CHAPTER FOUR: THE MISSION GETS COMLICATED

Team Six was heading off on their first C-Ranked mission. It was a fairly simple mission. They had been hired to take out a gang of bandits that had been attacking the small village of Omashu near the edge of Hi no Kuni (Fire Country). The bandits had only moved into the area recently and the village militia wasn't strong enough to deal with them.

It took the ninja two days to tree hop to the edge of the village. Omashu looked like it had recently seen an attack. There were some burned down buildings, as well as damage to other parts of the town. There they met the some of the militia before being escorted into the village and led to the village leader. The village leader was named Daisuke; he was an older man with a distinguished look about him. He had short-cropped iron-grey hair and a short beard. He wore simple farmers clothes, the only indication that he was more was a small silver medallion in the shape of a set of scales he wore around his neck. The medallion was his symbol of office that was given to every village leader.

Aoba went up to Daisuke and gave him a bow. "Greeting Daisuke-san, my name is Yamashiro Aoba, Jonin of Konohagakure no Sato. These are my students." He said pointing at the Genin. "This is Mitarashi Ryld, Yamanaka Ino, and Tayuya." The three Genin all bowed to the elder as Aoba mentioned their names. "I understand the general information about out mission but would you be kind enough to give me some specifics while my students check the perimeter around your village?" Aoba said to the elder.

The Genin team immediately went into action disappearing in bursts of speed to do as their sensei instructed. Once the three Genin were gone Daisuke turned back towards Aoba. "I fear the situation has deteriorated since I sent the message to your Hokage asking for assistance Aoba-san." Daisuke said to Aoba.

Aoba had a confused look on his face. "What do you mean Daisuke-san? If something has happened you could have simply sent another messenger hawk to explain." He said to the elderly village leader.

Daisuke shook his head. "I couldn't. A few weeks after the bandits moved into the area something happened. I'm not entirely sure what though. Normally the bandits would raid some of our outlying farmers for food or livestock. While it was annoying it was nothing we couldn't handle. Then suddenly they started getting more aggressive, and their numbers seemed to increase as well. Instead of sneaking to the farmers houses while they were out working and stealing a few minor things, they started appearing in the evening when everyone was home. They attacked people and took everything they had. They even killed a few people. So we brought all the outlying farmers into the village and mustered up the militia to defend us. Then the whole gang attacked the village. Out militia was able to stand up to them for a while, then suddenly a new group showed up and attacked as well. These men seemed to be well-trained and used swords, not clubs or daggers like the rest of them. There looked like samurai. They cut through our militia and proceeded to loot most of the village. Then He showed up. He said his name was Hinamora Gin, and he called himself the Tetsu Gōremu (Iron Golem)."

Aoba stiffened at the mention of the name and the title. He quickly pulled out his bingo book and flipped through a few pages. He showed Daisuke a picture in the book. "Is this the man you saw?" He asked the village leader.

Daisuke looked at the picture before nodding. "Yes this is the man who is leading the bandits. Do you know him?" He asked the Konoha Jonin.

Aoba shook his head. "Only by reputation. He is a Missing Samurai for Tetsu no Kuni (Iron Country). Listed as equivalent to an A-rank nuke-nin in the bingo book. This mission just got a lot more complicated. Why didn't you send a messenger hawk to inform us of this new development?" Aoba asked the elderly village leader.

"We tried to, but they were all shot down and killed by the bandits. Hinamora's personal guards all have abilities like the kind you shinobi have and were able to kill off all of our messenger hawks, the one we sent you was the only one that made it through, and we sent it before he appeared." Daisuke explained.

"Is there anything else you can think of Daisuke-san? Have they returned since Hinamora appeared?" Aoba asked the elderly village leader.

"Yes they have been back about once every four days. Hinamora is never with them; it's usually one of his personal guards along with some of regular bandits. They come into town and scare people and take a few things; they always say that the Tetsu Gōremu is 'protecting' us from the rest of the world. The last time they were here was yesterday, so they should not be back for a few more days." The man explained.

Aoba nodded his head. "I understand Daisuke-san. Don't worry; we will deal with this situation as quickly as possible. Even though my team is young, they are all exceptional shinobi and can handle this group of bandits. I'd better go check on them to make sure everything is okay." With that Aoba excused himself and went in search of his team.

