"Well, go ahead. If it's anything good, we'll definitely consider it." Gaz said.
"Ok, instead of doing all this, we could just infiltrate their hideout from the get go and carryout our mission without fail." Kazi suggested.
"What? That's crazy. That's worse than the first plan." Sau said, not paying attention to his words. When he had realised the implication of what he said, he quickly corrected himself, or at least tried to. "Not that the first plan was bad, just..."
"Sau's right, that's a risky plan." Gaz said in support, cutting Sau off.
Daru on the other hand, had a particular look on his face which Kazi caught right away. "I think captain Daru agrees with me on this." Kazi said, putting the spotlight on the man that wanted the least to do with this particular argument, though he kind of had to.
"Well, the kid's right. Infiltrating will be better, but I don't think we have the right team for it, that's why I didn't suggest it myself." Daru said.
"No captain, I and Linx are pretty good at stealth, so it shouldn't be a problem. It's not as if we are trying to sneak through a group of sutori, these guys are mostly ordinary men." Kazi spoke.
After a bit of silence, Gaz agreed to it, same with Daru. The captains would suggest those from Gaz's team, but they are far from stealthy. With that, they built another plan revolving around this new idea Kazi brought.
After a few minutes, they were done and everyone assigned a position. Daru, Kazi and Linx would be the ones to infiltrate, while the rest will station themselves at the one entrance that led in and out of the hideout. It was going to be like catching a tunnel borrowing rodent, easy. At least that was how the plan looked on paper, there was no way to tell until they got there.
'If I'm correct, then we'll most definitely face some issues once we get there.' Kazi thought to himself.
The conclusion Kazi had come to was that the three sutori who were allegedly rogues from Jalam were probably from another tak and definitely not rogues. Their mission would have been to pose as sutori from Jalam so as to cause bad blood between the Land of Water and Land of Fire. Perhaps, what was most interesting was the fact that tak Atar was playing into their hands intentionally.
'This means that the three are probably going to get killed on this mission. Atar already knows who's behind it.'
They planned to go in the night as it would be easier to sneak around then.
"Before then, you two come with me. There's a technique that will be very useful." Though Daru was an expert on this kind of stuff, the youngsters weren't, at least not to his knowledge. He even went ahead with the plan because he figured that sneaking around with their smaller bodies would be easy, but there was no need to not try still to increase their chances. Because of that, he decided to teach them a particular technique.
"What I'll teach you guys now is a technique that will improve your stealth greatly. It's a C rank technique called Shadow cloak. It works by using surrounding shadows to somewhat wrap around your body so that it hides your presence. Of course, if the other side has someone with good sensory abilities, then its useless." Daru stated.
'I see why it remained C rank.'
Even though it was a C rank technique, Daru left it for Kazi and Linx to learn before night time. It was certain that learning a C rank technique in such short time was completely unreasonable, but the idea was not for them to learn the entire technique, just the first part, and that was what Daru taught them. Just that was good enough.
Night soon came by, so Kazi and Linx headed into the tent to change their clothes into more appropriate ones. It even looked like Daru was prepared for something like this since he even had a couple pair of all black clothes perfect for the occasion, the only difference was that all were his size. It didn't matter much though, as after using some rope to tie the clothes down, it fit perfectly.
"This is a bit uncomfortable." Linx complained.
"Yeah, but we have to bear with it. Even though we get caught, we shouldn't let them know which tak we are from." Kazi responded. 'At least that's how it should be.' He thought to himself.
With the idea the superiors have, maybe concealing their identity was useless.
Once they were done with preparations, both came out of the tent to meet Daru and the rest.
Kazi opted to not carry his sword with him, it would be too long and difficult to wield. This was also his first time, so he wanted to minimise mistakes as much as possible. He also had some throwing knives on him. Linx did the same, he never brought a sword to begin with.
"Alright, I assume we all know the plan, especially you two, but I'll go over it again." Daru said before going over the entire plan one last time with everyone standing around him formed in a semicircle.
When the midnight hour was close, they headed out towards the bandit hideout. The tent was rolled up and no trace of them being there was left behind. The bandit they caught was later killed and placed inside a different storage seal. In fact, Kazi and Linx were also given a storage seal each for the purpose of the mission.
An hour later, ten figures approached the bandit hideout stealthily.
The place was well situated as they had been told. It looked like the space between the rocks had been carved out forcefully, as it didn't look natural.
'Was this some sort of fight location? Unbelievable.' Kazi and Linx thought to themselves.
Looking into the place, several areas appeared to be lit with lamps and whatnot, their plan commenced. Daru gave the ok sign and everyone knew exactly what their role was. While Daru, Kazi and Linx headed in, the rest spread themselves across the entrance area.
The mission had officially started.