Sekkotsu frowned deeply and said in a low voice to Daisuke urabe, "You said those two Konoha ninjas escorting the mission, one had thick eyebrows and wore a tight jumpsuit, and the other looked only about twelve years old?"
"Y-Yes…"
Daisuke Urabe's face was pale due to excessive blood loss.
Sekkotsu turned his head to the nearby shinobi and said seriously, "Who still has the detailed intel on the mission carried out by Hikari?!"
The nearby ninjas looked at each other and all shook their heads.
None of them were responsible for mission handovers, nor were they members of Hikari's squad. The fact that they could remember Hikari taking on a commission in the Land of Grass was already decent; it was unrealistic to expect them to recall any detailed info or intel.
"..."
Sekkotsu furrowed his brow and fell silent for a few seconds before saying, "It's probably a hidden elite jonin from Konoha. Record the descriptions of those two Konoha ninjas and distribute them to all our forces. Stay alert!"
ordinary jonin weren't a big concern due to their large numbers, but elite jonin were rare and dangerous. Even Konoha's legendary Sannin: Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade, were part of the elite jonin class. Every elite jonin from an enemy village warranted high alert!
"Yes, sir!"
The surrounding ninjas responded in unison.
After issuing the order, Sekkotsu looked up, his gaze sharp and distant, directed toward the Land of Fire.
A silver-haired boy...
From the description, he sounded very similar to that man, but that man was already dead. Could it be his son? But the intel said his son wasn't even in his teens yet.
Regardless, for someone of that age to possess such frightening strength, that brat was a threat that needed to be eliminated early.
They couldn't allow Konoha to produce a second White Fang!
…
Konoha.
After leaving the Land of Grass, Kaede and Might Duy traveled day and night without rest, returning straight to the village. At this point, Konoha clearly wasn't ignorant of the front-line situation, it had already entered a wartime state of alert.
The entire village was enveloped in a massive detection barrier, and the main entrance was guarded by two full squads, with at least one Anbu team monitoring from the shadows.
At the village gates, Kaede and Might Duy underwent a thorough inspection. Only after confirming they weren't enemy shinobi in disguise were they allowed through.
Inside the village.
The two of them went straight to the Hokage Building.
The mission reception area on the first floor looked vastly different from before. All C-rank commissions had vanished, and only a few scattered B-rank and A-rank missions remained on the board, all within the Land of Fire, such as bodyguarding the daimyo.
"You two?"
Still manning the reception desk was Shiranui Hanzo. He looked surprised when he saw Kaede and Might Duy walk in, then sighed in relief. "Looks like you didn't run into any Iwa shinobi in the Land of Grass. You got pretty lucky."
Konoha's scouts had already detected and reported a large-scale Iwa movement in the Land of Grass. Hanzo remembered that Kaede and Might Duy had taken a mission to escort a merchant caravan there. In such circumstances, it would've been incredibly dangerous. If they had encountered an Iwa unit head-on, they'd be done for. The fact that they returned alive was definitely fortunate.
"No, we did encounter Iwa shinobi."
Kaede looked at Hanzo calmly and said, "The mission went awry. Near the border of the Land of Grass, we ran into a ten-man Iwa team…"
"A ten-man team?!"
Hanzo was immediately shocked.
Four-man ninja squads might be led by Chunin or jonin, but a ten-man team was almost certainly led by a jonin. For Kaede and Might Duy to encounter such a force and still make it back alive, this wasn't something that could be explained away by luck.
"Well, at least you survived. If an incident outside the mission scope causes failure, it won't be officially recorded as a 'failed mission' according to the rules."
Hanzo lowered his head and began flipping through the mission logs to find Kaede and Duy's commission slip.
Kaede stepped forward, watching as Hanzo found the slip and prepared to mark the "unexpected Event" column, when he suddenly interrupted.
"Don't record anything yet. The mission wasn't a failure."
"Huh?"
Hanzo froze slightly, confused.
Kaede tossed a scroll onto the desk, then walked past, heading upstairs. "I'm going to see Lord Hokage. Duy-senpai, explain the details to him."
With those parting words, Kaede quickly disappeared up the stairs and into the interior of the Hokage Building.
"Mm."
Might Duy let out a thoughtful hum, walked to the desk, scratched his head awkwardly, and said, "Well, how should I put this, we encountered a ten-man Iwa squad, the client upgraded the mission to A-rank on the spot, and then we wiped out the Iwa team."
Hanzo was listening intently, but when he heard the word "wiped out," his expression froze. He instinctively thought he had misheard and interrupted in disbelief.
"Wait… You wiped them out? You eliminated a ten-man Iwa unit?!"
"That's right."
Duy nodded matter-of-factly.
Hanzo's brows furrowed as he stared at Duy. "What kind of joke is this? You know that falsifying a mission report is a serious offense!"
Duy shook his head. "Why would I lie about something like that? Everything I said is true. oh, and the proof is in that scroll."
"Scroll…"
Hanzo frowned and turned his attention to the scroll Kaede had tossed on the table. He opened it, made a hand seal, and said, "Release!"
Poof!
A burst of white smoke flashed.
In the next moment, a pile of items appeared atop the scroll, numerous Iwa forehead protectors, resting atop them… a severed head.
Hanzo's pupils shrank, and he immediately revealed a look of utter disbelief as he stared at the Iwa forehead protectors and the withered head among them.
Ten forehead protectors!
A shinobi's forehead protector was a symbol of their identity, issued only by their village to recognized members. Ten Iwa forehead protectors meant ten Iwa shinobi!
Kaede and Might Duy had truly annihilated an entire ten-man Iwa squad!
This…
Hanzo stood there stunned, mouth slightly open, unable to speak. It took several seconds before his throat moved, and he managed to croak out—
"You… wait here."
Since the mission had changed mid-course, escalated to an A-rank, and resulted in the death of the enemy village shinobi, this was far beyond his authority to process.
Hanzo took a deep breath and quickly left the counter to report the situation upstairs.
************
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