Concern

"Tap!"

"Tap!"

Two footsteps landed on the branches in quick succession.

"Chiba?"

Hirohiko, who had abruptly stopped, looked sharply at Chiba, his face full of confusion. Hesitantly, he placed his other foot on the branch, barely ten meters from where they had entered, his brows slightly furrowed.

"Wait."

Hearing Hirohiko's puzzled voice, Chiba slowly released the hand holding him back and said, "Don't you think it's too quiet here?"

Quiet?

At those words, Hirohiko's tightly furrowed brows seemed to knot even further. He tilted his head and listened in silence for a while.

There really didn't seem to be any sound.

Looking at the deep, dark forest, Hirohiko's expression turned solemn. He looked at Chiba and said, "Could there be an ambush in there?"

"How are the tracks?"

Chiba did not answer. Instead, he asked a question.

"I'll take another look."

This forest was undoubtedly somewhere Dodai had passed through; otherwise, Hirohiko would not have entered it. Over the dozen or so meters they had just covered, he had found many faint traces of trampling, even some branches that had been slightly crushed underfoot. Clearly, whoever had made these marks had been in a hurry, racing onward without regard for anything in pursuit of the fastest possible speed. Otherwise, they would never have stepped hard enough to break branches.

Such traces would only appear when someone was fleeing for their life in panic, or when a ninja had to rush forward at all costs. They perfectly matched that Kumogakure ninja's current situation. There could be no mistake.

After saying that, Hirohiko crouched down and carefully inspected the tiny trace on the branch where they stood.

The force behind it, the size of the mark... combined with all the earlier tracks, they had been made by one person. And that dark