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Naruto Saga » Hi no Kuni » Konohagakure » Team Mihoko: Take One! [Private | Plot | Mission]

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Serah

Serah


D-rank
Mission Info:
Mission Info:

“A mission?!” Junichi exclaimed. “Are you serious?!”

“Yes, quite,” Mihoko-sensei replied. “In fact, you’ll be taking two.” She threw two scrolls, one at Hirotsugu, and the other at Serah, both of whom caught it, Hirotsugu with one hand, Serah with two, while Junichi crossed his arms in vexation. “The first will be to take out a group of adults – Genin – who have been causing havoc in one of the few neighbourhoods around Konoha. The second will be to take out another group of adults all the way down at the village docks”

“It’s not enough you’re telling us to do missions on a Sunday, but now we have to travel all the way down to the docks to do it!?” Junichi protested again. “Come on, sensei! It’s a Sunday! Let us relax! We fought off that giant bear and gave someone centipede soup this week! Doesn’t that account for something?”

“I have to say, he has a point, sensei,” Hirotsugu backed him up, even as he pocketed the mission scroll in his backpocket. “We’ve had a really rough week. Is there a reason you’re giving us two missions on our usual rest day?”

Seeing her three Genin look expectantly towards her for an answer, she sighed, leaning against the large rock behind her. It was true that it was unusual, and almost not done in several years, that they would have to work on Sundays. Be it team exercises, training, or even missions, the team would normally have Sunday off, meeting only in the mornings as was customary to give a small debriefing of their week, before her team would try to goad her into joining them for one of their many social activities planned for the day. Mihoko, not being one for such activities, often succeeded in dodging their attempts. Often, of course.

“Yes,” she replied after awhile. “There is a reason I’m putting you three on a more stringent routine, and I’ll be enforcing this rule for the next few weeks to come.” Ignoring the collective groans of her students, she continued, “The reason is simple enough. I think you’ve been Genin for far too long.”

“Wait, does that mean-?” Serah began, only to be cut off by Junichi’s loud outburst.

“We’re going to become Chunin?!” Junichi shouted in excitement.

“About damn time,” Hirotsugu replied.

“Quiet!” Mihoko-sensei snapped, reigning in her Genins’ excitement. “You three are currently being recommended for a promotion to Chunin. It may have come at a later age than most of your peers, but you are certainly more than prepared to undertake the role with your individual skills. What needs to be tested, however, for this unit to remain as it is unless you want to be reassigned to other teams, would be the amount of discipline you can draw whenever needed. Hence, I’ve decided to give you two time-sensitive missions within the span of one day, both of which push the limits of what you can do. I will be accompanying you on these two missions to evaluate your progress and performance, and I will not step in unless absolutely necessary, which, considering your skills, shouldn’t be required so long as you work together as a team. Understood?”

“You got it, sensei!” Serah answered.

“Very well then. I will give you your evaluation at the end of the day.”

“You heard the lady! If we want a promotion we have to do this right!” Hirotsugu pushed enthusiastically, and dashed off in the direction of Konoha, sprinting out of their training grounds with Serah and Junichi on his heels, both of whom trusted he knew the coordinates, given that he had the mission scroll.

“Wait, Serah!” Mihoko said, stopping the girl with a hand to her shoulder as Hirotsugu and Junichi dashed away. Serah turned to look at her sensei, confusion evident but questions on hold. “While you’re on this mission, I want you to be ensure that you keep an eye out for Hirotsugu and Junichi. I know they can take care of themselves, but Hirotsugu has complacency due to his skills, while Junichi just doesn’t have the head to look out for his surroundings.”

“You’re worrying too much, sensei! They’ll be just fine!”

“Serah.” The girl perked up and turned serious at the stern voice. “I want you to remember these aren’t just any normal missions. They are part of your ticket to Chunin and hence not to be underestimated.” A short moment of silence passed between them. “Do you remember when you awakened your Sharingan, eight years ago?”

779 words

Serah

Serah


D-rank
“Junichi, get the hell back here!” Hirotsugu shouted, but the boy paid him no heed as he swung from tree to tree like the his clan’s namesake.

“No way! We only have until sundown to find those bells and I’m not letting your slow ass get in the way of our team, Senju!”

“F*ck you! You get your sorry ass back here or I’m going to yank it back, you son of a b*tch!” Hirotsugu cursed, causing the girl sprinting from tree top to tree top beside him to raise her eyebrows.

