I Will Definitely Kill Sasuke Uchiha!

A month of D-rank missions had worn Naruto down, though the activities had undeniably made his body sturdier.

"Weeding again!"

Naruto slammed his scroll onto the wooden post at the meeting point, nearly snapping the post in two.

"This is the seventh time this month! Does the grass in Konoha have a personal vendetta against me?"

Sakura crouched nearby, checking her ninja tool pouch. "Pipe down. If it weren't for Sasuke's Escaping Rabbit, our mission speed would be even slower."

"Didn't you mistake the florist's tulips for weeds last time? The client nearly cried."

"I—I thought they were green onions!"

"So now you can't even tell the difference between onions and flowers?" Sasuke leaned against another post, holding the newly accepted mission scroll.

Naruto spun around abruptly, jabbing a finger at the scroll in Sasuke's hand. "What is it this time! Is it helping another grandma find her cat?"

"No."

"Really?!" Naruto's eyes lit up, and he rushed to Sasuke in two strides.

"Then what is it?! Is it a VIP escort? Or capturing a rogue ninja?!"

Sasuke unfurled the scroll and read the contents aloud.

"Cleanup mission at the Old Herb Farm by the Naka River. The farm is infested with giant pests; clear them out while ensuring the herbs remain undamaged."

Naruto's enthusiasm withered instantly.

"...Bugs?"

"Yeah."

"Not this kind of mission again!"

Kakashi suddenly hung upside down from the branch above the trio.

"Stop complaining, Naruto. Anko and I specifically requested this mission for you."

Sakura looked up. "Specifically?"

"Yes." Kakashi flipped down from the tree, landing steadily on the ground.

"The Old Herb Farm is by the Naka River; that place has been abandoned for quite a while."

"Standard D-rank missions are usually outsourced to civilians, but this involves protecting medicinal herbs, so it's a specialized request."

He closed his book and pointed at the scroll in Sasuke's hand.

"Those herbs are quite valuable. You can't use large-scale ninjutsu to burn them, and you can't go trampling all over them either."

"In short, this is a test of your fine chakra control."

Anko appeared on a stone pedestal at the edge of the meeting point before anyone noticed.

"To put it bluntly, it's to see if you can keep your hands and feet in check."

"Especially you, Naruto. Your chakra vibrations have already ruined quite a few things this past month, haven't they?"

Naruto choked on his own breath, struggling for a long moment before managing a retort: "I've improved since then!"

Kakashi took over. "Uh-huh, is that why you shattered the client's ceremonial stone?"

"That grandmother forgave you, but she doesn't want you anywhere near her family grave again."

Sakura covered her mouth to stifle a laugh, her shoulders shaking uncontrollably.

Naruto stood with his mouth agape, finally squeezing out: "That was... that stone was already about to crack!"

"Anyway, can we drop it? When are we finally going to get a new mission?"

Anko patted Naruto on the head. "The Hokage says that once you finish this mission, you'll get a C-rank one!"

The eyes of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were instantly locked onto that promise.

Naruto jumped high into the air, shouting excitedly, "For real! Then let's hurry up and get this mission done!"

The sound of the Naka River echoed through the woods, and the air was filled with the bitter fragrance of herbs, mingled with the scent of decaying leaves.

Sasuke formed a hand seal resembling a flying bird.

"Nue."

A mass of black shadow erupted from the mud, shooting straight toward the canopy above, the wind pressure scattering leaves in its wake.

Sasuke looked up.

A large bird stood on the lowest branch.

It was a size larger than a typical hawk, with orange-red feathers and a face that looked less like a bird and more like a stone statue.

Nue glanced down at Sasuke, then rotated its head to scan the entire farm.

Caterpillars crawled on the ground, secreting fluid; beetle larvae writhed in the rotting leaves; and in the distance, a chrysalis hung from a branch.

Nue's pupils constricted.

"How... how filthy!"

The voice of Nue was higher than that of any other Shikigami, dragging out every syllable with a slight upward lilt at the end.

It hopped down from a tree branch, hovering about a palm's width above the ground, wings vibrating slightly to keep its body perfectly still.

"Sasuke, did you summon me just to clean up this kind of maggot?"

Sasuke pointed to a giant aphid on a medicinal herb in the distance: "That's just an aphid."

"I don't want to know what it is!"

Nue's wings gave a sharp flap, and its body drifted elegantly backward by half a meter.

"I refuse."

"Refusal is invalid."

"I! Re! Fuse!" Nue flapped its wings with every word, its voice rising in pitch.

"My wings were born to chase lightning above the clouds! My talons exist to tear apart the filth that dares to defile the sky! My—"

Its tail feathers brushed against the bark of a tree behind it, where a small patch of moss was growing.