Ryld, Ino, and Tayuya were currently doing a sweep around the perimeter of the village. Aoba caught up with his team as they were hopping though trees, they all landed on the ground and grouped around their sensei. "Alright team I have bad news, this mission is no longer C-rank, I am upgrading it to B-rank. We have a missing samurai wanted in Tetsu no Kuni leading this group of bandits. His name is Hinamora Gin, he is considered equivalent to an A-rank nuke-nin in the bingo book. Normally we would call for back up from a Chunin team led by another Jonin, but the bandits have killed all of the messenger hawks. So we are going to have to deal with this situation ourselves. I do however have complete confidence in your ability to handle the increased rank of the mission." Aoba explained to his Genin team.

Ino and Tayuya were shocked by the declaration of their sensei, and very happy with his praise of their abilities. Ryld was equally happy but not nearly as surprised by their sensei's confidence in them. Ryld knew, thanks to his and Naruto's tendency to sneak into the Hokage's office, that Aoba had specifically requested all the members of his team so that he could train them. He gave his sensei his patented wolfish grin. "We understand sensei, so what is the plan?" He asked with enthusiasm.

Aoba saw his student's grin and was instantly reminded of Anko. He returned his students grin. "The plan is for you guys to get in some training so that we will be ready for when they return. Hinamora usually sends a group of his thugs to check on the village every four day. The last time any were here was yesterday so we should have about three days to get in some training. Now we need to just find a good training area." Aoba said and led his team to a clearing about a mile from the village. "This area looks like it will be good for training. All right team now its time for you to learn how to climb trees." Aoba said with a smile.

All three Genin were somewhat confused by what their sensei said to them, until Aoba walked up to the nearest tree and put his foot on the trunk and proceeded to walk right up the tree. He didn't stop until he was standing on the bottom of one of the branches looking at his team while hanging upside down. "Alright, this is a chakra exercise where you apply a certain amount of chakra to the bottom of you feet in order to stick to the tree. This is difficult because the bottom of your feet is one of the hardest places to concentrate chakra at. This exercise has multiple benefits. For starters it allows you be able to fight in new ways. Secondly it helps build chakra control, and finally it also helps increase chakra reserves."

The Genin team all looked at each other before breaking out into large grins. Aoba smiled at his Genin and dropped down from the tree. "Now in order to do this correctly you have to release an exact amount of chakra to the bottom of your feet. Too much chakra and you will be pushed off of the tree, too little and you wont be able to stick to it. Use kunai to mark your progress up the tree. Now some sensei believe that you should use a running start to get up the tree, but I disagree with that approach because it gives you a false sense of accomplishment. You need to make slow deliberate progress in order to correctly build your chakra control and reserves."

Each of the Genin pulled out a kunai and approached a tree. Ryld put his right hand into a ram seal and concentrated his chakra to the bottom of his feet. He placed his left foot onto the tree and attempted to climb. He made it up about a half a dozen steps before his control wavered and he put too much chakra into his foot and he was blown off the tree. He landed hard and looked at the tree trunk, there was a foot shaped impression in the trunk of the tree where he had been pushed off.

Tayuya was having better luck, she made it about a quarter of the way up the tree before her control also wavered, she quickly marked the tree with her kunai before she slipped off of the tree and fell to the ground.

Ino was having the best progress of the three Genin, of course she always did have the best chakra control, she made it the entire way up the tree. She marked her progress and quickly dropped down to the ground again. "Great job Ino, I knew you would get this down the fastest. However you are not finished with your training." Aoba said to the blonde kunoichi.

Ino looked gave her sensei a confused look. "Why sensei? I did the exercise."

"Yes Ino you did, and fantastically. However you have not mastered the exercise yet. You will not master fully it until you are able to stay on the tree for at least six hours. This is the part of the exercise I told you about where it helps to build your chakra reserves. Now Ino I would like you to go up and down the tree for as long as you have enough chakra to do it. Continuously doing this will increase your chakra reserves." Aoba explained.

"Oh I understand sensei." With a look of fierce determination Ino climbed back on the tree and started climbing up to the top and back down again. She was able to keep this up for about twenty minutes before her chakra reserves started to fail her. She slid down the tree and was gulping for air.

Several hours later

The Genin team had made significant progress in the tree climbing exercise. Ino was now able to stand on the tree for an hour before her chakra started to run out. Tayuya was having better progress with the stamina portion of the exercise since she had slightly higher chakra reserves than Ino. She was able to stand on the tree for an hour and forty-five minutes before her chakra ran out.

