Bad news...

The morning sun rays fell on the sleeping Sora through the window. His snow-like hair illuminated in the process.

Feeling the light, the white eyelashes fluttered as Sora groggily woke up. Sora looked at the morning rays and quickly freshened up and had a hearty breakfast.

After finishing his breakfast, Sora prepared for the upcoming mission. Sora opened his small bag and arranged a few explosion tags, medicine, and some ninja tools.

Then, locking the apartment with a small click sound, Sora rushed to the Konoha gate.

Sora looked minuscule compared to the large Konoha gate. The exterior of Konoha is made out of wood resembling the tori gates from traditional Japanese villages in Sora's previous life.

Sora looked at the two hiragana characters written in the gates spelling out the word "An" meaning hermitage or hidden.

Having nothing to do, Sora walked to the guard who was yawning and rubbing his brown eyes.

"Good morning" greeted the white-haired boy.

Looking at the genin, the guard also greeted," Good morning"

"An early mission today?" asked the guard looking at the prepared boy.

"Yeah. Just waiting for my sensei and the teammates. We are going to Hacho village." replied Sora trying to learn more about the village from the mouth of the guard.

"Oh. You are in luck. I know that place, passed by the village in a mission. It is a small village just on the outskirts of the land of fire. The village is quite normal so your mission should not be that hard." informed the chunin.

"Well anyway, good luck on your mission," said the chunin seeing the companions of the white-haired boy had arrived.

"Thank you". Though he already knew about the village from the books, getting to know it from others is always reassuring.

Sora looked at his teammates and greeted each of them. After a small greeting, they officially started their mission. The team started running towards the village.

Time passed, the sun and moon alternated and finally, the small village was in sight. The village looked very normal in all sense with people trading goods with each other and with murmurs flying around.

Riku motioned to Aoi who promptly opened her Byakugan but found nothing.

Receiving a nod from Aoi opened her, Riku then said," I and Aoi will go to take the scroll. Both of you stay here for surveillance."

After saying that, Riku and Aoi opened the door ringing a small chime placed in the door.

In the inn, there was an average looking young man. Listening to the sound of chime, young man looked at the arriving konoha shinobi and made a strange gesture with his hand.

Riku looked at the informer and also showed another strange sign. Knowing that the informer was their own, Riku walked towards the informer.

The informer didn't speak, gave a small red coloured scroll directly and hurriedly left. Soon, after the informer left, Riku and his team met and left the Hacho village.

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Hokage office...

"Good job, Team riku. It is hard work." said the third hokage while lifting the scroll in his hand.

"It's our job." said Riku with a serious face.

Third hokage nodded and read the scroll, his brows frowning and his face getting darker and darker as he read the scroll.

After reading the scroll, third hokage took a puff of smoke and said," Team Riku I have another mission for you.I want you to go to the village hidden in land of the rain and investigate the news and report it."

Riku and others were surprised by the sudden mission but quickly accepted. This B rank mission was very standard with no surprises, after all not everyone is a protagonist to have twist and turns even in a simple mission. Since they were not that tired, the team accepted this mission.

"This is an A rank mission but the risk is only C rank. This mission is only to investigate, so, I think it is quite suitable for your team. You are to set off tomorrow." said the hokage.

"Yes lord hokage." the team bowed slightly and left the hokage office.

Outside the office, Riku said," As you have heard from the lord hokage, meet up in the same place tomorrow."

The three genin agreed and parted their ways.

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'It seems the war cannot be avoided.' thought the third hokage as he blew his smoke and his eyes revealing a sharp gaze.

The red scroll stated about the recent exchanges between the village hidden in rock and village hidden in sand.

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..

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A/N: This chapter is to smoothly transit to the upcoming war arc so, there is no combat scene in this chapter.

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