22 Forest Ambush

Natsume peaked her head out over the bushes for a moment to check the positions of the enemies. There were two armored warriors patrolling the perimeter. She signaled the low-rank warriors under her, and they spread out. For this mission, due to the sheer quantity of warriors participating, several units were formed. Natsume led a team of four.

Once the four warriors were in position, Natsume activated her sharingan and drew her sword. She had yet to master the use of chakra nature with a chakra blade, but for this ambush it was unnecessary. The patrol path would lead the warrior right in front of her. She waited patiently and just as the man stepped into her kill-zone, the other warrior was ambushed.

Natsume's target turned his head at the commotion, giving Natsume the perfect opportunity. She stepped forward steadily and sheathed her blade. Although her chakra reserves and control of the sharingan were exceptional, it was still idea to restrain herself. After dealing a killing blow, she withdrew all her chakra and went to check on the other target.

The man initially wanted to attack Natsume as she walked out past him but didn't realize that his head was slowly falling from his body. Once the blood stopped flowing to his brain, his life force was eventually cut off and he faded to black. His body crumpled like a ragdoll. Her attack was quick and ruthless. A part of her felt a tinge of pain for the needless waste of life, but Natsume understood the necessity.

'If not them, then it would be us.' She consoled herself.

After setting off for the mission, they had split off to launch ambushes on the wide net of patrols. Tajima wasn't surprised that the Fire Daimyo would assume the Uchiha refuse his deal, and perhaps even attempt a hostile takeover. However, he underestimated their full strength. Most wars, the best fighters would stay in reserve to counter any trump cards the opposing side would have. Because of this, there was a misperception that the two sides fighters were only low- to mid-ranked.

Although top-ranked warriors were rare, this did not apply to high-ranked warriors. In the Uchiha clan, there were nearly a hundred. Based on Natsume's self-assessment, she had already entered the high rank herself. However, with Mangekyou sharingan she might be able to compete with top-ranked warriors of the clan.

Therefore, the private forces of the Land of Fire were quickly dispatched all over the site of the mine. Natsume watched the low-ranked warriors finishing off the other patrolling guard while she used her sharingan to inspect the surroundings. This was their first encounter with the enemy.

"Natsume-sama, target has been neutralized."

"Good. Make a report and then we continue forward." The man nodded and summoned a hawk. He quickly wrote down an encoded message and tied it around the hawk's leg. Once it flew away, Natsume watched it with her sharingan to ensure it did not get intercepted. Once it left her vision range, she turned back to the front.

"The next site is just up ahead." The group nodded and Natsume led to the next area. Their current mission was to fan out and search for the site of the mine. Although the daimyo revealed its existence, he did not share the exact location. However, the presence of the Land of Fire's private army was a good sign. Each team was tasked with checking a segment of possible locations.

During this mission, Natsume was already experiencing some limitations in her skill set. Firstly, although she was able to use earth and fire clones, they were unable to use even a fraction of her strength. Therefore, in actual combat, they couldn't be relied on. At least not like how they are used in her memories.

The unique attribute of shadow clone Jutsu to be the closest to a true clone in strength with an independent consciousness and sending back experience to the main body was the optimal clone jutsu. However, she would have to wait until Tobirame invented it since she wasn't skilled enough to reverse engineer it.

Secondly, her lack of summons was inconvenient. Whether it's for scouting, sending messages, providing support, or tracking, summons had many uses. She had not thought about it in the past because summons in her memory are mostly unimpressive except for creatures from the forbidden sage lands. However, this was just her misconception. Only after experiencing the usefulness of summons in person did she come to realize that any skill to aid her survival was worth knowing.

Midst her thoughts, she suddenly stopped and signaled to those behind her. Everyone paused their movement and entered camouflage. She quietly observed the spot in front of her for almost an hour when a white-haired man and women stepped out fully armored. They spoke to each other but were too far to hear. Fortunately, with the sharingan, Natsume read their lips.

'It must have been nothing.' 'I swear I heard footsteps.' 'We have been waiting here for so long, let's go back.' 'Fine.'

Seeing the grid pattern clan symbol on their armor and iconic white hair, Natsume was able to easily identify these two as Hatake clan members. Tajima had many guesses on who would be asked to take on the joint operation of protecting the mine and the Hatake clan was one of few. The main reason was the close relationship with the Senju and Hatake clan. Although originally a clan of farmers, the Hatake clan broke into the mercenary world through marriage with the Senju clan. A few skilled shinobi led the rest of the clan to new heights.

As the two Hatake clan members left the area, Natsume signaled her subordinates to fan out. However, just as they began to move, five water lances flew in their direction. Natsume sneered and created a wall of earth in an instant, using a single one-handed seal. Behind the wall, she created two earth clones that ran either direction. Two more water jets were fired toward the clones, destroying them. However, Natsume was now able to deduce the location of the user.

With a series of hand seals Natsume inhaled and leaped onto the wall. She exhaled and various balls of liquid fire flew from her mouth.