Are you two the protagonists?

After a fierce battle, Sunagakure temporarily retreated, but Konoha could not decide whether to launch an attack, so the situation on the battlefield eased.

Hatake Sakumo did not remain in the Land of Rain, where the fighting had paused. He had been transferred from the Land of Wind battlefield as a firefighting captain and soon headed for the Land of Water battlefield.

To bolster morale, Konoha's upper ranks did not conceal White Fang's destination, but exactly when he had left and which route he had taken were absolute secrets.

Although Hatake Sakumo had killed four Sunagakure Jonin in this battle, raising his Jonin kill count to thirty-nine, those results had been achieved with support and cover. If his whereabouts leaked and he was surrounded by four or five Jonin, he would still be in grave danger.

After all, Sunagakure's order today, aimed at the great enemy who had killed thirty of their Jonin, was to seize White Fang's head at all costs—not the "retreat immediately upon seeing White Fang" order from years later.

How badly did a Great Ninja Village have to be slaughtered before it would issue such a desperate, pathetic order?

In any case, the Sandaime Hokage never managed to earn such a reputation before his death. And every so often, trash groups like Kirigakure's Seven Ninja Swordsmen would proclaim that they wanted to kill him. They truly did not take him seriously.

Sarutobi Hiruzen could not complain either. Ever since ascending to the position of Hokage, he had never properly returned to the battlefield.

The Sandaime did not yet have the title of "Strongest Hokage in History." A trash title like "Professor of Ninjutsu" had no deterrent power at all, especially since he had not refreshed his record in ten years.

For Konoha Ninja like Aburame Tetsumaru, the greatest impact of Hatake Sakumo's departure was that the Sunagakure Ninja came back. Their good days of taking turns returning to the Land of Fire to bask in the sun were over.

Uchiha Kei, however, was delighted. After advancing to two Magatama, he received a generous reward from the clan. Not only did he get money, but he also mastered several ninjutsu, especially Lightning Release techniques suited for the Land of Rain. He was eager to show them off.

But this guy truly was an oddity among oddities in the Uchiha Clan. Aburame Tetsumaru found that he had been pretending to be proud. In truth, he was exceptionally cautious and careful, without the slightest trace of arrogance.

Yet Uchiha Kei was not some Uchiha overflowing with Great Love either. He was not kind in the least, and he actively killed ordinary people to silence them and conceal his tracks.

A single Genjutsu could clearly have settled things, and it would have been more reliable too. Yet he preferred killing people, burning them to ashes, then burying the ashes deep underground or simply scattering them.

Something about his style made people want to laugh and shudder at the same time. And that feeling was strangely familiar.

Aburame Tetsumaru savored the thought carefully. Mm... the flavor of a protagonist.

"New mission."

Aburame Tetsumaru accepted the mission document. It was a thin sheet of paper folded three times, its edges sealed shut with wax.

In front of the messenger ninja, Aburame Tetsumaru confirmed that the wax seal was intact before opening the document. After firmly memorizing its contents, he summoned a swarm of insects to eat it.

Only after signing the document confirming receipt of the mission, handing it to the messenger ninja, and sending him away did Aburame Tetsumaru scratch his head. It was actually a mission to eliminate a rogue ninja.

As everyone knew, Konoha was the most tolerant ninja village toward rogue ninja. It rarely took the initiative to issue missions to hunt them down, allowing a whole bunch of Konoha rogue ninja to stir up trouble across the Shinobi World. By the peak of the Fourth Shinobi World War, it was practically a Konoha rogue ninja supergroup beating up the Five Great Ninja Villages.

So when the rare mission to hunt a rogue ninja was actually issued, it was troublesome. Extremely troublesome.

For example, Konoha's pursuit of Orochimaru more than a decade later was indeed just for show, but for the ninja who got saddled with that mission, it meant inevitably adding another failure to their record while getting exhausted for no money.

Even worse was putting on an act, only to unfortunately run into the real target. Then you were screwed. Any rogue ninja was bound to have something wrong with their head, and they might decide to kill you.

Fortunately, this mission's target was a Chunin—not a Jonin, and certainly not a Genin—so Tetsumaru felt much more at ease. At least he did not have to worry about being killed by a rogue ninja.

After packing his insects and equipment, then gathering his two subordinates, Aburame Tetsumaru's squad set out on the hunt.

According to the mission document, the rogue ninja was named Juyuan, thirty-three years old, and belonged to Konoha's stationed ninja force. Six days ago, he had departed Konoha on a mission, killed two teammates along the way, and defected.