Ryld was still having a hard time with the first part of the exercise. His teammates did not mock him for this since they knew chakra control was difficult for him as he had insanely high chakra reserves, more so than many Jonin. He was able to make it about three quarters of the way up the before his control would waver and he would try to compensate by pushing a more chakra into his foot but he would get blasted off the tree again. Rather than use a kunai to mark his progress he was using the imprints his feet had left in the trunk of the tree.

Aoba was watching all of his students practice very carefully. He would give pointers when he deemed it necessary. Overall he was pleased with his student's progress, even though he knew that Ryld was very frustrated that he was unable to get this down as easily as his female teammates. "Okay team, let's head back to the village, we can pick up again in the morning." He yelled at his Genin team.

Ino and Tayuya nodded to their sensei before dropping off their respective trees, however Ryld acted as though he didn't hear and continued his slow deliberate pace up his tree. He made it two steps past his previous mark when his control wavered and he was blasted off the tree by his chakra. He managed to flip in mid-air and land safely on the ground. With a snarl, that sounded much like a wolf, he started heading back towards his tree when Aoba stopped him.

"Ryld, didn't you hear me. I said we were done for the evening. We will go back to the village and stay the night, then be out here again first thing in the morning." Aoba said while looking at his male student.

Ryld grimaced and shook his head. "No thank you Aoba-sensei, I'm not tired. I know that if I can get in some more training I will be able to get the hang of this." The young Genin said to his sensei.

Aoba thought about it for a moment. "If you're sure Ryld. We will head back to the village. When you get tired just come back to the village."

With that Ino, Tayuya, and Aoba headed back to the village and the young Jinchuuriki was left alone to do his training.

The next morning

Aoba and the kunoichi members of his team were heading back to the clearing they hade been using to train in. Ino and Tayuya were slightly worried about their teammate since Aoba had told them Ryld never came back to the village that night, although Aoba said he would be fine. When they got back to the clearing they were amazed to see Ryld already awake and sitting on the underside of one of the branches, he seemed to be writing on something.

Ino was the first to get over her shock. "Hey Ryld-kun, you did it. That's awesome." She yelled at the blue-black haired teen.

Ryld, who hadn't noticed them approach looked up at the sound of Ino's voice. "Yeah I got the right amount of chakra down a few hours after you guys left. Then I started working on maintaining it." He said while giving them his wolfish grin. Then he suddenly got a confused look on his face. "Wait, aren't you guys supposed to be back in the morning?" Ryld asked his teammates.

All three ninja sweat dropped at Ryld's confusion. "You dumb ass, it is morning. What the hell time did you think it fucking was?" Tayuya asked her teammate in her usual abrasive fashion.

Ryld suddenly looked around and noticed that it was daylight. "Holy crap, I've been sitting here all night. It was just after ten pm last night that I sat down and started meditating. Then once I was done meditating I started working on one of my new seal designs and then you guys showed up."

Ino and Tayuya were gob smacked. Ryld had been sitting on the underside of the branch for over nine hours. They knew he had huge chakra reserves and insane stamina but he didn't even seem to be breathing hard.

Aoba was impressed with his student's progress, but was more interested in the seal he said he was working on. "Ryld why don't you come down here. I would like to see that seal you are working on, besides since you were able to sit on the underside of that branch all night you have more than mastered tree climbing."

Ryld gave his wolfish grin and dropped from the tree, he flipped mid-air and landed in front of his team. "Here you go Aoba-sensei. It is a modified explosive tag seal. See the idea behind it is instead of just creating an explosion, this seal will create a blast of burning gel that will stick to whatever is close by and continue burning for a long time." Ryld explained while handing the seal diagram to his sensei.

Aoba looked over the seal and was impressed by the level of detail in the seal. He was no seal master, certainly not to the level of the Toad Sanin Jiraya or even the lesser extent of Hatake Kakashi, but he could tell that if this seal worked the way Ryld described it could be a devastating weapon in combat. "Very impressive Ryld, how long do you think it will take you to complete this seal?" Aoba asked his student.

Ryld rubbed the back of his head before answering. "I don't think it will be ready for a while sensei. I was going to have mom, and maybe Hokage-sama look it over before I started testing it."

