Standing next to his new squad, Chiba looked faintly familiar Trio of kids infront of him. Chiba's squad leader, Hanbi, was talking to a grey haired boy as a girl with face marking and a boy wearing goggles stood next to him.
While he had watched the anime, the animated version of people looked only vaguely familiar to the real life counterpart, it was only the way they dressed that Chiba realized this was Kakashi, Rin and Obito!
This made Chiba come to a realization about what was about to transpire. Rin will be kidnap and Obito will 'die' trying to save her, only to be save by Madara and manipulate.
'If I remember correctly, this is also the moment Minatos infamy will be spread across the battlefield, killing one thousands enemy ninja within an instant! After today, he'll be give a flee in sight notice. Too bad he won't be fast enough....' as he was thinking this, Obito saw the Uchiha fan symbol on Chiba's back and walked over to him with a goofy smile.
"Hey pipsqueak, nice to see a fellow Uchiha doing good work. How's the clan been? I have returned to the village in a few months." The goggled boy said said with a smile, not paying any mind to the blindfold across Chiba's eyes as he had a carefree attitude.
Chiba turned his back towards the boy as he spoke in a short sentence.
"They are doing fine" Chiba said coldy, shutting down the conversation as guilt started weighing down on him.
"Hmmp, no need for attitude twerp." Obito said in annoyance, turning his back from Chiba and walked back to Rin. He though Chiba was like the other Uchiha in the village, looking down on him with their arrogant tone of voice.
'Im sorry Obito, but I must let fate play it's course. The white and black zetsu must be killed in order to ensure the safety of this world, and if I prevent you from turning evil, I would only hinder the zetsu's plans for a few year while they made a new plan for a different Uchiha.'
Chiba didn't care about following the plot of the anime as he needed to save Minato and Kushina from dying, preventing Danzo from imposing harsh laws that would eventually lead to his clan's coup, but Chiba also needed certain events to happen.
Chiba watched the three man team of Kakashi, Obito and Rin go on ahead of them. Looking at Obito's back, Chiba felt immense guilt knowing that he could've changed the boys fate but didn't.
"Alright, here is the mission details" Hanbi said solemnly, awakening Chiba from his thoughts.
"Our squad is tasked with drawing the guards away from the bridge, allowing the real operation to commence. Our Intel says that their should only be 3 Jonin and 9 Chunin, we need to draw away or nuetralize atleast half of their defending force....." There was a silence after Hanbi spoke.
Their team was comprised of four people, Hanbi, the Jonin leader, two Chunin Ninja and Chiba, a blind genin. They couldn't possibly be expected to fighting these powerhouse and they all certainly wouldn't be able to outrun a Jonin.
"Don't despair men, I haven't officially wrote down who'd I'd be taking on this mission when I wrote my report.... If you wish to leave, take these. " Saying this, Hanbi took out three letters.
"These letters state that I thought you were a liability during this mission and I left you behind at the outpost, it's been stamped by my clans specific stamp, proving it's authenticity. If you do somehow get found out, you can use them to mitigate your punishment and blame me....." Hanbi said, knowing full well that he was going to die during this mission but accepted his fate
Walking forward, the closet Chunin grabbed a letter, bowed his head and flicker stepped away. The second Chunin walked forward with his head held low.
"My brother is only three right now, if I die here, he'll end up an orphan. He'd eventually grow up and become a weak Shinobi without any train an-" "It's fine Jiru, I understand." Hanbi said, cutting off the man's excuses.
With tears in his eye, Jiru grabbed the letter and flicker stepped away, leaving just Hanbi and Chiba alone in the dark forest.
"Here kid, I'm sorry I tried dragging you into this, I don't know what my desperate mind was thinki-" the man was cut off as he saw the blade in Chiba hand flash a white light. The letter had been turned into tiny scraps of paper and flew into the wind.
"I don't need a letter to excuse my fleeing, I need a letter stating that I took part in this mission" Chiba said as Hanbi put away the Kunai.
Seeing Chiba's blade, Hanbi felt his hair stand on end as he had let go of the paper and grabbed a kunai to defend, only to see the paper scattering in the wind and Chiba remained leaning on his cane.
"Pardon?" Not quite understand the situation, Hanbi looked blind boy with a new found respect.