Nue stopped mid-sentence, looked down to see the greenish moss debris clinging to its tail feathers, and then erupted into a shriek.

"It's dirty, ahhh—!"

Nue dove headlong into the water of the Naka River, kicking up a spray.

A moment later, it shot out of the water, soaked through, with its tail feathers still dripping.

"Clean." Nue breathed a sigh of relief.

"Sasuke." Nue's voice returned to its elegant and calm state, though the corners of its eyes were still twitching slightly, "Send me back."

Naruto, who had been squatting nearby watching for a long time, pointed at Nue as it prepared to wipe its wings again and shouted, "This guy seems even more pretentious than you, Sasuke!"

Nue turned its head to glare at him: "Yellow-hair, what did you just say?!"

"I said you're pretentious! Even more than Sasuke—"

A bolt of blue lightning struck right beside Naruto's feet.

"If you speak out of turn again, the next strike won't be the ground."

Just then, a swarm of palm-sized flying insects surged from deep within the woods, the buzzing of their wings growing louder as they approached.

Nue whipped its head around, dark purple lightning erupting from deep within its throat, enveloping the entire swarm in mid-air.

When the lightning dissipated, all the insects had turned to ash, drifting evenly through the air.

"Rabble." Nue retracted its wings and landed elegantly in place.

Nue looked down and saw a stem that had been crawled over by insects, the edges of the holes eaten into the leaves jagged and uneven.

"Too ugly." Nue's voice began to tremble.

"The damaged edges are irregular, there are four holes on the left, and only three on the right..."

Nue suddenly snapped, using its claws to try and nudge the holes in the leaf back into symmetry.

"Why! Why can't you be bitten symmetrically!" Its claw poked into the largest hole.

At this moment, Naruto turned the corner after finishing off the insects on his side, happening to walk along the edge of the mossy ground, stepping onto a patch of newly grown moss. One foot landed, leaving a clear footprint.

"Hm?" Naruto walked forward, oblivious. Nue suddenly appeared behind him, wings spread, its orange pupils fixed intently on the footprint in the moss.

"Human tracks." Nue's voice was shaking, "Irregular shapes..."

It lunged, poking the tip of its wing at the footprint: "Give me back my symmetry!"

Naruto stepped back, his heel scraping against the pebble-strewn ground.

A few small stones were kicked away, scattering into an irregular shape.

Nue turned its head stiffly, dove toward the stones, and swiped at them rapidly with its claws.

It successfully arranged the stones into a perfect line with equal spacing between each and a neat gradient of color.

Sasuke watched as Nue placed the last stone precisely at the end of the line, then wedged the neatly arranged stones one by one into the cracks in the ground to secure them, finally letting out a long breath.

"Comforting."

Seeing Nue like this, Naruto was utterly speechless.

"I'm telling you, Sasuke, why is your summoning beast like this..."

"It's not cute at all. Black Dog is much cuter."

"Yellow-hair." Nue elegantly turned its face away, "Your appearance is truly too hideous."

"It's a good thing I don't have to get my hands dirty cleaning you up, otherwise I'd be afraid of catching your bad luck."

Naruto wiped his face clean and glared at Nue, about to retort, when White Dog trotted back from the other side of the woods with a bag of collected insect eggs in its mouth.

"Are you two done fighting yet? We've already filled five baskets with cocoons on our side. Oh, and we brought your backpack."

Black Dog followed behind, carrying Naruto's backpack in its mouth.

It dropped the bag at Naruto's feet and glanced at Nue: "If you're not busy, help me turn the soil in the herb garden over there."

"Tilling the soil?" Nue looked down in disbelief. "What obligation do I have to participate in such menial labor?"

"Because we are companions." Black Dog offered no further explanation.

Nue froze in place, its crest feathers flaring up even more than before.

It anxiously pressed down on every remaining leaf fragment on the ground, pacing back and forth several times.

White Dog looked back and grinned at it: "You look pathetic, you elegant freak bird."

Nue abruptly pulled in its wings, forcing itself to stand tall: "...Companions? Fine, Black, I can help you with your tasks, but I will not touch the mud!"

Sakura was busy transplanting a slightly withered medicinal seedling into the newly dug herb garden with Round Deer when she couldn't help but laugh out loud at the conversation.

"Sasuke's summons really are one more stubborn than the next."

A faint sound of friction against the ground suddenly came from overhead.

A flash of black light crossed Sasuke's eyes. White Dog had already reflexively pressed its ears against the ground, and after a few breaths, it tilted its head and let out a low whimper toward him.

