21 Team 142

[Kaito - Level 20 Sunagakure Genin]

[Aki - Level 14 Sungakure Genin]

[Eiji - Level 18 Sunagakure Genin]

This was team number 146, Kaito's team. Although Kaito rarely undertook missions that required coopereation with other teams from the Genin corps, it's not like he never accepted such missions. They had many occasions to complete missions among his 268 D-rank missions, 12 C-rank missions and 1 B-rank mission.

Team 142 was made of three genins that the team knew very well, since they attended the academy the same year. One of them was especially noteworthy: Kohaku. He came from a noble clan of the village, and while he was not an heir, which explained his presence in the Sungakure Genin Corps instead of being in an elite team nurtured by a jonin instructor, he still had access to more resources than regular shinobi.

[Kohaku - Level 17 Sunagakure Genin]

[Tomoko - Level 8 Sunagakure Genin]

[Harumi - Level 13 Sunagakure Genin]

'I guess we grew quite a bit stronger recently', Kaito realized

Kohaku had always been quite strong within the genin corps. Yet, both him and Eiji surpassed him in terms of level. As for fighting skills, the difference was perhaps even bigger considering that his specialisation came from his ability to tame a sand eagle and fight with it. The beast measured more than 1 meter in width when it deployed its wings, and it would grow to become much bigger than that in the future, allowing Kohaku to ride it at some point. Thus, Kohaku possessed some fighting prowess, but he paled quite a bit compared to Eiji's sword arts or Kaito's puppets in terms of raw damage outputs.

Just this ability was enough for the Tatsumi Clan to be quite valued in the village, as it produced many excellent flying scouts.

Tomoko was the weakest. Just like Kaito, he used puppets, but he did not have much talent in this path. His puppets were enough to take down bandits, but it was all too average, only capable of fighting like a swordsman would. However, compared to someone like Eiji, his puppet was not capable of using such the village's swordsmanship so it was just a sturdy and strong puppet, yet not skilled enough to beat taijutsu and kenjutsu specialist on the terrain. His low level proved that he was quite lacking compared to his teammates.

Harumi, was a genjutsu specialist. Her fighting skills were mediocre, but her support skills were quite excellent. She was also very smart, and ranked consistently in the top 3 of the class back in the academy, despite coming from civilian background. 

"Kohaku! It's been a long time since we met!", Eiji said quite bluntly

Indeed, even though the two teams belonged to the Sunagakure Genin Corps, they had been farming missions at the Land of Earth's frontiers for quite some time. They had only come back after several weeks, before undertaking the Golden Turtle C-rank mission and almost dying. Thus, it had been nearly two months since they last met.

It was always better to work with people you knew, since you would not overestimate or underestimate them. Kaito knew that team 142 would be very useful in terms of tracking enemies, but they were not reliable in combat. 

Kohaku looked at Eiji, Aki and lastly, offered to shake hands with Kaito. The prideful Kohaku had for the first time offered to shake hands with him. This was a first

"I heard about your team's achievements on the Earth Sunagakure Outpost. It surprised me considering your performances in the academy"

'I guess...it's a praise?', Kaito thought with a bitter smile

Tomoko smiled and genuinely exclaimed: "You've got to give me some pointers about your puppets! Some veterans said they were very impressed with your designs"

Although Kaito came up with the designs alone, he tested his shuriken launcher puppet against other puppets to test its limits and find ways to repair its flaws. One of them was its fragility, which he solved by putting Yellow-Steel defensive plates on its body, which increased its defense score by 20 whopping points. Naturally, the tests allowed him to gain quite a bit of reputation in the Puppet Brigade's workshop, especially when he completely crushed Yaito's puppet with his katonjutsu. 

"Sure, but that'll have to wait until the end of the mission", Kaito said, "We need to cover the whole zone 324. Although it is quite big, I've already looked into the map and there are two main routes we have to look for: the long bridge that would allow escaping shinobi to cross the river, or the delta, where the currents are small enough to allow trained shinobi to cross it by walking above it with chakra"

Even if it was the world of shinobi, genins were not capable of crossing the rivers from the land of Rivers so easily, as they were known for their huge current and waves due to Tanigakure, where a huge waterfall lies.

Kohaku smiled: "So that's what the explosive tags are for...If we blow up the bridge, then we only have to look at the delta region and track the shinobi that escapes. This is only an outpost of Tanigakure, so the odds of encountering a chunin or genin are very low, especially uninjured ones. This mission should not be too difficult"

Kaito nodded. After taking down a chunin in the lands of Grass, he no longer feared such missions where they would have to fight againt regular genins. Plus, now he possessed the mystical palm technique. Even if he was injured, he would be able to heal himself, which was a huge boon for his survival.