WRIN - Chapter 23 - Ambush (Patreon)

(Word Count: 1,110)

That guy left a bad feeling in my gut. He felt a little too sleazy to be the kind of guy to go out of his way to apologize for an outburst. Which meant some sort of ulterior motive. I hoped I was just being a bit too paranoid, but when I brought it up with Tsunade, she felt the same way.

It was likely that he had overheard their route, so we couldn’t dismiss the possibility of him leaking that intel, intentionally or not.

From then on, we had to travel with a much greater vigil. Kurenai looked sick to the stomach at the thought of her being the cause of our team getting ambushed.

“Just take this as a lesson for the future,” Tsunade encouraged.

She nodded with tears in her eyes.

The next day was spent on the river. By nightfall, we were most of the way there already. The Naka river took us right to the edge of the Shuho desert, where we would spend the next three days traversing.

The Shuho desert wasn’t the kind of desert that Suna had, with their massive sand dunes. It was semi-arid land, with plenty of dry shrubs, sage bushes, tumbleweeds, and cactus. There were several mesas in the distance.

It was a stark contrast to the central forests of the Land of Fire, but it was beautiful, in its own unique way.

It was also hot—way too hot—and dry. It was also “my turn” to carry the huge scroll, so I had it strapped to my back. It wasn’t exactly comfortable lugging the heavy scroll through the desert, but it was what it was.

I had long since discarded my haori, and was sporting only my thinnest shirt possible underneath my gear.

No one was in the mood for any conversation. All of us were too miserable in the dry heat to waste any energy complaining. Meanwhile, Tsunade was strolling along perfectly fine. She was much more used to travelling around various climates.

There was one jutsu I knew of that helped cool the body down to help treat heat stroke, as well as one used to help warm the body up to help treat hypothermia, but I didn’t want to waste my chakra in case of enemy attack.

“Don’t worry, kids. We’re camping by another river tonight,” Tsunade said cheerfully.

The second day in the desert was when we were the farthest from any civilization. The closest permanent structure, according to the maps, was a gold mine half a day’s South. We had also reached the mesas, so we had to travel through a pass that felt more like a canyon.

If there was any place for an attack, it would be here. I glanced around, but I couldn’t spot anything out of the ordinary.

We were currently traveling on a rough dirt road, which was more like a hiking trail than anything. There weren’t any bushes nearby that were large enough to hide anyone, but that wasn’t really a good indicator that there wasn’t anyone around. A ninja could easily disguise themselves as one of the many small bushes, or a rock. They could even be hiding underground using the headhunter jutsu. There was nothing on top of the ridges either. 

I glanced at Tsunade. She was strolling along casually, as if she didn’t have a care in the world, but I could see her eyes were clocking in every detail of the surroundings. She noticed my glance, and winked. 

She gave two subtle hand signs. Ambush. Bait. There was an ambush, and Tsunade wanted us to play the clueless victims to bait them into actually attacking.

Okay, then. If that’s how she wanted to play it.

If she was that confident, then there shouldn’t be too many of them.

Still, I felt rather annoyed at myself for not seeing where they were. I subtly looked around again, but nothing stood out. This wasn’t like what Naruto’s team faced, where there was an obvious puddle of water when it hadn’t rained in days.

She made another sign. You take one. 

It seemed like Tsunade wanted to use this chance to let our team face off against an actual enemy.

I couldn’t help but sigh. This was supposed to be just a C ranked mission, but seeing as we were now getting ambushed by ninja—because I refused to believe I couldn’t spot simple bandits—this mission was now elevated to a B rank.

I supposed I should have known things couldn’t be simple.

I glanced at Kurenai and Shizune. Neither of them seemed to have noticed our little exchange. ‘Should I give them a heads up?’ No. I wouldn’t be able to do that without alerting the enemy that we knew of them.

Once we were deep enough in the small valley, the enemy made their move.

All around us, several rough looking men appeared. They were dressed as bandits, with ragged clothes and covered faces, but they were obviously Ninja. Mostly, it was the Ninja packs strapped to their sides for their kunai.

Several of them burst out of the ground. One was a bush, and one of them appeared from a boulder which, in hindsight, was the same boulder as the one across the road. This was probably the one that tipped off Tsunade.

In total, there were 6 of them. Two on either side, and two in front.

Hands burst out of the ground beneath me and Tsunade, reaching up to grab our ankles. Okay, make that 8 of them.

I took all of this in within a split second, as the enemy didn't stop to give any grand ultimatum to surrender or die. They just immediately charged.

Because I was expecting something like this, I was able to react in time. As the hands beneath me burst out of the ground, I leapt backwards, shooting two chakra strings to pull Shizune and Kurenai back with me.

The two girls were too stunned by the sudden chaos to react with anything other than a startled scream.

Tsunade didn't bother dodging the guy trying to grab her and, seeing me pull the girls away with me, instead just punched the ground.

The ground exploded, lifting up large chunks, and revealed the two ninjas that were still underground. They were left reeling, trying not to get themselves crushed.

“Aagh!”

Tsunade's attack also stopped the other ninjas’ advance, leaving Tsunade in between us and the enemy ninjas.

Surprisingly, the enemy ninjas’ eyes went back and forth between Tsunade, the main threat, and me. Or more specifically, the scroll containing the supply shipment.

They wanted to steal the scroll.