Scouting Bandits(Mission)

Mission Details:

After their success with the mission of defending a nearby farm against invading bandits, it seems that whoever handles the missions are growing more confident in Hiroshi's abilities to handle these types of missions, though this new one seemed to be a different one altogether. They were assigned to handle reconnaissance of a even larger bandit ring that's been terrorising locals and citizens alike who make their way towards Konohagakure. Individual Chuunin had already been assigned to try and sort this mess out, but even they were having trouble with the bandits which meant they weren't the average bandits, they knew what they were doing and are actually powerful. All they can do now is just simply find their base of operations and set up a countermeasure from there.

In the case that things go south, it's why Akihiro is assigned with Hiroshi for this mission, a capable Jounin to ensure their escape should they be discovered. Hiroshi already took the initiative to not even wait at the gates and instead, he already found himself at the last reported sight of their attacking... a caravan with most of it's cargo looted with kunai, shurikens and different weapons all over the caravan showing clear signs of attack. The area of this forest seemed especially more dense then any other part of the forest so it's hard to tell if there's even somebody hiding in the trees or in the scenery, the bandits picked their spot well and knew what they were doing.

Saying Akihiro was a "capable" Jonin was a bit of an over stretch by his own judgment of his abilities. Sure, he was intelligent but he was still a child and his body hadn't completely grown. There was still a lot to do in terms of physical ability and this was why Akihiro took these sort of missions. Still, he figured he would be able to handle a few bandits should things go sideways, after all they were usually considerably less capable than military trained shinobi. He arrived wearing his usual battle attire, a black cloak covering a jade armor. This mission was only a stakeout but he couldn't be too careful when it came to protecting his small framed body.

Alas, after wandering for a good while in the Senju forest he finally saw Hiroshi. Perhaps this would be his opportunity to finally see Magnet Release in action? Well, it was unlikely that the Genin had mastered the bloodline in such a short time. Unlikely but not impossible! Akihiro planned on personally honing Hiroshi's skills and turning him into one of the most capable shinobi in the world.

"Heyo. What a mess, huh?" Akihiro sounded sleepy yet again. But he was carefully examining the scenario around him. "Found any clues yet?"

Hiroshi continued his investigation of the scene for anything he might've missed but he just came back to the same conclusion, they picked this spot for how dense it is in the forest compared to the other sections of the forest, and the caravan has clear signs of attack with the weaponry scattered all over the place, especially with a few kunai pierced into the caravan itself but aside from that, there's nothing to suggest who could've done it aside from the fact that there's a pattern to these attacks. "Nothing to suggest a certain group did this, but I'm assuming just like the higher ups that it's bandits attacking and stealing the caravan's cargo. This isn't the first time either." Hiroshi stood up, walking over to Akihiro as he assumed that he would take charge now.

"That's my take on it, I've looked over the scene over and over again but I don't see anything else notable to the case at hand." he had the feeling that they were indeed testing him on missions like these but he's also got the idea that they're not expecting a miracle from him either in terms of results, since he is still a Genin that's learning. Hiroshi also decided to show Akihiro something he had learned. "Oh! I've been practising in Ninjutsu to try and unlock my bloodline, and I've come across a few handy stuff along the way." he then used the Clone handseal and a puff of smoke appeared next to him, a perfect shadow clone being made. He did this to try and impress Akihiro, as he saw him as an extension of the higher ups trying to see what Hiroshi's made of.

Learned: Shadow Clone Technique - 200 WC
Total WC of post: 284 WC

Akihiro listened to the Genin's input. He was, of course, making his own analysis but the Sparrow knew it was important to listen to what Hiroshi had to say on the subject. Not only because it would demonstrate that Akihiro actually gave a crap about his opinions but also to test Hiroshi's analytical abilities and compare his theories with his own. Akihiro nodded to Hiroshi's first sentence and gave his own input on the matter. "Yeah these guys weren't professionals. This is way too messy. If a professional group was doing this with the purpose of disrupting our trade, then the caravans would simply go missing and it would take us weeks to actually track them down. These guys aren't doing it to harm the village, they're doing this for the loot. Disrupting our trade is just a consequence. Too bad for them it's the consequence that will lead to them being put down." Akihiro took a few steps and began examining the bodies.

Meanwhile Hiroshi spoke something about improving his Ninjutsu and the Sparrow glanced at his performance. He smiled. "Good job. Kage Bunshin no jutsu can be extremely useful not just in combat, but for espionage also." Then he directed his attention back to the bodies, examining their wounds. "For common bandits tho, they seem to be very well armed. From katanas to maces, there're all sorts of wounds on these bodies. Even arrows. Their technique isn't good, but with this kind of equipment the guards didn't stand a chance. Hey, see if you can find tracks leading out of here while I inspect the cargo."

