The "boss" wasn't actually their true boss.
One day he just arrived at their old hideout and killed their former boss and threatened them to obey him or else he would kill them too.
Actually, his real identity is 42, a henchman of Orochimaru.
For as long as he remembers was he in Orochamimarus's captivity, so long that he can't even remember his real name.
The other inmates called him 42, so he just went with it.
He grew up in Otogakure without any love of happiness and not long ago he was suddenly forced to participate in a deathly battler royal.
42 was the sole survivor and winner of this battle royal and then a mission was given to him.
Orochimaru was planning something big in the near future concerning Konoha, so his mission was to erase as much of Konoha's manpower before that while making sure to not alert them.
If you think about it, it's a pretty ludicrous mission: If a number of shinobis suddenly started to disappear, Konoha would absolutely be alerted!
Since not alerting them was far more important than the numbers and strength of the shinobis, 42 came up with a plan.
He would take over a bandit group, let them bait some rookie teams, and then kill them.
Since it's only some rookie teams Konoha wouldn't suspect something, since rookie teams have naturally a high chance of screwing up in missions.
Furthermore, rookie teams wouldn't be such a great loss for Konoha to start to dispatch elite troops to investigate.
He was strong, but he certainly couldn't fight an elite troop alone.
To make sure he only attracts rookie teams, he ordered the bandits to make as little trouble as possible, so that the bandits would be an annoyance but not a threat.
Unfortunately, bandits often had the characteristics of a small intellect and no self-control.
He ordered the bandits to only extort goods, but not long ago one of them started to harass the village girls.
That is why this bandit's brain was now splattered all over the floor.
For 42 killing was nothing, in fact, he hadn't even feelings towards Orochimaru: neither affections nor hate.
He had no purpose in his miserable life, so he always just went with the flow.
This mission was just something he got entangled with and he just tried to complete it without thinking too much about it.
"HOW AWESOME! This is my first time seeing a village outside of Konoha!"
Kotaru shouted with a happy look, while Arina was looking interested around.
Eiji was also intrigued: 'Konoha is really weird when it comes to technology and architecture, so seeing a village which resembles feudal-japan is honestly really cool...'
The village was small and had not many people in it.
But it was well maintained and it didn't look like some dirty peasant farm, where everyone is malnourished.
The people here were healthy and lived a happy life.
Occasionally they would have some festivals here, which aren't practiced in big towns or shinobi villages.
The clothes were similar to feudal-japan as well: with people who were currently working wearing simple working clothes and straw hats, while the rest moved around in kimonos.
When the village people saw team eleven approaching, the people hurried to inform the village chief.
The village chief rushed there and inspected them warily.
Only after seeing the Konoha headbands did he relax slightly and greeted them.
"Welcome to our humble village. I suppose you are Konoha shinobis?"
"Koff, yes. We came here to deal with your bandit problem..."
"Ah great, follow me, it's better talking somewhere inside with a cup of tea..."
"You see, normally we don't have any bandit problems around here, since our village is near Konohagakure. But around a month ago this group suddenly appeared. I have to say though, they are a weird bunch, they only demand a small number of goods and never used physical force. Though today one of them started harassing our girls, weirdly enough the other bandits stopped him and dragged him away. That's why we told Konoha that they aren't really dangerous and that we would pay for a D-rank mission. The hideout should be nearby somewhere, but I can't tell you the exact location. Well, you shinobis shouldn't have any problems finding it though."
"Koff, I understand. Don't worry, those bandits will be handled by us, just make sure that none of the villagers leaves the village while we are dealing with them."
Hey sensei, how are we supposed to find their hideout?" - Kotaru
"We learned it at the academy though..." - Arina
"I know, but I forgot it..."
"Koff, well there are many ways to track somebody, but the most important thing is to use the tactic most suitable for the circumstances. For our mission, we know that the hideout is nearby and since there weren't any bandit problems prior to this, we can conclude that this hideout was built by our targets. Hideouts are either build from scratch or environmental structures like caves are used instead. Most bandits don't want to waste time building it on their own, so most of the time it's the second option they use. There is a mountain range nearby, so we just have to follow the easiest path from the village into the direction of the mountain range and we should find something."
"But shouldn't we be a bit careful of possible traps or something sensei?" - Eiji
"Usually yes, but since we got the information that the bandits take only goods from the village, they likely use some sort of carriage to carry it to the hideout, which would make setting traps that aren't triggered by their own carriage hard to set up."
