After a fierce battle, Sunagakure temporarily retreated, but Konoha could not decide whether to launch an attack. As a result, 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 firefighter and soon headed for the Land of Water battlefield.
To boost morale, Konoha's higher-ups did not conceal Konoha's White Fang's destination. However, 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 record to thirty-nine, those results had been achieved with support and cover. If his whereabouts were exposed and he was cornered by four or five Jonin, he would still be in serious danger.
After all, Sunagakure's order regarding the great enemy who had killed thirty of their Jonin was to obtain White Fang's head at any cost, not the "retreat immediately upon seeing White Fang" order they would issue 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 prestige before his death. Worse, trashy groups like Kirigakure's Seven Ninja Swordsmen would constantly claim they wanted to kill him. They truly did not take him seriously.
Sarutobi Hiruzen could not complain either. 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 lousy title like "Professor of Ninjutsu" had no deterrent value at all, especially since he had not refreshed his record in ten years.
For Konoha Ninja like Aburame Tetsumaru, Hatake Sakumo's departure had one major consequence: the Sunagakure Ninja had returned. Their pleasant days of taking turns going back to the Land of Fire to bask in the sun were over.
Uchiha Kei, however, was quite happy. After advancing to two magatama, he received a generous reward from the clan. Not only did he receive money, but he also learned several ninjutsu, especially Lightning Release ninjutsu suited for the Land of Rain, and he was eager to show them off.
But this guy really was an oddity among oddities in the Uchiha Clan. Aburame Tetsumaru discovered that he had been putting on an act of pridefulness. In reality, he was exceptionally cautious and careful, without the slightest trace of arrogance.
Still, Uchiha Kei was not an Uchiha overflowing with Great Love. He was not kind in the slightest. He was extremely proactive about silencing ordinary people to conceal his tracks.
Clearly, a Genjutsu could have settled things more securely, yet he preferred killing people, burning them to ash, then burying the ashes deep underground or simply scattering them.
His style of doing things felt both amusing and unsettling, and that feeling was strangely familiar.
Aburame Tetsumaru pondered it carefully. Mm... this feels like a protagonist.
"There's a new mission."
Aburame Tetsumaru accepted the mission letter. It was a thin sheet of paper, folded three times and sealed along the edges with wax.
In front of the messenger ninja, Aburame Tetsumaru confirmed that the wax seal was intact before opening the letter. After firmly memorizing the mission details, he summoned a swarm of insects to devour it.
Only after signing the proof of mission acceptance, handing it to the messenger ninja, and sending him away did Aburame Tetsumaru scratch his head. It was actually a rogue ninja elimination mission.
As everyone knew, Konoha was the most tolerant ninja village toward rogue ninja. It rarely issued missions to actively 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 Konoha's rogue ninja supergroup beating up the Five Great Ninja Villages.
So whenever it issued one of those rare rogue ninja hunting missions, it would be troublesome. Extremely troublesome.
For example, the pursuit of Orochimaru more than a decade later. Konoha would indeed just be going through the motions, but for the ninja who got saddled with the mission, it meant an inevitable failure on their record, along with exhaustion and no money.
Even worse was when they were merely going through the motions but unfortunately ran into the real target. Then they were screwed. Any rogue ninja was bound to have something wrong in his head, and he might decide to kill you.
Fortunately, this mission's target was a Chunin, not a Jonin, and certainly not a Genin. Tetsumaru felt much more relieved. At least he did not have to worry about being killed by a rogue ninja.
After packing up his insects and equipment, then gathering his two subordinates, Aburame Tetsumaru's squad set out on the hunt.
According to the mission letter, this rogue ninja was named Juyuan. He was thirty-three years old and belonged to Konoha's stationed ninja force. Six days ago, he had departed from Konoha to carry out a mission, killing two teammates during it before defecting.
His last appearance had been two days ago. At the time, Juyuan's defection had not yet been exposed, and he had received an important piece of 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, so 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 even stronger. He wanted to kill someone.
What surprised Aburame Tetsumaru was Kurama Yun. After hearing the intelligence, the little girl's eyes shifted, and her entire temperament suddenly changed.
She was still that dry, tiny little girl with no chest or hips, but every step and leap now brimmed with charm, exuding a lazy, seductive air.
Even her voice had changed. In a slightly husky, smoky voice, she muttered, "Root? This is troublesome."
"!!"
Damn, another monster.
Aburame Tetsumaru continued onward without changing expression, though ten thousand mythical beasts stampeded through his mind. Yes, the mission letter had been vague at the crucial point concerning the intelligence.
It was normal not to specify the exact contents of the "important" intelligence Juyuan had received before defecting, but it did not even state what general area the intelligence concerned. Nor did it require them to recover or destroy it. That was wrong.
The logical mission should have been to eliminate 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 handling it.
That was annoying.
Konoha's Root was the one that handled this kind of dirty work.
And look at the composition of Aburame Tetsumaru's squad: one Uchiha, one Kurama, and one Aburame. Either they were targets Root persecuted, or talents Root coveted.
Of course Aburame Tetsumaru suspected there was something fishy about assigning this mission to his squad. Perhaps some man who had not yet lost his eye wanted to rake the grass and catch the rabbit too—eliminate the rogue ninja and recover the intelligence, while conveniently removing a thorn in his side and making two desired talents "voluntarily" join the Anbu.
The twists and turns of all this were so convoluted that even though Aburame Tetsumaru was living his second life and knew plenty of plot information, it still took him a while to figure it out.
