi answered grimly. “Yugakure (Village Hidden in Hot Water) may be a minor Village, but it is still a Shinobi village. They want us to infiltrate the village and steal something from a temple. Just like any other Shinobi Village, they would protect their secrets and special techniques zealously, so yes, the mission is really dangerous” Yoruichi explained in a grave tone.

“They didn’t mention the name of the temple, did they?” I asked. I knew for certain that Hidan was from Yugakure, which meant Jashinism was a religion in Yugakure, or I was simply throwing stones without looking.

“No, they didn’t… The details are extremely scarce” Yoruichi answered unhappily. “Unfortunately, most of the Shinobi Villages are preparing for another war, which means the security will be tight” Yoruichi added with a grimace. After that, none of us said anything. Grim thoughts were racing through all of our minds. There was a good chance that we might get killed on this mission.

Then again, getting killed on a mission was probably better than getting captured…

“So, when are we leaving?” I asked since all of us needed to prepare for this mission.

“Tomorrow, before sunrise. It will take us a week to reach Yugakure if we travel fast, but since we don’t have a deadline for the mission, I say we travel slow, and take our time…” Yoruichi finished explaining with a thoughtful look on her face and kind of agreed with her. With all the Villages preparing for another War, it would be better to travel slowly.

“We should probably disguise ourselves as civilians” I suggested and Yoruichi seemed to frown at that, but she ended up agreeing with me.

“Alright. We will disguise ourselves as civilians, looking for a vacation spot. That would also make the infiltration easier” Yoruichi admitted with a thoughtful look on her face. “Alright, let’s call it a day here. We leave early tomorrow, so sleep early and remember, don’t forget anything” Yoruichi said in a grave tone as she looked at the two of us intently.

And only after getting nods from both me and Namaikina, she relaxed and decided to move on… After that, we decided to bid each other farewell and decided to leave. If I didn’t know better then I would have thought that the top brass was trying to get us killed, but it was highly unlikely that they would do such a thing.

Firstly, they had spent a lot of money, time and effort to make us, so it would be a complete waste to get us killed. Secondly, the next War was on the horizon, so it would be kind of foolish to toss us away when we could at least bolster the front lines and act like meat shields for the heavy hitters… It was weird to think of myself as a meat shield, but that was all I was when compared to the heavy hitters.

So, I couldn’t think why we were given such a difficult mission… Maybe, we will know more after arriving at Yugakure, or maybe the being who brought me into this world was pulling the strings… Nah… That is kind of unlikely but still possible. Gahh! I will go mad if I keep thinking about this. Then I arrived at the apartment and found a note from Azui sticking to the fridge.

Apparently, his team received a bandit extermination mission… My lips and whole body started to twitch in annoyance before I finally decided to call it a day…

~~Timeskip~~ (The next day)

Last night, it took me quite some time to fall asleep as I was really worried about the mission. Still, I managed to wake up early and pack everything. Now I was on the way to our usual meeting spot… It only took me a couple of minutes more to reach the spot and Yoruichi was already there, waiting for us. Moments later, Namaikina also arrived.

The sun wasn’t up yet and the sky was still dark, which meant all three of us were pretty early… The streets were completely empty except for Shinobi Patrols. “Shall we get going?” Yoruichi asked as she jumped off a tree stump. After getting a nod from the two of us, the three of us started to head toward the Village entrance and then all of a sudden, Yoruichi signaled us to slow down.

Moments later, a platinum-haired woman stepped out of the shadows with her hand held out. Yoruichi stopped and pulled out the ‘damned’ mission scroll from her hip pouch and tossed it over to the older kunoichi. The older kunoichi caught the scroll with ease and opened it. She gave us a glance inspecting our team before she closed the scroll with a snap and tossed it back to us.

“Good luck, team Eta. Get going” The unknown kunoichi said before disappearing into the darkness. Yoruichi put back the scroll in her hip pouch and we started to move again.

“Who was she?” I asked, unable to hold back my curiosity. The kunoichi didn’t look much, but she was dangerous as fuck. I could feel it in my bones…

“Nobody knows, but she is dangerous as fuck” Yoruichi answered with a grin and the sky started to light up. I realized that a part of me was looking forward to the mission even though there was a good chance that I might die on this mission…