Yagami moved cautiously along the shoreline, searching.
Last time Captain Antelope met Unit Commander Brown Bear it had been on this same stretch of beach.
Fortune favored the careful. Yagami found a half-buried shell in the sand. Three covert marks were carved into it.
According to the cipher scroll, one mark meant the 11th of the month, another pointed northeast, and the last indicated three kilometers. In the ninja world they used a lunar calendar keyed to full moons. The 11th was four days before the full moon.
Yagami didn't act rashly. He hid in the brush beneath the coconut grove and waited.
When the time came, he crawled out and ran toward the location the marks indicated. He still didn't reveal himself. Instead he formed one hand sign and used Shadow Clone.
The clone slipped from the reef and walked down the sand. After a short while, two black shapes suddenly jumped out—his clone froze on the spot.
"Who are you?" one of them demanded.
They wore masks—one a Blue Wolf, the other a White Stoat. Neither of them realized the fox-masked figure was only a clone.
The clone answered, "Last survivor of Antelope Squad, Fox. I request reassignment from the unit commander."
After verifying the identity, the two masked men looked toward a coconut tree. A figure stepped out from behind it, wearing a Brown Bear mask.
That was Unit Commander Brown Bear.
Brown Bear walked forward a few paces and then glanced toward the reef where Yagami had hidden. Yagami thought, No wonder he's the unit commander—he saw through a shadow clone that fast.
He stepped out from behind the rock and dispersed the clone. The clone evaporated into white smoke, which made Blue Wolf and White Stoat flinch—not because of the smoke itself, but because the thought struck them: if Fox had been an enemy, they'd already be at a disadvantage.
Yagami approached Brown Bear.
"Unit Commander," he reported, "Captain Antelope and Kakugyū were lost. My squad is down to me alone. I followed Antelope's cipher marks to get here."
Brown Bear sized him up. "Your clone carries some of Antelope's flair. Your fundamentals are decent. It's a pity—Antelope was cautious, but even he was killed."
Yagami kept his mouth shut. Say less, err less.
Antelope had been cautious—too cautious to survive.
Brown Bear said, "Antelope's squad is disbanded. You'll be reassigned to Captain Blue Wolf's team. Follow his orders."
Disappointment hit Yagami hard. He'd gone through all that to kill Antelope so he could rise to leadership and access more intel. Instead he was being folded into another squad as just another member, under a captain he didn't know.
He'd have to adapt again. In ANBU, squad leader positions were earned—the test measured loyalty, skill, and judgment. No shortcuts.
Yagami glanced at Blue Wolf and White Stoat, and for a stupid second thought, Or… just kill those two. Fewer sticks, shorter stick gets to be the pole. He pushed the thought down and spoke instead: "Captain Blue Wolf, I'm Fox. I learned a bit of shadow-clone from Antelope."
He had to claim the clone as Antelope's teaching to justify using the technique openly.
Blue Wolf nodded. "Good. Two members of my squad were lost. You'll fill one of those gaps."
Blue Wolf bowed to Brown Bear and took his team away. Halfway they stopped at a supply cache and shed their Leaf ANBU gear for Cloud-nin vests and long swords. The Cloud equipment still carried bloodstains—likely trophies Blue Wolf's team had taken earlier.
Yagami fell into step behind Blue Wolf, feeling both deflated and bitter. Antelope died and I'm still a member. What a waste.
Like Antelope, Blue Wolf didn't explain the mission—he just pushed everyone on the march.
After they reached a small town, Blue Wolf told two of his men to wait. "Fox, send a shadow clone into town to scout. See how many Uzumaki are hiding here."
Under his mask, Yagami frowned. He felt like a grunt—now that they knew he could make clones, they were sending him to do the dirty work.
The likely mission, as before, was to seize Uzumaki sealing scrolls—the Adamantine Chain scrolls. He formed a hand sign and produced a clone, then performed a Transformation on it so it looked like a normal townsman with a sack over its shoulder, and sent it into town.
Minutes passed. Then the clone stiffened.
What happened?
The clone had been blown apart and the memory came snapping back to Yagami.
"Report!" Blue Wolf demanded.
Yagami answered, "The clone wandered a bit, sat in a corner to rest, and then a kunai appeared from behind and killed it."
"It was a kunai, not a sword?" Blue Wolf asked.
Swords meant Cloud-nin most of the time.
"Kunai, not a sword," Yagami confirmed.
Blue Wolf said, "Keep sending clones. Continue scouting."
He repeated the shadow-clone entry many times. Each time, the clone was destroyed.
Yagami panted and slumped to the ground—exhaustion weighing on every limb. Chakra draws on both physical and mental energy. Pull too much and lactic acid builds; muscles ache as if you'd run five kilometers.
Blue Wolf looked at the useless fox with disgust. "Keep going, Fox. Don't slack. The intel's not enough—you haven't even seen the enemy faces after a dozen tries."
Yagami forced himself up again. Each clone costs half his chakra; the Transformation jutsu eats another chunk. His already-meager reserves were near empty. And Blue Wolf gave him no rest—who could work like that non-stop except a nuclear-powered mule?
The clone left and walked toward the town. Then—rustling from the trees behind him.
Six figures stepped out of the undergrowth—six Uzumaki shinobi. They'd noticed suspicious people for days and had pinpointed the ANBUs' hiding spots.
The fight ignited instantly. The three Leaf ANBU were outclassed by the Uzumaki.
Yagami wanted to shout, We're Leaf ANBU, not Cloud-nin! but wearing the Cloud vests made that useless.
Blue Wolf pressed the Uzumaki with his long sword, trying to force details—did they have a sealing scroll, or not?
A summoning spider hid and bit Blue Wolf. Poison spread through him—the captain staggered. Even under pressure, Blue Wolf kept his mouth shut about his true identity; the alliance between the Hidden Leaf and the Hidden Whirlpool Village had to be protected.
Seconds later the three Leaf ANBU fell one by one to the Uzumaki.
A kunai drove into Yagami's lower back—the familiar sting—and he knew, with a sick certainty, what followed. The shadows behind him had been killing his clones; now one had killed him.
The Uzumaki twisted that kunai, mangling Yagami's entrails into a whirl.
Everything went black.
...
Yagami gasped and woke, reborn. He crouched on the reef.
Out on the beach, he could see Brown Bear and Captain Antelope—only this time Antelope was still alive. He'd been returned to the full-moon night before his death.
Yagami settled on the rock and thought through the sequence carefully.
[Arc of the Moon activated!]
The host has one resurrection per month. After death, the host returns to the previous full-moon night.
Reward draw:
1 — Sealing Technique: Object-Sealing Mark (Beginner)
2 — Chunin-level chakra (stackable)
3 — Kunai Thrust (Mastery)
***
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