The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the small clearing near the Kitaura forest. Mikoto wiped sweat from her forehead, already breathing harder than she'd like to admit.
She watched Shinji reset his stance, casual like they were about to practice forms instead of trying to overwhelm him two-on-one. Again.
'He makes this look so easy,' she thought, noting how Shinji barely seemed to be trying. He could probably fight them while doing his taxes.
"You know," Tsume panted, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, "for someone who's supposedly holding back, you're still annoying to fight."
"Thanks." Shinji stretched his neck to one side, then the other. "You're both improving though. That last combination actually worked."
"Again?" Tsume was already moving, shaking out her arms.
"Why not." Mikoto settled back into her stance. "Maybe this time we'll actually land something."
"Optimism. I like it." Shinji's grin made her want to punch him and kiss him in equal measure, preferably in that order.
They kept going for another hour. By the time they finally stopped, Mikoto's stomach was growling loud enough to be embarrassing.
"God, I'm starving." Tsume flopped down cross-legged and immediately went for her water bottle, shooting a quick glance at Mikoto. "Hey, Shinji, when's the last time you actually cooked something?"
Mikoto blinked, grateful for the subject change. She gave a small laugh and said, "Seriously, we've been eating market food and ration bars for weeks. My mouth is bored."
"Market food's fine—"
"Market food is okay." Tsume pointed at Shinji. "But you can actually cook. Like, really cook. And you've been holding out on us."
"I haven't been holding out," he said. "We've been busy."
"We're not busy now." Tsume gestured around the empty clearing. "No missions tomorrow either. And there's definitely a market in town."
Mikoto watched this exchange with growing amusement. She'd seen Tsume use similar tactics to convince reluctant civilians to cooperate during missions, but watching her deploy those skills to secure a home-cooked meal was somehow hilarious.
"I don't know," Shinji said, but he had that look. The one where he was already thinking about it. "What kind of cooking are you even talking about? Soup? Barbeque? You can find plenty of delicious food in town."
"I know the food here isn't bad, but it's not the same as your cooking." Tsume leaned forward like she was closing a business deal. "Seriously, I'm not picky. You could cook tree bark and it would probably taste better than most Fire Country cuisine."
Shinji chuckled. "You're so exaggerating."
"Well, she might be laying it on thick, but she's not completely wrong." Mikoto said. "Your cooking is incredible."
"See?" Tsume gestured triumphantly. "Mikoto agrees. We're suffering here, Shinji. Suffering. Have you no compassion for your poor, undernourished teammates?"
"You're both terrible actors." Shinji shook his head, but Mikoto could see the exact moment he caved. His shoulders relaxed, and that thoughtful expression crept across his face. "Though I suppose... it has been a while since I did any real cooking."
"Is that a yes?" Tsume grinned.
"Fine. But I'm not promising anything fancy."
"Yes!" she pumped her fist. "This is going to be amazing."
"So what are we making?" Mikoto asked.
"Depends what's at the market." Shinji stretched his arms overhead. "I'm thinking something... traditional."
"Traditional how?"
"Hangi."
Mikoto waited for more explanation. When none came, she frowned. "What's hangi?"
"You'll see."
That smile again.
"Just tell us what you need," Tsume jumped to her feet. "We'll get it."
Shinji pulled out a scrap of paper and started scribbling. "Okay. Root vegetables. Sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, carrots. Onions. Honey, sea salt." He paused. "Sake if they've got anything decent. Fresh herbs, rosemary, thyme, whatever looks good." Another pause. "And banana leaves. Or big cabbage leaves if that's all they have."
Mikoto read over his shoulder. "This is a lot of stuff."
"Good food takes work."
"Hell yeah it does," Tsume said, snatching the list. "Come on, Mikoto. Let's go before he changes his mind."
"What about you?" Mikoto asked.
"Handling the meat. Meet me at the lake when you're done. The one with the big oak tree."
"The lake?" She stared at him.
"Just trust me." He was already walking away, waving them off. "You'll see."