Hiroshi was glad that his training so far was recognised, while he wasn't quite close to Magnet Release just yet, he had the feeling he would come into using it quite soon if he remained persistent in his training. He would think about that later on however and focus on the job, giving a nod to his shadow clone. "You heard him, you take the opposite side, I'll take this side." the clone nodded and did as asked, it wasn't just good for espionage but for multitasking in tasks like these. Hiroshi traced back to the weapons that were scattered around and since this is a group attack, there were a number of footsteps all over the caravan and it was hard to dial it down into one general direction.

That didn't stop him however and he persisted, as these large groups of feet would've had to go somewhere... from what he could tell, at least four bandits went up and close to the caravan, to either personally attack the caravan or to loot it in the aftermath. Either way, he started to make out the footsteps and figured out the ones that indicated leaving the caravan. He followed it carefully and even though some of the tracks disappeared, the pattern remained and it was easy to stick to it but the trail eventually stopped to a dense grassy land in the forest. It gave the idea that the bandits did run in that general direction however and that was probably the closest he'd get to it.

He went back to Akihiro to report his findings, he undid his shadow clone and his experience went back to Hiroshi, which didn't come back with much compared to what the real Hiroshi had found, when Akihiro would show himself to be free from inspecting the cargo, that's when Hiroshi would report. "I found a trail that ended towards a grassy land, the grass itself is too dense for me to find any more tracks but I think we found the general direction of where they came from and ran to after the attack." once again, it seemed coordinated that the bandits picked this specific part of the forest to attack, since the environment altogether is more dense then the other sections of the forest.

Akihiro kept on inspecting the tools and weapons used by the bandits in this assault for a while, before moving towards the disabled cart that had been carrying the caravan's goods. "Judging by the size of the cart they must have been carrying quite a load of goods." Akihiro was actually able to step into the overturned cart's cargo hold and stand inside it. A cart this big must have been pulled by horses but those were nowhere to be seen. So the bandits took not only the goods but also the horses? It was possible that they used the horses to carry the goods, but that would have meant they had also access to saddlebags. They were even better equipment than Akihiro had thought at first. Kneeling inside the cart he ran his fingers on the wood and examined the dust. "Sand? ...cement, perhaps? And wood splinters?"

He got out of the cargo hold in time to see Hiroshi coming towards him and informing the Jonin of a trail he had found. "Good job. I think this caravan was carrying building materials, which might mean they are fortifying their position. We really should try to find them as soon as possible and maybe mount an assault on their position before they're capable of setting up proper defenses. Although..." Akihiro made a pause, looking at the size of the cart. "If there were enough people to carry all of this in one go then certainly there are enough people to fortify a place in very little time." Akihiro walked towards the position where Hiroshi had lost the track. Activating his sharingan, the Genin was able to pick on subtle clues that were otherwise invisible to the human eye. A certain tree branch broken here, stepped on grass there, etc... They would walk for a while until they reached the edge of a small clearing inside the forest.

"Shit. Look." The clearing had a small hill in the middle, where a small wooden fortress was being built and seemed to be almost complete.

He followed alongside Akihiro when he showed him where the trail ended and he activated those red eyes of his, those eyes definitely were something if they're able to track a trail like that since Hiroshi tried to look at the same places he seemingly was, and he couldn't tell a difference at all, giving him no clue that the bandits had gone in the direction they're now walking towards. He just followed behind Akihiro as he continued to follow the trail which took quite a while, he thought about trying to pass the time by conversing with him but he didn't want to break his focus on the mission at hand. They soon came across the fortification, in which Hiroshi quickly crouched down as soon as his eyes fell on it.

A wooden fort that almost looked complete, the guards along the walls weren't messing around either. You'd expect bandits to be lazy and bored out of their mind when it came to patrol but with these bandits, they were keeping their eyes locked on guard duty constantly, they didn't look like they were messing around and with the sheer size of it, it became obvious that these aren't your typical bandits. He came to that conclusion back at that cart attack, but this was just something else.

He also noticed that they were still building the fortification, with an idea quickly popping into his head. He was going to suggest an attack. "It looks like they're nearly done, if we run now and report this back to the village, their defences will be fully done and it might be troublesome when a full squad is sent out here to deal with them... it looks like they have the numbers and experience but I think I know a way to turn it into our favour, I can use my Earth jutsu to turn the earth in on itself, crippling parts of the fortress into the ground while you use another jutsu, hopefully a large-scale one to decimate them all in one fell swoop. I'm thinking just to make sure I don't get in the way, I use my shadow clone. A lot of them seemed to be occupied with something in that fortress and we could use that to our advantage while we have the chance." it was of course, just a suggestion and he's half expecting Akihiro to say that they're only scouting for this mission, not actually taking on the bandits to which he will respect if that's his decision.

