It was late in the evening when the team arrived in a small village and there were not many people outside. Somewhat helplessly, Yoroi asked around for a place to stay, but was unable to find one at this late hour.

"This didn't go as planned, I had expected to arrive here in the afternoon. We'll set up camp on the outskirts of the village, then hopefully we can at least get something to eat here in the morning." Yoroi was visibly embarrassed by the situation.

The group set up camp, the camp simply consisting of four sleeping bags and Yoroi had refrained from building a campfire on the edge of the village. A ninja can endure a cold night, apart from heating food they had no need for it.

Yoroi started the night watch and nothing else happened, around midnight he was allowed to go to sleep. It was shortly before the sun rose when Megusuri woke him up excitedly: A raid. A group of bandits sneaked up to the village, unaware that a team of shinobi was there. Megusuri could tell from their chakra signature that they were definitely not shinobi. As a result, he assumed an attack on the village, not the team.

"What are we doing? This is not our mission, but surely we can't stand by and watch?" Moi asked, visibly shocked by the dangers in a small village without shinobi.

"Of course we help. Missions are important, but we are shinobi to protect others. We would have to charge money to help, but in this case it is self-defence. We are not helping the village, we are defending ourselves."

The team was happy with Yoroi's answer and immediately realised his reasoning for intervening. The three were about to leave for the village when another idea popped into Yoroi's head.

"Moi, you are very clumsy and it is very likely that you will fall down at the village entrance. Then it's possible that the bandits will capture you as they flee. Please take care of that, or I'll have to search for you with Megusuri and destroy the bandits' camp in response, since they have a shinobi hostage."

It took Moi a brief moment to realise the cryptic instruction and retorted to Yoroi, "I'll do my best."

"Jooi, you are very strong in close combat, I want you to fight in the open, but hold back. I don't want you to be recognisable as a shinobi, so the bandits won't be aware of their danger. Megusuri and I will stay in the background and make sure nothing happens to the villagers." Yoroi gave Jooi his orders before hiding in the village.

Thanks to Megusuri's perception, they still had enough time to discuss their plan before the attack started. When the bandits arrived, the villagers who were already awake were frightened and only a few armed themselves with pitchforks and other tools to defend the village.

A chaotic fight broke out in which Jooi knocked out one bandit after the other with a big hammer he had "borrowed". Yoroi had to help a few times in dangerous situations, but was able to carry out his actions without being noticed.

Surprised by the strong resistance, the bandits fled and when some of them saw a young man falling to the ground while trying to run away from them, they could not resist taking him hostage. In that way they had the chance to make up for their losses or even to get more.

In the village, Jooi revealed himself as a shinobi from Kumo, Yoroi and Megusuri were already on the trail of Moi and the bandits.

"Don't be afraid, the bandits won't cause you any more problems. I am a chunin from Kumo and my team is already tracking the bandits."

"Thank you, come boy, I will make you some breakfast."

A comparatively young woman came to Jooi and invited him into her house. Once there, Jooi was amazed, the table was filled with delicacies he had never seen before. He looked with a questioning expression if he could eat all this, the woman saw his face and gestured to him that he should just eat. She then went into the kitchen and called out to him:

"I suppose your comrades won't take too long and you're hungry, I'll make you a feast, that's the least I can do as the village elder's daughter."

The word feast resounded in Jooi's ears and so his day was well on its way to becoming an unforgettable memory.

"Young shinobi, you can eat as much as you like. I'll go to the village entrance and wait for your comrades, it's the very least after we were so rude to you yesterday."

Jooi looked up from his food and saw an old man coming from another room, he nodded to that man and returned to his food.

Yoroi and Megusuri arrived after about 30 minutes of pursuit in the forest where the bandits had their camp. At a safe distance Megusuri spied out the camp and to his shock he could see two shinobi.

"Yoroi, there are about twenty bandits and two shinobi in the camp. I'm afraid they will quickly realise that Moi is a shinobi. What do we do?"

"You take care of Moi, you two should then flee to the edge of the camp and make sure that no bandit escapes. I will use a jutsu to take out most of the bandits, how strong do you estimate the shinobi to be?"

"I estimate one as a genin and the other as a chunin. I'm afraid I can't give a more accurate estimate yet, I lack experience." Yoroi nodded to Megusuri, that was already enough information for him.

In the camp, the bandits just stepped in front of the two shinobi and the chunin reached directly for his kunai. He had noticed that the prisoner was a shinobi, but just as he was about to throw, someone grabbed his arm. Yoroi had appeared between the two shinobi, holding the arm of the chunin in his right hand and a kunai stuck in the neck of the genin in his left. Even before the genin realised what had just happened, his vision darkened forever. The chunin dropped the kunai, freed himself from Yoroi's grip and backed away a few metres. The other bandits immediately began to surround Yoroi, forgetting to watch Moi. Within seconds of Yoroi's appearance, Megusuri had freed Moi and they were both in position at the edge of the camp.

Yoroi stared into the eyes of the chunin, it was a missing-nin from Iwa and so Yoroi's gaze turned cold. He still had the memories of the ambush by Iwa in which he lost his team in his mind. With a few quick finger signs he formed a jutsu:

"Storm Release: Multiple Butterfly Storm."

Numerous butterflies flew off and attacked the bandits around Yoroi. The chunin tried to defend himself, but he was also hit. Barely able to stand on his feet, he saw only a single butterfly rushing towards him.