Tsume tugged at Mikoto's sleeve. "Come on. Questions later, food now."
...
Mikoto followed Tsume toward town. The market bustled with people, vendors calling out their wares while customers haggled over prices. Without even thinking about it, Mikoto found herself slipping into a henge, after countless infiltration missions in foreign territory, disguising herself for a simple grocery run felt as natural as breathing.
"Okay." Tsume pulled out the list. "Root vegetables first. Should be easy enough to find."
They wandered through the food stalls, past displays of fresh vegetables, dried goods, and the occasional vendor hawking questionable-looking meat products that might have been edible a few days ago. Root vegetables turned out to be easier to find than expected, and soon their bags were heavy with sweet potatoes, carrots, onions, and regular potatoes that looked like they'd been pulled from the ground that morning.
Herbs came next, bundles of fresh rosemary and thyme that made the air smell like someone's grandmother had been very busy in the kitchen. The sake took longer. Most vendors only carried the cheap stuff that could probably double as paint thinner, but eventually they found a merchant with a few bottles that looked like they wouldn't require medical supervision to consume.
"Banana leaves?" Tsume asked the herb vendor.
The woman shook her head. "Wrong season. Got cabbage leaves though."
They bought the cabbage, along with honey and sea salt, and stood at the edge of the market square comparing their haul to Shinji's list.
"Think that's everything." Mikoto shifted her bag to a more comfortable position.
"Still no idea what hangi is." Tsume shouldered her bag. "But knowing Shinji..."
"Yep." Mikoto started walking. "Could be anything."
They made their way through the market, chatting about their haul and speculating about what Shinji had planned. Both girls had concluded it must involve fish since they were cooking near the lake.
Behind them, keeping a careful distance, someone in a brown cloak slipped between stalls. Never close enough to draw the eye, never far enough to lose them, textbook tailing. You wouldn't notice unless you were already suspicious.
Mikoto and Tsume weren't. They were headed for the lake, wondering what their teammate had planned, arguing over whether they'd bought enough food.
"Think this will be enough vegetables?" Tsume asked, completely oblivious to their new shadow.
"Yeah, I think so." Mikoto nodded, equally unaware that their shopping trip had apparently become someone else's mission.
Only when they disappeared down the path toward the lake did he finally step back into the shadows between buildings, melting away as quietly as he'd been following them.
...
The lake spread out below them as they crested the hill, afternoon sun glinting off the water. Mikoto spotted the oak tree easily enough, hard to miss something that massive leaning over the shoreline.
No sign of Shinji though.
"Where'd he go?" Tsume muttered.
They walked closer to the tree, and that's when Mikoto smelled it, the rich, coppery scent of fresh blood. Her hand went to her kunai pouch instinctively before she spotted the source.
A deer lay on the ground near the tree line, clearly freshly killed. Clean cuts, professional field dressing, and still warm from the looks of it.
"Well," Tsume said, staring at the carcass, "I guess that explains our main dish."
"Shinji?" Mikoto called out, scanning the trees.
"Over here," came his voice from somewhere in the forest, followed by the sound of branches snapping under someone's weight. A moment later, he emerged from the undergrowth carrying what looked like an armload of stones, bits of leaves still clinging to his hair. "Perfect timing. How'd the shopping go?"
"We got everything on your list," Mikoto said, then gestured toward the deer. "And apparently you got everything on yours."
"Fresh is always better," he said simply, setting down his load of stones.
Tsume crouched next to the carcass. "Clean kill. Didn't suffer."
"That was the idea." He started arranging his rocks in what looked like a pattern. "Did you find banana leaves?"
"Cabbage. Vendor said wrong climate for bananas."
"Cabbage works." He kept placing stones. "We'll need to start the fire soon if we want to eat before midnight. Oh right, have you guys ever heard of a hangi?"
Mikoto shook her head. Based on the stones, she was getting an idea though, maybe.
"It's underground cooking," He wiped his hands on his pants, then moved toward the deer. "Dig a pit, line it with stones, heat the stones with fire. Then you bury the food and let the hot stones do the work."
