"What? Why?" Rei couldn't believe his ears. He had known that Tony had been missing for over a month now, but he wasn't that much concerned. Tony would be a savior one day but a guy like him didn't need saving. At least not at this mont.
Maybe during the Iron Monger incident, a bit of help would suffice, but now? Why? Rei was selective of his contracts and this guy would rather die than sign any contract. Besides, there was no upside in signing contract with him.
Even a full contract was useless, because his greatest power was just making armors which the ninjas could break easily with speed and efficiency. Maybe one day, Tony would be able to face them with armors but that would take years. Thus Tony was never in his list of signing contracts.
Maybe Steve.. Maybe Thor, oh no, definitely Thor, but Tony? Naah.
And honestly, he didn't expect Sasuke and Sakura of all people to suddenly beco humanitarian activists overnight. Naruto? Sure. But these two? Especially Sasuke? Impossible.
And as expected, reality soon arrived.
"We need weapons." Sasuke replied bluntly. Sakura nodded imdiately afterward.
"The weapons Daniel gave us are already amazing. Guns, tasers, smoke grenades and all those other things..." Sakura looked genuinely fascinated thinking about them. "But if this Tony Stark person is really the greatest weapon manufacturer in this world then maybe..."
"...he can make custom weapons for us." Sasuke completed calmly.
Rei stared at both of them silently. He knew that Sasuke and Sakura had been using guns for practice everyday now. Sakura was getting better at handling two pistols in hand, while Sasuke was having the fun of his life using sniper rifles.
The whole day one could hear continuous gunshots. If it wasn't for the huge ranch, the neighbors would have already lodged a complaint against them. These kids were really playing with fire without a care in the world.
That logic was so absurdly shinobi-like that he couldn't even argue against it properly.
"...Wait. You both want to rescue soone just because you want better gear?"
"Yes." Sasuke replied imdiately without sha.
"What's wrong with that?" Sakura added afterward. "If we save him, we help soone and also get stronger ourselves. That's literally beneficial for everyone involved."
Even Kakashi who was reading nearby slowly lowered his book slightly.
"We are shinobi." He said calmly. "Tracking, infiltration and rescue are literally part of our skillset. And from what we learned, the military here still hasn't found him after more than a month."
"And you think you can? What makes you think that he is even alive?" Rei asked.
"He is alive for sure, because if he was dead, the military would have announced him dead." Sasuke argued.
Sakura anwhile beca more enthusiastic now that the topic was serious.
"Besides..." she crossed her arms lightly afterward, "...if this man really creates weapons capable of changing entire wars then having him owe us a favor would be huge."
"All of this under depends on the simple fact and that is if he is alive." Rei reminded. While Sasuke scoffed as he seed sure that this man was alive and so was Sakura.
"Even if he is not alive we can at least bring his body back. I am sure the people of this place would thank us for that." Sasuke said.
"No, they won't. They would jail you and would want to know how did we get his body without going through proper channels." Rei said. He had lived in an almost parallel Earth, so he knew how humans were.
"Whatever. We are getting bored here and the bridge would take a long ti to finish, so why don't we take an actual mission. If it is a success, we will make it rich." Sakura insisted. Rei in response looked at Kakashi, as he was sensei, and thus it was his mission.
"I am too lazy to go into unsanctioned missions, but Sakura does have a point. We can save him if he is alive, if not we will get to see a new place. The place he vanished is very far from here right?" Kakashi asked.
"Sensei have you been watching too much news and Internet now a days?" Rei couldn't help but ask. Kakashi just shrugged his shoulders.
Rei should have expected this. The mont Kakashi discovered the Internet and modern information systems, the man beca dangerously curious. After all this man didn't shy away from the challenges of Guy, even if he seed not enthusiastic about it.
And thus, sohow, against all logic and common sense, the mission was approved. By one, one lazy jonin and four young genins.
Still, if they were truly going to do this, then they needed to do it properly. Which ant Allied Universal got dragged into the chaos too. Daniel almost lost his mind when Rei explained the plan.
"YOU WANT TO SEND CHILDREN INTO A WARZONE?!"
"Technically we are all child soldiers already." Rei replied.
"...That sentence sohow made everything worse." Daniel muttered while holding his forehead.
Still, preparations began regardless. Allied Universal's rcenary division quietly got involved afterward. The company already had connections and operations across multiple unstable regions, thus acquiring information wasn't impossible. After all, security was sothing the blood well in unstable places. Every governnt would need it and thus they always had connections and even had their own small rcenary/private military wing.
Allied Universal would take the bounty of Tony Stark. Yes there was a bounty in his head to bring him back alive. And Allied Universal used that pretext and asked for a piece of clothing or anything that had the scent of Tony.
Pepper found the request from the man that showed up at Malibu ho, but she was too much in grief to even care. She agreed and gave the man who represented Allied Universal a shirt that Tony loved wearing at ho.
Soon disguises were prepared too.
Transformation Jutsu already made things absurdly easier. Instead of forging endless docunts manually, the shinobi simply copied appearances of Allied Universal rcenaries temporarily. After all, they would be going to Afghanistan, not another European country. Children wouldn't be allowed even if they used the private jet.
So after two days, the group departed. Team 7 with Haku and Zabuza. Rei had taken them, in order how the people of this world fought. This would help them to settle here.
And thus after multiple hours of flying, military checkpoints and enough security protocols to make Naruto ntally collapse, they finally landed at one of the US airbases in Afghanistan under the identity of a contracted private rcenary group assisting in the Stark recovery operation.
The mont they stepped outside the aircraft, the cold harsh weather struck them first. This was nothing like the States at all. It was all sun and greenery at New York, or at least that was what they saw in this sumr.
Surely wouldn't be the sa in winter.
Then ca the sounds. Helicopters constantly moving overhead. Fighter jets in the distance. Military vehicles rolling across the base. Soldiers carrying rifles everywhere. Orders being shouted in English continuously.
Team 7 saw a real military base up close. Even Zabuza looked mildly impressed.
"...Efficient." He muttered quietly while watching rows of helicopters lined up perfectly.
Kakashi anwhile observed the soldiers with thoughtful eyes. No chakra, no enhanced physical bodies. Yet sohow this world still created armies capable of terrifying destruction through pure technology alone.
Naruto anwhile looked everywhere with sparkling eyes.
"THIS PLACE LOOKS AWESO!"
"Do not shout inside a military airbase." Rei imdiately warned. They were under transformation jutsu, and though they were able to fool the checks as it was just being soldiers and hardly talking, it didn't an they weren't under scrutiny.
The military, in their history, never liked soldiers who worked for high money. It was weird because both of them hardly had any differences. Jealousy? Maybe...
Sakura was anwhile staring toward the fighter jets like her brain had temporarily stopped functioning. Sasuke too remained focused on the weapons and systems around them. Because unlike Konoha's military infrastructure, this was industrialized warfare.
Still, they didn't waste much ti there. Once their papers got cleared through Allied Universal's contacts, the group finally departed toward the location of the original ambush.
The deeper they traveled outside the base, the harsher the environnt beca. Mountains, endless desert, dry winds and ruined villages here and there.
And eventually they reached the exact road where Tony Stark's convoy had been attacked. Burn marks still remained faintly visible around the destroyed terrain. By now they were back on their original faces as they weren't under scrutiny.
This was a huge relief for Naruto as he felt like him not transforming into a nude girl was sohow an insult to his jutsus. Whatever!
"...So this is where it happened." Sakura muttered quietly.
Kakashi nodded afterward before finally pulling out the cloth carrying Tony's scent.
----
Read 5 chapters ahead on my [email protected]/thelightedghost
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