Chapter 329: Team Haruno Sakura's Mission
Plunge, splatter—
The steel kunai plunged into the fragile flesh with a plunge, and when pulled out, blood spurted out with a splatter, blooming into a flower of blood in the air.
It splashed onto Konohamaru's completely stunned face.
"I killed someone..." he muttered, his eyes wide, his gaze blank.
Opposite him, a tall and sturdy man was clutching his neck, looking at the child in front of him in disbelief. He staggered back a few steps, then fell to the ground in despair.
"Bastard, avenge the boss!" A man with a ferocious face next to him suddenly erupted and rushed from behind Konohamaru, waving a sword!
The long sword whistled as it slashed towards the dazed youth. It wasn't until the blade wind scraped against his back that Konohamaru woke up as if from a dream, realizing that he was still in a battle, and the enemy wouldn't wait for him to wake up from his daze before attacking!
However, it was too late.
"Damn it! I can't dodge it!" Konohamaru's eyes widened. His unnecessary panic just now had left too many openings. Faced with this sneak attack, he had absolutely no time or space to dodge!
He could only watch helplessly as the sharp blade approached his body...
Haruno Sakura's figure instantly appeared. In the nick of time, just as Konohamaru was about to be seriously injured, she blocked the long sword and kicked the attacker away, leaving him unable to get up.
"Don't space out on the battlefield!" She turned back and glared at Konohamaru, scolding him angrily.
"S-Sorry!" This was the first time Konohamaru had seen his teacher angry. The fear and discomfort from his first kill instantly disappeared, leaving only the urge to tremble.
"Since the enemies on this side have all been defeated by you," Sakura glanced around, seeing that all the enemies had fallen to the ground, either groaning or silent, and said, "go and support the other two!"
Konohamaru felt as if he had been granted amnesty. He nodded quickly and said, "Understood!" With that, he ran off.
Before long, the battle on the other side was also declared over.
Except for Konohamaru nearly getting injured, the others didn't encounter too many thrilling events, and they easily completed this mission to exterminate the bandits.
However, when they gathered, all three of them were pale and looked lost.
As ninja, they had previously only carried out peaceful missions. This was the first time Team Haruno Sakura had left the village to fight people.
Haruno Sakura didn't intervene. She watched from the side the whole time, only striking instantly when Konohamaru was about to get hurt.
After cleaning up the battlefield and returning, Haruno Sakura saw the unsettled expressions on her three students' faces. She shook her head and walked over.
"Sensei!" The three of them greeted her weakly.
"The strongest enemy in this mission was just a rogue-nin Chunin who hadn't trained for several years, and his skills had long become dull," Haruno Sakura sighed and said. "Yet, Udon and Moegi, you two struggled so much."
The two lowered their heads in embarrassment.
"Didn't you fight well during usual training?" Sakura walked in front of the three, looking at their dejected faces, and said, "Why did your hands shake as soon as you fought with real swords and live ammunition?"
In terms of strength, the three children of Team Haruno Sakura were definitely not weak, fully at the Chunin level.
However, no matter how well they performed in training, it was useless if they couldn't display it in actual combat. When Sakura dragged them out to fight to the death with real enemies, they showed a serious lack of experience.
The current them might not even be able to beat an experienced ordinary Genin!
Newcomers were all like this, and Team 7 back then was no exception, so she wasn't too angry.
"You guys were too nervous..." Sakura touched the heads of the three and said slowly. "There were several miscommunications. It wasn't like this when you fought me before! There were even failures in casting ninjutsu."
Konohamaru performed slightly better, taking down his opponent cleanly. But after killing someone for the first time, he was dazed for too long and was almost cut by an ordinary person. It could simply be called a disgrace to ninja. After saving him, Haruno Sakura even regretted a little, wondering if she should have let him get hurt a little so that the lesson would be deeper.
To be honest, if the opponents weren't so much weaker than them, Sakura would probably have had to clean up the mess today.
When Haruno Sakura faced enemies alone back then, she wasn't as weak-kneed as them. Her first kill was during the Land of Waves mission. At that time, she didn't even have time to savor the feeling before she was thrown into the subsequent battle.
However, she was, after all, an adult who had transmigrated, and her spirit was far more stable than the students. What's more, she had just mastered the basics of Ice Style at that time, and the power of Ice Style had already begun to assist her mind in staying clear.
After pointing out their problems, Haruno Sakura stopped her criticism at the right time. Children's psychology is relatively fragile, and even ninja aren't made of special materials. So she couldn't just blindly criticize and point out their mistakes. Suppressing first and then praising could allow them to both realize their mistakes and maintain a positive and striving attitude.
She timely found the highlights of everyone's actions and praised them. "Although you encountered various problems, overall, you still completed the mission very smoothly! For newcomers on their first combat mission, this is already not easy!"
After comforting the three students, Sakura smiled and said, "Speaking of which, when your Naruto-niichan encountered an enemy for the first time on a mission, he was so scared he couldn't move! Your performance was already great! Just remember to overcome the problems you encountered this time next time."
"Hmph! Next time I definitely won't be so lame!" Konohamaru said indignantly. He had recovered from the discomfort of his first kill and was full of energy again, feeling very annoyed at his mistake just now.
"Me too!" Moegi and Udon also rushed to say.