"We're cooking dinner in a hole?" Tsume sounded skeptical.
"Trust me." Shinji knelt by the deer and pulled out his knife. "Takes time, but it's worth it."
His knife work was efficient, clean cuts, no waste. He separated the best pieces from the rest, setting them aside.
"Mikoto, can you handle the vegetables? Cut everything so it cooks evenly."
"What about me?" Tsume asked.
"Dig. Three feet wide, two deep. We need a proper fire pit."
Mikoto started on the vegetables while Shinji worked on the meat. He laid the venison on cabbage leaves, seasoning with salt and herbs. Then came the marinade, honey, sake, more herbs than she'd ever seen used at once.
"That's a lot of seasoning," she said.
"It's got time to absorb." He worked the marinade into the meat with his hands. "Slow cooking means you can be generous with flavor."
Tsume was making good progress on the pit, dirt flying as she dug. "How deep again?"
"Two feet. We need room for stones and airflow."
The fire pit took shape under Tsume's enthusiastic digging, and soon they had a respectable hole lined with Shinji's carefully selected stones. The stones, he explained, had to be the right type, dense enough to hold heat, stable enough not to crack when heated and cooled.
"How do you know which is which?" Mikoto asked.
"Trial and error." He tossed another stone aside. "Lost a good meal once when half the rocks exploded."
He gave the pit a final glance, apparently satisfied. "Alright, now we build the fire. Grab whatever dry wood you can find, twigs, branches, the works."
Mikoto and Tsume split off without complaint, combing the forest floor for fuel while Shinji started stacking the first armful in the pit. "Hot and fast to heat the stones, then we let it burn down to coals."
The fire caught quickly, flames licking around the stones with increasing intensity. While it burned, he continued his preparation, wrapping the marinated venison in the cabbage leaves like elaborate packages, surrounding them with the prepared vegetables.
"Ah, this part," he said, working as he talked, "we should create layers. Vegetables on the bottom, they take longer. Meat in the middle, where it'll cook gently. Then more vegetables on top to steam everything together."
"How long is this going to take?" Tsume poked at the fire with a stick.
"Few hours." he shrugged. "Maybe longer. Depends on how hot the stones get."
"Few hours?" Mikoto looked at the sun, still fairly high in the sky.
"Good food takes time. Trust me, it's worth it. Probably."
"Probably?" she raised an eyebrow.
"I mean, it usually works." Another shrug. "We'll find out."
The fire burned for nearly an hour. Shinji kept checking the stones, poking at them with a stick, muttering things like "almost" and "getting there."
Finally he nodded. "Okay, stones are ready."
They pushed the coals aside, revealing rocks that were definitely hot, hot enough that Mikoto could feel the heat from several feet away.
"Now we bury everything." Shinji started shoveling dirt back over the packages. "Four hours and we'll see if this worked."
Four hours. Mikoto leaned against the oak tree, watching him cover the last of it. Either they'd have an amazing meal later, or they'd just wasted a bunch of good food.
"So," she said, brushing a stray leaf from her sleeve, "what do we do while we wait?"
Shinji's grin was answer enough, the expression of someone who'd been hoping she'd ask exactly that question. "We practice patience. And maybe work on some more of that sparring. I'm thinking by the time dinner's ready, you two might actually be ready to force me to use both hands."
Tsume cracked her knuckles. "Oh, we're not stopping until you do."
Mikoto pushed off from the tree. The sun was getting lower, they had hours to kill, and somewhere under their feet, dinner was either cooking or turning into expensive compost.
Might as well see if they could finally land a hit.
…..
Four hours later, as the sun painted the lake in shades of gold and orange that would've made a poet weep, Shinji called a halt to their sparring session. "That's enough for today," he said, brushing dirt from his hands.
Tsume and Mikoto dropped their stances and tried to catch their breath.
Mikoto wiped sweat from her forehead. "Is it done?"
