Chapter 38 - Sneak attack

42 was watching the three Genin.

'Only 3 Genin? According to intel I got for the mission, most shinobi-villages have a Jonin supervising Genin...so I suspect that the Jonin is hiding somewhere...hmm it would be best to sneak attack the Jonin, so I will just wait and see. Maybe he shows himself on his own accord...'

Because of Arina's hesitation, they lost the timing, and when a bandit went out to swap for guard duty, he saw the unconscious bodies and started to yell: "Intruders!"

The bandits acted surprised and started to attack disorganized like they were ordered.

Truthfully they would attack disorganized even if they weren't ordered to since they were no-name bandits who can only bully defenseless villagers - they don't know how to fight at all.

Still for children of their age, when suddenly a group of armed adults starts to rush at you, it would still be scary.

Eiji had already experience dealing with a group of hoodlums, so he was relaxed and just smacked at their heads with his sword sheath.

Kotaru was eager to prove himself, so he charged bravely at the bandits.

Arina was still paralyzed.

The bandits sensed that she was the easiest target and started to focus on her.

"Damn it, Arina! Start doing something!" - Kotaru was frustrated and tried to get in range to defend her.

Eiji wasn't really motivated to help since he knew Hayate would step in, so he just continued to smack the heads of nearby bandits.

Of course with that, Hayate had no choice but to step in to save Arina.

Instantly the group which ran towards Arina was knocked out.

After seeing that, Arina came to her senses: "Sensei?!"

"Koff, don't worry I'm here - "

Like a bullet, a body shot out from somewhere and hit Hayate.

Hayate flew towards the mountain.

"Hmm it looks like you reacted and moved your body to evade a lethal hit...well you are still pretty heavily injured so I doubt you can put up a real fight."

After the smoke from his landing subsided, you could see 42.

He didn't wear anything which would link him to Otogakure or Orochimaru, to avoid blasting Orochimaru's plan in case he would die or gets caught.

He had an apathetic look, his hair color was grey and he had a body physique that was similarly buffed as Jugo.

But the most noteworthy thing about his appearance was, that his arms were covered in earth.

"Koff, koff...everyone get away from this guy! He is highly dangerous, you guys better get out. I will hold him back, while you rush back to Konoha to report that an unknown strong shinobi was hiding amongst the bandits!"

"BUT SENSEI WHAT ABOUT YOU?!" - Kotaru

"Don't worry about me, I will defeat this guy and then join you..."

The Genins looked at their sensei: his left arm was twisted in a weird way and he trembled heavily while struggling to even stand!

They knew that his words right now weren't true.

'What the hell is happening here? Why did we run into some strong guy on a normal mob mission? What should I do? Take Kotaru and Arina and leave Hayate-sensei behind? No... I swore I would save Hayate-sensei..."

While Eiji was contemplating Kotaru charged at 42: "NOOO SENSEI!!! I WON'T LEAVE YOU BEHIND!!!"

42 glanced at him disinterested while saying: "Too bad, you should have listened to your sensei. Then maybe your chance of survival wouldn't be zero..."

More earth started to gather on his arms, and then he raised one of his arms to attack.

"BOOOOMMM!!!!"

His punch had the power of a small explosion.

Of course, Kotaru couldn't possibly survive being hit by that.

But Hayate used a shadow clone to push him out of the way and only the shadow clone got hit instead.

'Using the shadow clone jutsu for that uses a lot of chakra...I have only enough chakra left to use the Dance of the Crescent Moon one time! Furthermore, I can hold my sword with only one arm now...I need to end this fight with my next move or else...'

"Hmm looks like I need to kill this Jonin first..." - 42 looked at a Hayate who looked like he would collapse any second.

Hayate started to summon 2 shadow clones and used his last ounce of strength to perform his signature move!

42 couldn't dodge and was cut simultaneously.