Chapter 66   - Ch66. The objective of the mission 1

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Rei and Konan were high in the sky on Konan's paper platform, watching a noble mansion that was supposed to be their target. Somewhere in there should be the daughter of the noble who requested them to 'save her'. At first glance, the mansion wasn't all that much protected. Some sub-par samurais here and there but that was all. For a ninja, this was a dream come true. An easy mission with high pay. At least, that was how it appeared.

"There are twenty jonin and thirty chunin." Konan grimaced as her scouts in the form of small bugs made from paper gave her the intel they gathered. Both her and Rei could fight multiple ninjas each but forty? The problem was, this was supposed to be a rescue mission so they can't just nuke it from the sky and be done with it. They would have to go there and actually search... which means getting attacked.

"The 'target'," Rei almost drowned in sarcasm. "is enjoying herself being massaged by very burly 'servants' who have quite a lot of chakra for 'civilians'... She sure doesn't look like someone kidnapped. Both of her eyes are covered with cuc.u.mber slices and her expression is more like someone who is having the time of their life." Rei informed Konan. Over time, his nature sensing became quite strong and he could now 'see' the surroundings through it. While he was somewhat limited and had to focus a lot to be able to do that, it was a nice skill to have for scouting. While Konan's papers could sense ninjas and their chakra, Rei got more visual output that told him much more than just general reserves, and if someone is or is not ninja, supposing the person was not restraining their chakra.

Their difference in the nature attunement showed. This kind of nature sensing was far above what Konan was capable of and that's why they both scouted the mansion with their respective techniques and decided to then compare the notes.

Hearing about the state of the supposedly kidnapped girl, Konan rolled her eyes. "So... what's the plan? This is obviously a trap." She asked.

"Hmm." Rei started pondering about it when his eyes trailed towards the right-wing of the mansion. "That," He pointed at it. "is empty, right?" He asked Konan who nodded in affirmation which made Rei widely smile. "I see, then we will..."

...

Barbo Reurenta was massaging the 'bait' while resisting the urge to groan at this kind of mission. The woman was a chore to be around. 'Barbo, I am hungry!' 'Barbo, I want a massage!' 'Barbo, I am horn-!' ... Barbo had enough. He was supposed to be a respected jonin of Iwa! And yet, here he was, satisfying every desire of a woman that was spoiled rotten. All because she would bait their target to this place.

The Downpour.

The mysterious Kiri duo of S-rank demolition specialists who surpassed even the Demolition Corps of Iwa in the seer destructibility. Quite frankly, the Tsuchikage was not amused by their existence. In the past, when someone needed a demolition expert, they knew to go to Iwa but that was no longer the truth. Now, Iwa had a competition and the old man Onoki didn't like the competition. Not at all. Not when they obviously were so much better than Iwa's top demolition experts. Hence, the current situation. He, the idiot, accepted the mission of 'hunting' The Downpour down without even asking about the specifics and now he was saddled with Kimiko Hugaru, the spoiled nuisance.

It wasn't that the woman wasn't pretty. She was gorgeous. Not a kunoichi kind of gorgeous but more of a sheltered kind. The problem was how demanding it was to be with her! He was a ninja and even he was starting to feel tired! Barbo hoped their target would pop up sometimes soon or he just might drop from the sheer exhaustion due to being ordered around by the woman!

'Oh, why! Why was I so stupid to take this undercover mission? I can't even complain now, can I? If I did, I would be an even bigger laughing stock for my subordinates!' He mentally wept. 'Not that I am not a laughing stock now! I was dragged against my will to Kimiko's chambers, after all! Me! One of the top assassins of Iwa! Sob...'

Needless to say, Barbo's subordinates had the laugh of their lives on his expense at that.

Suddenly, Kimiko arched her hand backward and raised her hand towards her head, taking one cuc.u.mber slice off of her face. Her eyes connected with Barbo's. 'Oh, shit. Here we go again.' He mentally groaned but gave her a sweet smile to which the woman beamed.

"Barboooo," Kimiko's whiny voice resounded through the room, "I am bored!" She pouted, pretending to be pitiful. It took every bit of Barbo's past experience and determination to not f.u.c.k this mission up to NOT scowl at the woman. The four subordinates of his who were massaging various parts of Kimiko's body were not-so-discreetly glancing at him with hidden snickers too! This was routine. She was 'bored' and they instantly knew it meant Barbo being made into entertainment! Last time, he had to do a geisha show for her! While his team members watched! The woman was ruining his reputation without even knowing it!

Barbo gulped. "Er... this... Kimi-" He didn't finish that sentence as a sudden booming sound resounded through the entire mansion, startling the occupants. Barbo's eyes sparkled in excitement, hoping that their enemies were finally here and he quickly jumped towards the window. His excitement turned into bewilderment as he saw the entire right wing of the mansion was almost leveled to the ground by massive tree trunks falling from the sky. "What the actual f.u.c.k? Since when does it rain trees?" Barbo quietly asked when he saw even MORE tree trunks falling onto the right-wing. It didn't take long for his eyes to widen. "F.u.c.k!" He snapped around towards his subordinates and shouted. "Out of the mansion, quick!"

