Cautious

An eagle's cry came from the sky. Within the Land of Water, a handsome man with a streak-like marking on his face and a mask hanging at his side looked up at the heavens.

Then he said to Espada No. 1 Koyata, who was lying on the grass with a foxtail in his mouth.

"There are new orders. Time to move."

Hearing Ulquiorra's voice, Koyata reached up and scratched his messy hair, muttering continuously.

"What a hassle. Still, these strange worlds are pretty interesting."

Though he complained, he did not stop moving. After changing into different clothes, the two headed toward Kirigakure.

They already knew the intelligence on Hidden Mist and the details of this mission. All that remained was to set it in motion...

Under Mei Terumi's reforms, Hidden Mist had finally managed to get back on track and crawl out from beneath Akatsuki's shadow.

At a time like this, it was not difficult to enter the village as clients.

Moreover, thanks to the connections Xu Yue had left behind when he had been a major merchant, the two, as members of the merchant guild, were directly granted an audience with Mei Terumi.

"Eh~, that guy actually had the mind to send people over? I heard his business hasn't been doing much lately, and he even bought himself a small ninja village. He really is an amateur."

Mei Terumi was not particularly distant when she met Ulquiorra and Koyata.

Back then, she had relied on that merchant's abilities to establish contact with Uchiha Yue, after which he had helped her Suppress Rebellion. She had also successfully escorted him all the way, so they had some history together.

Still, that idiot had stopped being a perfectly good merchant and gone to buy a small ninja village. The result was that