Across the Naka River in the tall grass, Kakashi leaned against a tree trunk, flipping through his book, then looked up and glanced toward the forest field.

"Not bad, they didn't ruin all the medicinal herbs."

Anko crouched on a nearby branch, having already finished the dango in her hand, and crumpled the empty paper bag into a ball.

She looked toward the forest field, then at the tall grass in the distance, her brow furrowing slightly.

"Those small fries are quite persistent; they haven't grown tired of watching for a month."

"Can't be helped. Danzo was even tailed by Escaping Rabbit while going to the bathroom. Now that they've finally found an opportunity, they're turning the tables to monitor Sasuke."

Kakashi tilted his head: "Let them watch. Sasuke doesn't care anyway."

Anko let out a snort of laughter: "Kakashi-senpai, where did you get the news that Danzo was tailed by Escaping Rabbit while going to the bathroom?"

Kakashi looked toward the sky: "Hmm... you know, I was still in the Anbu not long ago."

"And the Anbu can ask Escaping Rabbit for intelligence."

At the edge of the forest field, the shadow clones of Escaping Rabbit had finished all the designated areas.

Each Escaping Rabbit crouched at its assigned task coordinate, piling the collected pest carcasses into standard conical mounds.

The original Escaping Rabbit crouched at the entrance of the forest, tilting its head as it watched Nue trying to break a jagged piece of insect carapace into a perfect hexagon.

"Nue is so serious."

Nue did not answer; all its energy was focused on that piece of carapace.

Sasuke stood in the center of the forest field, looking at the receipt list handed over by the Escaping Rabbits.

Ten baskets of insect eggs, seven piles of pest carcasses, and forty-two damaged medicinal herbs, twenty-six of which were repairable and had already been replanted in the herb garden.

Nue landed gracefully behind Sasuke, its tail feathers spreading out over the gravel ground like a magnificent, dark green skirt.

"Sasuke, I must declare one thing."

"Speak."

"I cannot tolerate the slightest imperfection. Since I really must accompany you to deal with such filthy things in the future, the mission site must be cleaned up in advance. Otherwise, I would rather you call that reckless brute, the black one."

White Dog turned back and glared at it: "Who is a reckless brute! You obsessive-compulsive freak bird!"

"I speak the truth." Nue elegantly preened its crest feathers, which had been ruffled by the wind. "At least I am better than certain beasts that cannot even lick their own tails clean."

"You--"

White Dog was pinned down by a paw from Black Dog.

"You can't beat it," Black Dog said calmly.

"Who says I can't beat it!"

"It can fly."

White Dog shut its mouth.

Round Deer crouched beside Sasuke, the insect shadows seen by its four eyes gradually dissipating.

"The number of treatments today was not high, and the damage rate of the medicinal herbs was kept under ten percent." Round Deer's voice was steady, without any darting eyes—among the familiar Shikigami, it was no longer socially anxious.

"Although Nue talks a lot, its efficiency in killing insects is very high." Sasuke folded the task receipt handed to him by Escaping Rabbit.

"It's just that it has to curse the insects before every attack; it's too noisy."

"I am merely performing my duties with a sense of ritual!" Nue's voice came from overhead.

Nue was standing on a large rock, looking down and grooming its wingtip feathers with extreme seriousness, its posture exuding an indescribable arrogance.

"The way a pest dies should be commensurate with its filthy life."

Naruto looked up at the bird, the corners of his mouth twitching twice: "Then next time, can you stop blowing things up right in front of me? Insect juice is splashing all over my face."

"Oh." Nue paused, its crest feathers drooping slightly, and for once, it didn't talk back.

Hidden in the tree canopy not far away were two figures, both wearing the standard black short-sleeved uniforms of the Root, with animal masks on their faces.

One wore a Wolf Mask, and the other wore a Badger Mask.

"The target is currently using summoning creatures to carry out a cleanup mission."

Badger Face lowered his voice, reporting into the miniature communication device at his collar.

"There are five summoning creatures observed so far—a pair of black and white hounds, a group of white rabbits, a giant brown deer, and an Orange Bird."

"The Orange Bird has not appeared in Konoha before; it is suspected to be a new type of summoning creature," Danzo's deep voice came through the communication device.

"Continue observation. Focus on Sasuke Uchiha's chakra consumption and the autonomous range of the summoning creatures."

"Understood."

Danzo looked at the notebook in his hand, which recorded every detail of Sasuke Uchiha.

"Orochimaru, do you want to take Sasuke away?"

"If the Uchiha were to fall into your hands... I will not let you have your way."

"Heh, if I kill him now, perhaps you wouldn't attack Konoha."

"Therefore, the moment you attack Konoha, I will definitely kill Sasuke Uchiha!"