"Should be." Shinji grabbed the shovel.
"Or we've just ruined a bunch of perfectly good food." Tsume chimed in from the side.
"Only one way to find out."
Mikoto watched with anticipation as he carefully began excavating their buried feast. The first thing that hit her was the smell, rich and earthy, with layers of aroma that made her stomach announce its presence with an embarrassingly loud growl. Steam rose from the pit as he uncovered the wrapped packages, and even Tsume stopped her restless fidgeting to lean forward.
"Holy..." she breathed as he lifted the first package from the earth. The cabbage leaves had darkened to a deep forest green, and savory steam escaped from every fold.
Shinji set the packages on a clean cloth he'd laid out, then carefully unwrapped the first one. Mikoto felt her mouth water as the venison was revealed, tender enough that it practically fell apart at his touch, with a deep, rich color that spoke of slow, perfect cooking. The meat glistened with its own juices, infused with the herbs and honey until it looked like something that belonged on a daimyo's table.
"This... this actually worked?" Mikoto stared at the perfectly cooked meat, then at the hole in the ground, then back at the meat. "How is that even possible?"
"It looks incredible," Tsume added, already reaching for her chopsticks. "But seriously, how did burying food in dirt not turn into a complete disaster?"
Shinji smiled as he unwrapped the vegetables, revealing sweet potatoes that had caramelized in their own sugars, carrots that looked like amber jewels, and onions that had become soft and golden. "The principle's actually pretty simple. Those stones we heated? They hold an enormous amount of thermal energy. When you bury food with them, you're creating a natural oven that maintains steady, gentle heat for hours."
Tsume scratched her head, looking completely lost. "Thermal what now?"
"What's thermal energy?" Mikoto asked, genuinely curious but clearly just as confused as her friend.
Shinji chuckled, a mischievous glint appearing in his eyes. "Think of it as heat that gets really excited and wants to spread itself around, kind of like how warmth builds up when you're doing… intense physical activities in your bedroom."
Mikoto's cheeks flushed pink as she caught his meaning. "Shinji!"
"What? I'm just explaining basic physics," he said innocently, though his grin suggested otherwise. "Anyway, the point is—"
He reached for the plates and began arranging the food. "The earth acts as insulation, keeping the temperature consistent. No hot spots, no burning, just slow, even cooking that breaks down tough fibers and lets flavors develop."
Mikoto accepted her portion and took a bite. The venison practically dissolved on her tongue, impossibly tender, with honey-sweet richness and a deep smokiness that made her eyes flutter shut. Herbs had somehow been worked all the way through the meat, not just on the surface, and the fat melted slowly, coating her mouth with flavor that was more intense than anything she'd ever tasted.
She had to stop herself from inhaling the whole thing.
"This is..." she paused, searching for words. "I don't think I've ever had meat this tender. How did the ground not just... contaminate everything?"
"That's what the wrapping is for," Shinji explained, taking his own bite. "The cabbage leaves create a barrier, but they also add flavor and help steam the contents. And the earth doesn't actually touch the food, it's just providing the insulation."
Tsume was working through her sweet potato as though she were experiencing a religious revelation. "These vegetables are insane. They're like… candy, but still vegetables. How does that work?"
Shinji sliced off a tender bite of venison, the juices running as he brought it to his mouth. He chewed slowly, savoring the rich, smoky flavor before answering. "Slow cooking breaks down the starches into sugars. That's why they taste sweet. The low, steady heat gives the natural enzymes time to work, converting complex carbohydrates into simple sugars without burning them."
Mikoto blinked at the stream of technical terms, but she'd learned by now that asking for clarification usually led to either more confusing explanations or inappropriate analogies. She just nodded and filed it under 'Shinji knows things' in her mental catalog.
She tried the carrots next, and had to suppress a small sound of pleasure. They'd become intensely flavorful, almost caramelized, with a texture that was somehow both firm and buttery. "I can't believe this came out of a hole in the ground. When you first suggested it, I thought..."
