First Stage, Obstacles and Last Hurdle

___________ POV Narration ___________ 

"This is so boring..." Yue exhaled as her wires tightened around the neck of an unsuspecting victim.

Blood spilt out on the ground, and the victim in question fell like a doll that had its strings cut. 

"What else would you expect? They're bandits..." Morita scowled a bit as he retrieved his tanto from the chest of a bandit.

"I expect them to put up a fight, maybe!?" Yue responded with a scowl of her own. Her condescending tone made it clear that she held no respect for the corpses that she had piled up dismembered. 

"Well, our training prepares us for much worse than bandits, so, understandably, this is easy..." One of the members of Tatsukio's team spoke up, his features hidden behind a white wooden mask, but his hair was short and spiky. 

Among his brothers, he was called 'Bull'. Big Brother Bull more specifically. The most gifted amongst them when it came to physical strength, and also one of the oldest among them, having already hit 15. 

He was much taller than most, and his shoulders were broader than most adults as well. He still fell short of a few inches in comparison to their father/leader, but it wasn't like there wasn't time left for him to grow. 

He was ranked number 4 among the other children, right behind Yue who was now firmly cemented on 3rd place.

"Well, I wouldn't really say it was easy. It just was. Remember, Father always makes a point that we should treat all fights as if our lives are in danger."

Momo, a member of Yue's team was the one to speak up now, her tone a lot more placid and calm. Her orange hair flowed down to her lower back. 

She was among the oldest girls in the bunch too, being around 15 as well. She was not as strong or as flexible as Yue, but she was a lot better with Genjutsu than all of her siblings.

"Well, Father would likely not even stop to fight with bandits. He's far too fast for some highwaymen..." Tatsukio sighed as he slowly hopped over to his team and started helping them collect their projectiles. 

"Father's speed is certainly great, but he may have stopped, even if just to observe the bandits or take them down... They were organized, a bit too well for random bandits." Ume sighed as she closed her eyes slightly and pulled her hand out of Bandit's chest. 

Her strength was at this point a bit above that of Bull when she was in Sage Mode. But she couldn't maintain Sage Mode for more than 5 minutes. 

Surprisingly, she was able to enter Sage Mode quite quickly as well, needing to concentrate on it only for around 1 minute. 

She had progressed a lot, easily able to use Senjutsu in combat consistently, no one that faced her stood much of a chance. 

But she wasn't the only one to notice how organized the bandits were. 

The bandits that had attacked them were not explicitly skilled, but they were numerous and seemed to move in proper formations.

Even as many of them died they didn't even break formation as one might expect bandits to do.

The younglings felt that the situation was quite odd. 

"This is intriguing..." Morita sighed as he crossed his arms and looked around a bit.

Then he seemed to notice something, strange, he immediately crouched and picked up the dismembered head of one of the Bandits.

"Say... Why are all these bandits wearing headbands?" Morita scowled as he studied the headband with curiosity. 

Some of the recruits had noticed during combat. Tatsukio had noticed it as well. But Morita was seemingly the first one to bring it up. 

"... I mean, I thought they were disgraced genin or something... But now that I think about it... What's with this symbol?" Tatsukio picked up an armband with the same symbol that one of the other bandits was wearing. 

"What? Are bandits forming a hidden village now?" Bull chuckled a bit at the notion of bandits wearing headbands. 

But even he could think of a few theories as to why Bandits could be coming together... 

For example, they could be trying to take advantage of the period after the war. Now while the villages were still recovering, they decided to strike as quickly as they could. 

After all, things were about to change a lot.

It was a lot easier for bandits during the war, they could move in smaller groups and still be safe. 

The Shinobi Villages that were tasked with keeping them under wraps were too busy killing each other.

But things were already a lot calmer, so the bandits were likely pressured into grouping up.

"Huh, the symbol appears to be just a tree... There are three small kanji underneath it." Morita narrowed his eyes as he read out the words on the headband.

"Green Forest Alliance?" His voice sounded just as confused as one might imagine.

Everyone around him reacted in the same way, turning towards the corpses with a curious gaze.

Only Yue's eyes flashed in recognition for a few seconds. She seemed to ponder upon it a few more moments before speaking up. 

"Oh... I think I heard about this before." The Bloody Princess touched her cjhin with an index finger as her eyes trailed across the forests around them. 

"You have?" "Why didn't you say anything?!?" Tatsukio and Morita both reacted accordingly. The others just listened to Yue silently.

The Bloody Princess started explaining how she had heard her father mention something about them recently.

'The Green Forest Union'.

It was something that the many Bandits of the Elemental Nations decided to do after taking inspiration from the Three Corner Alliance. 

The outlaws from all over the Elemental Nations all seemed to gather together into a grand alliance. 

Their headquarters were already said to be located somewhere in between the Land of Hot Water and the Land of Fire. However, they were yet to be located due to the current political climate. 

