First Mission

The next day, after the four gathered at their agreed meeting spot, Jiraiya predictably showed up late again, sneaking in under the radar.

"Jiraiya-sensei, did you oversleep again?" Uchiha Homura complained.

"Nonsense, you little brat. I was testing your patience. Patience, understand? You lot are wasting my painstaking efforts." Jiraiya put on an utterly heartbroken expression in response to Uchiha Homura's complaint.

However, the team members all looked at Jiraiya as if to say, As if we'd believe that.

"Ahem. For today's first mission, the Hokage has already given me the details. We'll discuss it on the way." Seeing that he could no longer keep up the act, Jiraiya had no choice but to change the subject.

Afterward, the group left Konoha Ninja Village together.

Halfway there, Jiraiya finally tossed out a mission scroll.

Minato caught it and opened it, while the others gathered around.

The mission scroll read: Eliminate bandits, Rogue Ninja, and shinobi from other countries sent to cause trouble within the Land of Fire.

Mission duration: 4 years

Mission rank: A-rank

??????

After reading the contents of the mission scroll, everyone was left with question marks all over their faces.

"Wait, Jiraiya-sensei, are you sure what's written here is real? The Hokage sent us, freshly graduated genin, to carry out such a difficult mission?" Soji was completely stunned.

He deliberately emphasized "freshly graduated" and "genin."

"Yeah, Jiraiya-sensei, did you accidentally take the wrong mission scroll from the Hokage?" Uchiha Homura asked weakly.

"Or did you oversleep yesterday and decide to joke around with us now?" Kushina Uzumaki chimed in with a complaint of her own.

Even Minato looked at his teacher with suspicion.

"Hey, hey, hey, what are those looks for? I specifically applied to the Hokage for this mission based on your strength. Do you think ordinary D-rank and C-rank missions would help any of you?" Jiraiya looked at the four youngsters with an expression that screamed, I'm doing this for your own good.

After thinking it over for a while, they had to admit that Jiraiya had a point.

Ordinary D-rank and C-rank missions were basically training exercises for shinobi at genin level.

Although they were technically genin now, their actual strength had already far surpassed that of chunin.

Those ordinary missions would be nothing but a waste of time for them.

The four of them simply could not adjust to such a massive gap so suddenly.

They had been told genin could only take D-rank and C-rank missions, yet here they were, getting thrown straight into the deep end. Their first mission after graduation was A-rank. Who else had treatment like that?

No wonder people in his previous life had said that Konoha jonin carried out easy missions, chunin carried out difficult missions, and genin carried out nightmare missions.

I love it. I really love it. So this is what Konoha genin treatment is like, Soji sighed helplessly to himself.

The legend of Konoha genin would begin with their generation!

Since the mission had already been assigned, the four members of Soji's team could only accept it.

They could hardly run back to Konoha, find the Third Hokage, and tell him, "This mission is too hard. We can't complete it. Please send a jonin team instead."

If they really did that, not only would Konoha's higher-ups give up on training him, even the Hyuga Clan's Main House would likely abandon him.

Over the past few years, Soji had received the Main House's full support. Otherwise, how could he possibly have kept up in strength with Minato, who had Jiraiya backing him?

"Then let's get going. But I need to remind you all: unless we run into special circumstances, I won't be stepping in. This is training for you. If I intervene, the nature of it changes." Jiraiya calmly dropped another bombshell.

However, after accepting an A-rank mission, Jiraiya refusing to step in was no longer difficult for them to accept.

In the following days, they wandered through the Land of Fire, going wherever they happened to go without any specific destination.

The scope described by the mission was simply too broad: the entire Land of Fire.

Even counting Jiraiya, there were only five of them. Clearing out the entire Land of Fire would be impossible without several years of effort.

Just like now, they had once again wiped out a gathered bandit gang.

Over the past month, Soji and the others had taken out at least eight, if not ten, small groups like this.

Most of these people had turned from ordinary civilians into violent mobs after the Ninja World War broke out, then gone from violent mobs to bandits, surviving through robbery and plunder.

Even when they encountered a few groups of Rogue Ninja, they were mostly only genin-level. Soji and the others could deal with them effortlessly.

"So A-rank missions are only this much, huh? How boring." After casually dealing with another Rogue Ninja, Uchiha Homura's arrogance resurfaced.

"Homura, don't let your guard down. This is still an A-rank mission. There's a strong chance we'll run into Elite Jonin from other villages," Minato reminded him.

Over the past month, Uchiha Homura had gone from being cautious and giving his all at the beginning to no longer taking this A-rank mission seriously at all.

Soji and the others found it hard to say much.

First, they truly had not encountered any powerful shinobi lately, which had made Uchiha Homura grow cocky.

Second, and more importantly, when Uchiha Homura killed a bandit for the first time, the shock had actually awakened his Two-Tomoe Sharingan!

Soji truly had not expected that this outwardly arrogant guy was so fragile inside that he had not even dared to kill an ordinary bandit.

After all, once Uchiha Homura killed that bandit, his Sharingan evolved from one tomoe to two, and the shock made him faint on the spot.

He only woke up after being unconscious for an entire day and night, and Kushina Uzumaki had mocked him relentlessly over it.