"You thought we'd be eating dirt-flavored disaster?" he grinned. "Fair enough. It does sound crazy if you've never seen it done."
"More than crazy," she said. "It sounds like something desperate people do when they don't have proper cooking equipment. But this is..." She gestured helplessly at her plate. "This is better than anything I've had in fancy restaurants."
"That's because earth cooking does things regular methods can't," he explained, clearly enjoying their amazement. "The even heat, the long cooking time, the steam environment, it all works together to break down tough proteins and concentrate flavors. Plus, there's something about the mineral content in the earth that adds extra depth."
Mikoto watched him talk, noting how relaxed he seemed. Different from his usual careful composure during missions or training. Just... comfortable. Like this was something he actually enjoyed doing.
"The key is getting the stone temperature right," he was saying, gesturing with his chopsticks. "Too hot and everything burns. Not hot enough and it just sits there being expensive compost."
She found herself paying more attention to the way he explained things than the actual explanation. He got animated when he talked about something he cared about. It was... nice, seeing him like this.
"You listening?" Tsume nudged her.
"What? Yeah." Mikoto refocused on her food. "Stone temperature. Got it."
Shinji gave her a look but didn't comment. "Anyway, next time we do this I'll show you how to tell when the stones are ready."
"Next time?" Tsume perked up. "You mean this isn't a one-time thing?"
"If you want. It's good for when we have time to kill."
Mikoto nodded, though she was thinking less about the cooking technique and more about how he'd looked while explaining it. Which was probably not the point of the lesson.
But still.
…..
Tsume was working on seconds, apparently having decided that portion control was for people who didn't have access to earth-cooked venison. "Okay, but why doesn't everyone cook like this if it's so amazing?"
"Time, mostly. And convenience." Shinji gestured toward their setup. "This took all afternoon. Most people want dinner in an hour, not four. And you need the right stones, the right location, and enough knowledge not to accidentally poison yourself with the wrong kind of wood or stones that crack and contaminate everything."
"So it's actually dangerous if you don't know what you're doing?" Mikoto asked.
"Everything's dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. The trick is learning enough to do it safely." He took another bite, chewing thoughtfully. "Though I'll admit, there's always a little anxiety when you're digging up something that's been buried for hours. You never know for sure until you unwrap it."
The sun had fully set while they ate. The combination of amazing food, good company, and the peaceful evening atmosphere made Mikoto feel more relaxed than she had in weeks since arriving in Kitaura.
"This is way better than anything in town," she said. "I might never be satisfied with regular food again."
"Don't say that," Shinji laughed. "I can't dig earth ovens on every mission. Sometimes you'll have to settle for town food."
"Your regular cooking is still better than most restaurant food," Tsume pointed out. "But this was different."
She had a point. The whole process had been... satisfying in a way Mikoto hadn't expected. The waiting, the uncertainty, then actually pulling decent food out of a hole in the ground.
"Well," Shinji said, dousing the remaining coals with lake water, "at least we know it works."
"Next time let's try fish."
"Next time you can dig the pit."
"Deal."
Mikoto helped gather their supplies, already thinking about the walk back to town. Her stomach was full, she was tired in a good way, and tomorrow they'd be back to missions and training and whatever else Kitaura had waiting for them.
But tonight had been good.
"Come on," she said, shouldering her pack. "Let's head back before it gets too dark."
They walked back through the forest, talking quietly about the meal, about training, about nothing in particular. Just three teammates heading home after a good day.
…..
The next morning I stood on the roof of our temporary lodging, watching Kitaura wake up. The market was already busy below, vendors setting up, early shoppers haggling over prices.
Dan stood next to me, rubbing his eyes for the third time since we'd started talking. Too many missions, not enough sleep. He'd been going on about local politics for ten minutes now.
"Hey, Dan-san," I said, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Where are most of the Senju right now? I mean, aside from Miyabi who left ages ago, I haven't seen another Senju around Kitaura. Are they stationed in other towns, or...?"