The bandits that the Dark Brotherhood younglings had just killed were likely nothing but a small group of scouts/highwaymen belonging to the Green Forest Union.

Yue didn't know much more other than that. 

"I hope we haven't started some war by killing outlaws..." Bull looked at the broken corpses around them with slight concern. 

Every one of them had enough of war.

Well, Yue was maybe more excited at the prospect, but she was not mindless enough to think that her desires were more important than the well-being of many. 

Although they were technically attacked first and just retaliated, they still killed every single one of them. 

At that point, Yue's style of killing had become quite well-known within the Land of Iron so the situation could be linked back to them... 

"Well, my dad didn't seem all that concerned about them. I think they're not that great a threat for now.

Overall, I wouldn't worry about them." Yue shrugged and slowly turned to continue her journey, obviously not concerned in any way about the wasp's nest they had technically just stepped on. 

Her lack of care seemed to rub off on the others around her. But Morita and Tatsukio both shared a rather foreboding look.

As the others were also continuing their journey, the duo seemed to have a silent understanding in that instant.

'Better to keep an eye out for them...' 

Morita slowly shifted his mask to the side, then brought his hands together, swiftly made a few hand seals 

"Fire Style: Fire Ball Jutsu!" In an instant, a continuous stream of fire in the shape of a large sphere came out of his mouth. 

The piled-up bodies were engulfed immediately, and the smell of burning flesh immediately filled their surroundings.

"Blegh- Smells like burning pig... This stench better not cling to my hair!" Yue seemed less than happy with Morita's actions, but Tatsukio was quick to scowl at her. 

"We don't want this to be linked back to us Yue, deal with it." The One-Legged Devil started hopping away as well before taking one last glance at the burning pile of bodies to make sure they were all engulfed.

But Morita had already made sure to turn everything to ash. The stream of flames only stopped when everything had turned to charcoal and crumbled even further.

Soon after that, Morita turned to leave alongside his siblings.

Unbeknownst to them, further on the side just in the clearing that they had passed, was a man shrouded in shadows wearing a fox mask.

Slowly and methodically, he wrote down in his notebook. 

His notes included every action that the group had taken. Every word they spoke, every breath they took.

Everything was noted down and graded.

And it wasn't just for the three groups of the Dark Brotherhood. Each squad that was participating was being tracked in the very same way. 

Along the journey to Konoha were several obstacles set up by the Anbu. This particular one saw it fit to sell some 'prime intel' about there being a secret cargo being ferried along on that route by a very rich and careful merchant. 

The Green Forest Union obviously took the bait. At least the group that had shown up did anyway.

Regardless, the way that the Dark Brotherhood attendees had handled the matter earned them quite a few points in the eyes of the Anbu in charge of them.

Especially since they were mindful of the Brotherhood and doing things for its well-being. He did contemplate deducting a few points from Yue due to her words and attitude at times, but her actions seemed to contradict them.

Essentially, the girl liked to talk smack but was quite careful and methodical about the way she did things, so the Anbu ended up not deducting any points. 

Eventually, he closed his notebook and blended back into the shadows, following the group further through their trials.

It was an arduous journey. 

Each squad from each village was strictly being scored under similar matrics during their travels.

The Genin Teams of Konoha that were participating in the Chunin Exams this year were also given missions further from the village for them to participate in the task.

Their overseers were their Jonin teachers, of course.

Besides bandits, among the various hurdles they faced was the wildlife that was a lot more aggressive than usual thanks to the Anbu's interference.

There were some scenes left for them to investigate, one of a broken down carriage and some corpses.

There were tracks leading into the woods, and towards a cave that was boobie trapped. 

On that hurdle, the Dark Brotherhood examinees once again proved their deductive strength and reasoning by simply stumbling upon the scene but choosing not to engage much with the tracks and simply continue on their way to their mission. 

 They didn't follow the obvious tracks as it was none of their business. They were, at the end of the day, Assassins with a task.

And the Anbu leading them found that commendable.

The most commendable was the fact that most of the members of the squads were just silently listening to orders from their leaders. 

Thanks to that everything went smoothly. Until they got to the last hurdle. 

As the group of 9 Dark Brotherhood recruits dashed through the forest, they immediately noticed a clearing in front of them, with a pebbled road.

All of them appeared confused for a second. Morita immediately signalled for them all to stop, which they did.

They then quickly checked their maps and tried to find thier current location. Tatsukio helped with that by jumping as high as he could and getting a good view of their surroundings. 

"There shouldn't be any road here..." Mortia muttered before looking at the road once more. 

It appeared to start from the forest, and it led to somewhere off to the side, just outside their line of sight.

The group silently looked at each other, and they slowly crept up along the road, not quite stepping on it.

And eventually, they ran into it. 

"An unmapped village?"