Serah had never heard him curse before. He’d always been the cool kid in school, composed and not letting anything get under his skin. Junichi, on the other hand, had been his express rival, always trying to mess things up for the Senju. Where Hirotsugu had been the epitome of composure, Junichi had been the epitome of energy. The two didn’t mesh well together, and Serah had absolutely no clue what the instructors had been thinking in pairing these two up together, but she had full faith that they knew what they were doing, and so pressed onwards, jumping to another tree top and landing in a crouch, before taking off again, just one branch away from Hirotsugu, whom she decided was a better leader for their team than the hyperactive Junichi, although hyperactivity wasn’t a bad thing.

Just then, a huge snake tore through the tree Hirotsugu was about to land on. The boy, unable to readjust his landing, risked falling into the massive coil of scales that was the snake’s body, crushed either along its body or underneath it. Serah, however, had just landed, and exploded outwards, making a beeline for Hirotsugu and caught him by the hand. The two of them landed on a secondary tree trunk, sticking to it with their chakra and watching as the snake coiled around three trees, taking them down as it constricted around them, before staring at the two of them with slitted eyes.

“Take this you scaly bastard!” Junichi exclaimed from behind it, likely having moved to hit it from its rear. Serah saw a powerful burst of fire singe its back, only for the snake to turn around and strike Junichi, the attack seemingly doing nothing to him. Junichi, ever the monkey and the trickster, somehow managed to latch onto the snake’s upper jaw and yank himself away from its dangerous bite, before scrambling over its head and leaping back to his team. “Wooo! This is one big snake, don’t you guys think?”

“This is the Forest of Death after all,” Hirotsugu answered. “Wood Style-”

“Wait!” Serah called out, seeing an unusual shine to the slimy surface of the snake’s body. Only, it didn’t look as much slimy as much as it did- “Metal? I think its scales are metal!”

“That’s crazy!” Junichi retorted. “Snakes don’t have metal scales! They’re snakes!”

“Unless this is a summon,” Hirotsugu theorised.

Just as they said that, a monkey landed on the branch above them, bringing their attention to it from the loud creak of the branches it caused upon its landing. It screeched at them, revealing its sharp, salivating, and don’t forget sharp fangs, before leaping down at Serah. The boys, unable to react from the sudden ambush, were unable to do anything to save her, and the girl was tackled onto the ground, dropping several metres down below. Not wanting to land on her behind, however, she withdrew her kunai and stabbed the monkey in the back, only for his tail to catch her wrist just as the kunai was about to pierce his back. Not wishing to be outdone so quickly, she reached for the three shuriken she kept and forcefully scratched along the surface of the monkey’s back with her other hand. It screeched in pain, but its grip on her remained, and she felt the ground impact her back painfully. Her grip on her kunai and her shuriken slackened, dropping her four weapons onto the ground as the monkey raised its right fist to pound her head.

She moved her head to the right to avoid the punch, which drove a crater an inch into the ground, and she quickly brought her hands together and inhaled, before blowing a Great Fireball straight above her, forcing the monkey to leap back. She turned around to get onto her knees, but the moment she stood up, she felt a furry leg swipe at hers, causing her to drop onto her back again. She saw the monkey bringing its tail down onto her, and quickly rolled out of the way. Somewhere above, she could hear the shuffling of leaves against each other and could only suspect that Hirotsugu was engaging the snake, whereas a large exhale of fire informed her that Junichi was currently doing the same… which meant she had to take care of the monkey alone.

Her attention was diverted from her current opponent, however, when she saw something large and silver come crashing down onto her, and she rolled onto her feet before making a quick dash to escape the downward slam of the snake’s tail. She felt the monkey’s tail wrap around her waist and throw her into a nearby tree, dazing her slightly. When her vision returned, she saw the monkey’s left fist pulled back, but just as it approached her, she saw it slow down. Ducking, she closed her right hand around the monkey’s left fist to hold it there, before driving her knee into its gut to cause it to bend over in pain, some of its spit falling onto her white uniform, before she drove her left elbow into its neck, causing it to poof into smoke.

‘A summon?’ was her only thought, before Junichi’s cry from above caught her attention.

1772 words

Serah

Serah


D-rank
Serah nodded, eyes flashing red for a second.

“You remember how they were my summons, correct?” Serah nodded in response to the question again. “Well, picture this, Serah. When they just got out of the Academy, they were excited to become Genin. They couldn’t work together, they each tried to one-up the other, and you got in trouble. Right now, they’re both excited to become Chunin. Do you think eight years of teamwork will change who they are?”

“Come on, Mihoko-sensei, don’t you think that’s giving them too little credit?” Serah asked.

