Infiltrating Alone

At three in the morning, on the edge of the Death Forest.

Shinichi stopped beneath an ancient tree that would have taken five people linking arms to encircle. He placed his backpack in a natural hollow formed by the protruding roots. There were still two soldier pills, a roll of bandages, and a water flask inside—enough for Naruto Uzumaki in an emergency. The kid was currently wrapped in the old blanket Shinichi had swiped from the orphanage before leaving, sleeping soundly against the trunk with his mouth slightly open. Drool trickled from the corner of his lips, glinting in the moonlight.

"Naruto." Shinichi crouched and nudged his shoulder.

Naruto did not wake. He merely rolled over and mumbled, "Char siu, don't run away," before continuing to sleep.

After a moment of silence, Shinichi picked up a thin twig from the ground and lightly brushed Naruto's nose with its leafy end. Naruto sneezed and sat upright, nearly slamming his forehead into Shinichi's chin.

"Are we there?! Did we reach the slugs?!" He rubbed his eyes and looked around. His hair was sticking up even more outrageously than it had during the day, making him look like a golden hedgehog that had just been rudely awakened.

"Not yet. I'm going on alone from here." Shinichi took three shuriken from his ninja tool pouch and set them beside Naruto.

"Why? I can help too!" Naruto scrambled out from under the blanket, his voice especially jarring in the silent woods.

"Because it's cramped in there." Shinichi pressed a hand to his shoulder, using the calm tone he always used when speaking to Naruto. "Too many people won't be able to move freely. Stay here and guard my backpack—if I'm not back before dawn, follow the way we came and return to the village to find the Third."

Naruto opened his mouth, wanting to argue further, but he heard the absolute finality in that tone. He clenched the shuriken tightly, their edges pressing pale marks into his palms.

"I'll definitely be back before dawn." Shinichi stood and loosened his wrists and ankles. His body had entered a combat-ready state—his breathing slowed, his chakra pathways relaxed, and chakra began circulating faster through every limb and bone. The chakra pathways enhanced by Hashirama Cells were exceptionally elastic in this state, like a fully drawn bowstring ready to launch him at any moment. He formed a one-handed seal and slapped the ground. With a bang, three Shadow Clones appeared before him, standing steadily in a row.

Naruto's eyes went wide. "Three?!"

The three Shadow Clones spoke at once, their voices identical. "Stay here and protect my backpack." Naruto gaped, looking as though he were wondering why even Shadow Clones could order him around. But before he could protest, Shinichi's real body had already vanished into the dense forest ahead. Only a few scraps of grass-scented leaves stirred by the lingering chakra beneath his feet remained behind.

The depths of the Death Forest were practically a different world from its outskirts. At the edge, moonlight could still be seen filtering through the leaves in scattered patches, but farther in, it was an all-consuming darkness. The canopy was so dense that even the midday sun could only cast mottled flecks of light upon the ground, let alone at three in the morning. The humidity in the air rose sharply, and every breath felt like inhaling a towel freshly pulled from a washing machine. A thick layer of rotting leaves covered the ground, soft beneath his feet. Now and then, the white bones of unknown animals could be seen half-buried in the mud. Glowing moss and strangely shaped fungi crawled over the tree trunks. Some mushroom caps were as large as opened old umbrellas, with strings of spores hanging from their edges and dripping blue liquid.

Shinichi moved through the forest, not quickly, but with utter steadiness. He did not use the Body Flicker Technique, because its chakra fluctuations would have been like a beacon in this silent woodland, alarming everything hidden in the dark. Every step here could land on venomous insects, trigger a trap, or disturb predatory summoned beasts disguised as deadwood. He relied entirely on his physical abilities and perception—although his Sharingan remained closed, his sensory field had expanded to a radius of nearly twenty meters through repeated nighttime infiltration training. Combined with the wilderness tracking experience he had accumulated over time, it was enough to identify signs of danger in the dark.

After walking for about an hour, he stopped. A swamp lay ahead. Swamps were common in the Death Forest, but this one was unnaturally quiet. There were no croaks, no insect calls, and the surface was as flat as a black mirror. Shinichi picked up a dead branch from the ground and flicked it toward the center of the swamp. Just as it reached a height of around three or four meters above the water, the surface exploded—a giant maw surged from beneath the mud, snapped the branch up, and sank back into the mire in less than a second. Only ripples remained, slowly spreading outward.

Shinichi took two steps back. A Giant-Mouthed Crocodile. A carnivorous summoned beast that lived only in places with extremely high chakra concentrations, its entire body covered in scales capable of absorbing chakra. He could not outrun it, nor could he swim across the swamp. Taking a detour would cost at least two extra hours, while his window was only the four hours before dawn. He crouched and pressed his palm against the mud at the swamp's edge, probing downward with chakra perception. The mud layer was roughly one meter thick, with solid bedrock beneath it. He injected Water Release chakra into the mixture of mud and water, temporarily liquefying it by changing its viscosity, then sank into it. Earth Release chakra then surged from his core, forming a thin shell around him and enclosing his entire body between the bedrock and the mud. He would use Earth Release to travel along the bedrock beneath the swamp.

Earth Style: Earth-Submergence Voyage. In the original work, this had been a signature ninjutsu of the Hidden Stone Village. Shinichi had found its basic method of operation among Tiger Mask's fragmented memories, and after five months of continuous Earth Release development, maintaining an underground voyage through mud for three minutes was no longer a problem.

Three minutes was enough to cross the swamp.

When he emerged from the other side, he was covered from head to toe in black sludge, with several wriggling loaches hanging from his hair. Shinichi plucked them out and tossed them back into the water, wiped his face, and continued onward.

After another fifteen minutes, the vegetation began to change noticeably. The layer of rotting leaves thinned, replaced by silvery-white moss as soft as freshly whipped cream. The moss spread from the ground up the tree trunks, growing denser the deeper he went until the trees' original color could no longer be seen. Shinichi crouched and touched its surface—it was damp, with a trace of warmth. He lowered his head and smelled his fingertips. The scent left on them carried a faint herbal fragrance. It matched the characteristics described in the survey records exactly.

The edge of a Slug Fragment's habitat. He expanded his chakra perception to its limit, like countless invisible tendrils spreading in every direction. Within this region covered in silvery-white moss, every creature's chakra fluctuations became sluggish and gentle. Even his own heartbeat seemed to have been lightly smoothed by some force. Then he sensed that chakra—from deep within an ancient tree hollow not far away came a small cluster of pure Yang-natured energy, like a faint light in the darkness. It was like a lantern, radiating a gentle, ancient pulse.

Shinichi stopped some distance from the tree hollow. He drew a kunai from his ninja tool pouch and gripped it in his right hand, then used his left to wipe away the last clump of mud on his face. The solo infiltration had succeeded, and the Slug Fragment's location had been locked down. There were about two and a half hours left until dawn.

He glanced back in the direction he had come from. There were no unusual chakra fluctuations from Naruto's side, and the perception relayed by the Shadow Clones had not triggered any warning signs. That golden-haired kid, sitting by the roots with shuriken in his arms as he waited for Shinichi to return, was probably fighting a desperate battle against sleepiness.

Shinichi withdrew his gaze and took his first step toward the tree hollow. The warm herbal scent in the air grew stronger, and above this expanse of silvery-white moss, even time itself seemed to slow.