Three figures walked through the woodland in silence. Their objective was simple, eliminate a group of bandits who were trying to disrupt the peace and then report back. The bandits had become quite the pest for the villages that they pillaged. Requests had been sent out in every direction for some form of assistance and this trio had heard the call and were answering in kind.

"Bandits, you would have thought by now they would stop causing so much trouble when they know people like us will show up to stop them" one of the three figures spoke up, noticeably feminine. Her comrades turned their attention from the road ahead to look at her, acknowledging her statement before turning back to the road ahead.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures though don't they?" one of the figures supplied for her as they continued on. This voice was a male one and was one that sounded like the reply had been thought through over a long period of time, where in fact it was mere seconds.

"They shouldn't be doing what they are doing though, pillaging, raping, destroying. It is all disgusting and should be given no mercy when it is dealt with, these men who think that the best thing to do to survive is through harming others are scum" the third of the group supplied after the first male voice. His was much more rugged and simply sounded like he had experienced far too much for himself to cope with it all.

"By all means I do not think that it is a reasonable excuse" the first male voice said to the second without any hint of fear in his voice as the three of them continued on down the dirt track towards their intended destination. " I only said that there are some people in this world who believe that in order to survive you must do whatever you can" the first man said as he looked between the woman and the other man as he said his explanation.

"I guess you are right, some people just think that they must take care of themselves before they put any thought about others" the woman said this time as she looked to the sky. Seeing that the sun was slowly beginning to dip down to the west and was barely just above the treeline above them she signalled her two accomplices to look at her. "The sun is setting meaning that it shall be dark soon, we can either pick up our pace and make it to the next village as soon as possible or make camp, it's your call sir" the woman said as she addressed the first man who looked up to the sky and then back to the road ahead of them.

"I think that we could make it to the next village before the darkness sets in and anyway I think all three of us are capable of taking on the creatures of this wilderness" the man answered her as he spared the other male in their trio a glance only to see that he had continued on down the road when they had stopped.

"If we're gonna continue on we might as well make headway now don't you think?" the man asked them as he leaned his head back far enough to see them out of the corner of his right eye. With them both looking into the second man's eyes he closed it as he smiled to the two. "Come on, we want to get this done quickly and go home don't we?" the man asked as he focused his attention back on the road again and began walking.

The first man and woman stood in their position not moving for long enough as they simply looked at each other and then back to the man who was slowly making his way away from them.

"He has hardly changed all that much has he?" the man asked the woman as a smile spread across his face, something that he had been able to do much more frequently due to his company. The woman that he looked to however felt her face fall at what he had said as much as she wanted to agree she couldn't.

"I wish could agree with you but we both know that he has changed, and we know why too" the woman said as she looked to the retreating figure of the man as he made his way down the pathway to their destination. The past had not been kind to him and for him to act quite like he did was astounding.

"Exactly, it is part of the reason why we are in this situation anyway. We work for peace so that things like that can never happen again, it hurt him far too much to experience that" the man answered as he too looked at the figure that was slowly getting out of eyesight of the two. "Come on we better hurry up or he will leave us behind" the man said to his partner as he held out his hand, the woman grasped it and the two made a dash in order to make it to their comrade before he left them behind.

Appearing right at the side of the second man they both slowed down to his pace and walked alongside him. The second man's eyes wandered down and found the intertwined hands and smiled as he looked to his comrades side-on.

"At the hand holding stage already? And still you two haven't admitted you are dating yet?" the man asked as he raised an eyebrow at the two who blushed at such an insinuation, quickly letting go of each other's hands. "Honestly you guys are pathetic, if you two are dating at least say so instead of all this keeping it under wraps stuff" the second man joked as he laughed at his own joke causing both of the other two to become even more embarrassed. "Let it out surely you can tell me?" the man joked again as he held his hand to his heart and made a face that made him seem almost angelic.

"Shut up you idiot" the woman said as she walked a bit faster to get in front of him in order to hide the blush that had adorned her cheeks after what the man had said. He was not stupid and after being told to shut up he done so and gave her a reprieve.

"You know you shouldn't wind her up, she'll just get to a point where she will hit you, you know that" the first man said to the second as they walked side-by-side while the women walked in front of them. The second man smiled after he had been told that, truth be told he did know that, he just enjoyed winding her up a little.

"Yeah I know, it's all playful banter anyway you know? We both know there is no ill feeling towards it and so does she, it's just a little bit of fun I'm allowed every once in a while" the second man answered back with a mischievous smile towards the first man. The first man could only chuckle lightly while shaking his head at the way his comrade worked, honestly one of these days she was going to hit him until he stopped moving.

