__________ POV Narration __________

"This entire village stinks..." Morita sighed as he sat down on one of the uncomfortable mats that were provided to the infiltrating team.

His voice was as quiet as a whisper, clearly not trying to attract any attention from the outside.

Bull and Akio both seemed to agree with him, silently nodding and looking at the wooden door behind them.

It was not the type that could obstruct sound, although relatively new it was clearly not built with that much care.

This incentivized the ones inside to make as little noise as possible... Or at least it incentivised the ones that were there in secret to keep things quiet.

"That food was so good!" Yue huffed as she rubbed her belly.

Of course, none of them had actually eaten any food, they were just speaking amongst each other to avoid rousing any suspicions.

They had sneakily sealed them in a small seal within their mouths and always pretended to swallow it.

It was a trick that one of the Blades had come up with and taught the young members of the brotherhood as well, and it certainly proved useful.

"It could have certainly been a lot worse..." Momo played along as she looked at the door with narrowed eyes.

It wasn't quite clear before, but now it was obvious that someone was listening in on them. They could only notice darkness through the keyhole of that door, signalling that either the lights were turned off in the inn or someone was obstructing said light...

It was not that late yet, and the people below were still making quite a bit of sound, so the answer was rather obvious.

Unfortunately for the one peeping into their room, they could only really get a good look at Bull's asscheeks, as he stood with his back to the door, covering the line of sight of anyone peeking in.

The conversation that ensued was mostly written from that point, except for the disguised team carrying out a normal conversation to maintain their cover.

Tatsukio and Morita made sure to inform Yue and the others of what they had found.

And they had managed to observe quite a bit in the time that their group was pretending to eat.

For one, the patrolling guards were indeed very well spread out and structured through the village, to the point where it was hard to navigate it slightly.

Any one of their weaker/less trained siblings would likely have not been able to sneak around that place undetected.

But their structured patrols weren't the only thing of note.

The most deafening and alarming thing was the absolute silence that engulfed the rest of the compound, the way that the guards wordlessly shifted their positions and almost robotically patrolled the same areas consistently.

Tatsukio and Morita could both swear that the men were constantly retracing their steps to the millimetre. It was simply not natural.

Their consensus for now, especially after realizing that most of the other houses in the village were empty of both people and furniture, was that the village itself was fake.

There was no village to speak of, there was only the inn, its 'regulars' and its guards.

'This place is either a zone for some sick-minded experiment or a trap set up by either the Green Forest Union or a rogue group of shinobi.'

At the moment, they were more inclined to believe that they were dealing with shinobi, as the Green Forest Union was unlikely to have that many perfectly trained guards.

But even then, they were left with a lot of questions...

'What exactly is the point of this trap?'

It was not only a rather obvious trap to even a 'less-than-adequately trained eye. But it was also full of some rather glaring flaws that gave away the fact that it was a trap.

Not only that but after Tatsukio's and Morita's teams entered the village silently, the guards patrolling became more vigilant near the walls of the compound, making it more difficult to escape unnoticed.

They could still deal with that, but it was just bizarre. It could be just chalked up to the guards becoming more vigilant due to the known guests now residing within their village, but even that felt too convenient...

The guards became more vigilant the second everyone from their collective teams was within the village walls, it just felt fishy.

"So... What do we do now?" Yue asked, her face contorting a bit as she wondered about simply giving up on the investigation and massacring everyone within the tavern and leaving.

"Well, I say we go to sleep, and we continue our journey tomorrow!" Momo made a few secret gestures and gave her an 'in-character' response as she then pointed to the window.

Tatsukio and Morita looked at each other, both understanding the plan for now.

They both turned into blurs and vanished through the window, leaving behind no traces of ever having been in that room.

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Shortly after, Bull finally stopped leaning on the door and slowly walked over to his bed. Someone was still looking at them, their intentions unknown, but they paid no mind to that.

As soon as they put out the lantern in their room and went to bed, the person looking over them also vanished. And the people that had been making a ruckus below became quiet all at once.

Acting as if they were puppets on strings, they started moving in unison up the stairs and towards the room of the inn's guests.

The inn owner didn't stop them, instead, his lifeless eyes continued staring at and wiping some glasses.

The group of men and women that climbed up the stairs shortly arrived in front of the doors to the guest room, all of them crowded it for a few minutes before one stepped forward, placing his foot right towards the door and kicking it wide open.

In seconds, the people in the hallway rushed into the room, thier eyes darting around and their hands grasping at all of the sleeping residents.

One of the larger men grabbed at the nearest person, immediately pulling up the blanket with force.

But instead of a sleeping and defenceless young woman. he was now faced with a pillow that seemed to be made out of paper bombs.

He didn't even get to make a sound as the entire room was engulfed in flames, and an eardrum-shattering explosion reverberated through the village.

The entirety of the inn was engulfed in flames, its walls blown to splinters.

In the distance, Yue and her team were all wearing the Dark Brotherhood garb, currently lying on some wooden roof tiles and looking at the scene from a distance.

Surprisingly, none of the guards changed their patterns to check the site of the explosion as they had hoped.

Instead, they tightened security all around the walls of the compound.