Aoba nodded his head at his student. "That is probably a good idea Ryld. Now then Ino, Tayuya, I want both of you to continue with tree climbing, while I don't expect either of you to get to the same level as Ryld within the next two days, both of you should be able to manage three hours on a tree. Understood?" The Jonin asked his two female students. He got a resounding "Yes sensei" from both girls and they went back to working on the tree climbing exercise.

He then turned back towards Ryld. "Now then Ryld why don't you and I go work on you Kenjutsu some more. I know you have been improving but we are facing samurai, the people who created Kenjutsu, and since you a Kenjutsu user some of them will feel the need to challenge you. So lets get to work." Aoba said, as Ryld nodded his head and unsheathed both of his katana.

Team Six had been working hard for the last two days while waiting for word of the next visit from the bandits, both Ino and Tayuya had mastered tree walking to their sensei's satisfaction the first day and started working on perfecting the newest jutsu they had been working on before leaving for their mission. Tayuya had just put the finishing touches on her new sound based jutsu, the Piasu-on doriru (Piercing Sound Drill). Ino was finishing her training on her latest clan jutsu, the Undō Bakuhatsu (Kinetic Bolt). Ryld had been working with Aoba on his Kenjutsu form and power with the Kazan style. Aoba was more and more impressed with the dual wielding Kenjutsu style, as it was powerful on both offense and defense.

Just as Daisuke had predicted, three days after the shinobi had appeared a group of six thugs led by one of the rogue samurai walked into the village as though they owned it, the thugs glared at the men they saw and leered at the women. The samurai in the group at least had enough self-control to keep himself to frowns at the villagers in general, however he did not stop the thugs under his command from taking things and groping some of the women. They kept this up for about an hour before they started to leave.

However what none of them knew was that as soon as they came in sight of the village Tayuya played a tune on her flute and placed all seven of the men under a Genjutsu that has them thinking they were inspecting the village when they were really just wandering around the woods towards where the shinobi had their ambush set up. The samurai leader must have realized that something was wrong because he suddenly put his hands into a Ram Seal and shouted "Kai" to release the Genjutsu.

Unfortunately for the samurai and the thugs it was far to late by the time he realized he was under a Genjutsu. Before he could do anything Ryld appeared in the middle of the bandit group with both his katana drawn and performed his perfected Ryu Tatsumaki, taking out four of the six bandits by slashing them to pieces. Tayuya threw a kunai that buried itself in the fifth man's throat and Ino killed the last bandit by hitting him with a well-placed Suiton: Teppodama. The large ball of water hit him directly in the chest, breaking his entire rib cage and crushing all of the organs underneath.

The samurai turned to flee only to be surrounded by a flock of Aoba's patented Crow clones that quickly started pecking the man until he could no longer move. The crows had been extremely careful to avoid his face, or anything that might kill the man, instead focusing on his hands legs and abdomen. The samurai fell hard and was in considerable pain when the crows finally flapped away.

Aoba calmly walked into the clearing and surveyed his team's handiwork. He nodded to each of his students, letting them know he was proud of how they handled their first kills. He then turned to the samurai lying on the ground unable to move. "Well now, it seems that one survived. This is good, now we can have a nice little conversation about your friend the Tetsu Gōremu." Aoba said to the man with a sinister smirk on his face.

The man paled significantly when his master was mentioned, but quickly regained what little of his composure he had left. "You will never defeat the great Tetsu Gōremu, ninja scum. All you can do is hide in the shadows and strike without honor, but you will fall in the face of true warriors. Were it not for your little tricks and illusions I would have killed all of you." The samurai blustered at the three shinobi, all of whom laughed at him.

Ryld recovered first. "Yeah right. You fell for one of Tayuya's most basic Genjutsu and you were in it for over an hour before you finally realized something was wrong. If Tayuya had pulled out a more powerful one you would have either never even realized anything was wrong or if you had you wouldn't have been able to get out of it. I've felt bigger chakra reserves in a second year academy student." The Jinchuuriki said condescendingly to the man lying in front of him.

Then Ryld, suddenly channeling his mother, looked at the man with what he thought of as his mothers most disturbing and frightening grin plastered on his face. "Now are you going to tell me everything that you know about your friend Hinamora Gin and the rest of these bandits, and you fellow samurai, or do you want to become intimately familiar with one of my swords?" Ryld asked in a sickly sweet and highly disturbing voice that he had no doubt picked up from his mother, all while holding the blade of Kamikaze a few centimeters from the samurai's crotch.