Akihiro listened to Hiroshis's words while his own sharingan scanned the fortress. He was right to think the bandits weren't joking around. Given enough time this could become an outpost that be very difficult to take down. And they would probably have to risk shinobi lives in doing so as well. Plus the bandits had to know the Hidden Leaf operated in this region, there was no way they didn't have a sort of backup plan against the shinobi. "I understand what you're saying," Akihiro spoke in a quiet voice. His red eyes examined every single detail of the fort's walls and it was incredibly hard if not impossible to find weak points in the places where the wood logs joined each other. The wood logs that composed the wall seemed to have been buried deep and firmly, possibly supported by piles of rocks and mud, and even lower logs on the outside zone. To protect the lower logs, the bandits had set up thinner logs of wood and sharpened them until they had become deadly spikes. Any reckless charge would certainly result in the loss of life by impalement.

"But there are only 2 of us here, and they must be at least twenty. Possibly more judging by the size of the fortress. Remember that our mission was to track down and gather information on these bandits. If we decide to strike now, chances are at least some of them will escape...and we don't want any of them escaping. We'll return with more numbers once we're ready. For now we should try to gather more information. Let's carefully walk around the edge of the clearing and check the fortress from every angle. Then we should wait here for some time to log their patrol times and night routines. The more we know, the more effectively we can strike."

Hiroshi didn't quite agree with the idea of playing the waiting game with a developing fortress like this, he had the feeling that they both could legitimately end it here and now, but he would respect Akihiro's decision as his superior and hold back on it. "Whatever you say, I think we can take them on." a bit of sass in his words but clearly he would follow Akihiro's advice. With a few handseals activated by Hiroshi, shadow clone after shadow clone came and he started to point in different directions, trying to set them up for the different angles of the fortress while remaining in the cover of the bushes and trees. "It'll be more efficient this way, as soon as we have to go I'll learn what the shadow clones saw and I'll report on my findings." despite being against the idea a minute ago, he got into the gist of Akihiro's order pretty well.

Hiroshi stood right where he is however, as they had a good frontal angle of the bandits fortress and he'd like to mainly focus on that view if he can. "I'll stick here if that's okay with you, this is a good spot to see what's happening on the front."

It was a shame that Hiroshi couldn't have the tactical vision that Akihiro had, but that was to be expectd. The small genius child was used to having to argue his point, but surprisingly Hiroshi did as he'd been told despite not agreeing with Akihiro's point of view. This was rather strange, to be completely honest. But Akihiro shrugged and kept on doing his job. They were here to watch and track movements, nothing else, and that's what they'd be doing.

Taking a page from Naruto's book Akihiro made the shadow clone hand-seal and formed several clones of himself. Then these clones would spread around the fortress perimeter and keep a careful watch over the place. As the hours passed they would take mental notes of patrol movements, enemy numbers, materials used in construction and potential weak spots in the fortress. All of this was vital information and the real reason why Konohagakure no Sato was paying the two of them to do this job. After nightfall, Akihiro dispersed the clones and gathered all the information in his mind. It was now time to go back to the village and write a detailed report. He signalled Hiroshi.

"Alright good work. Our job's here is done. I know you wanted to see some action but not all missions involve combat. In fact I'd risk saying some of the most crucial missions go better when there's no combat involved, at all."

After this he would head back to the village.

[Exit]

Hiroshi hated sitting around, even spacing out a few times during the waiting but his attention snapped back at the littlest things, like the bandits messing around on the top of the wall or the occasional ant crawling up on the branch that caught the real Hiroshi's attention. Hiroshi did his best to take note of what the enemy is doing but aside from what Akihiro has already took note of, he just kept thinking up of scenarios of how he could take down the fortress in one fell swoop, even he could do it himself in his eyes but he had to respect his superiors authority and hold back on such a course of action.

When the hours passed, Hiroshi had already been impatient to start with but it just ate away at what little patience had mustered to the point that he practically stopped taking notes of the enemy, leaving the imore important details to Akihiro from what he noticed. When it was finally wrapped up, he just sighed and released the hold on his shadow clones, getting a natural flow of information into him and was rather surprised that practically all of his clones took it serious, knowing the patrol routes, enemy numbers and even learning the sort of materials that the bandits have used. He was a bit astounded that his shadow clones, exact clones of himself took this task with a lot more observation and patience then he could muster up.

When Akihiro dropped that last bit of wisdom on Hiroshi, he simply had to disagree with it. The mission was done so there's no point whining over it, but he still felt strongly on the opinion that they could've wiped this threat out before it grew even bigger, not needing an entire squad of shinobi to wipe out this fortress in the next bunch of days, thus saving resources, time and effort that could be used for other missions or duties.

(Exit)