Dark Phoenix of Konoha by White Angel of Auralon

Chapter 34: First Mission

The attackers always took supplies with them when they hit a village, next to valuables. So far there hadn't been any reports about them kidnapping people, which was a positive thing, as hostages made missions more difficult. Naruto cleared with the officials in River Country that in case they came across the attackers, they had permission to pursue them, even if they had to cross the border. It seemed that while River Country hadn't been hit as hard as Fire Country by the group, there had been thefts and small attacks, therefore the officials wouldn't mind at all if the ninjas from Konoha could get rid of the threat.

Shikamaru watched the forest that was close to the walls of the village he was currently at. After one week of securing as many buildings as they could, he and Shino had separated and took over watching over one village each. They had been given a kunai from Naruto, which would enable him to teleport to their location immediately if they pushed some chakra into the kunai. It was really incredible how much their classmate could do and how well he had hidden it all the time. The Flying Thundergod jutsu was legendary and said to only be known by the second and fourth Hokages. Now Naruto could use it as well.

Shino's bugs hadn't had any success in finding the missing nins' camp so far, therefore they had all decided that guarding one village each and then calling the others if there was an attack would increase their chances of success a lot. Naruto would first flash to the one that called for backup and leave a number of shadow clones, before flashing to the positions of the other two and bringing them to the attacked village as well. This should enable them to take on the attackers properly. It would at most take five minutes to have the whole team assembled and ready to fight.

So far his watch had been uneventful. But it was only two hours after nightfall. A lot could happen until the morning.

Sasuke noticed movement from the cliffside of the village he was guarding. A closer look with his sharingan activated confirmed that three persons were sneaking up to the village walls from a side where no normal village would suspect an attack from. He acted immediately and called Naruto. A second later his teammate was next to him and he silently informed Naruto of the observations he had made. Naruto created twenty clones to support him and two flashed away to get Shikamaru and Shino. They arrived a few seconds later.

The group took the positions they had decided upon previously and waited until the three were close enough to start the surprise attack that clearly was planned.

Flashback

"Alright, we know that the attackers always come when it's dark outside and from places where it's hard to spot them," Shikamaru commented the collected data. "All the villages that have been hit had that in common. Those where little to no cover is available close to the village have so far not been hit."

"True. In the first village they used to river to get to the village by staying underwater. In the dark they weren't spotted at all and they could attack within the village without anybody being aware that there were intruders at all. They took out the few policemen that the village had and stole whatever they wanted. The villagers only really noticed that anything was wrong when the office of the major went up in flames and the fire guards were called to deal with it," Sasuke agreed.

"It was similar for the other villages. Unnoticed entry thanks to natural cover, then a diversion and they left before they were discovered. The only resistance they found was taken out by poison, with weapons or in one case fire," Shino analysed. "They don't seem to be interested in fighting a lot from their method of working."

"True, it could have many reasons. We don't know how strong they are and which rank they had before they became missing nins. The only reason we can be sure that they are ninjas at all and not normal bandits, is that the injuries from fire were caused with chakra and not natural fire. There are no eye-witnesses that could give a proper description of the attackers, but the few that saw them at all, were sure that they were able to walk up walls, so they have to at least have had some formal training. The reason for not attacking openly could be that they're too weak to take on large groups, that they are after something in particular that would be harder to get if they didn't infiltrate secretly and then leave while taking as many useful things as possible or even that all of this is a distraction for something bigger. Right now we can't really tell," Naruto commented.