Aoba quickly reminded himself that even though Ryld was not Anko, the fact that she had raised him for ten years had obviously rubbed off on him and he was definitely her son. Praying to Kami that the samurai Ryld was getting ready to interrogate would keep his sanity long enough to give them useful information he lead them to the bandits base camp, he led his kunoichi students out of the clearing.

Both Ino and Tayuya looked a little surprised by how they had seen Ryld act as he was starting to interrogate the prisoner. Although Tayuya quickly remembered that Ryld's mom was one of the top interrogators in the T&I division in Konoha. When she mentioned it to Ino, the blonde quickly relaxed having heard her father say that while Anko was a bit of a nut she had never maimed a prisoner while having them in interrogation, outside where she was just another shinobi was a completely different set of rules. With that thought in mind, Ino had no doubt that he would get the info from the samurai and not have to resort to physically torturing the man.

Half an hour later

Ryld came out of the clearing where he had been interrogating the samurai with a look of grim satisfaction on his face. Aoba walked up to him. "What did you find out?" He asked his student.

"Well sensei, we have the location of their base, as well as a good estimate of their manpower. It looks like they have about fifty thugs, forty samurai about the level of our friend back there, five samurai Lieutenants that are higher ranking, I would guess they are maybe mid to high Genin rank. Then we have the big boys, we already know about Hinamora, but he has two Commanders that are supposed to by nearly as strong as he is. He didn't know their names, only the titles they go by in the gang, one wears midnight black armor and a traditional samurai mask and is simply called Akuma (Devil), and the other is dressed like a battle monk and is called Karitori-ki (Reaper). He didn't know a lot about those two except that they hate Hinamora. It seems the only reason they follow him is because they have nowhere else to go, he said they are missing samurai for Tetsu no Kuni just like Hinamora, and because Hinamora is strong enough to keep them in line." Ryld explained to Aoba.

Aoba quickly questioned Ryld on a few more details about the location and layout of the enemy base. He quickly devised an attack strategy for taking out the bandit camp. He then turned to his students. "Alright listen up. This is going to be a precision strike on the camp. We'll use headsets to keep in contact until I give the signal to attack. When I do, you all know what to do, correct?" He asked his Genin team.

All three teenagers nodded to their sensei, but Ryld decided to speak up. "Sensei, Ino, Tayuya, there's something I need to show all of you before we start this attack. Mom and me have been keeping this a secret because of how the civilian council acts. They hate my mom and by extension me." His teacher and teammates all gave him very confused looks so he decided to just get up and show them.

Ryld drew both of his katana and started channeling his chakra natures into both blades. Kamikaze was immediately covered in a bluish-white wind aura, while Oni-Kaji was enveloped in reddish-black flames. At his teams shocked looks Ryld decided to explain. "My birth mother had these swords made for me right after I was born. They are made to have my specific elemental chakra channeled through them, Kamikaze for wind chakra, and Oni-Kaji for fire chakra. Now I know that there are other chakra conductive blades out there, but these two are unique because they don't just allow me to channel my chakra through them, watch."

With that Ryld quickly launched a Kaze Surasshu (Wind Slash) at a tree, the Kaze Surasshu cut not only that tree apart, but several trees behind it as well. Ryld stopped channeling his chakra through the blades and turned back to his teammates. "The reason I've basically kept this to myself is because if the civilian council knew about what these blades could do they would probably try to have them taken from me so that they could give them to someone else they felt "deserved" them more than the son of Konoha's snake whore, like that douche bag Uchiha they all fawn over. I hope you guys aren't mad at me for keeping this from you." Ryld explained to all of them.

Ino, Tayuya and Aoba all exchanged looks before turning back to the young Jinchuuriki. "Of course we aren't mad at you Ryld-kun. You had good reasons for hiding what your swords could do. You're absolutely right about how the civilian council would react. They would try to force Hokage-sama to make you give up the swords." Ino explained to Ryld while giving him a dazzling smile. Tayuya was also giving Ryld a smile and nodding to what the blonde was saying.

Aoba quickly cleared his throat to bring attention back to himself. "Alright team, now that this has all been brought to light we can focus on our mission. Now Hinamora and his gang expect these guys to be back fairly soon so we need to hurry so that we can catch them off guard. So lets head out." Aoba said to his Genin team as they all disappeared in bursts of speed.