“Maybe it is, but you saw how they ran off without you, didn’t you? I’m not saying that they’ve regressed to their previous states. If they did, I would have to resign as a sensei. However, these two missions are very high priority, not just to the team, but to the village. They must not be messed up, understood? I will trail you three and jump in should the situation demand it, but otherwise, these missions will be written in your name first and foremost before that of the teams. This means it’ll reflect badly on all three of you if you fail either of these missions, understood?”

“I still don’t get what the big problem is, sensei,” Serah asked. “We’ve never ruined a mission on purpose before, and I know Junichi and Hirotsugu will have my back! We’re different than we were before!”

“I wouldn’t know about that. You, for one, certainly haven’t gotten any less optimistic.” Mihoko placed a hand on Serah’s shoulder. “Just make sure you three look out for each other today. I don’t want your excitement getting the better of you.”

Serah stared at Mihoko for awhile. “You do care!” she finally exclaimed, hugging her sensei, before she felt a shadow tugging at her waist and pulling them apart.

“Yeah, yeah. Just go do the mission already. They’ve probably completed the first half by now and you don’t want that to happen without you, do you?”

“Right!”

The girl turned around and sprinted off in the direction of Konoha, confident in her uncanny ability to locate the two individuals whom she had spent the last eight years on a team with. Sure enough, she approached them in combat with two, no, three people just slightly older than them. As she landed on the roof of one building, she surveyed the situation below her. Hirotsugu was fighting one of them, clearly more skilled but also holding back so as to avoid significant property damage, while Junichi was jumping between the other two, keeping them occupied while Hirotsugu took out his target, before their combined skills would overwhelm the remaining two ninja. Serah leapt up from her spot, somersaulting once in midair. Hirotsugu would dodge from one of his attacker’s punches, rolling to the side, but before his opponent could focus on him, Serah would land just in front of him, gracefully on both feet, legs bent at the knees to absorb some of the momentum of her jump. She would smile at the stunned adult, before performing a quick roundhouse kick to the side of his face, knocking him out.

“Took you long enough,” Hirotsugu pointed out. “He was beginning to get on my nerves.”

“Aww, was little Hirotsugu having trouble with that eeny-meeny Genin?”

“First of all, that’s not an actual phrase. And second, no I was not!”

Serah laughed at the slightly flustered male as she skipped away towards Junichi’s fight, who had just slid underneath a kick before leaping over a leg sweep, and landing on both feet before turning around and firing a Fire Jutsu from his arsenal at the two, forcing them to each jump back, clearing a path straight for his fireball. One of them, the one further from the edge of the street, was intercepted by Serah mid-jump. The pinkette kicked him in the back of the knee mid-jump, causing him to rotate backwards and fall on his head. The boy wasn’t knocked out, but Serah, too, wasn’t done. As he got up nursing the back of his head, she removed her odachi, and jammed the blunt hilt into the side of his head, this time knocking him out. At the other side of the street, she could see that Hirotsugu had trapped the other person in a clump of intertwining branches.

“Well done, you three,” Mihoko-sensei congratulated. Serah traced the origins of the voice to one of the clothed rooftops, Mihoko-sensei sitting on it ala a hammock.

“Mihoko-sensei?” Serah questioned.

“You saw how I took on those two ninja at the same time, didn’t you, Mihoko-sensei?” Junichi boasted. “Told ya’ I had more than it takes.”

“If you’re here…” Hirotsugu said in a suspicious voice, though his next statement was cut off by Mihoko herself.

“I’m not actually here. I’m a shadow clone, after all.”

“That means Mihoko-sensei’s probably already at the docks,” Junichi said. The three of them stood in a close circle as Serah pulled out her mission scroll, and Hirotsugu and Junichi peered over Serah’s shoulder to read off the browning parchment. “The village docks… Ex-merchants… Trouble… So basically what we went through.”

“It’s probably going to be some easy task again. It’s hard to believe Mihoko-sensei put us up to the task of rounding up troublemakers on a Sunday afternoon,” Hirotsugu said, even as the three fell into step with each other at a relaxed pace as they walked towards the village gates.

“Harder to believe this is what it takes to be recommended to Chunin,” Junichi said, resting his head against interlocked palms behind his head.

Serah walked to Hirotsugu’s left, while Junichi took up his right flank, and she turned back to see Mihoko-sensei staring at the three of them intently.

Below her, Serah saw that the three had been tied up together by branches, courtesy of Hirotsugu even as they left, as he always did with their mission targets. Various ninja used different, innovative ways to restrict their target’s movements until the appropriate authorities could get to them, and the village was already familiar with Team Mihoko’s careful, even if it didn’t look like it, use of Ninjutsu to corner and restrict any troublemakers in the village. Unfortunately, it was only in Konoha, where their craze was well known enough, that faith had been placed into them to complete the task without completely causing structural damage. Outside the village walls, however…

“I think we need to be more careful when we apprehend the targets at the docks,” Serah said.