"You said that our names weren't official written down on this mission, right? This mission is dangerous, i don't know if you'll be able to make a report and give me my credit when we complete it" Chiba said honestly.
The Nara Jonin looked at the boy with a smile, he finally understood the famous 'Uchiha arrogance' that everyone talked about.
'This boy has already foreseen himself completing the mission, but he doesn't know if I'll survive to be able to make the report? What a funny kid.' with a half smirk, Hanbi took out a piece of paper and started write, finishing it by stabbing his finger and using his ring to create a blood stamp on it.
"Here kid, don't complain about it later" Hanbi said, tossing the note to Chiba to caught it and carefully put it away.
'This mission is definitely A-rank maybe even S-rank! If I get credited for completing this mission, It would be a giant leap into being promoted to Chunin rank.'
In times of peace, being promoted to the next rank was a whole ordeal that requires a lot of time and training, Chiba knew that it's best to get them out of the way during the war, where being promoted was based entirely on how well of a killer you were.
Sitting on the floor, Hanbi took out a watch and let out a sad sigh. Putting it away, he silent looked up at the full moon and marveled at it's beauty.
"We've got three hours before we have to go perform our suicide mission, sit down and relax kid, the moon is beautiful Tonight." Hanbi said without much thought, too captivated by the stars in the sky.
"I wouldn't know" Chiba said as he laid down next to Hanbi. Chiba tilted his head upward as his vision didn't change.
It didn't matter if Chiba was looking at the ground or at the sky, his vision was always a 360° vision of everything within 5 ft of him.
He could easily expand his Haki range to thousands of feet, but it was only when his vision was at five feet that his chakra regeneration could keep up with the expenditure on observation Haki. This meant that he had to lower his observation Haki even further or shut it off completely in order to regenerate his chakra.
"Ah sorry kid" Hanbi said, scratching his head in embarrassment and guilt
"It's fine Hanbi, I choose to remain blind" Chiba said casually, feeling the gentle night breeze against his skin.
"You choose to be blind?" Hanbi said in confusion.
"Yeah. Apparently I was a cryptic pregnancy, meaning my mother didn't realize that she was pregnant with me. She partook in second shinobi and only realized she was 4 months pregnant when a medic ninja noticed it during a healing sessions." Chiba spoke as if this was someone else story, no emotions in his voice.
"She quickly retired from the war but it was too late, whether it was poison or physical trauma done to hurt her body, it caused my cornea's to be fused to the lens in my eye. Atleast that's my theory anyway, for all I know, I really could have been born blind with or without any outside influence. " Chiba said with a chuckle
"...I'm sorry about that child" Hanbi said in sorrow. It was one thing for him to die at the ripe age of 31, seeing the filth and beauty of the world, but it was another to die at the age of 6, never seeing the color of the sky. Hanbi couldn't have known that Chiba had already lived a full life of being able to see.
"Like I said, it's fine. It's only the cornea's in my eye that's damaged, my optic nerves are complete fine. If I truly wanted to,
I could have dug out a rock Shinobi's eyes and transplant them. Hell, if i truly wanted to, I could probably ask my clans Patriarch and he'd have a pair of sharingan to transplant the next day." Chiba said with a smirk.
"Really now? Doesn't that seem super shady to have Sharingan readily available to transplant?" Hanbi was still watching the stars and the moon while talking.
"Nah, the old timers who fought in the First and second Shinobi war are super fanatic about the clan. The old 65-70 year old Uchiha's that awoken their sharingan are readily looking to give them away before they die of old age, wanting to serve the clan even after their death. Usually they give them to their child or grandchild if they haven't awakened their own sharingan, but they sometimes donate them to other Uchiha if they don't have any family or if their family members already awakened them."
Chiba wondered if he should be telling others about the interworking a of his clans, but just shrugged. It's not like Danzo or Hiruzen didn't know this common knowledge already.
"Ah, I see...My clan also has old fanatic in it, this old man had created a technique tha..." Hanbi and Chiba talked for two hours, enjoying the conversation as they both became well acquainted with each other, but good things must come to an end.
With an alarm going off, both Chiba and Hanbi realized the time for conversating was over, as they had a mission to accomplish.