Chapter 24 Let Them See Ninja
Looking at Ao's quickly leaving back.
Zabuza, who rarely showed concern for others, asked.
"Ao-sensei won't be in danger if he chases after them alone, right?"
However, when he turned around, he saw that Mei seemed to be indifferent, and suddenly he felt that his words seemed a bit redundant.
"Don't worry, Ao-sensei's ability to save his life is one of the best among the village's jōnin. You should just focus on our mission." Terumi Mei spoke directly to ease Zabuza's worries.
Mirukawa Kaito heard this and complained in his heart. "Don't underestimate Ao's ability to save his life. He is a man who can survive even if he is hit by the Ten-tailed Beast Bomb in the future."
Mei naturally couldn't hear the complaints in Kaito's heart, but she just thought that as the acting captain, she had done a good job in calming the mentality of her two teammates at the moment.
Then she began to call the two of them to move towards the pirate camp.
However, in order to bypass observation at the port, the shoal where the fishing boat was docked was a little far from the port where the pirate camp was located.
The three of them moved quickly through the forest, but Zabuza was still thinking about the two ninjas who were suspected of impersonating ANBU.
After hesitating for a moment, Zabuza spoke first.
"Those two people just now seemed to have a deep hostility towards us."
Kaito, who was concentrating on his journey and jumping onto the next tree, was a little surprised at Zabuza's sharpness.
"Indeed, the enemy initially intended to launch a surprise attack when we landed."
Kaito was very sure of this, as he had seen other ninjas in the village before.
When those passerby ninjas have no hostility or desire to attack him, they will not trigger the 'Anticipation' alarm, and it will not be such a strong warning.
If they had not discovered the other party in advance and had taken precautions first, they might have been attacked by the other party's ninjutsu the moment the ship docked.
"And now that I think about it, the other party does not look like an Anbu ninja. Almost all Anbu ninjas in the village carry swords, and their clothes have hoods to hide their identities."
Mei joined in the conversation as she walked forward.
But what she said was something Kaito had not noticed before. As for hiding his identity, Kaito was too embarrassed to directly complain about his village to his teammates.
"So, what is the other party's purpose in coming to this remote island and pretending to be an Anbu?"
This time, neither Mei nor Kaito could answer Zabuza's question.
Although he had some guesses in his heart, Kaito did not speak them out at this time. Instead, he quickened his pace.
"Okay, it's Ao-sensei's job to track down those two people. We can just focus on the rescue."
In the end, it was Mei who ended the conversation.
Although the three were discussing the two ninjas, it did not delay their journey.
They gradually slowed down their pace when they approached a low hill in front of the camp.
It was a little different from what they expected. It was clearly past midnight, and they thought that even if there were some pirates in the camp, they should have rested and fallen asleep by now.
But there were actually many figures moving around in the camp below the hill.
With the help of the light from the torches in the camp, the three of them looked down carefully. The most eye-catching thing was an open space like a training ground surrounded by a group of houses.
At this moment, there were more than twenty children fighting each other in the open space. At the edge of the open space, there were a few pirates in tattered clothes standing in groups of three or four, pointing at these children.
The three even saw a child, estimated to be only 5 or 6 years old, who was stabbed in the vitals by his opponent's kunai and fell to the ground, injured and his life or death was unknown.
One of the pirates who was on guard nearby walked up to the fallen child very skillfully and picked him up with one hand, as if he was throwing away garbage, and threw him to a corner at the edge of the venue.
At this time Kaito also noticed that in that corner there were several children piled up in a mess, their lives or deaths unknown, and no one was paying any attention to them.
While doing all this, the pirate never stopped chatting and laughing with his companions.
The child who had just defeated his opponent threw away the kunai in his hand regardless of his injuries. He staggered to a table with food on the other side of the open space, grabbed the food and swallowed it in big mouthfuls.
This caused the pirates to laugh wildly.
When the other children who were still fighting saw this scene, they only paused for less than a second before immediately continuing their fierce fight.
"Is this... a battle... training? Are the pirates selecting backup personnel?" Mei, who witnessed it all, spoke with anger in her voice.
Kaito hurriedly held down Mei's shoulders to prevent her from being too impulsive. While holding down Mei's palms, he could clearly feel her slight tremors.
Kaito naturally knew that this was not a tremor of fear, but an angry tremor.
"Calm down! Pirates are desperate people who don't think about the future, let alone spend time training their children."
Hearing this, Mei suppressed the anger in her heart and looked at the pirates below.
Zabuza also spoke up: "Those pirates in charge of guarding are very weak, they are basically ordinary people."
The three of them were not too far away from the camp at this time. It was not difficult to see the strength of these pirates from their figures and movements. It could even be said that most of them were not as good as the students who had not yet graduated from the Kirigakure Ninja School.
And judging from the weapon configuration and attire, they don't look like ninjas.
On the contrary, the children who were fighting were all holding kunai, and their movements during the battle also vaguely had some of the style of the Kiri Ninja.
Then, the three of them looked at each other.
"Those two fake Anbu." Kaito said with a serious look on his face.
"This is a serious matter." However, although Mei said that things were serious, there was no trace of retreat in her tone.
Even Zabuza, who was standing beside him, although he appeared calm on the surface, was actually filled with anger in his heart.
Zabuza has always considered himself a reformer, and from the beginning to the end he could not stand the so-called blood mist policy of the Kirigakure Village.
However, he had just used the most cruel means and paid a huge price to end the bloody assessment in the Kirigakure Village that had lasted for decades.
These despicable pirates before us are still in this unknown corner, clumsily imitating these dregs that should be eliminated.
"Give the orders, captain." Zabuza reached for the short sword behind him and said to Mei.
Kaito also looked at Mei with a serious expression.
He took another look at the pirates who were talking and laughing.
Mei's voice was different from usual, with a hint of blood in it, as she spoke to her two teammates.
"Since these pirates want to train ninjas so much, let them see what a real ninja is!"