‘How the hell did I get into this stupid situation again on a freaking C-rank mission where I shouldn’t meet even a simple genin? This is ridiculous.’ Ren idly thought with a bead of sweat rolling down his temple as he subtly glanced around, his back to the entrance of the cave while on all other sides he was surrounded by what felt like jonins, going by their chakra signatures.

As he was about to enter the cave, he had this bad feeling. It just looked way too fishy. So, at the very last second, he decided to send a shadow clone in his stead with the requested documents while he waited it out outside.

It was disrespectful to the client, but this was supposed to be just a simple C-rank mission, so Ren didn’t care about the client getting insulted if he found out. If he wanted proper respect, he should have paid more money and requested a higher ranked mission.

Turns out, waiting outside was a good call in the end. Because if Ren was in the cave right now, experiencing this same situation, he would have been in a much worse spot.

At least, out in the open, if a fight broke out, he could go all out without caring about bringing the cave down on his head. Now that he thought about it, he was primarily known for using explosives.

Ugh. This shit was totally planned, wasn’t it?

Because really, what are the chances? Ren counted the jonins around him. There were ten of them visible, and his detection seal was not showing any hidden ones.

Well, he tentatively believed his seal, but he decided to be careful about sudden ambushes from blind spots anyway. His shadow clone in the cave took a position near the entrance but still stayed out of sight, just in case they had some friends hidden inside, too.

At the very least, it could provide an early warning.

A second passed, and Ren’s eyes landed on one jonin who slowly walked forward, lazily approaching him with a disarming smile that seemed a bit forced on his face.

The jonin had his hands up in a show that he didn’t wish for hostilities, and Ren’s eyebrows furrowed as he inwardly did a double take. He recognized the man. The headband was a dead giveaway that he was from Kumo, as were his friends, but… what was the disciple of the late Third Raikage doing here!?

The bad feeling in Ren’s stomach intensified, and any hope that this was just a simple misunderstanding died a pitiful, quick death.

Maybe if he never watched Naruto, he might have his hopes still up. Darui was not very widely known in this world, but Ren did remember his existence from the anime. Kumo kept him quite hush-hush and didn’t flaunt his skill as Konoha flaunted Kakashi’s. But this guy was A’s right-hand man and, therefore, should not be picking up files from a simple C-rank mission.

Even if, by some unholy coincidence, Konoha was opening secret diplomatic talks with Kumo, they would have sent at least a team of jonin for it. Not a chunin like Ren.

“Hello. I believe you have something for us.” Darui spoke and slowly put his hands down when he noticed that Ren didn’t instantly get into a fighting stance.

Hearing him, Ren inwardly frowned. His gaze slowly moved over the ten ninjas in front of him, making the atmosphere awkward as the silence stretched. Only a minute later did he slowly nod.

“The mission scroll?” He asked Darui, mostly to get a proof that he was truly the client. Well, or that he killed him and looted the scroll. But there was no way of knowing which of these it was for Ren.

“Ah, yes. Here.” Darui perked up and took a step forward, only for Ren to instantly become guarded. Recognizing that, Darui stopped in his tracks, realizing that getting closer could provoke Ren.

“…” They silently stared at each other until Darui scratched his cheek and, with an awkward laugh, he took a step back before tossing the scroll to Ren, who easily caught and opened it.

The scroll checked out. Then again, of course, it did. Somebody like Darui was not as harmless and inexperienced as he tried to portray himself to be with his awkward acting. If they were here for Ren and this was indeed a trap, they would not make such a rudimentary mistake as faking the mission scroll.

Back in the cave, Ren’s clone created another clone who started to craft seals. Just in case this turned ugly.

Then, the initial clone walked out of the darkness of the cave with the documents and headed toward Darui, handing them over to the man who watched him with amusement written on his face.

“You aren’t very trusting, are ya?” He chuckled as he received the documents, slightly shaking his head in exasperation.

But if he expected an answer, he was left disappointed when Ren just silently nodded as he sealed the mission scroll into his storage seal. It wouldn’t do to lose it and later on find out he has no way to prove that handing out these documents was truly a mission he received from Konoha rather than him turning a traitor.

Just in case the documents were stolen. Ren wouldn’t put such a ploy past some of his more influential enemies in Konoha.

At this point, he had no idea what was going on, so he decided to take every precaution.

“Uh. How dull.” Darui rolled his eyes at Ren’s non-answer, a bit of frustration seeping into his tone because Ren refused to play ball and get roped into a proper conversation.