Dan's expression shifted, and I caught that telltale tightness around his eyes, a micro-expression most people would miss, but one that stood out like a neon sign to someone paying attention. "Most of the Senju clan members have been deployed to the western front."
"All of them?" I kept my tone casual. "Seems risky."
"Strategic necessity." He was already trying to change the subject. "The Senju are among our most effective combat specialists."
"Right." I paused. "Are you dating Tsunade-sensei?"
The sudden question hit him like a brick to the face. Dan's entire body went rigid, and his cheeks flushed red enough to rival a stop sign. "What? Where did you, how did you—!"
I scratched my head, trying to look innocent. I couldn't exactly tell him about my previous life memories, so I went with the most believable lie I could manage. "It's just a rumor I heard around the base. Some of the chunin were talking about it."
"Which chunin?" Dan demanded. "I'll have them running laps until they're too tired to spread gossip."
"I don't remember specifically. Just idle chatter, you know how it is."
Dan muttered something under his breath that sounded distinctly uncomplimentary about loose-tongued shinobi and their inability to mind their own business. Then he sighed, the fight going out of him like air from a punctured balloon.
"For what it's worth," he said quietly, staring out over the town, "I have been... pursuing her recently. But she hasn't accepted my advances. Tsunade's always been focused on her work, and with everything that's been happening..." He shrugged, trying to look casual and failing completely. "I'm not a quitter, but just when I was working up the courage to be more direct about my intentions, the war started and we got sent on different fronts."
He went quiet, staring out over the town. I got the sense there was more to it, but pushing would just make him clam up.
"That's rough. Long-distance relationships are hard enough without adding war zones to the mix."
"Indeed." Dan straightened up, clearly trying to regain his professional composure. "Speaking of deployments, Nawaki has already departed with Orochimaru for the western front."
That got my attention. "Nawaki? From Team 10?" I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice, but the idea of that earnest, Mikoto-smitten genin heading off to an active war zone didn't sit well with me. "Isn't he still just a genin? Is the war going that badly?"
"Not exactly," Dan said, though his tone suggested the situation wasn't exactly good either. "Heh, don't worry, most genin aren't being sent into direct combat. They're being stationed at outposts and forward bases to handle support tasks, logistics, communications." He shrugged. "Command considers it wasteful to have chunin and jonin doing paperwork and supply runs when they could be fighting instead."
"So they're sending more and more genin?" The implications of that were starting to sink in, and I didn't like where my thoughts were heading.
"As support personnel, yes."
In other words, the war was going badly enough that they were pulling kids out of the village to handle menial tasks so the adults could focus on not getting killed. That was either very practical resource management or a sign that Konoha was getting stretched thinner than they wanted to admit.
Probably both.
"Any word on how things are going out there?" I asked, nodding toward the general direction of the western front.
"Officially? According to plan."
"And the unofficial word?"
Dan gave me a look. "Wars don't go according to plan. Ever."
Fair enough. We stood there for a while, watching the town wake up below. Normal people doing normal things, probably not thinking much about the war beyond how it affected food prices.
"Anyway," Dan said eventually. "Our job is to handle the situation here in Kitaura and keep these supply lines open."
"Right. Just another day."
"Something like that."
…..
Days passed in what could generously be called "mind-numbing routine with the occasional spark of excitement"—the sort of schedule that made me wonder if Dan had somehow confused Team 7 with his personal collection of rare pottery that needed to be kept safely behind glass. We'd somehow become his golden team, which apparently translated to doing only missions that kept us comfortably within Kitaura's walls while my clones handled all the actual dangerous work scattered across the countryside. Not that I was complaining, mind you. There's something to be said for missions where the biggest threat is paperwork-induced boredom.
Mornings meant briefings and clone assignments. Afternoons were patrols, training, investigating reports that usually turned out to be nothing. Steady work, nobody shooting at us. By shinobi standards, we were living the good life.
That should have been my first warning that something was about to go sideways.
"We have a problem," Dan said, walking into the briefing room looking irritated. "Half my teams are out on missions, three more just got recalled to the capital, and I've got a priority escort that needs to leave today."