"Storm Release: Bold Butterfly Flash."

Yoroi followed his area jutsu with a well-aimed attack on the chunin, which the latter did not survive. Of the twenty or so bandits, only a handful managed to escape, with those being finished off by Moi and Megusuri.

Somewhat shocked by his own rage, Yoroi looked around and saw all the dead bandits he had just killed. It was not a nice feeling and in his anger he did not even notice it at first. Even though he had already killed through his missions, there were never that many and he would never be able to kill without feeling guilty.

"Yoroi, what do we do about the camp, there must be a lot of stolen goods here?"

It was Moi who brought Yoroi out of his thoughts and so Yoroi turned his attention to the camp.

After a few minutes of rummaging, they had gathered everything of value and set the rest of the camp ablaze. The camp was in a small clearing against a steep wall, so it was unlikely that the fire would spread to the forest.

At some point in the village, the villagers could see smoke in the distance and so Jooi knew that the mission had probably been successful. Indeed, it took only a short time until his teammates arrived in the village.

"I am Gesato Hatashima, the village elder here in our little Tategawa. I am infinitely grateful to you and would like to apologise for our lack of hospitality last night. It is very unpleasant for me and the village that we were so cold to you and yet you helped us. Please come to my house, where you can eat and we can talk in peace."

An old man stepped in front of Yoroi and led him into a house. Every villager they passed bowed to them and made Yoroi feel very uncomfortable. When they arrived at the house, the table was already covered with various dishes and Jooi was eating.

"Help yourself, the food is very good." Barely understandable, Jooi called out to his comrades with his mouth filled.

After everyone was seated at the table, the village elder turned his attention to Yoroi:

"You must be the team leader, I am very grateful to you. The bandits have been bothering us for a few years, but we just don't have the money to hire shinobi."

"We didn't help you, we were attacked by the bandits as well and we just defended ourselves. Moi is just a bit clumsy which is why the bandits were able to capture him, so we had to destroy the camp. The good news for you is that we found the stolen goods, which appear to be yours." The old man understood what Yoroi was trying to say and was even more impressed by this team of shinobi.

"Dear Shinobi-sama, may I know your name so that we may never forget it?"

"My name is Yoroi and this is Moi, Jooi and Megusuri."

"Yoroi-sama, we once had a shinobi from Kumo who saved us many years ago, he looked a lot like you and was called Yodoi, are you related?"

Yoroi dropped his chopsticks, he was very shocked. He never thought he would find traces of his brother, so he had to pull himself together to avoid being reminded of his arrival in this world.

"That was my brother, unfortunately he died trying to save me in an ambush."

This time the elder was shocked and visibly upset at bringing back such potentially bad memories for Yoroi.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up bad memories. It must be fate that you ended up with us in the village. Life is a world open to many wonders."

After they had talked a little, Yoroi decided to send a message to Kumo about what had happened in the village. The discovery of two Missing-nin was a bit worrying, because there should not be any in Kumo. Yoroi handed the written scroll to one of the villagers along with two scrolls containing the bodies of the two shinobi. That villager was the hunter of the village and would head straight for Kumo.

The villagers insisted on giving the team something to eat and so, around noon, the team continued their journey. This time, however, they had to run, because it was much later than planned and Yoroi did not want to experience another embarrassing situation in the evening.

"Yoroi, were the shinobi so weak or did you hold back in the fight with us. I was shocked at how quickly you finished them off." Moi, who had had the question on the tip of his tongue since the camp took advantage of the quiet during the journey to finally ask his question.

"Both in a sense. I have become stronger, after all, I have been training. First of all, the two shinobi didn't expect me or any shinobi in general, and secondly, they probably haven't fought shinobi for a long time, which made their instincts worse. The Genin would not have been difficult for me either way, but in fact my training with A came in handy. There is no faster shinobi in Kumo, it would be embarrassing if I as his student were not faster than most of the others. As for the chunin, I have to say that he was surprised by my jutsu. I specifically practised making the finger signs faster and also using several jutsu in a row. My first Jutstu has the advantage that it attracts a lot of attention, so it looks more dangerous than it is. The chunin was able to defend himself but was still hit a little so that he was distracted. My second jutsu was aimed at him and was much faster than the previous one. Accordingly, he had no chance to react in time. But why it all worked has a lot to do with you. I could use so much chakra because you were still there as my backup. Even if the fight against the chunin had lasted longer, I would still have had you as support after you had finished off the escaped bandits. Never forget that only when you know someone has your back can you go all out." Yoroi himself was excited by his words and secretly he thought that Dodai and A would be pleased with his speech. After all, he really relied on his team in this fight and gave them his trust.

"You are not much older than us, but your experience speaks for itself. You are not known as a child prodigy without reason. I have learned a lot today and I have to restrain myself more. In the final of the exam I had already realised that I was too convinced of myself. You're right, only when I trust my comrade can I fully concentrate on my opponent." Megusuri was very happy about his new experiences, he now knew for a few days that he had to work a lot on himself and so Yoroi's short speech left a deep impression on him.

The journey went on all day without further incident and so this time they arrived at their destination village in the late afternoon. From then on, everything was relaxed and they stayed on schedule without any major incidents. In fact, it went so well that they were able to have a few training sessions to improve teamwork and strengthen their trust in their comrades. Day after day passed until they approached the border of the Land of Fire.