Ren was, however, too preoccupied with his mind going a mile a minute. He was starting to see some implications of his situation, and he wasn’t liking them.

There were only two reasons why Kumo jonins in these numbers would gather like this. Either they had a very important mission nearby.

Possible.

But in that case, there would be no need to show up in front of Ren in full force. In fact, it would have been a massive mistake to do so.

No. Ren decided they did not have an important mission ‘nearby’. Which was way worse for him because it meant that he was their mission.

Jonins are the main fighting force of a ninja village. Situations where there are more than four jonins teamed up for something were extremely rare outside of war. Even S-rank missions were usually done by teams of four at most.

And yet, Ren had ten of them in front of him, led by the Raikage’s right-hand man.

But… that would mean somebody in Konoha sold him out. Of course, Danzo was the first suspect that came to Ren’s mind almost instantly. But would Danzo really employ Kumo to deal with him?

It frustrated Ren that he didn’t know the answer to that.

Then again, there were all these grumpy old men who disliked that Ren didn’t share his seals with them. Danzo was not Ren’s only enemy in Konoha. Just his most obvious one.

For all he knew, it might actually have been Kumo’s spy who ensured Ren would get the mission, and nobody in Konoha sold him out.

Ugh. The more he thought about it, the less obvious the answer became.

Seeing that Darui was starting to look impatient, Ren looked him in the eyes and dryly said, “These documents are not why you are here, are they?”

“Afraid not. Sorry.” Darui sheepishly shrugged his shoulders and gave Ren a real apologetic look as he rubbed the back of his head with his left hand. But not for a second did the man relax his guard.

Ren noted that his right hand was ready to draw his sword at a moment’s notice.

“Why am I not surprised?” Ren grumpily muttered under his nose, but he was not quiet enough because Darui clearly heard him and chuckled.

“This is honestly awkward. It’s usually not me who does the recruiting thi-“

“He is doing something with chakra.” A brown-haired woman suddenly spoke from behind Darui, who slowly blinked as Ren stiffened.

A freaking chakra sensor!?

They were very prepared for him. All his seals were based on chakra, and that meant the sensor would feel their location. That made using seal traps way harder.

The only upside of the situation was that the chakra sensor did not feel the seals crafted by Ren’s clone in the cave otherwise, she would have been warning her teammates about them by now. Her range probably wasn’t that big, or she wasn’t focusing on the cave.

Thank the sage for small mercies.

“Ah.” Both Ren and Darui involuntarily uttered at the same time before the hell broke loose, and Darui’s companions instantly burst into action.

Ren had to interrupt the charging of his transportation seal and jumped out of the way just a moment before several kunai whizzed past where he had stood a second ago.

All would have been nonlethal hits, so they wanted him alive. That was good. He could use that.

As Ren’s toes landed on the ground, he used chakra to spring himself back nearly instantly, narrowly avoiding some sort of taser-like lightning technique. Somersaulting in the air over a few shuriken, Ren landed on the palms of his hands and let himself fall into a roll on the ground, dodging a sword strike aimed to disable him from the fastest of his assailants.

After the roll, Ren jumped back once more, his feet landing horizontally on the rock cliff above the cave’s entrance as he let the momentum make him slide back after the landing, which allowed him to evade a water bullet that crashed into the rock and cracked it.

With narrowed eyes, Ren looked toward his enemies, two kunai popping into his hands as he felt the pressure of being attacked by ten jonin. He was about done with putting seals on the kunai and barely a second from throwing them to return the offensive when a loud boom resounded through the surroundings, causing everybody to duck, which momentarily paused the fighting.

“STOP!” Darui yelled aloud, still standing in his initial position, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Just… let me do my sales pitch. Please. I spent two hours preparing it to ensure it wouldn’t be too dull.” He tried to joke weakly.

With that, the Kumo jonin awkwardly obeyed their commanding officer and retreated back to their previous positions while Ren was left standing on the side of the cliff, wondering what the hell just happened.

“Well? Will you rejoin us here, please?” Darui exasperatedly asked, beckoning him closer with his hand, but Ren just gave him a dull look.

“Eh, I don’t know. You all seem a little bit too intense for my fragile sensibilities. It’s nothing personal. Just all that oppressively masculine Kumo energy you are exuding is a bit stifling for a poor guy like me.” Ren hummed and didn’t move from his position, making Darui groan.

This was probably not how the older man expected this meeting to go. But, tough luck. This was also not how Ren expected to spend his afternoon.

His day was already ruined, so there was no reason not to ruin Darui’s, even if only slightly.

Hey, at this point, Ren took his victories where he could get them.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep