Intelligence Gathered

"Gurgle... gurgle..."

In the woods, at the edge of the gourd-shaped clearing where the camp had once stood, amid the trees blasted into a chaotic mess by the explosion's shockwave, a half-charred fallen trunk suddenly trembled once. Then it trembled again, before falling still.

Bang! Bang!

Not long after it went still, the trunk suddenly began to jolt again, as if something beneath it were punching and kicking it. After bouncing a few times, it settled down once more!

Bang!

But one second after it calmed down, as if yanked up with tremendous force, the half-charred trunk leaped into the air, bouncing one or two meters high. With a thud, it crashed down a little below its original position. After rebounding twice, it rolled along the fallen trees at the edge amid rumbling and thudding sounds, then dropped into the clearing with a smack. Blocked by the crisscrossing trunks around the clearing's edge, it finally stopped.

Then, deep breathing sounded from where it had originally been.

"That should be about it... I heard him leave just now. From those footsteps, the one who won and ultimately left wasn't that Kumogakure ninja. The old man's steps weren't nearly that nimble."

At that moment, a white-haired young man stood between two trees that had fallen across each other where the half-charred trunk had been. He wore an Iwa forehead protector, and the right lens of his round glasses had shattered. As he muttered to himself, he removed his glasses and picked out the broken right lens. He was none other than the cowardly Nonō from the Iwa team!

Yet when he put his glasses back on, his expression tightened slightly. The ease he had felt after moving away the trunk concealing him and confirming his safety vanished. Looking at the shattered, somewhat