What Are They Doing?

"What are they doing?"

Fresh from his bath and feeling completely refreshed, Hirohiko looked at the scene in the kitchen and spoke in slight astonishment.

At that moment, in the little cabin's kitchen, Yukina was plating a stir-fried dish and setting it before Chiba. At the same time, she took out the rice cooked in another pot, then rather helplessly pulled out the leftovers from yesterday and began reheating them in a pan.

Nao looked as though she had let out a sigh of relief. She had been about to lower her head and continue "reading" when she heard his voice. She instinctively turned her head toward him, and her expression seemed to relax as well, making her whole demeanor much gentler.

Across from Nao, Chiba sat beside an unfamiliar young man. Before them was the dish Yukina had set down, but neither of them seemed focused on the food. Instead, they were seriously studying two unrolled scrolls, one large and one small. The larger one appeared to depict the terrain of a familiar location, while the smaller scroll was densely covered in tiny black writing that faintly resembled Chiba's handwriting.

"Mm, leaving a gap here wouldn't be appropriate. It'd be too obvious."

At that moment, Chiba shook his head, apparently rejecting the unfamiliar young man's earlier proposal.

"Is that so? Too obvious? But this is the best place for an ambush. It's a busy district to begin with, so it'll be easy for them to get in, and easy for us to blend into the crowd and lie in wait. It might even make them think they've found an opportunity."

The unfamiliar young man seemed determined to stick to his proposal.

"No. Precisely because of that—because it's a point they'd easily think of—they'll think, 'Konoha will definitely guess that