No longer than a few moments later, Kazuo and the Root ninja were surrounded by twenty or so shinobi, including all of the remaining captains.

"What's going on here Kazuo?" Aoki Hyuga asked as he used body flicker to appear next to Kazuo, the ninja he had decided to support.

"I was asleep when I felt a group of people appearing closeby with intent to kill, thankfully that seemed to wake me up, a moment later four shinobi wearing blank masks appeared inside the tent and tried to eliminate me, thankfully I had placed traps inside there or I would have already lost my life." Kazuo quickly explained, his gaze never leaving the root ninja.

'This guy wont give up this easily, thats not how the root operates.' This thought falshed through both Kazuo's and Aoki's mind at the same time.

As if determined to prove both of them right, the ninja quickly used body flicker to close the distance with Kazuo, an anbu shortsword in his hand.

'This fucker won't give up even when found out, and if he manages to succeed then they can't get any information from him because of the tongue seal and Danzo will surely say that they were just spies trying to instill chaos inside the village, he won't face any repercussions and even then it's better for me to simply forget this ever happened, currently im much too weak to go against someone like him.' Kazuo thought.

Aoki quickly got in front of Kazuo and made a defensive stance whilst launching a palm strike toward the solar plexus of the root shinobi.

The palm hit however instead of launching the ninja backward, he simply vanished.

'A clone' Aoki thought immediately as he used his Byakugan to look around, quickly finding the ninja materializing behind Kazuo and swinging his short sword.

This didn't cause any distress to Aoki however instead a small smile appeared on his face.

The short sword passed right through Kazuo, just like his palm strike had passed through the root ninja.

Instead, an unknown shinobi which had been a few feet behind Kazuo rushed up to the root ninja, his chest seemed to increase in size and so did his mouth, a split second later, a compressed water bullet launched out of his mouth heading toward the root ninja at extreme speeds.

At this close of a range, it wasn't something that could be avoided by a random root.

*Bang*

The enhanced water bullet hit the shinobi's back, causing him to be launched more than ten meters away from the impact, and his back to become a complete bloody mess.

It was Kazuo.

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He had used the transformation Jutsu to change his appearance.

'Three more turns, fucking son of a bitch.' Kazuo thought to himself, as he looked at the downed ninja.

He had died three more times whilst trying to find a way to juke the root ninja and finally had landed on his current plan.

Whilst underground use another clone jutsu and give it a set command to say what had happened, making it so that even Aoki wouldn't think it was a clone considering it wasn't possible for the clone to actually possess intelligence it could only do what the user had commanded it to, this was a way of using the clone jutsu that only someone like Kazuo could accomplish.

Then appear a few feet behind the clone whilst maintaining his stealth and just when the root appears behind his clone to quickly make the hand signs and use the water bullet jutsu.

This plan had almost worked during the last turn however he had misjudged the amount of time that it took him to release the enhanced water bullet, causing his demise a split second later when the root detected him.

'Why can't I just be fighting Gennin like I should be.' Kazuo thought to himself in annoyance however he still was feeling the rush of excitement from having outsmarted a root anbu team.

"Seems like I was concerned for nothing," Aoki said, his stoic face displaying a slight smile as he looked at Kazuo.

"No, I couldn't have done it without you, sir," Kazuo said, staying humble in front of the man, who seemed to become even more pleased at his words.

'The Hyuga really have something up their ass, that makes the easiest way to get close to them being giving them shitty praises every time.' Kazuo thought as he arrived to stand next to the man.

A moment later, Shikaru and the Inuzuka Captain appeared at the same time.

Looking at the dead bodies and the destruction at the site, Shikaru's eyes seemed to gleam as his eyebrows slightly furrowed.

"Damn, this is the second time isn't it kiddo?" The Inuzuka woman said before laughing out loud.

"You really are strong, we should spar sometime. Come to my clan grounds when we get back to the leaf, I'll show you a good time." The woman said, her face becoming the definition of what people would call a predator.

Kazuo merely gazed at the woman before giving her a smile and a nod.

"Im afraid that I won't have much time captain, I'll be asking the corps to send me back to the battlefield again as soon as they can," Kazuo said, his voice slightly too loud if he simply wanted the woman to hear him.

His words caused the smile on the woman's face to widen even more as the emotion in her eyes intensified.

"I really am starting to like you more and more y'know? Sadly you're still so young."

'As if you care about that, control your expression you fucking mutt.' Kazuo thought to himself inwardly, the profanities spewed in his mind had only increased as the stress of multiple deaths in a short interval had.

He however didn't have a choice but to smother the woman and everyone else with kind words.

The higher he stood up, the more people liked him, the more he stood a chance in this village at gaining rewards.

Of course, the higher that standing was, the more danger there would be as well however danger brought chances and delicious fruits as well.

It was only a matter of whether he was capable enough to pick those fruits.

'A connection with the Hyuga is more beneficial however this guy is only a branch member, I'll have to see if he can introduce me to the main branch if not then I'll go and pursue a connection with the Inuzuka.' Kazuo thought, his gaze never leaving Shikaru's face.

"Quickly clear these bodies and bring a Yamanaka to see if anything can be found in their brains, if not then discard their bodies. Since everyone is already up, we will start heading to the leaf once more." Shikaru said as he quickly ordered the ninjas around him.

After which he started walking toward his tent once more, as he passed Kazuo, he merely gave him a nod.

Kazuo replied with a bright smile.

'Ah, the joy of ruining your plans, it frankly knows no bounds right now.'