Two of them seemed to be men in their early twenties, and a woman, probably in her late twenties or early thirties. One of the men seemed to be a taijutsu specialist, and the other would be either a genjutsu user or a medic nin. The woman, Veronica couldn't guess much about her, seemed to be a fire ninjutsu user although, she could feel some Earth in her chakra. None of them seemed to be holding any kekkai genkai.
These three seemed to be only lightly armed and she could sense no seals on their bodies. Veronica figured that she should take them out before the others got here. She doubted that, even with Matatabi's immense chakra, she could handle a group of genin and chunin level shinobi at once.
She nodded over at Karasu and decided to make some more clones in case anything goes wrong.
She easily dodged the woman coming forward to knock her out.
Pulling out a kunai she charged towards her, this time. Veronica noticed that her right wrist was having some problems, and the woman was forced to defend with her non dominant hand.
Veronica tch-ed as she moved away to dodge the fireball jutsu launched at her. The woman could do single-handed signs. The woman smirked as she looked over at Veronica. It seems that she was confident they would win.
Dodging the shuriken coming her way, she made the signs for a water jutsu to defend against the other man attacking her.
'Their teamwork is good. While one defends, the others attack. If one's in trouble then one of them saves them and the other attacks. Team 7 should really learn from these guys.'
She dodged another attack as she charged towards the woman who had begun throwing shuriken and kunai at her.
She pushed some chakra into her kunai as she dug into her wrist, not minding the small scratches she got from the other woman. The screams surprised her for a second before she regained her composure. She forgot that a lot of ninjas aren't trained like ROOT.
'The woman will be down for a while, judging by how she's holding her wrist. I'll take care of those two then.'
She noticed one the men casting some genjutsu on her and the areas around her as he moved towards the woman, likely to heal her. She easily broke through all the genjutsu and let her clones take care of those two while she fought with the remaining man.
"There were more of you...?"
His eyes were widened in disbelief, and Veronica took the chance to knock him out. She was charging at him with the intent to kill him but remembering the kids hid in the bushes, she decided not to. It was bad enough that they got to witness her stab a person in the wrist. She did not want to be the main source of trauma for a couple of kids.
She then spread out her senses and checked how much time would it take for the others to get here.
'Two minutes. Should be enough.'
"Hide them and then hide yourself. Karasu, stay with the kids."-Veronica
The clones nodded and Karasu moved towards where the kids were hiding. Veronica decided to let Karasu distract the kids for a while.
'I wonder what should I do after beating these people? I hope there's some sort of Inn I can stay at. My body will be all sore if I have to sleep in a tree.'
[Focus on the fight.]-Matatabi
'Right right.'
Veronica easily dodged the jutsu aimed at her as she wondered if the other two were just going to watch. She knew that by now they must've understood that she was the one who defeated, or killed, their partners but they still didn't take her seriously.
'I should've just run.'
[And let those kids guilt you for the rest of your small life?]-Matatabi
Veronica stayed silent as she focused on the battle ahead. It seems as though all of them had enough of her dodging their attacks and came forward as if to corner her.
Making signs for a large scale water jutsu, she quickly got rid of the shuriken coming at her while also managing to hit the attacker. There were three more people to take care of now. She couldn't help but be thankful of Matatabi's chakra now. Her own chakra would've started to deplete by now.
'Slow acting poison.'
She sighed as she thought about the amount of poison her body had taken. She had just stood there and let herself be attacked by the ninja's shuriken and kunai a lot of times so that she could attack them and not miss. But it seems that taking a lot of poison, even with Matatabi's healing factor, was a bit too much strain for her body currently.
She then noticed one of them transporting the unconscious people into some sort of a cart.
'Should I save them, or no? Well, I guess it'll depend on if I can defeat these two in the right amount of time.'
Rushing towards the man, the two got caught in a taijutsu battle. She noticed the man was mainly focused on defending. Perhaps it was to wait for her to tire out or for his partner to come and attack her while she was fighting him.
Veronica hummed a little song as she pulled out a kunai and cut through the man's arms. The other was shaken up by the unexpected scene as he stopped and his own kunai dropped to the ground. She took this chance to form a small, but deadly, water jutsu and aimed it at him.
However, she noticed some shuffling within her clothes. She couldn't help but pity the poor man then. Veronica directed her chakra in her fist as she punched the man in the stomach. The man coughed out some blood as a black shadow came out from Veronica's coat.
He could faintly see some rabbit ears on what he assumed was it's had however, he didn't have much time to keep observing it. It rushed at him, the killing intent almost making him faint, and tore through his arm. A loud scream echoed throughout the forest and Veronica wondered whether Karasu had covered the children's ears.
Not wanting to see the disgusting scene taking place in front of her, Veronica turned around and spread her senses to see if she had missed anybody before going to see where the man who was loading the civilians in the cart was.
She noticed the man had fainted.
"Huh?"-Veronica
--- --- --- --- ---
{It has been a few days now. Things were changing in Konoha according to the civilians questioned.
They said that there is some visible tension within the clans. Nobody seems to know the cause of it. However, there are still rumors.
Some have said that the clans are banding together in the dark and might just plan a coup against the rest of the village. There were also some more stating that the civilian council were power hungry people and the only reason that the village hasn't been able to grow in the past few years was because of them.
Some said that one of the shinobi had committed acts of treason against the village and the clans have been majorly affected by it. Some said that there is someone kidnapping and abducting orphans, especially those ones who show that they were going to be good ninja. This rumor is the most common as there are people who have claimed that some children they knew had been abducted.
Some have even said that it might be that the clans were banding together with the Hokage to pluck out traitors from the village. The number of people knowing this rumor is small.
The rumors have spread quickly throughout the village and the clans have done nothing much to put it to a stop. Some of them even fueling the rumors more.
The civilians, and the lower ranked shinobi, have started to gossip more as nobody of power involved in the rumors have done nothing to confirm or deny them.
Usually by now, there would be some clans putting down the rumors but there has been no action till now. Some of the genin have even questioned their teammates, who were part of the major clans, and the kids have claimed not to know anything.
The origins have found to be in the Red Light district.}
Minato read over the report, submitted by one of his informants, for the 10th time since the day before. He didn't do much to stop the rumors as he knew that people would only gossip more if he provided them with a half baked statement.
He would've liked it if he could monitor the investigation on the rumors himself however, he was currently busy with taking over the Hokage position, raising his son and Kakashi, and finding out where exactly had the abducted children went to. He was also secretly keeping an eye on Shimura Danzo.
So for now, he could only get some ANBU to investigate the rumors.