That was probably why so many people struggled with killing for the first time.

Soji and Minato had already worked together to kill one Cloud Hidden Elite Shinobi and cripple two others when Kushina Uzumaki was kidnapped two years ago.

Kushina Uzumaki herself had personally experienced the destruction of her country at a young age.

Therefore, killing during missions was not much of a burden for them.

Only Uchiha Homura could be said to be experiencing killing for the first time.

Besides, the Uchiha Clan was naturally emotionally intense, and Soji and the others understood that.

The gap between armchair theory and reality was perfectly displayed in Uchiha Homura.

As Uchiha Homura awakened his Two-Tomoe Sharingan, his strength rose by a great deal. He was now no weaker than Kushina Uzumaki.

After fainting from his first kill, Uchiha Homura gradually got used to it. Shinobi had to be tempered by blood before they could grow.

But unexpectedly, it only made Uchiha Homura more and more arrogant. Now, he did not even take this A-rank mission seriously.

This kid is definitely going to suffer a major setback someday. That was everyone's shared thought, but none of them said it aloud.

Because even if they told Uchiha Homura now, he probably would not listen.

That was simply how the Uchiha Clan was—stubborn to the bone, refusing to turn back until they hit a wall!

From Madara Uchiha down to Sasuke Uchiha in the future, they all had that kind of personality.

"Alright, let's take a break first. I just learned an important piece of information from one of the bandits." Jiraiya clapped his hands and called everyone over.

"Sensei, is it information about shinobi from other villages?" Minato asked.

"Mm. According to a bandit I interrogated earlier, when he went to gather herbs in the valley northwest of this stronghold some time ago, he clearly found traces of people living there. But when he searched for them, he found nothing," Jiraiya explained.

"What's strange about that? Doesn't it just prove someone used to live there?" Uchiha Homura, predictably the slowest of the group, voiced his question.

"You're really stupid. Being able to avoid a bandit's search without killing him doesn't sound like Rogue Ninja behavior at all," Kushina Uzumaki said, habitually snapping at Uchiha Homura.

That immediately made Uchiha Homura bare his teeth in anger, but the team's core mission was to protect Kushina Uzumaki, so he naturally could not fight her.

"They're acting so covertly, and they avoided casually killing an ordinary bandit to prevent alerting anyone. That requires a certain level of discipline," Soji analyzed, his eyes gleaming.

"Then there's only one possibility. They're shinobi sent by one of the other four major ninja villages to cause trouble within the Land of Fire. Killing ordinary bandits could draw attention, and it would also be helping the Land of Fire suppress unrest. They wouldn't be that stupid!" Minato made the final judgment.

"Mm, your analysis is all correct. Well, except little Homura here. You need to work harder, or you'll stand out every single time." Jiraiya first praised the other three, then looked at Uchiha Homura with a somewhat regretful expression.

"Jiraiya-sensei, could you stop calling me little Homura? It sounds really weird," Uchiha Homura protested.

"Hm? Then I'll call you Homura brat." Jiraiya grinned and readily agreed to Uchiha Homura's request.

Was there any difference?

Uchiha Homura wanted to keep resisting, but after thinking about it, he decided to let it go.

Who knew what even worse nickname Jiraiya might come up with next?

The others watched the scene while trying not to laugh.

"What to do next, analyze it yourselves. I won't ask any more questions." Then Jiraiya ran into the bandit stronghold, dug out some alcohol the bandits had stolen, and began drinking happily.

His attitude made it clear that Soji and the others were to figure things out themselves. He would absolutely not interfere.

"Jiraiya-sensei, we might be facing shinobi from the other four major ninja villages this time. There could very well be Elite Jonin among them. Are you really going to ignore this?" Soji was the first to protest Jiraiya's lazy behavior.

"Little Soji, with the strength of you four working together, you should be able to handle even an Elite Jonin. You even made me suffer badly back then, so have some confidence in yourselves." Jiraiya continued drinking, expressing his complete confidence in Soji and the others.

Was this a matter of confidence?

If things went wrong and the enemy had powerful shinobi present, they could lose their lives at any moment.

But there was nothing they could do. Since Jiraiya had made up his mind, they had no way to force him to change his attitude.

"Then let's discuss a battle plan." Minato took out a map of the Land of Fire and addressed the group.

They had bought the map from a small peddler during their journey. It was not especially detailed, but it happened to include the coordinates of this area.

Looking over the detailed information on the valley depicted on the map, they began discussing it.

In the end, their battle plan was for Uchiha Homura, who possessed the Two-Tomoe Sharingan, to take the lead and draw the enemy's attention. Then Soji would use his Byakugan to observe the valley and carefully record every enemy's position.

Soji would then relay that information to Minato, who would go up and support Uchiha Homura.

Soji would be responsible for dealing with enemies hiding in the shadows.

Kushina Uzumaki would guard the valley entrance and prevent the enemy from escaping.

This was only a provisional plan for now. If anything unexpected happened, they could only adapt according to the situation.

After finalizing the plan, they prepared to get some proper rest and head to the valley tomorrow to carry out the mission. After all, night was already approaching.