I entered the room the genin had slept in the last time I'd seen them, breathing a sigh of relief; they were alone. Stepping out of the shadows, I finally reveal myself for the first time since the mission began.

Thankfully, they had the commons sense not to squeal and shout my name, though Aisa looked as though he'd barely caught himself. "Cashile-sensei!" He spoke in a low tone—less harsh than a whisper—instead. His quiet voice did nothing to offset the excitement clearly present in his voice and face. Michiko and Kento also grinned, greeting me as well.

"I feel as though I've gathered all the information needed from my area," I informed them after doing the handsigns to keep our voices hidden.

"Where have you been?" Michiko asked curiously.

"Other side of the river," I waved her off.

Their eyes widened. "How did you manage to get over there?! It's all blocked off!" Kento exclaimed.

"I got myself invited over." I rolled my eyes, showing them the overly fanciful pass card.

"How?" Aisa asked.

"You guys should know by now that I have my ways." I smirked, thinking of how thankful the man had been when I'd oh so generously helped him out of the situation that, unknown to him, I'd purposefully caused. "Now, report on your findings."

Even though I had clearly gone over how to report to me in a clear and concise manner, they all started speaking at once.

Aisa spoke, "There were men that attacked us--"

Kento continued, "And they tried to hurt us, and we let them--"

Michiko finished, "Then this girl named Sid came out and we let her "save" us--"

"I know," I cut her off. The genin held dumbfounded expressions. I cuffed Aisa upside the head lightly. "Did you think I wasn't keeping tabs on you three?" I asked, raising an eyebrow slightly, and rolling my eyes.

Idiots.

"After you infiltrated quarters. Report to me your findings after you infiltrated their quarters," I said, as if they should already know this. "And one at a time," I glared.

"R-right," Aisa began. "A lot of the people on this side of the river think that the system is unfair. The rich people on the other side of the bridge are raising taxes in the name of "protection", but really they aren't doing anything but taking money from poor, helpless people on this side of the bridge. And there are bandits which wreak havoc on this side, leaving the people here without protection too. So the group we infiltrated is planning to revolt against the other side."

I nodded. Good. Their intel matches mine. "Good job guys, anything else?"

"We noticed that these people don't seem like the enemy," Kento said. "They just want to fight to be freed from the injustice in the area."

"Yes, I can see why you'd feel that way," I mused. "Our mission is done here. You three did very well. We're leaving now," I stated.

"What?" Aisa questioned, almost yelled. I flicked his forehead.

"Ouch!"

"Dummy. This jutsu I cast only lasts as long as our voices aren't raised."

Aisa defended himself with a glare of sorts. It wasn't a natural look on him, that's for certain. "We  can't just leave these people to fight for themselves. We can help them!"

I placed a hand on my hip and glanced behind me. "We can and we will. Our mission was to gather intel. We are done here." With the tone of voice I'd used, I didn't expect anyone to argue with me.

So imagine my surprise when Michiko piped in. "He's right, sensei. We can't just leave when we can make a difference!"

"Not our job," I casually replied.

"Sensei, aren't we supposed to help people like this?" Kento asked, throwing his lot with his teammates.

I stared. Did these three have no idea what it meant to be a ninja? "Despite whatever notions you may have gotten about independence during this mission, do not forget that I am your superior," I glared at them. "And your are my subordinates."

Aisa took in a small breath and squared his shoulders. "The right thing to do would be to help these people! The fight begins just tomorrow night or the next! We have to stay!"

I looked at him. Aisa always had a strong sense of right and wrong and would stick to those gut instincts to the end; a product of his upbringing I was sure. And, somehow, I had created a team that would stand by each other through thick and thin, right and wrong, obeying and rebelling.

"I don't believe you understand the consequences your decision would cause," I spoke coolly, calmly, laying the facts out for them. "To act outside of the parameters of the mission technically makes you an independent agent and, therefore, a rogue nin. You would not have the backing of Konoha with any of your decisions. If events took a turn for the worse, no team would be sent to save you. If you made a poor decision and the villagers decided they wanted revenge, Konoha would not protect you. Our mission here is over, and if I have to knock you three out and drag you back to Konoha myself, I will do it. Do you understand?"

Slowly, bitterly, the three genin nodded. "Good." I stood. "Tomorrow evening, you will retreat. Make excuses that you believe are most believable; you're young, they would probably believe you if you said that you were scared and wanted to leave. They might believe that you heard of another survivor from your village and wish to search for them. I expect to see you leaving this dwelling no later than 8:30 p.m. Understood?"

Their faces were turned downward. Aisa was glaring, Kento was stone-faced,  and Michiko nearly emotionless if it weren't for her dark eyes.

I refused to react. "Am I understood?" I insisted.

"Yes, sensei," Kento and Michiko murmured.

I turned my gaze to Aisa, raising an eyebrow. He glared, still an odd expression on his face, but finally nodded. "Good. 8:30 sharp," I reminded.

I stood, turned, and left as I had come: unseen.

***

"What are we going to do?" Michiko questioned her two teammates desperately. None of them wanted to leave, that was clear.

Aisa clenched his fist. "We're going to stay. It's not right. it's not right. it's just not right. Konoha can declare us rogue nin or whatever. I'm staying to fight." At this point in his speech, Aisa was trembling, shaking with anger towards Cashile. How could she be so insensitive? So... heartless?

