A few days after they had fully recovered from their last assignment, the three of them were dispatched again.
This time, however, the air felt different.
Even Ryusei's usual teasing remarks barely slipped out.
He moved in silence most of the way, his narrow eyes half-lidded but sharper than ever, his attention spread outward.
His chakra sense stretched like a net.
Fifty kilometers in every direction.
Every twitch of chakra nearby registered against his perception, sharper closer in, blurrier farther out, but still enough to warn him.
And if he focused, narrowing that field down into one line, he could push it even further, probing like a spear into the distance.
Kanae noticed. She didn't interrupt.
She just bit lightly at her lower lip, her soft hands clenching together at her sides.
Worry flickered through her violet eyes, but so did resolve.
She now had another reason to get stronger, not just for herself, not just to break her cage, but to carry some of the weight Ryusei shouldered alone.
To stand beside him, not always behind.
Renjiro's silence was heavier, too.
He wasn't as gifted at sensing as Ryusei, but he was no fool.
He could feel the tension in the air, the way his comrade's expression never wavered, the way Kanae kept her eyes forward and her fists tight.
It rubbed off on him, sharpening his own instincts.
Ryusei's brow twitched.
He had felt it a while now, something unnatural.
His sensory net brushed against a strange haze.
Not emptiness. Not the absence of chakra.
Something was deliberately muddying the air, drowning out signals beyond a certain point.
It wasn't natural.
This was deliberate sensory suppression.
His eyes narrowed further.
"Not good," he muttered under his breath.
That level of masking could only mean one thing: entire sensory squads working together, layering their chakra in waves to jam anyone trying to see through the distance.
It was clumsy if done by a handful, but with a corps-level unit, it became nearly impossible to penetrate.
And those squads weren't acting on their own.
Not in this war.
To deploy sensory teams for masking operations like this required clearance from the top. Which meant Orochimaru.
He exhaled slowly, then spoke up, his voice low and steady.
"Listen. If something feels wrong, I won't hesitate. I'll run first, fight later. I'll make it look like I'm retreating under pressure, use my ninjutsu to create distance. Don't get in my way when I do."
Kanae flinched slightly at the bluntness, but she nodded firmly, her eyes locking with his for a second.
He had been laughing with her just yesterday, joking between missions, letting her steal small moments of warmth in the middle of war.
And now, once again, they were walking into another life-and-death separation.
Kanae's chest tightened.
At times, she wondered if Ryusei really had it worse than her after all.
She was shackled by the curse mark and her clan's cage, yes, but her life wasn't under immediate threat every single day.
Ryusei's was.
They had been throwing him into death traps forever, and yet he still found the strength to grin, to tease, to flirt, to lend her his mind when she needed guidance.
'Am I the one letting him down?' The thought slipped unbidden.
Because despite living under constant threat, he still made room for her in his life.
He still treated her as someone worth protecting, someone worth helping.
And she, in turn, had hesitated so much before.
She looked at him now, that narrow-eyed face, with messy dark brown hair, of his carrying a furrow that was rare, but not unfamiliar.
He kept the Konoha protector tucked loosely in his pocket, a symbol he carried more out of necessity than pride.
The sight made her heart ache.
Renjiro just grunted, hand brushing the hilt of his sword.
Ryusei gave the faintest grin, but it didn't reach his eyes.
He already understood—this assignment was no ordinary mission.
This was a setup.
Clearly, the largest scale since his transmigration.
Ryusei immediately understood.
The sensory jamming wasn't just to cut him off from Konoha's main lines, of course, that much was obvious.
But it wasn't to conceal an attack from behind either.
He would've sensed any enemy squads slipping through the broader Konoha formation.
No, this was something different.
The trap was ahead.
Their current assignment target was nothing but bait, and somewhere in that direction the real snare was waiting.
The Root had always excelled in sensory suppression; he had seen it before.
It wouldn't surprise him if assassination squads were already waiting, cloaked until he stepped within reach.
And the large-scale suppression that blanketed not just their company, but nearby units too?
That was the nail in the coffin.
It wasn't only to block him, it was to make sure he couldn't signal or expose anything to the other sensory shinobi not personally loyal to Hiruzen.
Because plenty of them were stationed on this front.
They all technically followed Orochimaru's commands, too, but they were not fully in sync with their plans.
The fact that this suppression stretched so wide meant only one thing: Orochimaru had sanctioned it.
Using some of that authority and those ANBU sensory specialists to mask the whole thing.
Running back toward Konoha lines was suicide.
He could already picture Root operatives springing from all directions, ANBU subordinates of Hiruzen mixed among them, all converging with the same kill order.
With the sensory fog, he wouldn't even see them coming until too late, nor would he be able to alert anyone else.
He was at a true crossroads now.
Life or death.
This wasn't a squad or even a company being sent after him.
The largest net they had ever cast for him.
And the only question that mattered was simple: how to slip through it.
He already made some preparations beforehand, but whether that was enough and would work in a real, actual situation was another thing.
Ryusei's instincts suddenly screamed.
It was strange; there was nothing there, no chakra signatures, no sound, nothing, but every fiber of his body told him he was about to lose everything if he stayed still.
Without hesitation, he snapped open the Second Gate.
Power roared through his muscles, and in the same instant, he bolted, picking one direction his senses whispered was safer.
Renjiro and Kanae stared after him, startled.
Even with her Byakugan fully active, Kanae saw nothing unusual.
Yet Ryusei's face was too sharp, too grim; it wasn't a whim.
He said nothing to them.
Instead, he flared chakra into his ears, heightening his hearing.
Nothing. Silence.
But with his sensing, he pushed deeper, pulling every particle of awareness back toward himself, sharpening the picture within meters.
And suddenly the haze cleared.
He understood.
"Fire Release: Flame Whirlwind!"
Flames burst violently around his body, coiling into a spiraling barrier.
The fire tore through the air, and what it revealed made his jaw clench.
Aburame.
Poisonous insects.
Hidden to the last.
He had been right; if not for his intuition and the clarity of his sensing, they would have devoured him before he even realized.
At best, he would have been crippled before the real trap unfolded.
At worst, already dead.
He didn't stop.
The fire was his cover, the excuse for his sudden movement.
Using that same burst, he continued sprinting with full force, tree to tree, widening the distance.
Behind him, Kanae and Renjiro's shouts followed.
"Ryusei! What are you doing?!" "Are you abandoning the mission?!"
Their voices cracked with "genuine" confusion, and even blame.
But Ryusei didn't glance back.
He couldn't afford to.
He wasn't crazy.
He had seen enough to know.
These weren't ordinary opponents.
The Root had committed Aburame elites, poison-users who could kill silently without leaving a trace.
He clenched his fists, teeth grinding as he pushed harder, wind and branches whipping past.
Once again, the village reminded him.
If they truly chose to turn their entire apparatus on someone, you wouldn't even know how you died.
There was no warning.
No chance to resist.
Just poison in the dark.
And he wasn't about to give them that satisfaction.