Infiltration of the Root

Senju Shinichi had a notebook he never let out of his sight. Its cover was kraft paper, its corners worn white, and its pages were densely filled with shorthand symbols only he could understand, chakra circulation diagrams, and networks of personal connections. The first half contained training plans and bloodline analyses; the second half contained every deployment detail he knew about Konoha's ANBU, Root, and patrol teams. Every night before bed, he opened it to update a few lines without fail.

But over the past week, the second half of that notebook had expanded at an alarming rate.

It had started with an extracurricular assignment Iruka Umino gave in class—"Observe and record the daily work processes of ninjas in different professions within Leaf Village, then write an observation report of no fewer than five hundred words." Most students chose to observe their parents or neighbors. Sakura Haruno observed her mother's paperwork in the medical unit. Shikamaru Nara had not even bothered observing anything and simply submitted something based on his imagination, yet Iruka had still rated it excellent—Iruka had never given Nara Clan homework anything below the second-highest grade since childhood. But Shinichi chose a subject that made Iruka's eyelid twitch the moment he saw it: the Konoha Police Force Night Patrol.

While grading the assignments, Iruka saw Shinichi's title and drew a question mark beside "Night Patrol" in red pen, but he did not send it back for revision. When he mentioned it to Mizuki in the teachers' office, he said, "Senju did submit observation records on the patrol team. He even organized the routes and shift-change times in great detail." After saying that, he paused himself, as though sensing that something was not quite right, though he could not put his finger on it. In the end, he concluded, "Senju Shinichi really is more diligent than ordinary new students."

Iruka was half right. Shinichi's observation report was indeed extremely detailed—how many people were in each patrol shift, when they changed shifts, which routes they took, and which areas were blind spots were all clearly marked. But the version he handed in was only an edited copy. The true complete version was in his notebook. This week, the people he had truly been observing were not the patrol teams, but the figures the patrol teams had never noticed—black cloaks flashing through dark alleys, masked shadows leaping across rooftops at a particular rhythm, and black-clad men silently pouring out of an abandoned warehouse in the village's southeastern corner at exactly two in the morning every night.

A peripheral Root stronghold. A stronghold that did not exist on Konoha's official maps, yet had people entering and leaving on a fixed schedule every night.

Shinichi crouched in the crown of an old camphor tree, his back against the trunk. One hand held a branch while the other rapidly sketched in his notebook. This was an abandoned warehouse district in the southeastern corner of Leaf Village, not far from where he had encountered a Root transport team near the edge of the Death Forest. Ever since discovering this stronghold, he had used a Shadow Clone to sleep in his place at the orphanage every night, while his real body kept watch from this camphor tree. After staking it out for an entire week, he had figured out every pattern of the stronghold.

Twelve people entered and exited every night, divided into four groups. The first group left at ten in the evening, heading north; the second departed at eleven-thirty, taking the western route; the third set out at one in the morning, remaining in the village alleys; the fourth returned at two-thirty, bringing supplies back. Shift changes were precise to the minute, patrol routes were entirely fixed, and the two people responsible for outer security never looked up into the trees. He had even given the frequently appearing members code names—one who walked with a slight limp was "Lamefoot," one with a scratch across his mask was "Split Face," one who always rushed out first to stand guard was "Vanguard," and another who always lagged behind during shift changes and walked carelessly was "Last Place."

"Vanguard. Estimated shift-change time: around twelve-thirty in the morning. Paired with Lamefoot, the two are responsible for guarding the southern side of the stronghold. An old injury to Lamefoot's right leg affects his lateral movement speed. He cannot catch someone making turns at full speed." Shinichi finished the final note in his notebook, capped his pen, and tucked the notebook into his clothes. In his previous life, his greatest strength as a product manager at an internet company had been data analysis—organizing a mass of disorderly raw data into clear tables, finding patterns, and setting priorities. What he was doing now was actually the same thing, except he had replaced user behavior data with the movement patterns of Root ninjas.

The term "hunting list" sounded bloody, but his definition of it was closer to a "risk management list"—priorities were not ranked by strength, but by threat level. High-threat targets were dealt with first, low-threat targets later, and those who posed no threat were not listed at all. Feng Jian had been the first. At the time, he had not yet established a complete assessment system, so it had only been an impulsive decision. Tiger Mask had been the second because he had posed a direct threat to Naruto Uzumaki. What Shinichi wanted to establish now was a systematic evaluation mechanism: every Root member's threat index, behavioral patterns, weakness analysis, and priority for handling.

Take Vanguard, whom he had focused on observing tonight. According to fragments of Tiger Mask's memories, this man was a peripheral security officer in Root, responsible for protecting transport teams. He had not personally participated in human experiments, but he knew the details and had repeatedly provided armed escorts for test subject transports. Medium threat index, medium handling priority, and the best time to deal with him would be when he was carrying out an outer-perimeter assignment alone.

Then there was Lamefoot. Most people with masks on their faces gave away no clear expression, but every time Lamefoot separated from the others at the stronghold entrance, he lingered for a few extra seconds, as if hesitating over whether to say goodbye to his companions. That sense of hesitation made Shinichi feel that he was not as efficient and cold-blooded as the other Root members. According to Tiger Mask's memories, Lamefoot had once secretly returned to a battlefield after a mission was called off to collect a comrade's body. Within Root, that had been regarded as "weakness." Yet Shinichi had not added this man, whom Root itself had judged weak, to the hunting list.

Observe him for a few more days. He mentally marked Lamefoot for postponement, then closed his notebook.

The last light by the distant stronghold entrance went out. Tonight's shift change was over. It was time to return to the orphanage.

He slid down from the camphor tree and landed without a sound, bypassed three alleys and two patrol teams, climbed in through the kitchen's rear window, and stepped over the third stair that creaked. When he lay back down in bed, the blankets were still slightly warm—the Shadow Clone had remained beneath them to maintain their temperature. This was a new technique he had recently invented. A Shadow Clone could not be maintained indefinitely, and once it automatically dispersed during sleep, the blankets would go cold. So the final action he preset before the clone vanished was to wrap the blankets tightly around itself. The result was that the blankets were a little less cold than they would have been without a Shadow Clone. At least they did not freeze his feet.

He lay down, tucked the notebook beneath his pillow, and stared at the crack in the ceiling. Tonight's gains—the stronghold personnel roster had been completely mapped out, and the movement patterns of all twelve people in the four groups had been fully recorded. Next, he only needed to continue tracking and confirm each person's periods of solitary movement, and the hunting list could officially begin. Not killing. Removing threats. There could not be any more Root eyes watching Naruto. Danzo might not have given up on coveting the Nine-Tails' jinchuriki, and Shinichi's job was to pluck out all those eyes before Danzo noticed.

Moonlight shone through a hole in the window, falling directly on the Hokage's personal insignia beside his pillow and reflecting a small patch of silvery-white light. He turned over, buried his face in the pillow that had taken on the grassy scent of his own body, and closed his eyes. There was still class tomorrow, and after school, he had to take Naruto and Sasuke out for throwing practice.

He needed to get a move on with this nighttime side job.