Naruto: Chronicles of a Fire Ninja-Chapter 397 - 392: Decision

While Jiraiya was busy with the analysis of the array, Shisui was already on his way inside the Iwa outpost. With his acting as Juro and three chunin in front of him being as authentic as possible, the chances of anything going wrong were almost negligible, but not zero, so he maintained constant alertness throughout the mission.

While he was on scouting duty, he played the role of Juro to the T, not giving his teammates any reason to suspect anything. Having Juro's memories also helped in this case.

After their shift ended, they started making their way toward the outpost. The sentry at the gate of the watchtower gave a cursory scan to the group after one of the chunin gave him the command. As soon as the deed was done, the group entered the outpost.

As Shisui already had memories of the jonin of the outpost, there were very few things here which he didn't know.

For now, he directly made his way toward the commander's room where he sent one of the chunin to submit the report, with an excuse of having an urgent need to use the washroom, getting a chuckle from his subordinate who went silent with just a stare from him.

The commander of the outpost, who was an elite jonin-level ninja, may very well find out the difference in his chakra signature, so not wanting to take any risk, Shisui chose the best approach: appear in front of him to not arouse any suspicion but don't go near him to give him a chance to get suspicious.

Luckily or unluckily, the commander agreed to his request. With his subordinate giving the report, he made his way towards the washroom, not the one in his room but the one present on the floor for emergencies.

Most ninja had to use this one since this base was not actually built to host more than a hundred ninja all of the time.

This gave Shisui the perfect opportunity to 'interact' with some of the ninja of the outpost. He swiftly but slowly made his way toward the washroom, only to find a ninja, a chunin rank one, just leaving it. Without wasting a second, his eyes turned red, and that chunin felt that he had to use the washroom once again, following Shisui inside.

The washroom was as big as any public washroom, with enough capacity for 10 people to use it at the same time. Sadly, it was not filled at the moment, only three ninja present, four counting the one who had to return here.

Seeing that ninja returning, the one already present and washing his hands was about to joke about bad stomach, but Shisui saved him and others from hearing a bad joke. After seeing the glowing red eyes, the ninja also felt he was in urgent need to pee, joining his friend there.

When the other two came out after doing the deed, they faced the same fate. Now four ninja were standing in front of urinals holding their weapons, waiting for the attack to start, but there was no ammunition left at all as it was nothing but a false alarm.

The reason Shisui did this was for if another ninja entered the washroom, they would not find it suspicious.

After seeing no one was coming there anymore, Shisui turned to the four ninja in the room.

"Guys, commander is calling you," he said, as the ninja quickly closed their pants and turned to see who was giving the order, only to find two red eyes looking toward them once again. But this time, it was not the usual three tomoe sharingan, but something much more complex and beautiful, something so breathtaking that those ninja almost forgot to take a breath for a moment.

This time the genjutsu was much more powerful, where they were forced to believe that they were spies from Konoha and were there on a mission same as Shisui.

Normally such a genjutsu is very hard to cast and maintain as it goes against everything they believe, but with Mangekyo Sharingan and being the best genjutsu expert even in the Uchiha clan, this was nothing but child's play. After giving a brief overview to the spies of Konoha about their role in the attack, he went to his next destination.

On his way, he met with the teammates who were returning after giving their reports.

"Captain? Where are you going now?"

"I am having a stomach ache, maybe that hare was not good for me. You guys go and take some rest, I will take some medicine from the medical room."

"Are you sure? We could come with you..."

"Hahaha, are you worrying about me, boy? Even in this state, I am more than capable of handling all of you easily, so don't worry about me and go get some rest," Shisui said, waving his hand as he made his way toward the medical room.

"Oh, Juro-san, what happened?" one of the female medical ninja came to check him. From her walk and posture, it was clear that she was not a ninja at all, just a medical practitioner. Seeing her innocent face, Shisui grimaced internally for a moment.

The orders were crystal clear: no captives and complete eradication of the base. That left him with no choice other than to stop his consciousness for a second and do what was necessary.

With steeled resolve, he went inside, with confidence and urgency in his strides.

"The commander has called everyone for a meeting. We have got a report of unusual movement on the border. Can you please call everyone?" he asked, seeing the young girl becoming visibly tense at the mention of the enemy, her fearful eyes hammering at Shisui's resolve, but he persisted.

The girl nodded her head like a lamb before calling everyone. Luckily not everyone was like her, only one more boy of the same age as her, not more than 17 or 18, still learning the ropes of being a medical ninja, with no combat experience at all. It was even a wonder what they were doing here.

As everyone gathered, Shisui counted all seven medical ninja, five actual full-fledged ones, and two younglings, all of them looking toward him for information or orders.

Only to see him sigh, and then suddenly the eyes of the ninja turned, becoming dark red, with a beautiful pattern inside it. Even though it was just a four-pointed pinwheel, in his eyes it looked like a beautiful flower blooming in the night.

Before their brains could process the implication of seeing the ninja's eyes changing and gaining the semblance to the ever-infamous Sharingan, their brains shut down.

Now the task was as simple as it was going to be: just make them believe that they are enemies of Iwa ninja who had tortured their families, and now that they have a chance, they can get their revenge. Even though such memories, like every other he had implanted, would be temporary and would fade with time.

Since they are like injuries to the brain and chakra will try to heal the brain with time, it was with his expertise that he could maintain these memories for such a long time, as even an Uchiha with 3 tomoe Sharingan would struggle with few minutes, let alone few hours.

But now seeing two almost innocent ninja in the mix, he couldn't bring himself to put them through all that in their last moments of their life.

With another sigh, he used his abilities once again, reading their memories, only to find his feelings were correct. Both of them were friends and orphans, living their life in slums, seeing their friends dying from simple diseases.

To prevent all that, they worked hard to become medical ninja. Since they didn't have any particular background, they had to work extra hard, do tasks others would not even think about, cleaning hospital toilets and cleaning dead bodies being on the tamer side.

But they persisted, only to be sent here when the requirement came. No medical ninja wanted to be on front lines, as they are normally targeted first by the enemies.

So they got the short end of the stick with a promise to help them in their learning when they come back from the outpost.

Each of those memories hammering Shisui's resolve more and more. Now with all of the facts in front of him, he had to make a decision: a simple route with guaranteed completion of mission easily, or a slightly more complex one. With a sigh, he made his decision.