"Kinda makes sense I guess..." - Eiji
"Of course, the words of a Jonin always make sense!" - Kotaru
"Why are you always so energetic? Can't you relax a bit or something?"
"Sir, one of our scouts saw them walking into the village and then talking to the village chief. And now they walk towards our hideout..."
"Hmm looks like some fish took finally the bait...order all men to act like we didn't notice them. When they arrive, start acting surprised and attack disorganized! I will take care of the rest." - 42 said it with an emotionless voice like always.
He then started to hide himself.
It's not like he isn't strong, but sneak attacking is just the fastest way and the possibility of the enemy escaping is also much smaller.
"Sensei, shouldn't we - "
"Keep your voice down, we are already nearby and it looks like the enemy didn't notice us. So here's the plan. Since I took the mission to let you have some real fighting experience, you guys will try to take them stealthily out one by one, while I will stand on standby to step in if something goes wrong!"
"Yes, sensei!" All three whispered it.
There were currently 3 guards outside the cave guarding the entrance.
The 3 Genin formed the plan of everyone taking 1 guard individually out, striking at the same time.
After that, they would transform into the guards and check the situation inside.
Hayate approved of the plan, even though he knew that such a plan was a bit too sophisticated to carry out for rookies and that mishaps will probably occur - but that's why he was here.
If anything happens, he will instantly step in to help.
After that they could learn from this experience and their mistakes, to grow as shinobis!
Anyway, the 3 Genins selected their targets and started to sneak.
Of course, they just wanted to knock them unconsciously, but Hayate insisted that they still should have a kunai ready in case it gets dangerous.
The bandits already knew that enemies are approaching.
But they were ordered to behave normally.
Furthermore, they are normal people, so they couldn't possibly notice trained shinobis sneaking towards them.
They did normal guard stuff: one was drinking booze, the other was eating, while the last one distanced himself to answer the call of nature.
"Ahh man, I love beer, but I hate the pissing after that!"
Unfortunately, Arina's target was the one who was currently peeing.
With a red face, she tried her best to ignore it and sneaked behind his back.
Then she hit him at the neck.
Somehow he managed to fall back exposing his treasure worm to a 12-year-old girl.
"..."
Fortunately, Eiji and Kotaru didn't run into any problems, so the next step was to transform into the guards.
But Arina was just standing there like her soul left her body.
42 was watching the three Genin.
'Only 3 Genin? According to intel I got for the mission, most shinobi-villages have a Jonin supervising Genin...so I suspect that the Jonin is hiding somewhere...hmm it would be best to sneak attack the Jonin, so I will just wait and see. Maybe he shows himself on his own accord...'
Because of Arina's hesitation, they lost the timing, and when a bandit went out to swap for guard duty, he saw the unconscious bodies and started to yell: "Intruders!"
The bandits acted surprised and started to attack disorganized like they were ordered.
Truthfully they would attack disorganized even if they weren't ordered to since they were no-name bandits who can only bully defenseless villagers - they don't know how to fight at all.
Still for children of their age, when suddenly a group of armed adults starts to rush at you, it would still be scary.
Eiji had already experience dealing with a group of hoodlums, so he was relaxed and just smacked at their heads with his sword sheath.
Kotaru was eager to prove himself, so he charged bravely at the bandits.
Arina was still paralyzed.
The bandits sensed that she was the easiest target and started to focus on her.
"Damn it, Arina! Start doing something!" - Kotaru was frustrated and tried to get in range to defend her.
Eiji wasn't really motivated to help since he knew Hayate would step in, so he just continued to smack the heads of nearby bandits.
Of course with that, Hayate had no choice but to step in to save Arina.
Instantly the group which ran towards Arina was knocked out.
After seeing that, Arina came to her senses: "Sensei?!"
"Koff, don't worry I'm here - "
Like a bullet, a body shot out from somewhere and hit Hayate.
Hayate flew towards the mountain.
"Hmm it looks like you reacted and moved your body to evade a lethal hit...well you are still pretty heavily injured so I doubt you can put up a real fight."
After the smoke from his landing subsided, you could see 42.
He didn't wear anything which would link him to Otogakure or Orochimaru, to avoid blasting Orochimaru's plan in case he would die or gets caught.
He had an apathetic look, his hair color was grey and he had a body physique that was similarly buffed as Jugo.
But the most noteworthy thing about his appearance was, that his arms were covered in earth.
"Koff, koff...everyone get away from this guy! He is highly dangerous, you guys better get out. I will hold him back, while you rush back to Konoha to report that an unknown strong shinobi was hiding amongst the bandits!"