Yet Kurama Yun had understood it with a single shift of her eyes. Was that not monstrous? More importantly, her voice and temperament had changed too. Had some old ghost possessed her? Or did she have dissociative personalities, with an inner personality possessing an IQ of three hundred?
That feeling of staring directly at a protagonist again.
I hope I'm overthinking it.
The three arrived at Konoha's intelligence station, hidden beneath a secluded general store in a small town. Business in the town was sparse, and there were few customers, making it ideal cover for secret operations.
Slipping quietly 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 premeditation and thorough preparation while out on missions. By the time their defection was discovered, at least a day had passed. The subsequent pursuit was a contest of tracking and countertracking.
Konoha's Hiruko and Sunagakure's Sasori, for instance, were exemplary rogue ninja. Until they resurfaced, they had both been treated as missing.
Orochimaru's and Uchiha Sasuke's later defections had actually been spectacular failures. They were discovered before even leaving, then forcibly fought their way out. Wasn't that ridiculous?
If their backgrounds had not been so deep, and the entire village had not collectively gone insane with holding back, both of them would have died at the village gates.
According to the newly obtained intelligence, Juyuan was most likely a spy rather than a rogue ninja. During a mission, he had killed two teammates and then vanished.
At the same time, a piece of intelligence about Iwagakure carried by the three ninja had also disappeared.
The reason they judged that Chunin Juyuan had defected was because the two dead ninja had both been killed in close-range sneak attacks, after consuming poisoned food. It was an obvious case of being attacked by someone they knew.
Of the three, two had died at the hands of an acquaintance, while the remaining one had disappeared. The intelligence they carried had also vanished. 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 extremely difficult.
They first arrived at the place where the two fallen ninja had been discovered. All traces had become exceedingly vague, and none of the three could analyze much. In the end, the Kikaichū barely managed to detect a faint trace of Juyuan's scent, allowing the mission to continue.
However, the Kikaichū had detected the scents of many people, including the smell of Ninja Dogs.
Aburame Tetsumaru immediately thought of his classmate, Inuzuka Tsuyoshi. His clan's ninja-and-Ninja-Dog combinations were best suited for tracking missions. The Aburame Family's Kikaichū were still somewhat inferior.
Without a doubt, 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 beat the Inuzuka in this sort of mission.
Aburame Tetsumaru interrupted him. "Carry out the mission at our own pace. Until 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 the border near the Land of Fire. A few dozen miles farther would bring them into the Land of Rice Fields, but the target's scent became much stronger here, as if he had wandered back and forth many times.
Besides Juyuan's scent, there were the smells of Ninja Dogs and their owners, as well as even more people. Were they playing hide-and-seek here?
Aburame Tetsumaru found it a little strange, but it did not affect his decision to lead 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 would not be that many surprises.
We're not going to run into a Jinchuriki again, are we?
"Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey."
Jinxing the battlefield—wasn't that asking to die?
Gradually, the scent grew stronger, and clear signs of movement became visible. Uchiha Kei moved to the front of the group.
More than half an hour later, the three tracked their way onto a small hillside. Aburame Tetsumaru suddenly stopped. He had discovered a new development here.
Obvious scents and movement traces crossed over the hill toward a village below. Standing on the slope, they could even see tracks of movement through the rice paddies outside the village.
Uchiha Kei grew a little anxious. With his excellent eyesight, he could see that at least a dozen ninja had run along that path through the rice fields. The three of them had clearly fallen behind.
Yet Aburame Tetsumaru stopped at the top of the slope, looking left and right with no intention of heading down.
Kei finally could not hold back any longer. "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 lightning-fast burst caught Uchiha Kei completely off guard. Especially since the one-handed spread of the five-foot-seven Aburame Tetsumaru's hand was far larger than the entire head of the five-foot Uchiha Kei—it was like a college student grabbing a volleyball.
Not only was Uchiha Kei's head firmly gripped, a surge of Chakra also poured from Aburame Tetsumaru's large hand, crashing through his entire body like a tsunami and scattering all his Chakra.
This was a completely brute-force imitation of the Hyuga Clan's Gentle Fist Technique: using an enormous amount of Chakra to overwhelm the enemy's Chakra and leave him limp all over.
After confirming that Uchiha Kei's entire body had gone slack, Aburame Tetsumaru lifted him with force, then swung him from side to side, sending Kei's body flailing around like noodles.
"Pfft, honk honk honk honk honk~"
Seeing the usually cocky, cold, gloomy Uchiha Kei being flung around like a rag doll, Kurama Yun could not hold it in anymore. She first let out a startled sound, then laughed like a goose.
"..."
"..."
The two male ninja looked at the girl together, but she kept laughing. Well, that had completely ruined any serious atmosphere.
As long as I'm not embarrassed, then someone else is.
That classic saying surfaced in Aburame Tetsumaru's mind. He really was embarrassed now, so without a word, he tossed Uchiha Kei onto the ground and continued examining the surrounding conditions and traces.
By the time Uchiha Kei's body 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 was not 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 had chased Juyuan past the spot where he stood, these Lurkers had remained there for a while, then calmly withdrawn after cleaning up their traces.
Fortunately, we were one step late. Otherwise, I wouldn't have noticed these Lurkers.
Aburame Tetsumaru narrowed his eyes. These ninja were all top-tier. Their concealment skills were flawless.
If they had not slightly damaged the Konoha Ninja's tracking traces while cleaning up before retreating, Tetsumaru would never have discovered that people had been lying in ambush on both sides.
The mission had escalated.
Before you continue