He had last appeared two days ago. At that time, Juyuan's defection had not yet been exposed, and he had received a piece of important intelligence from an intelligence station.

This intelligence station was an intelligence center established for the Land of Earth. It was very close to the army camp in the Land of Rain, which was why the pursuit mission had been assigned to the frontline ninja forces.

While traveling, Aburame Tetsumaru briefed his two subordinates on the intelligence and mission details.

Uchiha Kei did not say a word, but his killing intent grew thicker. He wanted to kill someone.

What surprised Aburame Tetsumaru was Kurama Yun. After the little girl heard the intelligence, her eyes shifted, and her entire temperament suddenly changed.

She was clearly still that dry, skinny little girl with no chest or hips, yet every step and leap suddenly became brimming with charm, exuding a languid, seductive air.

Even her voice changed. In a slightly husky smoker's voice, she muttered, "Root, huh? This is troublesome."

"!!"

Holy shit, another monster.

Aburame Tetsumaru continued forward without showing anything, though ten thousand mythical beasts were stampeding through his mind. Yes, the mission document had been vague at the crucial point concerning the intelligence.

The rogue ninja Juyuan had defected with a piece of "important" intelligence. It was normal not to state exactly what the intelligence contained, but it was wrong not even to say what general category it belonged to, nor demand that it be recovered or destroyed.

The logical mission should have been to kill the rogue ninja, recover the intelligence, and verify it. Yet it was not.

Most likely, the intelligence contained something he was not meant to know, and someone else was responsible for dealing with it.

That was annoying.

The ones in Konoha who handled this kind of dirty work were Root.

And look at Aburame Tetsumaru's squad composition: one Uchiha, one Kurama, one Aburame. They were either targets persecuted by Root or talents coveted by Root.

Of course Aburame Tetsumaru suspected that there was something fishy about assigning this mission to his squad. Perhaps some man who had not yet gone blind wanted to rake the grass and catch the rabbit—kill the rogue ninja, seize the intelligence, conveniently eliminate an eyesore, and make the two talents he wanted "voluntarily" join Anbu.

The twists and turns in all this were complicated. Even with his second life and all the plot intelligence he knew, Aburame Tetsumaru still needed quite a while to figure it out.

Yet Kurama Yun understood it with a single shift of her eyes. Was that not monstrous? More importantly, the little girl's voice and temperament had changed. Had some old ghost possessed her? Or did she have split personalities, with an inner personality possessing an IQ of three hundred?

That feeling of staring directly at the protagonist again.

I hope I'm overthinking this.

The three arrived at Konoha's intelligence station, hidden beneath a remote general store in a small town. Business in town was sparse and there were few customers, making it an excellent cover for covert activities.

Quietly slipping past the drowsy clerk, Aburame Tetsumaru entered the hidden passage behind the store and met the Konoha intelligence ninja stationed there.

Catching rogue ninja in the Shinobi World was different from catching fugitives on Blue Star. In most cases, rogue ninja defected with prior planning, thoroughly prepared to flee while out on missions. By the time their disappearance was discovered, at least a day had passed. The pursuit afterward was a contest of tracking and counter-tracking.

Konoha's Hiruko and Sunagakure's Sasori were exemplary rogue ninja. Before they surfaced again, both had been treated as missing.

Orochimaru and Uchiha Sasuke's later defections were actually spectacular failures. They were discovered before even leaving the village, then forcibly fought their way out. Wasn't that ridiculous?

If not for their deep backgrounds and the entire village collectively losing its minds to go easy on them, both would have died at the village gates.

According to the latest intelligence they had just received, Juyuan was most likely a spy rather than a rogue ninja. He had killed two teammates during a mission and then disappeared.

At the same time, a piece of intelligence about Iwagakure carried by the three ninja had also disappeared.

The reason they concluded that Chunin Juyuan had defected was because the two dead ninja had both been killed by close-range sneak attacks, after eating poisoned food before their deaths. It was obviously the work of an acquaintance.

Of the three, two had died at the hands of someone they knew, while the remaining one had vanished. The intelligence they carried had vanished too. Anyone would conclude that Juyuan had defected.

After obtaining Juyuan's information, Aburame Tetsumaru immediately led his squad out. Two and a half days had already passed, making the tracking quite difficult.

They first arrived at the place where the two fallen ninja had been discovered. Every trace had become extremely vague, and none of the three could analyze any useful intelligence. In the end, the Kikaichū barely managed to catch a faint trace of Juyuan's scent, allowing the mission to continue.

However, the Kikaichū had caught the scents of many people, including that of a Ninja Dog.