At that point, they were left with only one path... Regrouping and strategizing a way out.

That was really their only choice, the guards seemed to be less than interested in the raging fire that was currently spreading in their village, and more interested in making sure that the perpetrators didn't leave.

At that point, Yue gestured for the others to follow her, and they all dashed towards one of the empty homes off to the side.

They managed to avoid the gazes of the guards, at least none gave any indication of spotting them.

Inside that empty home, they regrouped with the rest of their siblings and decided on a course of action.

"I say we all concentrate our efforts to break through one point," Morita suggested as he crossed his arms and looked towards a window at the fire raging in the distance.

"How about we try going underground?" Akio suggested as he remembered that some of their siblings present were relatively proficient in Earth Style.

"They're on high alert now. All it takes is a decently ranked shinobi to take notice of us, and we'd be left in a vulnerable position underground.

The guards are still acting as if nothing serious happened, so I think escaping won't be as effortless as you'd think." Tatsukio decided to give his two cents on that, quietly looking out for any other plans they could use to escape.

They had the option of transforming into small animals and trying to go unnoticed, but again, a more skilled shinobi would be able to sense them whilst they were using transformation jutsu.

It seemed more and more that their only option was frontal assault... Or at least on paper.

"I say we treat this as an assassination more so than a frontal assault... They're likely not sure how many of us there are, we can use that to our advantage." Yue smiled mischievously as she seemed to make up her mind on a plan of action.

She quickly explained it to her comrades and they all prepared.

Yue's team, alongside Bull and Akio all walked out of the house with confidence, heading straight for the most obvious exit... The gate.

At the gate, there were already around 6 guards gathered, and they soon noticed the group approaching.

In an instant, a hail of kunai and shuriken flew towards the guards, who immediately jumped into action and started batting the projectiles away with their spears.

One of the men also took out a horn and tried to blow on it, but a well-placed Momo made him drop the horn in an instant.

Bull, Akio and Yue all dashed towards the men, each brandishing a different weapon.

Bull carried a large two-handed mace that looked like a large metallic ball on stuck to a rod.

Akio brandished a sickle connected to a chain that was tied up around his wrists.

And Yue showcased her very own legendary blade. The Sewing Needle that had once belonged to Mist.

The guards seemed to react accordingly, moving at speeds that far surpassed regular humans as they engaged the trio.

The guards all swung makeshift spears, blocking or dodging the attacks of the trio with surprising ease.

One of the bigger guards clashed with Bull, the wind from their clash sending dust flying all around them.

Bull scowled and tried to apply more pressure, but the guard was more than prepared for that.

He shifted his makeshift spear slightly, allowing Bull's attack to slip off to the side.

What the Guard didn't seem to expect was Bull to open his mouth and blow a dart into his eye.

It was so sudden that he had no way of defending himself, green veins bulged around his eye as he fell backwards, foaming from the mouth.

Two more of the guards quickly moved to intercept Bull.

But one seemed to fall asleep as soon as he stepped forward, courtesy of Momo, who stood back and kept things in check.

In the meantime, Akio was also fighting a rather skilled opponent.

His sickle had yet to scratch his opponent, who was consistently swaying away from his attacks and dodging constantly.

The guard in question stabbed at Akio's head with a confident stride, only to be blocked by a rising length of chain, which seemed to wrap around his makeshift spear almost like a snake.

At that moment, Akio pulled, forcing the weapon out of his opponent's hand while also pulling him forward, right into the edge of the young assassin's sickle.

The sickle pierced right through the man's chin and out the other side.

As he finished off his opponent, Yue also sighed and looked at hers.

Two men had approached her, and now two men were ensnared in her wires. It wasn't even a fight, it didn't feel like one anyway.

It was easy. Too easy...

Just as that thought surfaced in her mind, she felt her wires being tugged.

A tug was turned into a powerful pull, and Yue's eyes widened as she noticed that the men were actually using her traps to pull her closer to them.

'As if!' She felt indignant, immediately digging her heels into the ground and clutching her wires tighter. She didn't stop even as her fingers bled.

But her opponents were strong, much stronger than her. And they didn't seem to mind the cuts that were constantly forming on their bodies.

Just as they were about to pull her into their spears, a few puffs of smoke appeared behind them, and they both felt blades entering their backs.

Looking back in their last moments, they couldn't help but observe that some of the projectiles they had deflected before now turned into people.

And those people proceeded to take out any other remaining guards swiftly.

Yue huffed as she looked at the two men dying in front of her, behind them standing both Tatsukio and Morita with rather serious gazes.

"... We'll talk about this later," Tatsukio said before he gestured for all of his siblings to flee the scene.

And just like that, they all ran towards the woods.

As soon as they left, the 'people' they had killed turned into puddles. And a masked man walked out of the village with a pen and notebook in his hands.

'A very good performance overall... Certainly far above expectations for regular chunin.'

The anbu proceeded to note down the grades of the Dark Brotherhood's competing teams before nodding and turning into a puff of smoke.

From that point, it was the clear road for the Dark Brotherhood participants. Their next stop was Konoha, and the Anbu simply moved forward to await them there.