They were all little brats under thirteen. Xing Ran himself was only nearly fourteen; his birthday was June 1st. Well, another six months to go.
Still, Xing Ran was qualified to call them kids. They were all flowers raised in greenhouses, who had never even done missions like finding cats or catching dogs, much less left the village to take part in B-rank or higher ninja war missions.
Hai Yi came that evening as well, finding Xing Ran on standby at the clinic. A little girl who looked like an exquisite porcelain doll came with him. She had sparkling eyes, long blond twin tails, and stood only around one meter forty tall—a standard loli. Xing Ran knew her: Yamanaka Aya, a Ninja Academy student, the granddaughter of one of the clan elders. A troublesome little girl with a young lady's temper.
"Hai Yi, what is this..."
"Ahem. You know Yamanaka Aya, right? This concerns the mission. The details will be announced to the entire camp soon enough, so I'll tell you first..."
As though he knew what Xing Ran wanted to ask, Hai Yi immediately began explaining the situation in a somewhat disjointed manner.
Simply put, Konoha's operation this time was merely a retaliatory show of force. There were no mandatory kill requirements or destruction requirements. There was only one mission: crush the nearest Cloud Ninja camp to Camp E3 with overwhelming force.
The first objective was political. This was Camp E3, located at the easternmost edge of the Land of Lightning-Land of Fire battlefield. A hundred li ahead lay the Land of Hot Water. This was the border region where the Cloud Ninja's occupied territory in the Land of Hot Water, the Land of Hot Water's border, and the Land of Fire's border met.
Once this important Cloud Ninja