"He is not like the one we talked about before, so don't worry about facing another situation similar to what we faced before. I don't think Renji is going to behave like that again, at least until we reach Konoha," Yukihiro said.
"Yes, sensei," Kaida replied.
All of them went to the carriage. Yukihiro knocked on the door twice. Hiroto opened it and asked,
"Oh! Yukihiro, long time no see. Renji told me that due to some complications, we have to travel with you guys. Thanks for doing this for us."
"The pleasure is all ours, Hiroto-sama. We are ready. Please gather all the necessary items so we can start the journey as soon as you are ready," Yukihiro said.
"Okay, just give us 10 minutes," Hiroto replied and went back to the carriage.
Seeing the conversation between Hiroto and Yukihiro, all three genin became sure that Hiroto was worth protecting. As for Renji, he could be used as a meat shield during an enemy attack.
While thinking that, an evil smirk appeared on their faces. If Renji had seen this, he would have felt an extreme sense of danger in his life.
After 10 minutes, Hiroto came out of the carriage, followed by Renji. Yukihiro told them that he would carry Renji while Kaida would carry Hiroto on his back.
Renji, knowing that Yukihiro was the strongest person, felt that they were doing this to gain his forgiveness, but he couldn't be more wrong. Kaida was strong and fast enough to save Hiroto in most cases, while Yukihiro was right behind Kaida to defend against any attack.
However, since Yukihiro traveled at the back of the formation, if a surprise attack came from the rear (which is often the case), there was a high chance that Renji might not even survive, as none of the ninjas present had any thought of saving him.
After instructing the bodyguards and the rest of the people to continue the ride as normal, Yukihiro and Kaida each made a shadow clone to travel with the caravan. Their clones had enough chakra to last at least four days before dispersing.
After that, they carried Hiroto and Renji on their backs, and all four of them started using Wind Instantaneous Movement Jutsu and Body Flicker Jutsu to travel large distances, occasionally running to refill their chakra before using movement-related jutsu again.
...
While they traveled, Kazuki was able to reunite with the remaining ninja. He sighed when he saw that only five of them had survived out of their original twenty.
"Were you guys able to kill any of them?" Kazuki asked the chunin.
One of them stepped forward and said,
"No, when we found them, they had already dealt with our two brothers. Since they were distracted, we decided to go directly for the kill, but suddenly their ninja dog started barking, and they were alerted. Another problem was that, unlike other Konoha ninjas who fight bravely till their last breath, they used their brains and started to flee. Seeing two such young ninjas run, we thought we could catch and kill them and come to your aid.
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But they had quite a large amount of chakra and were also quite proficient in Body Flicker, so we were unable to catch them. While we were chasing them, the leader used the signal to retreat, so we had to stop the chase.
What about you, sir? Were you able to kill that jonin?"
"He was not a jonin—well, at least not officially. He was also a brat, but an unusually strong one. It looks like Konoha has another genius among their ranks. We have to send our report to Tsuchikage-sama.
Even though we failed this mission, these details are much more important than killing some civilians, as this genius of Konoha can't be underestimated," Kazuki said, and then thought,
'I still remember the Yellow Flash of Konoha. That guy was truly a beast, and from the looks of it, this one is going to be too. I just hope Kage-sama will be able to find some solution for this problem.'
After that, they all went toward their temporary base, where Kazuki made a detailed report about the mission and their losses and sent it to Iwagakure using a messenger hawk.
"Kazuki-sama, what should we do now?" one of the chunin asked.
"There is nothing we can do. Since they were able to prepare a trap for us, it means their sensing capabilities are higher than our captain's—much higher than ours. So we can't even follow them. Let's just wait for orders. Until then, focus on your recovery.
Yuzi, you know some medical jutsu, right?" Kazuki asked another chunin.
"Yes, Kazuki-sama. Do you need some help?" Yuzi asked.
Kazuki nodded and showed the deep cut he had suffered during Kaida's first attack. All of the chunin were surprised that Kazuki was even alive after suffering such a lethal wound.
"Kazuki-sama, please take a seat. I will try to heal it as much as I can," Yuzi said hurriedly.
Kazuki nodded and took a seat, but he was deep in thought.
'I am lucky that he used fire chakra in that attack. Otherwise, even if I had escaped from the fight with Toshi's help, surviving after so much blood loss wouldn't have been possible.'
...
While they waited for orders from Iwagakure, Kaida and the team were running at full speed toward the Land of Noodles.
They had to stop at night since Hiroto was old and couldn't sleep while moving, so at night they made a makeshift camp using earth-related jutsu. Two people guarded the camp while the others rested.
Throughout the journey, Kaida remained completely alert. Even though the mission was important, the most important thing for him was still his and Yomi's lives. Now that he had spent so much time with Yukihiro, Ryota, and the Kiba duo, he couldn't rule them out from his priority list.
But they were too devoted to Konoha, and making them prioritize their lives over a mission would be foolish. They were from a village where even White Fang, Kakashi's father, was criticized to the point of suicide just because he chose his teammates' lives over a mission.
So he wasn't going to die trying to change their minds, but if he could, he would try to save them as well.
By doing the same thing for two days (running + movement jutsu), they were able to complete a 2-week journey in 2 days. If they hadn't had a statue of complaints in human clothing named Renji, they might have arrived earlier.
After reaching the city, they went straight to the daimyo's place. Now that they were inside the city and in front of the daimyo's palace, they could finally relax. Even though they hadn't faced any attacks during their travel, they still maintained complete vigilance.
Upon reaching the daimyo's place, they stopped a little way off so Hiroto and Renji could prepare for the deal. From then on, it was their job.
After fixing their appearance and taking a little rest, they approached the guards.
"We are Konoha representatives for our latest collaboration. We had to arrive early due to some circumstances. Could you please pass this message to Lord Daimyo?" Hiroto said with a polite smile.
"Can we please first see your identification papers?" the guard asked.
In the ninja world, it is not difficult to change your appearance and pose as someone else. After checking their papers, the guard passed their message to the daimyo's office, while Hiroto and Renji were asked to wait in the palace's guest area.
********
(A.N: Thanks for reading ^~^. You can add this novel to your library if you like the story.)