"Hold up,"Kento spoke, being the voice of reason among the three. "Consider what sensei said. Rogue ninja-- that's not a joke. We wouldn't be allowed back into the village. If we were, it would be under lock and key. I have a family to think about. Sensei is the one that made it possible for me to not worry about my family as much. We need to think about this."

"I have a family too, but sometimes taking the risk is worth the reward and worth whatever consequence awaits. If we go against what sensei says, we can stay, we can help fight. And then we can apologize and she'll make us do punishment laps or whatever, but don't you think that's worth it? We won't let it get so far as "rogue ninja". I promise."

Michiko placed her hands against both of their chests and pushed them apart. Somewhere in the discussion, both boys had come face to face, noses almost touching.

"Calm down guys," Michiko said. "Defying sensei is a big deal, Aisa. But Kento, if we decide to stay, we can control the situation so that we don't become rogue nin. Whatever we do though, we'll stick together and do as a team. That's the best thing we can do. So, what are we going to do? Aisa? Kento?"

Michiko was taking control of the situation -- almost manipulating the strings attached. She'd thrown her two cents in.

The boys looked at each other, and visibly relaxed, if only slightly. Kento held Aisa's gaze before averting his eyes.

"Fine. We'll stay."

***

The sun had just sank below the horizon when I came to terms with the fact that my genin had disobeyed me. I took a deep breath in, cleared my mind, and let it out before disappearing back into the town.

I sped through several likely places for the fighting to start before finally spotting a group. Scanning the people, I spin away; the genin weren't there. The rebels were likely to hit from several different points to increase the confusion. I had to figure out where my genin were.

The sounds of fighting began. I snarled. I was too late to stop the genin from interfering outside of the parameters of the mission, but that sure as hell didn't mean that I was going to sit back and let them continue. If nothing else, this made me look bad.

Finally I found them, not quite back to back or in any identifiable formation but close enough that they could cover for each other. I appeared within their line of sight, and when I spoke, my voice cut like steel through the fighting. "Kento, Michiko, Aisa. With me."

Kento and Michiko stiffened, shared a look, and retreated to my side. Aisa clutched a knife, eyed wild and slashing at a guard. Kento and Michiko stood taut, wanting to go help and protect him.

"Aisa."

"No!" He shouted, blood on his face and bruise forming on his forehead. "I'm staying to help!"

I sigh, glare at the two genin by my side, and flickered over to the guard. Two quick movements knocked him out, and a third had Aisa thrown over my shoulder.

"No!" He shouted, throwing a sharp fist into my back. "I want to help! I need to help! How could you be so heartless?!"

I ignored him, returning to my two other genin. "Come on," I ordered, glaring. They paled but nodded, hurrying alongside me.

"No!" Aisa shouted again. There was a pause, a tightening of the muscles, then, "Sid!"

I knew immediately from the tone of the scream that she was dead, that Aisa had just witnessed the girl who "saved" him be stabbed or have her throat cut or any other number of ways to die in a fight.

Aisa collapsed against me, boneless, and I felt as the first sob wracked his body.

***

"She felt the same way as I did," Aisa said bitterly, staring into the fire. "Except she'd lived through what we did in a day, over years. She suffered. And she fought for what she believed in.

Foolish. Shedding tears over someone he'd barely known.

A tear slipped across his eye and trailed up his forehead before hitting the ground.

Michiko grunted in pain. "Sensei, how much longer," she gasped. The three genin stood inverted on their hands, on patches of rocks that embed into their palms, that were sharp enough to cut them if they were anything less than still.

"You should know better than to ask," I said emotionlessly, sharpening my kunai aerodynamically in front of the fire. They had no idea what true pain, true punishment, was. Had they pulled what they had in the rising phoenix, they would be dead.

Had they been invaluable, like me, they would have suffered through weeks of physical conditioning to reject thoughts of disobedience. Flogging, bodily mutilation, caged in freezing temperatures, starved, beaten, broken, alone. They were so... protected. At least my punishments benefited them, strengthened them, taught them new skills, even if they were painful too.

Their actions not only put themselves in harms way without my backup, their actions reflected poorly upon me and my teachings. This incident could have escalated into war between our two villages. If it somehow got out that leaf shinobi were involved in an outer village revolution...

My eyes snapped to the three idiot genin who stood on their hands in front of me. I ignored Aisa's look of betrayal, Michiko's pain. I bent down so that I could make eye contact with Kento. "You--" I said.

He met me with a look of partial defiance, partial defeat. "You failed as the team leader," I finished and stood up. "All of you, on your feet."

The genin collapsed, before scurrying onto their feet.

"You may rest... on the balls of your feet. Hands positioned behind your head. You can think on your actions for the next ten minutes as you rest. Then stretch. Go to sleep. I'll be waiting for you in the morning."

Instead of looking relieved at the prospect of finally getting some rest, the genin paled, looking terrified at the prospect of more punishment, which I would spend the rest of the night devising, upon awakening. I ignored them, jumping up into the trees above to keep watch for the night.

They should know better than to disobey me. It was about time they learned how to think through their actions and consequences. It was about time they grew up a little.

Even if they hated me for it.

_______________________________

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