Several miles away at the bandit camp

The sentries at the bandit camp were fairly lax in their duties ever since they had first attacked the town and there had been no retaliation. Several were asleep at their posts and those that weren't looked bored and were staring off into space.

Aoba and his team had taken out their communication headsets and put them on as they were heading toward the bandit camp. Once they got about a mile away they split up and quietly surrounded the camp, taking out all of the sentries surrounding the camp. As Aoba quickly took stock of the inside of the camp he noticed that it looked more like two camps separated by an invisible line. The bandits were easy to tell apart from the rogue samurai, the bandits had messy tents and blankets set up on the ground with no real organized way about it. By contrast the samurai section of the camp looked extremely clean and well maintained. Most of the bandits he could see were sleeping or playing dice, where as most of the samurai he could see were maintaining their weapons and equipment.

"This is Crow, check position." Aoba said into the microphone of his headset.

"Wolf here, in position." Ryld responded almost immediately.

"Red here, in position." Came Tayuya's response.

"Mind here, in position." Ino confirmed.

"Alright team. Bring the rain." Aoba said.

Meanwhile inside the bandit camp

Suddenly and without warning all hell started to break loose inside the bandit camp. All of a sudden there was a hail kunai flying all around the camp followed quickly by explosions, as the kunai all had explosive tags around them. As the bandits and samurai attempted to regroup from the shock of the explosions and the casualties of the attack there were suddenly several shinobi entering the camp.

Aoba came into the east side of the bandit camp and quickly went through a set of hand seals. "Doton: Yomi Numa (Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld)!" He shouted as he slammed his hands on the ground. The Doton jutsu quickly turned the entire bandit section of the camp into a large swamp, causing many bandits to quickly sink and drown in the mud.

Before he entered the west side of the samurai section of the camp Ryld decided to make some more chaos and quickly went through some hand seals. "Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)!" He shouted as he brought his hand to his mouth and blew a huge gust of wind, which flung weapons, pieces of armor, and even a few people around before it died down. Ryld quickly followed his jutsu by running into the camp with his blades drawn slashing through any of the rogue samurai he came across.

Tayuya quickly summoned one of her Doki to fight as she entered the north side of the samurai camp. The Doki she summoned is large, shirtless, and has a lot of scars on its head. It is wearing a blindfold and has bracers, ending in long claws that extend past its hands, tied to each arm with combat wraps. Before entering the camp, she used one of her more useful Genjutsu to make herself and her Doki invisible to most of the camp, as once she saw Ryld's Fuuton Jutsu she started playing on her flute and her Doki followed her into the samurai camp where they began wreaking havoc.

Ino quickly entered the south side of the bandit camp and skirted around her sensei's Doton: Yomi Numa. She saw several bandits trying to escape his swamp and went through some hand seals. "Suiton: Teppodama (Water Release: Gunshot)!" She shouted and fired a half dozen head sized water bullets at the bandits, knocking a few of them back into the swamp with glancing blows, the other two bandits took full hits from her jutsu. One was dead before he hit the ground, having been struck in the back of the head and snapping his neck. The other was hit in the shoulder by the liquid projectile and had most of the bones in his arm pulverized. The man screamed in agony but was quickly silenced by Ino who threw a shuriken at him and hit him in the temple with the metal star, killing him instantly.

The five samurai Lieutenants quickly brought the remaining samurai into a state of controlled chaos. They completely ignored the bandits and left them to their fate, quickly turning towards the sword wielding shinobi in the middle of their camp. Ryld saw the group of about a dozen samurai heading towards him; he guessed the five leading them were the Lieutenants his prisoner had told him about. He quickly sheathed his katana and went though some hand seals and poured on a lot more chakra than was necessary for the jutsu. "Katon: Hitama no Jutsu (Fire Release:Flame Shot)!" With the extra chakra he pushed into the jutsu he shot out six large fireballs at his enemies, each one was about the size of a large dog, hitting four of the low ranking samurai directly and instantly immolating them. The remaining eight samurai dodged his jutsu and three of them surrounded him with their katana drawn. The Lieutenants stood behind their subordinates also with their katana drawn.

"Well shinobi scum, let's see what you can do when you can't rely on your trickery and deception to win." Taunted one of the samurai surrounding Ryld. The young Jinchuuriki just gave them a crazy looking wolfish grin and drew his katana, Oni-Kaji in his left hand in a reverse grip and Kamikaze in his right in a normal grip. The samurai quickly charged the young Genin hoping to overwhelm him with their numbers.