Their spirits have recovered well!
Haruno Sakura said seriously, "You should know that the day after tomorrow, we will begin the mission to go to the Mist Village in the Land of Water as envoys... Originally, this kind of combat mission should have been gradually adapted to. But the situation is urgent this time, so I skipped the adaptation step directly and chose a mission involving blood for you. You should know why."
The three students sat up straight and listened to her.
"This mission might be very simple, or it might be very dangerous, and we might even have to fight ninja. So, I specially arranged this mission, hoping that you can find a bit of the feeling of real combat. At least when facing battle, you won't be as weak-kneed as today. Learn your lesson!"
She concluded, "Go back and submit the mission, then rest. There won't be much training tomorrow, just a simple crash course on diplomatic etiquette and emergency drills. Recharge your energy for these two days, and we set off the day after tomorrow!"
"Yes, Sensei!"
Two days later, Team Haruno Sakura walked out of the Konoha gate with the excitement and nervousness of going abroad for the first time.
They marched at an extremely fast speed. In a few days, they passed through a large part of the Land of Fire, crossed the Land of Bears, which had little presence, and arrived at the strait facing the Mist Village across the sea.
It was raining here.
Late May was already the rainy season. Places near the sea were even more rainy, raining for several days straight. It wasn't strange not to see the sun for weeks.
Team Haruno Sakura was lucky. It was sunny when they set off a few days ago, and it only started raining yesterday. The rain wasn't heavy, but the continuous drizzle carried a hint of the chill of late spring, which wasn't very friendly to travelers.
Even for ninja, trekking in the rain was not a comfortable thing.
Haruno Sakura herself was fine. With her Water Style attainments, she was fully capable of walking in the rain without getting wet. When raindrops fell on her, they didn't touch her skin at all, but were blocked by a thin layer of water, merged into the water layer, and then flowed down to the ground along with it.
The Jonin vest she was wearing was still fresh and dry, without a single water stain.
But her three subordinates, although wearing straw raincoats, still couldn't block the invasion of raindrops. During the high-speed march, the rain attacked their faces, stubbornly drilling in from every part, quietly seeping into the clothes under the raincoats, bringing a chill that seeped into their bones.
Team Haruno Sakura stopped on a cliff by the sea.
Ahead was the endless sea. The horizon was hazy in the rain, dim and invisible, only the boundless sea surface could be seen.
"The Land of Water is across the sea," Haruno Sakura said faintly, walking at the front.
She looked back at the three students. Their collars were soaked with rain, and under the blowing sea breeze, their small bodies were trembling slightly, their expressions listless.
"That's all for today," Sakura looked up at the sky. The dark clouds blocked the sun, and she could only vaguely judge from the dim light that it was probably late afternoon, approaching evening.
The three wilted little guys immediately breathed a huge sigh of relief.
"We'll find a place to shelter from the rain, rest for a night, and set off again tomorrow," she continued, then formed hand seals, creating a large number of clones to find a suitable location. "If we continue, you'll get sick. I'll teach you how to use chakra to maintain your body temperature. This is a basic ninja skill."
Haruno Sakura looked back at the distant sea surface. The Land of Water was on the other side. This was also her first time carrying out an envoy mission, not to mention bringing children along this time, so she was inevitably a little nervous.
After going over there, she would have to be careful in everything and act according to the circumstances.
While calmly instructing her three shivering subordinates on the technique of using chakra to maintain body temperature, she silently pondered the intelligence about the Mist Village that Hinata and Sasuke had told her before.
The ice clones quickly found a cave on the edge of the cliff. It was a natural crack in the mountain body. The entrance was small, but inside was a different world, a very spacious cave. There were no living creatures inside, not even grass, looking like a barren cave.
Haruno Sakura used ninjutsu to clear the debris in the cave, leveled the ground, and used Earth Style to divide it into several rooms. Then she used Ice Style to surround the cave, covered it with a layer of solid mud for warmth, and a field camp was thus established.
The three subordinates who had been eating in the wind and sleeping in the dew along the way were sleeping in a house with a roof for the first time in days. Although it was still simple, it was enough to make them cheer in exhaustion: "Great! Finally, a good sleep!"
Watching them jump for joy, Sakura immediately laughed dumbly. "You guys, complaining about being tired after just a little hardship. When Sensei was in the Anbu, sometimes I had to sleep in trees for ten days or half a month! I couldn't even take a shower."
The last sentence was, of course, an exaggeration. As a Water Style ninja, she always had a way to take a shower if she wanted to. However, most ninja could only endure and overcome these situations. Of course, if conditions permitted, using Earth Style to build a house and Fire Style to build a fire for warmth was always possible—this was also why Sakura had specially learned a few Earth Style and Fire Style moves some time ago. Not to kill enemies, but just for convenience.
After a while, the clones collecting firewood also came back with wet wood.
Haruno Sakura extracted the moisture from the firewood, lit a bonfire, and the four of them sat comfortably around the fire pit. She continued, "We have a long rest time today. You can take a good bath. Rest early, and we'll set off at dawn tomorrow!"
"Yes, Sensei!" After resting for a while, this answer was much louder.
The next day, the sky cleared.
Greeting the rising sun, the revitalized Team Haruno Sakura stepped onto the sea surface.
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