Strength From Within (A Naruto Neglect Book)

31

(Note: Death and blood in this chapter)
The group was standing at the front gates, their client a drunk old man who Daidai was already beginning to dislike. He was rude, and stank of sake, and it was frustrating to have to deal with him. At the very least, he wasn't dealing with any of the things that Neji and Motoshi were doing and called them 'pompous brats' right to their face. Daidai had to try his best not to laugh at that, because it was an accurate representation, no matter how you put it. The pair were stuck up and rude and they needed someone to knock them down a peg since nobody else seemed to have the ability to do so. Perhaps this mission would be an eye opener for them? He certainly hoped that would be the case.

Daidai, Kakashi, Gai, Hinata and Sasuke all had their things stored in a sealing scroll in one of their ninja pouches or in their chūnin vest, meanwhile the two boys were carrying it in a backpack. It was quite amusing to see their faces when they realised that they could have done that too. Daidai did have storage scrolls spare, and he could also make some more, but he felt they deserved to have to carry their own things. If it became a danger he would provide them with one, but for now there was no need to worry about it. He didn't say anything so they weren't bugging him, though the pair kept on taking glances at him as if to ask 'what's this guy got that I don't?'.

Still, Daidai could ignore them. He just hoped that things would turn out alright with them along, since he had a bad feeling that this mission would be extremely difficult despite being only an A-rank and not an S-rank (which Daidai had been on multiple times). As they left to go to wave, he kept his guard up, making sure he had the second stage of his eyes activated so he could see if there were any heat signatures, and also making sure that he was tracking the chakra signatures of people around. He didn't want anything to happen to their client, but he more didn't want anything to happen to their group before it was time for them to be fighting. Having an injured person they needed to look after would be annoying, even if Daidai could probably just heal them with the healing bites.

Even if he had that ability, he still disliked using it since it drained his chakra. He had massive reserves and was comfortably able to make a thousand shadow clones and not have too much chakra waste or backlash, he still didn't like wasting chakra if it was a dangerous situation.

The group were walking along, Neji and Hinata also keeping an eye out with their byakugan. Only Kakashi knew that Daidai was also watching, and the man glanced back at him every once in a while to check up. It wasn't that the byakugan was bad, it was more so that he knew how good the crimson eyed boy's skills were. The two jounin had spoken to Daida (as Hitsuji), Weasel and Hebi about the mission, so they could learn more and get a better gauge on the situation.

The two other anbu were moving silently in the trees, their chakra signatures so well concealed that only Daidai could tell where they were. He could tell Hibiki was tense, and he felt tense as well. The wave mission had been his first anbu mission, and to have to come back to do another mission just held bad memories. As much as he would have liked to spend this time talking to Kurama, which would have helped him to feel better, he couldn't let his guard down.

They walked along for hours, making sure not to expend too much energy. Hinata and Neji didn't have their byakugan on, as they needed to conserve chakra and it was just wasting theirs. They had just gotten to near where they would be hiring a boat to travel across to wave country, about ten minutes walk away. He sensed the chakra signature first, and then saw their heat signatures once he looked. He simply nodded to Kakashi, signing something in anbu code. He knew Kakashi would understand, so would Hibiki and Itachi if they were looking.

'Two ahead, probably chūnin level. Simply scouts. They probably have communication devices' he signed. Kakashi nodded and looked to the group, getting them to stop and telling them that it was time for a drinks break.