Seeing the dozens of enemy shinobi around them, Kazuo felt the need to curse at the world around him and to whoever assigned this mission to Kakashi.
'It's Hiruzen isn't it, that fucking rat.' Kazuo thought in annoyance before he released a slow deep sigh before taking a deep breath, his eyes focusing once more as he got ready for another hard battle.
'Madara might notify Obito faster and send him toward here, which means that we need to survive until either Obito arrives here or until Minato does.' Kazuo thought as he spoke to Kakashi, and Rin who was now waking up.
"Kakashi, protect Rin, you are better at that than I am," Kazuo said before Kakashi nodded his head.
This wasn't the time to have any arguments or disagreements.
He had to trust in Kazuo's ability.
"Don't ask how I can do this either alright?" Kazuo asked as he gave Kakashi a light smile.
Raising his hands forward, Kazuo channeled his chakra.
In a single second, hundreds of papers started flying out of his sleeves and swirling around the group.
They quickly formed a box around the three of them before their color changed from white to the color of their surroundings, effectively turning them invisible.
That was only on the outside however as Kazuo, Kakashi, and Rin could still clearly see the white papers.
"I'll be heading out, this jutsu makes you invisible from the outside, the box will start moving further away from here and will lead you to a safe enough location whilst you stay hidden from enemy eyes," Kazuo said as he arrived at the edge of the paper box.
"Also Rin, don't you dare sacrifice yourself, you are now a jinchuriki of the three tails and thus much more important than both I and Kakashi are to the hidden leaf village," Kazuo said before disappearing from the inside of the box.
At that moment both Kakashi and Rin saw the box shrink significantly and start moving towards the east.
"Come Rin," Kakashi said, his eyes still lingering on the spot where Kazuo had disappeared before taking Rin in his arms and quickly walking away, making sure to keep his chakra as hidden as he could, instructing Rin to do the same.
Once outside of the box of paper that he had created, Kazuo could once more see the tens of shinobi around him, they had come much closer and were now in prime attacking range.
"So the mist wants to go against the leaf? You fuckers aren't even strong enough to protect yourself and you want to attack us? The greatest shinobi village in existence?" Kazuo said before releasing a scoff.
"This tree rat." One of the enemies said before he quickly charged toward Kazuo.
Similarly, another group of them rushed toward him.
Altogether, seven shinobi were rushing toward Kazuo whilst one of the shinobi in the back quickly instructed the rest of them to start looking for Kakashi and Rin.
"Sir, We can't sense them." One of the shinobi said as he turned to who Kazuo presumed to be the commander.
"There are more than a hundred chakra signatures all around us, finding which one they are is almost impossible, they are also all changing positions rapidly." The shinobi said causing the captain to release a tsking sound.
"Kill that bastard as quickly as possible then we will start an extensive search."
It was at this moment that the seven shinobi arrived at Kazuo, four of them were already swinging their short blades, effectively restricting all movement from Kazuo as attacks were coming toward him from all directions.
Instead of showing a face of distress, Kazuo smiled as his body quickly lost its color and turned into hundreds of white papers.
This was another use of the paper illusion.
As it wasn't a paper clone and had no combat power or sentience, it used only a sliver amount of chakra.
"An illusion? Where is the real one?" One of the seven shinobi who had rushed forward asked as he quickly looked around.
It was at this moment that the seven shinobi heard the sound of an explosion tag igniting.
Hidden inside the hundreds of white papers that had been used to create the illusion of Kazuo's body were around fifty explosion tags.
As they weren't ignited at the exact same time, they caused multiple explosion sounds.
A moment later after the smoke was cleared, the mist ninja could only see seven charred bodies with no Kazuo in sight.
"Quickly search." The captain said as he ordered the shinobi however those would also be the last words that he would ever speak out.
Two hands appeared from underneath him, tearing through the earth as they grabbed his ankles and brought him down underneath the ground fully, not even leaving his head out.
The next second, another explosion occurred, launching a cloud of dust and bits of grass and the earth into the air.
Meanwhile on the other side of the battlefield, perched atop a tree, Kazuo with a smile on his face was watching the situation unfold just as he had planned it.
He had already died once so that he could reset the time and plant the hundreds of papers around the area so that he could confuse and effectively block the enemy's chakra sensing.
'With the captain gone, all that is left is around sixty shinobi...' Kazuo's thoughts grew more and more grim as they progressed.
'Sometimes I think that it would have been better to have just died back then on my first patrol mission.' Kazuo thought before his body flickered and he disappeared from his location, appearing right in the middle of a group of around twenty enemy shinobi.
"Do you know what art is?" Kazuos's voice resonated through the silent forest causing the attention of every mist shinobi to turn toward him.
"Art is an explosion"
With an explosion that far outweighed the previous ones, the entire ground started shaking.
Before the explosions even stopped, a figure appeared just outside of the cloud of dust.
"And so is fire," Kazuo said as he plopped two military pills into his mouth and quickly gulped them down before his hands rapidly made hand seals.
"Fire style: Great Fire Annihilation Jutsu"
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