The Fateful Uchiha

The mission started pretty well. They met on time at the gates of the village. Hotaru and Kazuma arrived early, but Naruto was almost late. Yamato calmly gave the signal to leave.

The hamlet they were to liberate from the bandits was three days away. Almost halfway to the border with the Land of Water. The bandits that Team 9 was tasked with removing had targeted a village just far enough from Konoha not to immediately attract attention. Too bad for them, the information still reached the Hokage.

The trip went without a hitch. The weather was good. They didn't meet any trouble on the way. Kazuma had the impression that the universe was trying to give them a false sense of security. He also had the unpleasant feeling that the insects in the forest were watching him, but that was probably just paranoia. Jun was rubbing off on him with his pessimism! Yamato didn't look worried, so Kazuma did his best to ignore his discomfort. It was his first outing outside the village, he should take advantage of it.

Besides, he shouldn't be so nervous. He was strong, he knew it. And he should make his family proud. Jun was a jonin, capable of pulverizing an entire training ground. Izumi was one of the elite chunin in the village and was probably their only front-line medic. Neji was a Gentle Fist prodigy. Sasuke was the top student in his class. Karin was a destructive Taijutsu stamina monster. 

They were all so strong, so impressive. Compared to them, Kazuma felt he was lacking. He wanted to be their equal, to make them proud. And for his first mission, there was no question of him panicking and wrecking everything. No, he had to be flawless. This mission had to be a success. However, things went wrong as soon as they arrived in the village.

Team 9 arrived in the middle of the afternoon. But they had no time to take a break. The bandits were at the local inn according to their research. Yamato immediately headed for the building. There were flowers by the windows and a cat lounging on the porch. From the outside, everything seemed peaceful. But as soon as Yamato pushed open the door, Kazuma heard the loud voices and thick laughter.

There were a dozen people inside. One of them was the owner of the inn, a stocky, anxious-looking man who stood behind the bar. The others seemed to be scattered across the room, lounging at tables chatting, laughing loudly, and conspicuously carrying weapons. Katana, axes, kunais, there was a bit of everything. 

Four of the bandits were women. The leader of the band was a tall man with a scar on his temple, who casually played with a kunai. He wielded the shinobi weapon with great skill for a simple civilian… Some of those guys might have been ninjas; Kazuma realized as he tensed up. But it was too late to back down, the bandits had spotted them.

They didn't let out contemptuous sneers, or swaggering laughs, as Kazuma would have expected. No, on the contrary, the hubbub of conversations died down, and one by one, the bandits had a suspicious glance at the ninjas. Yamato spoke in a calm voice, which sounded surprisingly loud in the suddenly quiet room.

“We are Konoha ninjas hired to turn you over to the authorities. You are under arrest for causing disorder, theft, and various assaults. Surrender and there will be no need to fight.”

There was a moment of tense silence. Then, right behind Yamato, someone politely cleared their throat. Kazuma felt a chill on his back.

“Ah, I'm afraid I can't let you do that,” a voice said.

Kazuma suddenly turned around and froze. He hadn't realized the newcomer was so close. He was tall, intimidating even, with a bald head and malicious brown eyes. Even more disturbing, he wore a ninja headband with the symbol of Kiri.

But above all, he was pointing a kunai at the back of Yamato's neck.

“Those bandits stole an object of great importance to me,” the Kiri ninja continued.

“Fighting isn’t necessary,” Yamato repeated in a deadly calm voice.

The Kiri's ninja sneered.

“Necessary? No. After all, I don't get paid for it. But killing a Konoha shinobi? That, I will gladly do for free.”

Kazuma didn't even see him move. One moment he was threatening his sensei, and everyone was frozen. The next moment, the ground exploded, blood was squirting, and steel was flying everywhere. Yamato and his enemy were engaged in a furious fight. The bandits dispersed with loud cries of rage, and the three Genins jumped back, exchanging distraught glances.

“What do we do, what do we do?!” Hotaru shouted.

“We have to help Yamato-sensei!” Naruto shouted, ready to pounce.

But Kazuma grabbed him by the back of his jacket and pulled him back.

“No, you are crazy. We will only get in his way. That guy is way too fast for us!”

He was at least a chunin. Maybe even a Jonin. He was an adult, tall and strong, and if he managed to put Yamato on the defensive, he was strong. He leaped between Yamato's attacks and pulverized the wood that seemed to spring from the ground to impede him as if they were twigs. And yes, Kazuma was surprised when he saw his sensei fight with the Mokuton.

The Kekkei Genkai was supposed to have disappeared with the Shodaime Hokage. But the boy didn’t dwell on it, he had other priorities. For instance, one of the bandits, heading for the exit, tried to stick a knife between his ribs. Kazuma immediately counter-attacked, grabbing the guy's wrist and snapping it instinctively with both hands. Then he froze after hearing the bone breaking. He was shocked.

He had repeated the movement countless times before, but he had never broken anyone's wrist. He stood there in surprise... With his good hand, the bandit punched him in the stomach so hard that the Uchiha took a step back, gasping for air. He was hurt.

“Kazuma!”

Naruto and Hotaru rushed to attack the assailant with a cry of rage. The fights spilled over into the street.

It was total chaos. The bandits attacked with their fists and weapons. They weren’t ninjas but they had clearly received teachings from a shinobi. Hotaru only knew a handful of Suiton techniques. She found herself dancing between the blows, using her kunais to put some distance between her and her opponents. She was constantly backing away. 

Naruto immediately created a few clones, but the bandits remained bigger than him. They were able to deal with his clones with their weapons. Naruto kept creating clone after clone, but he couldn't get the upper hand with his numbers. As for Kazuma, he had thrown himself into the battle with a renewed determination. He was a bit humiliated by the way a simple bandit was able to hurt him because of his hesitation.

But he was still a ten-year-old boy, it didn't matter how talented he was in taijutsu. He was good with Katon techniques, but he didn't want to set the place on fire or burn the bandits alive. And if he took out his shurikens, he was going to hurt his enemies. The memory of the bone he broke, and the sound of it paralyzed him unconsciously. He had never hurt anyone before. He didn't dare to. He wasn't sure he could, and a part of him didn’t want to. But he was a ninja, and he knew his way of thinking was foolish. He was supposed to be a prodigy, and he found himself frozen by something as silly as fear of his own strength… Fear to hurt his opponent…

But inevitably, after a few seconds of panic… the genins took the upper hand. A first bandit fell, overwhelmed by a dozen Naruto clones, and was promptly knocked out with a punch. Then, another was knocked down by a lightning strike from Kazuma, and the young Uchiha bound his hands with a rope. 

Hotaru injured an opponent in the leg and knocked him out with a Suiton jutsu that threw her enemy like a cannonball through a palisade... One after another, the bandits fell in front of the clones of Naruto or Kazuma's blows. In the end, out of breath, the three Genins found themselves in a devastated street with unconscious bandits.