...

Rei and Konan watched as the tree trunks they created were taken out of the dimension storage right above the empty part of the mansion through the MultiWLink on Konan's paper slice that was floating in the sky. Rei added his own twist into it and wove 'genjutsu' into the entire thing. His perfect chakra control allowed him to be quite creative but he decided on a simple approach this time. He didn't affect the people, rather the environment. Through light refraction he made it seem as if the trunks falling from the sky were slowly expanding their landing radius, therefore, it looked like the entire mansion was under the threat to be destroyed by them. For those in the central part, it looked like the left-wing was the next target and for those in the left-wing, it looked as if the next target was the central part of the mansion. It wasn't even that hard for Rei to do this and he really doubted this jutsu could be classified as genjutsu but it created an illusion so there! It was more of a wind and water manipulation in the sky. This actually made it impossible to 'kai' it since it wasn't created by influencing the chakra in their body. It was akin to a big henge on the entire sky.

"They are coming out." Konan said, making Rei smile. Their plan to get their targets outside of the mansion worked. The illusion made it seem the trunks started raining all around so they had no choice but to gather in one place and some of the previously seemingly harmless if a bit muscled servants instantly gained a dangerous atmosphere around them, spooking the civilians in the group.

Rei chuckled at that. "The chunins are going to blow their own cover. Just look at how they are projecting their battle readiness around. Civilians or not, the others started to notice." Rei commented, observing various jonin in the group curse. What made Rei surprised though, was that the samurai guards apparently were not informed about ninjas being present and started warily glaring at the chunins, their hands on the handles of their swords. This made Rei's lips widen into a nasty shit-eating grin. "Oh, well, let's start this party with a bang!" He shrugged and threw a kunai with an exploding tag into the sky.

The second the explosion loudly went off, three things happened.

First, both ninja and samurai drew their respective weapons. For samurai it was katanas and for the ninjas, it was mostly kunai with some taking out something different. Secondly, the civilians started to panic and run around like headless chickens, obstructing the visibility of the combatants and creating mayhem. There were around fifty ninjas and give or take a hundred samurai... but there were a hundred civilians too! And all of them were confined in a small clearing in front of the mansion due to the light refraction illusion! It was an unorganized mess. Thirdly, and this was very beneficial but incredibly surprising... due to the chaos created by the panicking civilians, the commanders of both, the group of ninjas and the group of samurais couldn't relay orders. As the samurais saw the ninja draw their weapons, they did what a good guard should do. They attacked unknown armed assailants. And ninjas reacted. The entire clearing started to become bloody and even more chaotic. The ninja might have been a lot stronger than the samurai but they had to avoid harming civilians so no strong jutsu were allowed, evening the odds slightly. Also, samurai were more experienced in moving in chaotic battlefields and in a direct clash. The ninjas certainly did start to take some casualties.

Both Konan and Rei used this situation to get inside the mayhem, henging into civilians while also lowering their chakra reserves to civilian-level. They ran straight towards Kimiko and saw Barbo deflecting the blows of three samurai while trying to talk them out of attacking. Nevertheless, he didn't have time to give orders to his subordinates. Rei resisted a chuckle and turned to their target, Kimiko who sat on the ground, utterly confused and frightened. The girl was a quivering mess by now as blood, gore, and guts flew through the sky whenever a samurai or a ninja scored a hit on the other. Rei gestured with his head towards Kimiko and Konan went off, with a nod. He approached one of Barbo's enemies and... stabbed him from behind. Killing one, the other two instinctively turned towards him but it was too late as two kunai impacted their abdomens, making them fall to the ground with groans. Rei looked at startled Iwa jonin clad in servant's clothes and quickly said, trying to sound distressed. "Come! Lady Kimiko is in danger!"

Barbo's eyes widened, his eyes snapping in the direction of the girl... and then his world went black.

Rei stood above the slumped form of the jonin, rolling his eyes. "Damn, man, a guy takes out three samurai in front of you and you get distracted? You must really like that Kimiko-girl." He snickered and put a tag with a restraining seal on Barbo's forehead, storing his unconscious body into a stasis storage seal. With that, he left the battlefield.

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Author Note:

Okay, I've seen a lot of people ask why Rei had to use a jutsu that could wipe out Salamanders. The answer is simple, he was forced to. The salamander elders broke quite a few bones and tore a whole lot of muscles by his Senjutsu/Taijutsu Attacks, plus their ninjutsu powered by senjutsu chakra, and voila... you get utterly outclassed MC. As much as I've written, the self-transport seal is instantaneous, and there is still a quite short window to hit him hence it is not as good as Hiraishin, nor is it meant to be. The seal is not a combat-oriented seal, after all. That's why it's not as used in a fight as it could be otherwise. The next thing is, Rei needed that small window of time to activate it and didn't like his chances of not being attacked during it since the Taijutsu Salamander was fast enough to completely surprise him.

The big, fiery attack was in the end, only a way to get him that bit of time and since he used it, he wanted to see the result. Simple as that.

If someone doesn't like that... er, nothing I can do about that :D.