After Issei's mission to eliminate the smugglers, the port that he had killed them on received beefed up security and shinobi on patrol to keep from any more illegal shipments passing by unnoticed. Following this change, there were no more incidents at that specific harbor, but the country's smuggling problem was hardly finished. Entirely new, illegal ports were established on the smaller, less hospitable islands of the Land of Waves and the smugglers found more inconspicuous ways of getting their goods into the country, in the form of smaller ships, disguises, and advanced stealth-based jutsu. Nonetheless, the higher ups of the village discovered this activity and motioned to stop it all the same. This action took the form of another mission on the village's mission board, just outside of the administration building, and of course Issei couldn't pass up the opportunity for more reward money. This time around, there was really no need for him to go "undercover", so he wore his usual loose fitting clothing and a cloak, along with his giant shuriken strapped to his back and the rest of his ninja tools in the pouch on his leg.  His Kirigakure headband hung around his neck, bouncing against his collarbones as he ran into the wilds of Kirigakure.

Issei's destination was the northern beach of an island close to the border of the Land of Lightning. He arrived early in the morning and was to wait through the day for a ship to arrive, which proved to be painfully boring by the third hour without any sign of smugglers. The Momochi let out a deep groan and sat down in the sand, sitting behind a rock so that no one on the water would be able to see him without coming out onto the shore first. He looked over the side of the rock every so often, but nothing came. It was strange; the village had predicted the next shipment to come that day, and he wondered if their prediction was wrong. He wasn't allowed to leave his post until he saw something, though, so he submitted to the idea that he might've had to camp on the shore overnight if there wasn't any activity in the next few hours.

Looking out at the waves was peaceful, and the sunlight shimmering over them made the sand seem like it was glowing. What was unsettling to Issei was that suddenly the sound of the waves crashing was not lining up correctly with when the sound should have come. It was a minor delay that would have gone unnoticed by most, but Issei noticed it quickly due to his close attention to detail. It was far more likely that this was someone else's doing than a sensory failure on Issei's part, so he brought his hands together in a hand seal. Genjutsu, release. He let his eyes close and the chakra rush through him violently, disrupting whatever genjutsu was over him. The sound skipped for a moment and resumed its normal pattern, and when Issei next opened his eyes he noticed a small boat paddling towards the shore, still nearly 15 meters away. Issei jumped to his feet, catching sight of the man at the head of the ship, wearing a mask and armed with a longsword, likely the source of the genjutsu.

Issei decided to bring the battle to them, and he activated his supernatural walking technique to sprint out into the water, followed by his wave rider jutsu to increase his speed by letting a wave carry him there. The smugglers responded almost immediately, having noticed that Issei was free from the illusion, with three of the men rising to their feet and jumping out of the boat and onto the water with weapons raised. 3 against 1 was pushing it, so Issei brought his arm to the sky and activated his hidden mist technique as well. The sunlight was blotted out as the surrounding area was blanketed in a dense fog. The first of Issei's targets was to his right, close enough to nearly get an attack in with an axe. Issei ducked to dodge the blow and wrenched his shuriken free from his back, forcing it into the man's torso and pushing him into the water underneath. The terrain advantage between battling on the ocean and the visual block provided by the mist would let Issei harm and ultimately drown each of his opponents.

The other two came up behind Issei, one grabbing him by the arm and the other making hand seal for a jutsu. Issei broke free of the grip and reversed it so he could twist the woman's arm and pull it far enough behind her back to hear a sharp snap, before using her body as a shield for the incoming Katon jutsu. She screamed as she burst into flames, and Issei threw her at the man who had used the jutsu, knocking him over and leaving them both plummeting into the sea. The seven remaining on the boat started using ranged attacks in the form of wind-based ninjutsu and kunai, which Issei managed to dodge since the mist covered him. He reached the hull of the boat and stabbed his shuriken into it, causing it to begin sinking and forcing everyone in it to step out onto the water.

From there, he went for the weakest links who were gathering their bearings and preparing to use jutsu. Close combat was his specialty, so he used well-timed jabs, hooks, uppercuts, and kicks to weaken his adversaries one-by-one. He sustained more than a few cuts and bruises in this beatdown, but none enough to take him out. He put one man in a chokehold and drowned him, another had his throat slit by Issei's shuriken, another was hit in the face by Issei's Digital Shrapnel technique. Four remaining. Issei tackled the one who had used the Genjutsu technique on him earlier, and then swept his foot underneath a woman behind him who was trying to hit his weak spot. He tossed a kunai to finish her off, and then snapped the neck of one of the other two men. That left the captain and one other man, one on each side of Issei, as Issei's hidden mist jutsu wore off.

Issei took a deep breath, looking down at his wounds and wincing in pain. He didn't want to have to resort to using Spinal Tap, but at this rate, he would lose against the last two without it. He made the appropriate hand seals and the tail sprouted from his back. The genjutsu user backed away, clearly trying to put Issei under again, so Issei ran for him with his tail raised. The other man intercepted Issei and, with a sharp katana, stabbed Issei in the stomach. Issei froze in place and coughed up blood all over his attacker's shoulder. "Looks like you're too slow." Issei continued through the pain and wrapped his tail around the man's neck, coiling and tightening it until he heard it break, and then releasing the corpse to float away in the sea.

The genjutsu user had just enough time to activate another genjutsu, and suddenly Issei didn't feel any more pain and he couldn't find the last of the smugglers. He tried to raise his hands to use Genjutsu Kai, but it didn't seem to be working. He looked down at the katana still lodged in his torso and flinched. He limped out onto the sand and fell to his knees, pressing his hand just above the blood as if to hold some of the blood in. Just then, he saw the flaw in this illusion: since he had put a hole in the boat, it would have sunken by that point, but in the illusion it was there on the water and not moving. Picking up his giant shuriken again, Issei lobbed it out over to the boat and watched it disappear as soon as it passed the boat, followed by a cry. The illusion fell apart and Issei saw the genjutsu user standing there, the shuriken in his chest.

Issei laid himself down as comfortably as he could, still breathing hard. The last smuggler came and laid himself down next to Issei, ripping the shuriken out of his stomach and dropping it. "Your genjutsu was powerful; I couldn't release it. But it was flawed." The man chuckled in response before coughing up blood. "I tried, I really did. I think this is where I die...but I can say that at least we took you out, too.” Issei smiled. ”Oh, I’ll be fine.” He pulled the katana out of his stomach and revealed that his ribs had relocated to protect his vital organs. ”Painful, but not lethal. Just a flesh wound.” The genjutsu user’s expression dropped in defeat. He didn’t say another word, so Issei dropped the katana and picked his shuriken back up. He stood over the man and waiting to watch the life fade from his eyes to ensure his mission had been accomplished before turning around and making his way back to the village.

[ Exit, Mission Complete ]

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