"BUT SENSEI WHAT ABOUT YOU?!" - Kotaru
"Don't worry about me, I will defeat this guy and then join you..."
The Genins looked at their sensei: his left arm was twisted in a weird way and he trembled heavily while struggling to even stand!
They knew that his words right now weren't true.
'What the hell is happening here? Why did we run into some strong guy on a normal mob mission? What should I do? Take Kotaru and Arina and leave Hayate-sensei behind? No... I swore I would save Hayate-sensei..."
While Eiji was contemplating Kotaru charged at 42: "NOOO SENSEI!!! I WON'T LEAVE YOU BEHIND!!!"
42 glanced at him disinterested while saying: "Too bad, you should have listened to your sensei. Then maybe your chance of survival wouldn't be zero..."
More earth started to gather on his arms, and then he raised one of his arms to attack.
"BOOOOMMM!!!!"
His punch had the power of a small explosion.
Of course, Kotaru couldn't possibly survive being hit by that.
But Hayate used a shadow clone to push him out of the way and only the shadow clone got hit instead.
'Using the shadow clone jutsu for that uses a lot of chakra...I have only enough chakra left to use the Dance of the Crescent Moon one time! Furthermore, I can hold my sword with only one arm now...I need to end this fight with my next move or else...'
"Hmm looks like I need to kill this Jonin first..." - 42 looked at a Hayate who looked like he would collapse any second.
Hayate started to summon 2 shadow clones and used his last ounce of strength to perform his signature move!
42 couldn't dodge and was cut simultaneously.
"...fuck..." - these were Hayate's last words before dropping down.
He used his last ounce of strength, but couldn't take 42 down.
Before he was slashed, 42 covered his whole body with an earth armor.
Jonin are generally able to use two types of elemental chakra, but Hayate was a Tokubetsu Jonin.
He got this status, because of his superb kenjutsu skills.
But like most Tokubetsu Jonin, even though they excel in one specific area, they lack all-around Jonin skills, this was also true for Hayate.
He could only use one type of elemental chakra, and his chakra nature was fire like most of the shinobis in Konoha.
Using fire chakra on his sword isn't really beneficial, so he relies on his pure kenjutsu.
Most of the time it's enough to take down any of his opponents, but shinobis who excel in defense are his natural counters.
That is why Hayate was defeated by Baki in the original timeline.
Anyway with Hayate down, 42 started to select his next target.
And Eiji, who was watching this fight, was in complete disbelieve that Hayate was defeated so fast.
'Shit! Why is this happening?! Wasn't this supposed to be a normal mob mission? Why did it turn out this way...'
Eiji was also experiencing true fear for the first time.
He started to doubt if he can even take on 42, meanwhile 42 looked at Kotaru emotionlessly.
"Hmm, looks like you are next..."
Kotaru, who was normally energetic and confident, was completely frozen out of fear.
42 retracted his earth armor and started to walk towards him in a normal tempo since in his eyes his enemies lost the will to fight and he doesn't need to exert himself unnecessarily anymore.
But unbelievable in this hopeless situation, the usually most fearful Arina started to prepare her attack.
She didn't say anything, but her eyes showed pure concentration and she used the clone technique to summon 4 afterimages of her.
She and the afterimages rushed towards 42.
"Using such a basic technique is really insulting for the opponent you know..."
42 looked bored and he covered his arms with the earth armor again and with just one swing he hit all the afterimages.
Arina was hit too, but she anticipated that attack and let her right arm break to evade the rest of the attack while using the other hand to grab into her shinobi bag.
She used a smoke bomb.
"Hmm, you really are underestimating me..."
With just one swing of him, the whole smoke vanished.
"!"
But 42 didn't expect to see himself surrounded by a huge amount of bombs.
"You crazy bitch! You will only kill yourself and your nearby mates with this!"
The normally apathetic 42 was slightly panicked and he instantly summoned an earth armor to cover himself fully.
...
He waited but nothing happened.
The bombs were just duds, not meant to explode!
But this was enough time to toss Kotaru out of 42's range and grab Hayate.
Arina started running.
42 was still bewildered, not believing that he was easily fooled by a rookie.
"..."
Arina was still running, when 42 composed himself.
"Hmm, this is really different from the fights I'm used to, but now I will use all to kill you once and for all..."
The earth armor covered himself fully again, and he prepared to launch.
'At this rate, everyone will die...FUCK! Why does my body not listen to me!!!'
