Get back up(edit)

Chapter 7: Real Shinobi Life, Talk-no-Jutsu (of a kind)

Our first mission went topside when we were pretty much finished with it.
We had to meet the client in the Capital, which took us two and a half days of running with chakra to get there, then we had to guard a man and his wife's caravan and escort them for a full day to a small village nearby. That part went pretty easy and quickly.
In fact it was actually pretty boring all in all.

The road we had to take there and back did have signs of bandits or common thugs patrolling it, but we didn't actually have to fight any until we were on our way back through and a patrol team tried to ambush us with flaming arrows and a couple swordsmen.
Well, maybe swordsmen wasn't the right title...they weren't exactly professional at using their weapons.

It was extremely easy to take them down, and no one was killed or wounded too seriously, save a bandit with a nasty bump on his head where Sasuke had kicked him headfirst into a tree.

It was after we had dropped them off at the nearest town to be jailed and were on our way home again that we were attacked by more serious enemies.

Apparently sensei was infamous, because an A-ranked rogue told us he was there to collect sensei's bounty, and we learned a bit more from the small amount of conversation between the two adults, about the bounty system and how the ranks were handed out.
Something that while interesting, wasn't really important to us yet as we were only lowly Genin just starting our career.

Sensei revealed he had the Sharingan, and that battle was pretty much won in his favor as he made it seem like he could see the future. While the enemy nin was pretty handy with his senbon and lightning jutsu, he stood no chance when sensei decided enough was enough.

He slit the throat of the rogue through instinct with a weirdly shaped kunai—three pronged?—and we had watched, wide eyed and shaking from our hiding spots he had us move to, as the blood splattered our sensei and waterfalled heavily down the front of the corpse as it hit the ground.

Sensei had us come out, then watch as he beheaded the rogue with his kunai, then sealed the head away, asking us in a calm and commanding voice why he was doing what he was doing.

Naruto puked.

Sasuke was blank faced and pale and I too was nauseated, pale and shaking.

Somehow this didn't seem that bad though, as if I had seen worse things than the man I was growing to respect, murder and dismember someone for profit.
It all seemed surreal, as if it was happening too fast, or like maybe it was a dream or something.

Sensei took note of our reactions, sighed, then had a talk about the realities of being a shinobi for our village.

"We do this..." he waved at the scene with his blood stained hand at the corpse behind him, "..while on the first few missions to get our students used to the idea that they too will have to take life to protect our allies and home.
We teach you to hunt animals for survival, to make a profit and to cull the numbers of beasts that have mutated from chakra radiation and are a threat to our home. This is really no different. Unlike the stories you are all raised on, being a ninja is not just about heroics and keeping peaceful relations. We are tools to our Hokage, weapons of war, and survivors of this harsh world." Naruto went to speak, but Kakashi spoke over him, the blond boy closing his mouth with an audible 'snap'.

"This is not a game!" Voice hard as his eyes become glued to Naruto in particular, his voice reverberated harshly in my ears as he continued in the same tone. I glanced at my teammates, then slid partially glazed eyes back to my team leader, ignoring the red, red, red of the liquid as it dripped from his knife. Sensei noticed our gazes on his weapon as he talked, bringing out a rag to clean his blade and sliding it home in its sheath.
'Were kunais supposed to be that large?'