Aburame Tetsumaru immediately thought of his classmate, Inuzuka Tsuyoshi. The ninja-and-Ninja-Dog combinations from his family were best suited for tracking missions. The Aburame Clan's Kikaichū were still a bit inferior.

Without question, this was another annoying competitive mission. Another ninja squad was carrying out the same mission.

"This is troublesome. There are Inuzuka Clan members competing with us. It won't be easy," Uchiha Kei said with a frown. He was not confident he could surpass the Inuzuka in this kind of mission.

Aburame Tetsumaru interrupted him. "Carry out the mission at our own pace. Before the result is decided, don't assume we'll lose."

"Follow me."

Aburame Tetsumaru gave the order, then took the lead toward the northeast.

Before nightfall, the Aburame Squad reached an area near the border of the Land of Fire. A few dozen li farther and they would enter the Land of Rice Fields, but the target's scent had grown stronger here, as if he had lingered back and forth many times.

Besides Juyuan's scent, there were those of a Ninja Dog and its owner, as well as many more people. Had they been playing hide-and-seek here?

Aburame Tetsumaru found it strange, but it did not stop him from leading his subordinates directly along the freshest scent. As long as they followed the newest trail, it would be fine. This was the Land of Fire, after all. There could not be that many surprises.

They could not possibly run into a Jinchuriki again, could they?

"Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey."

Planting a flag on a battlefield—wasn't that courting death?

Gradually, the scent grew thicker, and clear traces of movement became visible. Uchiha Kei moved to the very front of the formation.

More than half an hour later, the three tracked their target to a small hillside. Aburame Tetsumaru suddenly stopped, having discovered a new development.

Obvious scents and movement traces crossed over the hillside toward a village below. From the slope, they could even see trails of movement cutting through the rice paddies outside the village.

Uchiha Kei grew somewhat anxious. With his excellent eyesight, he could see the tracks in the rice fields. At least a dozen ninja had run down that route, and the three of them were clearly behind.

Yet Aburame Tetsumaru stopped at the top of the slope, looking left and right without any intention of heading down.

Kei finally could not hold back. "Captain, if we don't hurry, it'll be too late."

Aburame Tetsumaru turned around and stared coldly at Uchiha Kei without saying a word. Then he suddenly reached out and grabbed Uchiha Kei by the face.

The explosive movement was as fast as lightning, leaving Uchiha Kei with no time to react. Especially since the one-handed spread of the five-foot-seven Aburame Tetsumaru was much larger than the entire head of the four-foot-eleven Uchiha Kei. It was like a college student grabbing a volleyball.

Not only was Uchiha Kei's head tightly gripped, but surging Chakra poured from Aburame Tetsumaru's large hand, crashing through his entire body like a tsunami and scattering all his Chakra.

This was an utterly violent imitation of the Hyuga Clan's Gentle Fist Technique, using an overwhelming amount of Chakra to crush the enemy's Chakra and leave them limp all over.

Once he confirmed that Uchiha Kei had gone limp from head to toe, Aburame Tetsumaru forcefully lifted him up and shook him from side to side, making Kei's entire body flop about like noodles.

"Pfft, honk honk honk honk honk~"

Seeing the always cocky, cold, gloomy Uchiha Kei being shaken around like a rag doll, Kurama Yun could not hold it in any longer. She first choked in shock, then laughed like a goose.

"..."

"..."

The two male ninja looked at the girl together, but she kept laughing. Well, that was it—the serious atmosphere was completely gone.

As long as I'm not embarrassed, the embarrassed one is someone else.

That classic line surfaced in Aburame Tetsumaru's mind. He really was embarrassed now, so without saying a word, he threw Uchiha Kei onto the ground and continued examining the surroundings and traces.

By the time Uchiha Kei's body had recovered and he climbed up from the ground, Aburame Tetsumaru had already inspected the entire area and confirmed the problem.

The problem was that rogue ninja Juyuan had not been alone. On both sides of the route he had taken, there were traces of three full ninja squads lying in ambush. Aburame Tetsumaru could even determine that, after more than a dozen ninja chased Juyuan past this point, those Lurkers had remained where he was standing for a while, then calmly withdrew after cleaning up their traces.

Fortunately, we were one step late. Otherwise, I wouldn't have discovered these Lurkers.

Aburame Tetsumaru narrowed his eyes. These ninja were all top-tier, their concealment techniques flawless.

If they had not slightly disturbed the Konoha Ninja's tracking traces while cleaning up their own before retreating, Tetsumaru would never have discovered that people had been lying in ambush on both sides.

The mission had escalated.