He looked at me. "Can you make more clones for this? I need a full escort team."
'Thirty clones active right now, and they want more?' I kept my face blank while running the numbers in my head. Sure, I could probably squeeze out another ten or twenty without breaking a sweat. Hell, maybe even push it to fifty if I really wanted to show off. But that would be monumentally stupid for about a dozen different reasons.
First off, there was the whole memory processing nightmare. More clones meant getting hit with exponentially more experiences when they popped. Too many of those flooding back at once, and I'd spend my entire day sorting through clone memories like some kind of demented filing clerk. "Oh great, Clone #23 watched paint dry for six hours while Clone #31 had an existential crisis about whether surveillance counted as voyeurism." Yeah, no thanks.
Then there was the chakra reserve situation. People were already giving me weird looks and whispering about my 'stamina'. For now, I was letting them think the nine-tails was my little secret. Better they assume I was packing a giant fox than start digging deeper and asking the really uncomfortable questions.
Because the worst-case scenario? They find out about Mōryo. Two jinchuriki in Konoha would make every other hidden village collectively lose their minds. We'd go from "moderately concerning" to "existential threat" real fast.
I shook my head and put on my best 'sorry, but physics says no' expression. "I'm already running more than thirty clones on surveillance. Any more and I'll be useless for anything else."
"Damn." Dan rubbed his forehead. "Alright then. Standard supply run to the capital, but I'm short on personnel. I can give you two full teams. That's your team, and one chunin team."
"When do we leave?"
"One hour. Pack for a week on the road, meet at the south gate. You'll meet the rest of the team there."
A chunin I didn't recognize spoke up from the back of the room. "Dan-san, is it wise to send Team 7? They've been handling critical operations here in town..."
Dan paused, considering. The unspoken part was obvious, we'd become too valuable to risk on routine missions. Especially me, with my clone network keeping half of Kitaura's intelligence operations running.
"The last two supply runs went off without incident," Dan said finally. "Kumo's been quiet on the trade routes. They're probably focused on other targets right now."
"Still—"
"It's a milk run," Dan cut him off. "Standard escort, well-traveled route, plenty of backup. Besides, they need the experience outside Kitaura's walls."
The chunin didn't look convinced, but he nodded anyway.
"Any other concerns?" Dan asked, looking around the room.
Nobody spoke up.
"Good. One hour, south gate." He started gathering his papers. "Dismissed."
As we filed out, I caught the chunin's expression. He still looked worried.
That made two of us.
...
Three miles northeast of Kitaura, a Kumo jonin opened his eyes and turned to his squad. Eleven shinobi in total, himself, two other jonin, and eight chunin. All of them here for one target.
"Confirmed," he said quietly. "Our target is with the escort convoy."
The mission was simple enough: kill the Konoha jinchuriki. After weeks of sabotaged operations and an endless stream of enemy clones disrupting their work in the region, Kumo intelligence had finally traced the source. One genin with apparently unlimited chakra reserves and the ability to maintain dozens of shadow clones simultaneously.
The conclusion was obvious. Had to be the Nine-Tails container.
"How many in the convoy total?" one of the other jonin asked.
"Six. Our target's genin team and a three-man chunin team. Standard escort formation."
One of the jonin spoke up. "Are we sure about the target? Our intelligence reports said the Konoha jinchuriki was female."
The squad leader shook his head. "That intelligence was clearly wrong. No female genin in Konoha can produce that many clones. Has to be the black-haired one, matches the chakra signature our sensors detected."
"Makes sense," the jonin agreed. "False information to throw us off."
The squad leader studied the distant road where the Konoha convoy had disappeared around a bend. Three days' travel to the capital, plenty of opportunities to strike once they were away from Kitaura's support network.
"We move in two hours," he decided. "Let them get some distance first. Then we follow."
Without another word, the Kumo-nin scattered to their positions, preparing for a hunt that had been weeks in the making.
...
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