The newly activated heat vision had been turned on and off in an instant, yet the leaf that had been its target already had an incredibly tiny hole on its surface. This was...!
"What happened?" Junpei's voice interrupted Xing Ran's thoughts. Following his companion's gaze, Xing Ran quickly saw the devastated guard post. It had been attacked.
As the team's Sensor Ninja, Xing Ran should have been the first to know what had happened here. Unfortunately, he had been distracted throughout the journey. It was not until Yamaki Atsushi approached that he realized Konoha's guard post here had been attacked.
According to Xing Ran's group's plan, they were to meet up with their companions at the border guard post, rest briefly, then travel with the companions on patrol to the next guard post. After that, they would soon enter Konoha's territory. It should have been a safe and easy journey.
But now that the guard post had been attacked, a shadow had fallen over their return journey as well. Thinking of the six-man team they had encountered on the way here, Xing Ran and the other two fell silent.
"Who goes there?" At that moment, the remaining Konoha Ninja at the guard post spotted Xing Ran's group. They shouted a warning and went on guard.
"It's us. We just returned from our mission to Iwagakure. What happened here?" Yamaki Atsushi clearly knew someone here. He identified himself as he walked over to a Konoha Ninja with bandages around his shoulder and asked.
"So it's Yamaki. Sigh, as you can see, we were ambushed. The enemy struck while our patrol was out. We were outnumbered, but we sent the signal in time, so the enemy withdrew without gaining much. This is the second time they've attacked us this week. You could say we're old acquaintances by now," the Konoha Ninja with the bandaged shoulder said grimly. The place looked terrible on the surface, but there probably had not been any deaths.
"How many were there?" Junpei asked. It was also what Xing Ran wanted to know. If it had been a six-man squad led by a jonin, then it was likely the same group as before.
"There were six of them, and at least one was a jonin. They were dressed as Iwa Ninja, but many of them were skilled in Water Release ninjutsu. Their Earth Release was decent too, though most of their Earth Release techniques required several people working together." The injured ninja accidentally tugged at his wound as he spoke, immediately gritting his teeth. It was hard to tell whether it was from pain or hatred.
So it really was that group?
Given those identifying traits, not only Xing Ran, but Yamaki Atsushi and Junpei had arrived at the same conclusion.
"How long has the patrol been gone? When will they return?" Xing Ran suddenly had a bad feeling. I hope I'm overthinking this.
"They've been out for a while, and the distress signal was sent some time ago too. They should be here very soon." Just as the injured Konoha Ninja finished speaking, a four-man Konoha Ninja squad suddenly flashed into the camp.
The four either stood or crouched, and none of them spoke, but they had taken up several commanding positions around the guard post. They were disciplined elite ninja.
Seeing this, Xing Ran relaxed slightly.
After the newcomers explained, it turned out there had been not six enemies, but eight. Two "Iwa Ninja renegades" had lured away the patrol squad. This time, the enemy had become greedy for merit and tried to lure the tiger away from the mountain before directly wiping out this Konoha guard post. However, they apparently had some means of warning and had detected Xing Ran's group, who had finished their mission early and were returning to the village, well in advance. With the guard post's original traps and defenses in place, the enemy could not achieve results quickly, so they retreated decisively.
This had merely been a greedy guerrilla attack by the "Iwa Ninja renegades," not the opening move of a large-scale battle as Xing Ran had feared. That much could be inferred from the fact that the enemy had not surrounded the post to ambush its reinforcements.
They were probably short on manpower. If Xing Ran had designed this battle and had sufficient forces, he would first have surrounded the patrol squad outside, using it as bait to draw out the guard post's limited mobile forces. After dividing and eliminating them, he would have used an attack on this undermanned guard post as bait to lure in more Konoha reinforcements, then withdrawn before Konoha's large-scale reinforcements arrived, after inflicting heavy casualties.
"These damned rats! One moment of carelessness, and they found an opening. I need to request that Lord Hokage organize a dedicated extermination operation," the injured ninja said furiously.
Konoha had previously judged these people to be from the Land of Earth. No country, even when dealing with rogue ninja, would allow another nation to freely intervene in capture operations. The newly achieved peace between the Land of Fire and the Land of Earth needed to be preserved, leaving Lord Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi caught in hesitation once more.
To prevent the situation from escalating further, he had not immediately assigned forces to eliminate this group. Instead, he wanted to establish the "truth" first. The original plan was to communicate with the Land of Earth and wipe out the group only after the matter had been clarified.
The benefit of doing so was that it prevented Iwagakure from playing games of deception with Konoha. As long as Iwagakure officially declared that these people had nothing to do with them, then regardless of whether they were truly Iwa Ninja or Cloud Ninja, Konoha would have every justification to act as it pleased.
The advantage of this approach was prudence and thoroughness, allowing them to resolve every concern beyond the incident itself without leaving gaps. Its drawback was exactly what they faced now: too many procedures meant slow reactions, giving the enemy an opportunity to exploit the time gap.
Xing Ran did not want to get involved any further. Although his comrades had technically been attacked, all he wanted now was to return to the village as soon as possible. As for eliminating this group, that was a matter for the Hokage to consider.
After learning that there had been eight enemies, that the two who had acted as bait to draw away the patrol had been killed, and that all six attackers at the camp had suffered injuries to varying degrees, the three decided to hurry back to Konoha while the enemy was still weakened.
The plan to rest was abandoned. The three set off toward Konoha once more. This time, Xing Ran did not experiment with any new combat methods and remained extremely vigilant throughout the journey.
Xing Ran's diligence was soon rewarded. After they had traveled less than a hundred li, he spotted enemies slightly ahead and to the side of the group.
It was a two-man team, both dressed in Iwa Ninja attire. However, their forehead protectors bore conspicuous scratches, the same trait as the "Iwa Ninja renegades" who had recently been unusually active between the Land of Fire and the Land of Earth.
"Eleven o'clock, two targets. Suspected Iwa Ninja renegades who attacked us. Do we engage?" Xing Ran had detected the enemy from roughly a thousand meters away, giving them ample time to prepare.
"Are you certain there are only two?" Yamaki Atsushi had more experience. If they could confirm there were only two enemies, then they would have the numerical advantage. If they approached quietly, they could even launch a surprise attack, giving them a very high chance of taking them down.
"...No. They're too far away. My sensing isn't very clear."
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