"Look ahead, the village is coming into view, should we continue into the village or scope out the surrounding area?" the second man asked the first as he rolled his head around d looking at the village and its surrounding environment. The first man looked around too as he took in all of the different factors of the area.

"We will move ahead into the village and move from there" the first man confirmed as he moved forward down the path. His comrade caught up with him slightly later and resumed his place walking at his side, still walking behind the woman who was now swaying slightly as she walked as if she was at peace despite all the things going wrong in the world.

"How do you think she does it?" the second man asked his comrade who was only able to look at him questioningly, the second man continued on " I mean she looks so at peace, like a child who is ignorant of all the problems in the world" the man finished as he turned his attention back to the woman who had stopped just at the gateway to the village to wait for them.

"She has very little left that she cares about, we are both the only things she has any real connection to, so when she is with us she feels more at peace, you should have seen her when it was just us two on a mission together" the first man finished but missed the small perverted grin that had spread across his comrades face.

"Oh yeah I bet you guys hated the being alone together time" the second man joked as he could literally see the redness consume his comrades face at such an insinuation. He grabbed his high collar and stretched it slightly while clearing his throat.

"Well yes I won't deny we spent some very nice 'us' time but other than those times she was not quite as calm as you see her now" the first man answered trying to hide away the blush that had completely taken over his face. His comrade simply laughed at him which did cause him to smile slightly too, it was hard not to.

"Fair enough I guess, I suppose she was lucky that this once the three of us were needed for this particular mission" the second man said as they got ever closer to their female comrade who was waiting for them at the gateway, as they approached she smiled to them before reaching around her back and bringing out a straw hat.

"I guess we had better hide our identities for now huh?" she asked as she placed it on her head and turned around into the village. The two men followed suit by bringing out their own straw hats and placing them on their heads. And with that the trio walked into the village, their black cloaks billowing in the wind, making the red cloud patterns upon the cloak almost appear real.

Kakashi was standing at the front gates of Konoha, for once he was ready before his entire team was. He could be early if he wanted to and in the case of missions he did prefer to be punctual. At this particular moment and time he was waiting on his team to hurry the hell up! Honestly they complained that he took too long and yet they were taking their sweet time getting here just now.

So here he stood waiting for team seven to get there so that they could go out on their next mission. He was lucky however that he did not have to wait too long as the three bobbing heads of his team signified that they were finally on their way. As they finally reached him a feminine voice spoke up for the three of them.

"Sorry we're late Sensei, Kenichi baka wanted to get something to eat before we got here and made us wait on him" the feminine voice supplied for the three of them. The little girl had long black hair that was tucked behind both of her ears; her eyes were a lovely silver colour that signified her as a Hyuga. She wore a light blue overcoat over a white t-shirt and blue trousers along with the usual sandals.

"Haruna, you're no fair, why did you sell me out like that?" cried the aforementioned Kenichi as he stared at his female teammate, completely crestfallen. The boy had short white hair and black eyes, quite the contrast on him. He wore a jumpsuit almost completely comprised of the colour green, not to the extent of Rock Lee though, this was a two part set of clothes. He also wore a black vest which looked much like the chunin version but for obvious reasons was not.

"For no other reason than that it is in fact your fault that we are late maybe?" came the voice of the third member within the team, Kakashi had wondered when the third member of the group would have her say in the matter, she always had something to say. She had flowing blonde hair and a pair of blazing blue eyes. Her attire consisted of white pants and a white shirt with black sleeves that extended down to her fingers where the sleeve created a glove effect over her hands, only her fingers showed on her arms.

"No fair Asura, I was just hungry was all" Kenichi said to the other girl as he looked directly at her, Haruna took this opportunity to make sure that he understood that he was not going to win this fight. By doing something that Kakashi had become accustomed to in the last few months. She hit him on the back of his head… hard.

"That's not a good enough excuse idiot!" she scolded her teammate as Kakashi sweat dropped at the antics of his new Genin team, yes Kakashi had yet another team of Genin on his hands now and they were finally on their way out on a C-ranked mission, away from the mediocre D-ranked missions that had been driving the trio crazy.

"Right, right, please don't hit Kenichi again Haruna it will really do no good, trust me I know" Kakashi told the little Hyuga as he recalled fond memories long gone now. "Anyway as you know this is our first C-ranked mission, we are tasked with ridding a village that is infested with bandits, now I must say that if you are engaged with any of them you are to either run or engage with the intent to kill" Kakashi said to them watching as their expressions all changed to surprise at the order to kill if necessary. "I shall be with you all most of the time so do not worry too much, I won't ever abandon my team" Kakashi finished with an eye smile.