Ryld quickly abused them of that idea. "Ryu Tatsumaki!" He shouted while quickly spinning and cut all three of his opponents the shreds with his swords. Ryld flipped Oni-Kaji into a normal grip and flicked the blood off both blades. "Alright." He said to the five samurai Lieutenants. "Whose next."

Before any of them could respond Tayuya and he Doki arrived. "Hey you stupid fuckers, don't just pay attention to him, he's not the only fucking problem you assholes have. This kunoichi is your worst fucking nightmare." Tayuya shouted before brining her flute back up to her lips and playing a fast paced tune. Her Doki responded immediately and started attacking the nearest samurai with his claws.

Two of the samurai turned to face the new threat while the other three kept their focus on Ryld. The two that face Tayuya and her Doki quickly charged the monster, hoping to cut it down quickly. Tayuya played furiously on her flute and the Doki responded. The first samurai slashed at the Doki's head while his partner slashed low at stomach. The Doki quickly brought both its arms in line with the strikes and blocked them both, seemingly without much effort. It them pushed both swordsmen back with its incredible strength, then it went on the offensive. It rushed the first samurai with a speed that was extremely surprising considering its size and tried to stab him with its clawed bracer. The samurai blocked the attack with his sword, while the other one quickly charged his sword with chakra and sent a chakra slash at the Doki.

Tayuya quickly changed the tune on her flute and her Doki immediately responded by quickly dodging the chakra slash, the samurai were again amazed at how quick and agile the large creature was. Tayuya decided to go on the offensive after this, she changed the tune of her song again and her large Doki quickly charged the samurai that had sent the chakra slash at it and proceeded to slash at him with it's claws. The samurai charged his blade with chakra again and blocked the Doki's attacks, hoping his chakra-coated blade would destroy the Doki's weapon.

However he failed to notice that in changing the tune she was playing on her flute, Tayuya had managed to place him in a Genjutsu. As he was trying to block what he thought was Tayuya's Doki with his blade, he was actually blocking air. The Doki meanwhile was still busy attacking the first Lieutenant. Without the support of his teammate the first Lieutenant was quickly being over powered by the strength of the large summon. He attempted to block a thrust from the Doki's right hand claw, only to miss seeing the left hand claw swipe coming in at chest level. The claw swipe cut right through the light body armor he was wearing and tore open his chest. As he was trying to stop from bleeding to death the samurai Lieutenant was taken out by the thrust of the right hand claw that went right through his head.

As Tayuya finished off the first Lieutenant Ino and Aoba arrived on scene. The young Yamanaka saw the samurai Tayuya had placed in a Genjutsu and decided to take him out of his misery. She chose to use the new clan technique she had been working on, so she quickly went through some hand seals and thrust her right hand towards the man. "Undō Bakuhatsu (Kinetic Bolt)!" She shouted and the telekinetic force flung the man into a tree hard enough to dent said tree. The man slumped to the ground dead from the impact.

Ryld was fighting the three remaining lieutenants and things were not really looking great. Ryld was mostly staying on the defensive facing three enemies, and he knew that his Ryu Tatsumaki would not catch them off guard again. He thought about channeling his elemental chakra into his swords and attempting the Kenjutsu move but decided not to since they would anticipate him trying to use the move.

He was about to try and create some room when he heard his sensei yell. "Ninpo: Karasu mure (Ninja Art: Crow Swarm)!" Suddenly the entire area was covered in a massive flock of crows.

Ryld took advantage of the visual distraction and charged his blades with elemental chakra. He quickly aimed at two of the samurai. "Kaen Surasshu (Flame Slash)! Kaze Surasshu (Wind Slash)!" He yelled as he flung the elemental chakra slashes at the samurai. The Kaze Surasshu he sent at the samurai to his far right was vertical and literally cut the man in half, while the Kaen Surasshu he sent to his far left was horizontal and quickly turned the samurai into a pile of molten metal and blackened bones. Before the last samurai could either attempt to fight or flee Aoba appeared behind him and drove a kunai into his back quickly killing him.

As the shinobi quickly looked around trying to see if there were more enemies for them to fight they suddenly felt massive waves of KI directed at them.

END CHAPTER FOUR