“What, you think they’ll be anymore dangerous than trained ninja?” Junichi joked. “Come on, they’re just ex-merchants!”

“I think the point of this exercise was to see how we would manage troublemakers inside and outside the village,” Serah proposed. “One mission inside the village, one outside. Both of them about troublemakers.”

“It would make sense,” Hirotsugu agreed, putting one hand to his chin. “Mihoko-sensei is likely testing us based on our familiarity with the amount of discretion we exercise while on duty.”

“So, what? What do you propose we do at the docks?” Junichi asked, yawning in boredom.

“Let’s think about this,” the Senju spoke, though he didn’t continue until they were nearly at the gates. “The ex-merchants causing an issue was stated under the mission guidelines to have the same albatross. That means they served on the same ship. That would mean that, to rile them up, they needed to be riled up by someone they looked up to, like their ex-captain.”

“So, we take down the captain and they all go down!” Serah said. “Simple as that!”

The three of them, by now, had passed the gates, the ninja on duty already familiar enough with them that they’d marked their leave for the trio. As a unit, they took to the trees, all of them leaping up to the closest branch to their left and speeding from Konoha’s southern gate, past the vast luscious, green forests that filled more than ninety percent of the Land of Fire, straight down towards the village docks. While named and referred to as such, the village docks weren’t exactly within the village itself. Konoha, after all, was land-locked, as were most of the other hidden villages, although Kiri was likely the only exception to that rule, and even then it was likely only because of its proximity to its own docks. None of the hidden villages actually sported beaches, so all the villages’ docks were located outside of their respective villages, and for good reason. If a village was exposed to the sea, it would make an invasion far too easy. The docks that were termed Konoha’s were in fact just erected in Konoha’s name, a large shipyard more than a simple docks, and were worked by immigrants from various locations in the Land of Fire who weren’t afraid of being the target of ninja activities and simply wanted to get some hard cash.

The trip to Konoha’s docks took the group a little over an hour, as the three of them sped there at top speed. They had initially started out at a relaxed pace, one allowing them to conserve most of their energy, but Serah had then suspected that how quick they were able to complete this mission may also be noted down in the evaluation at the end of the day, and it was with that thought in mind that they hurried to the village docks, not willing to take any risks of Mihoko-sensei marking them down. Knowing the woman, anything was possible. They arrived at the predetermined location at slightly past noon, and saw evidence of fighting. In fact, a large group of people, all equipped with crowbars and whatnot, were still fighting, and the team was surprised at simply how many of them had the albatross tattooed onto their left arm, a stark black proudly on display against the pale colour of their skin.

“You guys ready for this?” Hirotsugu asked, and Junichi punched his fists together.

“Born ready.”

“Remember, Junichi, you jump straight in and cause chaos. It shouldn’t be too much difference. I’ll close off the perimeter in case they try to escape. Serah, it’s up to you to take down their leader.”

“Which one is it though?” she asked, after the Sarutobi had leapt into the fray and begun fighting near anyone he could see. Fortunately, he’d landed in the midst of the rioters, making his work of avoiding the clients much, much easier.

“My guess?” Hirotsugu said as he leapt back a few meters. “It’s the one calling the shots from the back!”

Serah nodded her acknowledgement and dashed to her right, planning to engage the man directly in the back before making her presence known. And then, she saw him. He was tall, lean, and tan, but that was as far as his traits went. She unsheathed her odachi, and dashed at him. She may not have intended to wound him fatally, but an odachi was good for more than just physical damage. It could deal a good amount of damage to his spirit as well, helping her end the battle before it had to begin.

The man, however, seemed to notice her. Turning to her, he charged at her without warning, not that she needed one as the Sharingan blazed to life within her eyes. Although it was simply one tomoe, it allowed her to see much clearer, and she dodged out of the way of his first punch, before jamming the hilt of her odachi into his gut. He doubled over, but his snarl was still visible on his face when he looked up at her, and she kneed him in the chin before jumping from his right hook. Wielding her odachi in both hands, she prepared for the man to run at her, only for a small branch to grow out of the ground, tripping him. He attempted to get up, only for Hirotsugu to land on his back.

"What happened to securing the perimeter?"

"I got bored."

And Serah, for the first time in months, facepalmed.

3858 words

–EXIT–


C-ranked mission
C-ranked mission
Sharingan training		1000
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