"Kakashi-sensei, isn't asking us Genin to kill people too far I mean, surely it can't be that easy to kill someone" Kenichi supplied for his team which Kakashi noticed was quiet as both girls were looking at the ground unsure of themselves.

"Unfortunately I cannot just say to you that the life of a ninja is easy, you will have to kill in order to survive in the ninja world. It is by no means easy to do, after my first kill I was not able to look at myself in a mirror for a long time. The thought that I had killed a possible father, brother, husband, son or worse had me hating myself for a long time. But eventually I came to the realisation that I was protecting my village and its people and its future, killing does not get easier as you grow up but you come to understand it as a necessary evil sometimes" Kakashi explained to his Genin who seemed to look much better after Kakashi had said this to them all. Kenichi seemed much more comfortable although Haruna and Asura did not look entirely convinced yet.

"Can't we just beat them and ask them not to do what they are doing? Killing just seems far too extreme" Asura asked as she looked up to her sensei who could see the hopeful stare she gave him at her question. Unfortunately he had to sigh at what she had said.

"If only it was that easy Asura maybe there would be less death in the world. There are just some people out there who you cannot reason with, who believe in what they are doing far too much to bother trying to stop. There are few battles that I have been in that have ended without a death, it is just the life of a ninja, death is always just around the corner" Kakashi finished, however he could see the unconvinced look on her face and at that rested his hand on her shoulder causing her to look up to him.

"I once knew a great ninja who believed one day we would all be able to understand each other's hearts and that one day would be when peace would be attained throughout the land. Hopefully you just might live to see that day come, but until then we will just have to get used to the way things are just now OK?" Kakashi finished as Asura looked up to him and nodded her head in confirmation. Kakashi knew that chances were she was still unsure about killing anyone but knew also if pushed far enough and her own life or her team's in jeopardy would cause her to kill, it was just human nature to defend that which they cared about.

"Right are we all prepared then? Has anyone forgotten anything?" Kakashi asked his team and was happy to see that his entire team had their packs and were ready to move out. "Good, now we should reach the village within the day so keep up and we should be done and dusted with this mission in short order" Kakashi said to his team, receiving a chorus of "Yes sensei" he nodded his head and the three of them leapt up onto the nearest tree and began leaping from tree to tree.

As they leapt through the foliage Kakashi only hoped that this first C-ranked mission for his Genin would not go anything like the last time, although it had been a great success and the mission had in fact been complete it was on a completely different level from what should have been expected of a Genin team.

He would just have to hope that things went very well for his team. That meant they went in got rid of the bandits that were terrorizing the town and then leave, simply. He knew for a fact though that it was never that simply and as such braced himself for what they were going to be facing in the near future. His team were alarmingly quiet which he took as the three of them coming to terms with the severity of their mission.

Asking children was never one of the things that Kages wanted to do, or at least reasonable Kages anyway, but for the safety of the village they would have to start off young so that they would come more accustomed to it and be more capable of doing it in the future. As such Kakashi felt that if he were to even try and comfort his team he would only make them feel worse. So he left them to their own coping mechanisms.

The three comrades were sitting in the room that they had rented out for the day in order to come up with a strategy in order to take out the bandits that surrounded the village. They were supposedly camped out in a cave system that was slightly to the north of the village, so it only made sense that they search there and find the leader of the bandits. After finding him it would simply be a case of eliminating him and any of the bandits who refused to leave and never come back to threaten any village again.

Harsh though it may be they were only interested in making the village safe again, after all they only wanted peace, as did their leader. For him to send all three of them meant that this was definitely and important mission and meant that the numbers of bandits must number in the highest of levels.

"When should we do this then?" asked the female of the group to the leader of their small team, said man leaned back in his chair slightly and lifted his hat from his head to look at them both.

"I think it would be wise to attack tonight, that way their visibility is reduced and our own sharper senses will help us to beat the large majority of them, attacking a cave system at night will be difficult but they will be less used to the darkness so we have a slight advantage" the leader explained as the other two within the room look to each other they both shrugged their shoulders and looked back to the leader.

"Well you're the boss, if that's what you want then that's what we do, simple as that" The other man said as the woman nodded her head in the affirmative. The leader smiled at his teammates warmly.

"Good we set out before night fall and we shall rid this village of these bandits that infest it" the leader said as his two teammates nodded again in the affirmative.

Well here is the first chapter of my new Fic. I hope that you like it as I thought it would be a good idea and if you guys like this chapter enough I will have the confidence to continue and explore this idea even further because it is one I find particularly interesting. Well anyway if you would be so kind as to read and review this that would be much appreciated. Anyway until my next story is updated byebye - Varrukh