Sasuke and Naruto sat cross-legged in the middle of the woods, completely drenched in blood. Hinata, on the other hand, looked like her usual self. The only difference was the faint disgust flickering in her pale eyes as she stared at her two teammates.
'What's going on? 'Jie wondered. 'Wasn't the mission just to take out a few black bears? Why do they look like that?'
Anyone who knew the truth understood this was a simple pest control mission. But anyone who didn't would think they had just crawled off a brutal battlefield.
"Oh no!" Jie suddenly realized something, and his heart sank. If Sasuke and Naruto were in this state, then the black bears, their main targets, would be in even worse shape.
And what about the bear paws? He had been looking forward to that midnight snack!
The moment the thought hit, Jie activated his Thousand-Pupil Byakugan and scanned the forest for the bear corpses. As soon as he found them, he blurred into motion and shot right past the three Genin.
Seeing Jie appear, Naruto and Sasuke jumped to their feet, excited to report their battle results. But they were caught completely off guard. Jie didn't even glance at them. He rushed straight toward the back of the clearing.
"Is my vision blurring?" Sasuke muttered, still trying to process what just happened. "I think I just saw my brother flash past, but he didn't stop."
"I think I saw him too," Naruto added, looking totally confused. "But why is Jie-nii in such a hurry?"
Hinata, sharp-eyed as always, had noticed the snake hanging off Jie as he passed. She quickly formed a pretty accurate guess.
Glancing at the confused Sasuke and Naruto, she silently lit a candle for them in her heart. Those two unlucky idiots were definitely about to get scolded.
"Wasteful! What a bunch of wasteful brats!" Jie's voice trembled with anger as he stared at the bear corpses in front of him.
Assessing the battlefield, there had been five black bears harassing the village tonight.
One had been burned to a crisp. Another had been sliced into a bloody, unappetizing mess. A third had suffered the most gruesome death... beaten to a pulp while also being heavily charred.
Judging by the injuries, Jie figured those three had died at Naruto and Sasuke's hands. But he'd only asked them to kill the bears, not completely obliterate their corpses!
How was he supposed to eat bear paws like this?
On top of that, looking at the state of the bears, Jie still couldn't figure out how Naruto and Sasuke had managed to get themselves so thoroughly soaked in blood.
The remaining two bears, though, were different. Their outer skin was perfectly intact. Using his Byakugan, Jie could see that their brains had been completely shattered from the inside.
The black fur on their chests also bore faint singe marks... clear signs that Hinata had used them as practice dummies for her Thunder Bagua.
'As expected, Hinata understands my intentions best,' Jie thought, his emotions settling a little. 'Those two boys are completely useless. Such good bear paws, wasted just like that.'
Thankfully, it wasn't a total loss.
The Sword of Kusanagi sealed at his waist flashed, and the four paws from the two intact bears were cleanly severed.
He would get two paws, and Hinata would get two. As for those two brats? They were getting absolutely nothing.
Carrying tonight's midnight snack, Jie returned to the kids. He simply shot the two boys a cold glare, letting them reflect on their actions, before pulling Hinata aside to start preparing the food.
Naruto, however, completely lacked any self-awareness. Seeing Jie return, he immediately crowded around him, chattering nonstop about their experience tonight. Thanks to Naruto's big mouth, Jie finally understood where all that blood had come from.
After Hinata had cleanly killed two black bears, and Naruto and Sasuke had each brutally killed one, they faced the final beast.
That was when thick-headed Naruto suddenly remembered Jie's earlier teaching... "A qualified ninja cannot avoid blood and slaughter."
They had the slaughter part down, but they lacked the blood.
So, in a moment of sheer, mind-boggling stupidity, after teaming up with Sasuke to kill the last black bear, Naruto purposely smeared himself from head to toe in its blood.
He proudly declared that he was now a qualified ninja who had experienced the true scent of battle.
Sasuke, who had initially been somewhat disgusted, refused to be outdone by his rival. Not wanting to fall behind, he also smeared the bear blood all over himself.
They originally wanted Hinata to join in, but she had made it abundantly clear that she wanted nothing to do with the two idiots.
Hearing the full story, Jie couldn't help but fall silent.
Was there really such a thing as fate in this world? The bromance between Asura and Indra truly seemed to pass down generation after generation, right alongside their chakra…
Sasuke usually acted smart, but Jie hadn't expected him to be dumber than a bear whenever he was around Naruto.
This time, Jie couldn't even be bothered to complain. He had seen their antics so often that nothing surprised him anymore.
He simply formed a hand sign, summoning a water dragon to wash Naruto and Sasuke completely clean. Once the heavy stench of blood was finally gone, their meal was ready.
After enjoying their midnight snack, it was already late into the night. Not wanting to travel back to the Hidden Leaf in the pitch black, Jie decided to camp out in the wild.
Sleeping in the open was the norm for a ninja on a mission. Even so, there were still differences in treatment.
Using Wood Release, Jie created two sturdy hammocks for himself and Hinata, keeping them comfortably off the ground and away from the interference of snakes, bugs, and rats.
As for Sasuke and Naruto? Why be so particular? Sleeping anywhere on the dirt was fine.
Amidst Naruto and Sasuke's indignant complaints, morning soon arrived.
After returning to the Hidden Leaf, Jie didn't give the three kids much time to rest before dragging them back on their next mission.
Since he was idle anyway, watching the Genin handle menial tasks was a form of relaxation for him.
Days passed just like that, and in the blink of an eye, a whole month had gone by.
During this time, the three kids completed their missions with extreme efficiency, and their teamwork became more and more synchronized. In just one month, they had practically monopolized a quarter of all the D-rank missions in the village.
If their squad leader hadn't been Jie Uchiha, the Hokage himself, and if they hadn't all come from prestigious clans, the other Genin in the village would've started complaining a long time ago.
Still, after a month of this routine, Jie felt that doing D-rank missions had lost its charm.
It wasn't that he thought the trio was ready to skip the basics just yet; rather, they had already completed every single type of D-rank mission available. They were so familiar with the procedures that Jie had completely lost his sense of novelty.
"Alright, get ready," Jie smiled at the three kids after they finished their latest task. "Starting tomorrow, we won't be doing any more D-rank missions."
This time, however, the three kids only looked up at Jie helplessly before lowering their heads with a collective sigh.
They had heard that exact sentence way too many times over the past few days.
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