After seeing Arina's superb performance, despite her being way weaker than him, he started to feel shame.
He wanted to help too, but his body didn't listen to him.
It was his first life and death fight, and even though he was an adult in his last life, his current body didn't care about any of that and continued to behave like the body of a child.
42 looked at the running Arina and aimed his charge direction at her.
He would shot out like a bullet, and with the hardiness of his armor, the damage will be devastating!
'Fuckin shit, this shitty body won't stop me!'
Eiji bit on his lips so hard that blood started to flow.
"BOOOOMMM!!!!"
42 charged like a bullet, but he hit nothing!
"Jo shithead, sorry for letting you wait..."
Eiji dropped Arina and Hayate next to him and held the sword on one of his shoulders.
Hmm for a rookie team, you guys sure know how to be annoying like mosquito's..."
"Better being a mosquito than an emotionless shitass who would probably bore his own mother to death..."
"..."
42 didn't know how to react to those witty insults, but he didn't need to, he just needed to kill him!
He started to prepare another charge.
But Eiji also used the time to get into an Iai-stance.
'In terms of speed I'm certainly faster, but I honestly don't want to be in close range against this guy. So I will use my other technique instead...'
Instead of accelerating and concentrating his chakra on his feet like for the "Spring Breeze", he used the sword instead.
He concentrated a huge amount of accelerated chakra, so much that the sword started to glow.
"Konoha Wind-Spirit Style: Summer wind..."
42 charged and disappeared.
But Eiji lifted his sword slightly out of the sheath right at this time.
The accumulated energy inside the sword escaped the sheath with explosive power.
But it was a directed power, which looked like a cutting wind with the appearance of a circle surrounding Eiji.
This comes, because Eiji used wind chakra as well.
The whole core of his technique wasn't that he just used his sheath like a bomb, but instead he used the accelerated wind chakra to form a phantom-blade around his blade inside the sheath.
He then draws fully this "phantom sword", which gives him control of the direction of his attack.
Of course the "phantom blade" instantly evaporates while drawing it.
In short, for the opponents, it looks like he just slightly moved his sword, which unleashes a powerful attack, but in reality, it was a sophisticated technique!
Because the attack had a huge radius, 42 was cut while charging.
Even his earth armor couldn't help him, he was cut in half.
His two halves still had the bullet-like power, but the trajectory was off and they didn't hit anything.
'Looks like this is it...'
Eiji was looking at the battlefield.
The other bandits escaped already at the begging of the battle, so they were nowhere to be seen.
Kotaru hit his head when he was tossed by Arina and was unconscious.
Hayate was unconscious as well.
When it comes to Arina, it looked like she finally listened to her body signals and was overwhelmed by the pain of her broken arm.
'So I'm the only one who can move around? I should probably rush to the village for help..."
Hayate woke up.
He was in a room which he believed he recognized, but overall he was confused and didn't understand the situation.
After some time images of the fight with 42 rushed into his brain.
Panic was written on his face and he tried to get up too suddenly, which resulted in him feeling huge pain.
"!"
"Calm down, with your injuries you shouldn't move around recklessly..."
Hayate recognized the voice and turned towards the source of it.
It was the village chief.
"Koff...please, can you tell me what happened? Where are my teammates?"
"Well, I believe you want the short answer so here you go. One of your teammates defeated this dangerous-looking bandit and since everyone was injured he rushed towards the village to ask for help. The other teammates were also treated and it looks like they will be fine..."
'Defeated this opponent?...it can only be one...'
"Can you tell me please, where the one with the sword currently is?"
"I wouldn't advise you to move around, but you won't listen probably anyway...I saw him near the bridge...the village has only one bridge, so you should find him easily."
"Koff, when it was my first time I couldn't sleep for weeks but it was war, so I couldn't be absent for too long..."
Eiji, who was sitting and leaning at a bridge arc, turned towards Hayate with a weak smile.
Traces of vomit could be seen around his mouth.
"Honestly sensei, I thought I wouldn't be a sissy, who would cry about killing his enemies...but my shitty body does whatever it wants..."
"Eiji, without you defeating him, we would have all died...so instead you should be proud..."
"I don't think I should be proud of stuff like that. If I didn't defeat him I would be dead and that's it. Isn't this how shinobi life is supposed to be?" - he said that with a mocking smile.
It was silent for a while.
Hayate thought about his shinobi life and experiences.
"Hey sensei, will it get easier with time?"
"No, you just learn to ignore it better."