Trap

At the first hint of dawn, Sakumo rose from the rock beside the riverbed. He had not slept the night before, only leaned against the cliff face with his eyes closed for half an hour, never once relaxing his ears.

Yamanaka Mita woke a little later. His long hair hung loose over one shoulder, and he used the tip of a kunai to tuck the stray strands behind his ear, revealing those pale blue eyes. He crouched by the riverbed and pressed his palm against the sand, spreading his chakra to sense the changes around them. Yakushi Tenzan emerged from behind a rock, his lenses clouded with morning mist. He wiped them with the hem of his clothes and put them back on, then took out ration pills from his ninja tool pouch and handed them to the other two.

"Eat up and move. Today, we need to cross that ridge ahead and enter the Land of Grass." Sakumo swallowed the ration pill.

The three headed northwest along the dried-up riverbed. At its end stood a low ridge, where the bare gravel slope gave way to sparse shrubs. As they went farther, the shrubs grew denser, and signs of standing water and marshland began to appear. They had reached the Land of Grass. This land received plentiful rain, and its grass grew thick. When the wind blew, the entire prairie became a green sea, its waves rolling from beneath their feet all the way to the horizon.

Sakumo took the mission document from his clothes. The designated rendezvous point was an abandoned village in the northeast corner of the Land of Grass, close to the Hidden Stone Village border. The village had been razed during the war. No one had returned to rebuild it afterward, leaving only broken walls, collapsed ruins, and wild grass growing unchecked.

"From here, it's still more than half a day's journey to the rendezvous point. We may run into Hidden Stone patrols, or bandits from the Land of Grass. Whoever we meet, avoid them if we can. If we can't, end it quickly."

Mita and Tenzan nodded at the same time.

Viper followed behind them, always maintaining a measured distance. Hatake Sakumo and the other two were all battlefield veterans, highly experienced and extremely sensitive to chakra. Viper did not dare get too close. He suppressed every trace of leaking chakra to the utmost limit, stopping after every stretch of road to confirm their position before taking a wider route to circle around and catch up again.

After noon, the three stopped in a small forest deep within the Land of Grass. The forests here were entirely different from those in the Land of Fire. The trees in the Land of Fire grew tall, straight, and dense, their canopies linked together to block out the sunlight completely. The trees in the Land of Grass were short, crooked, and sparse. Sunlight filtered through gaps in the branches and leaves, casting countless scattered patches of light across the ground.

Mita leaned against a crooked tree. "There's no living chakra ahead."

Sakumo looked at him. "What range?"

"Centered on me, at least one kilometer. But there's a problem. Chakra flow is abnormal in the area to the north. The geological structure there may contain some kind of mineral that interferes with sensory abilities. My perception will be compressed by at least half in that area."

Sakumo took out the map and drew a circle over the northern area with his finger. "The rendezvous point is right inside that area. The informant chose that location because the terrain can interfere with perception. If Hidden Stone is also using sensory-type ninja to search for him, they'll be suppressed too."

Tenzan pushed up his glasses. "In other words, once we enter that area, everyone becomes blind."

"Right. That's why the informant dared to hide there. It's a blind spot for Hidden Stone, and for us too."

The three quickened their pace toward the north.

Before long, the abandoned village came into view.

The village stood atop a low hill. From the foot of the hill, they could vaguely make out burned, collapsed rooftops and half-fallen stone walls.

Sakumo stopped at the foot of the hill and crouched behind a clump of bushes, with Mita and Tenzan crouching on either side of him.

"I'll go up first. You two stay at the foot of the hill and wait for my signal." Sakumo spoke after thinking for a moment.

Mita shook his head. "You can't go up alone. If the informant has already been captured, what's waiting for you up there isn't a rendezvous. It's a trap."

"That's exactly why only one person should go up. If it's a trap, it'll be easier for me to get away alone than with all three of us. You two will cover me from the foot of the hill. If you don't receive my signal within fifteen minutes, retreat immediately and report the situation here to the Third."

Tenzan opened his mouth, then closed it again. Sakumo was right. If all three of them went up and fell into an ambush, there would not even be anyone left to report it. Yet as he watched Sakumo's back climbing the hill alone, his heart still tightened.

Viper lay in a pit along the side of the hill, observing Sakumo through gaps in the wild grass. He reached into his ninja tool pouch and pulled out a bottle of colorless liquid. Before Sakumo left this area, he needed to scatter the liquid along the path Sakumo had taken, so Hidden Stone's ninja hounds could track him by scent.

The abandoned village atop the hill was even more ruined than it had appeared from below. Not a single house remained intact. The stone walls had been blasted halfway down, and the remaining halves were covered in cracks, ready to collapse with a push.

Sakumo stood in the open space at the center of the village, then crouched and touched the ground with his palm. The soil was dry, covered by a thin layer of loose ash. There were no footprints, no drag marks. He rose and swept his gaze across the half-collapsed stone walls around him. There were no codes, no markings, but one wall was missing a stone.

The rubble around the gap bore pry marks. Sakumo walked over to the wall and reached into the opening, his fingertips brushing against something. He pulled it out. It was a small torn strip of cloth, marked with three symbols in charcoal ash: the first was an X-shaped mark meaning "compromised," the second was an arrow, and the third was three parallel wavy lines.

The informant had been here, but his trail had likely been discovered. In his haste, he could only leave a code indicating that the rendezvous location had changed.

Sakumo clenched the cloth strip in his palm and stood up. His gaze passed over the half-collapsed stone walls on the eastern side of the village and settled on the dried-up riverbed from before. The riverbed wound eastward from the foot of the hill, disappearing into a distant patch of dead shrubs. If the informant had followed the riverbed, its gravel would conceal his footprints, while the dried mud would leave no scent.

But that also meant Hidden Stone personnel might be searching along the riverbed. Wait... then this place...

Suddenly, Mita's warning came from the foot of the hill.

"Captain Sakumo! People to the north! A lot of them!"

Sakumo burst from the ruins and raced toward the foot of the hill, moving so fast that gravel flew in every direction beneath his feet. Mita had already risen from behind the bushes, facing the northern ridge. His pale blue eyes reflected the black dots moving along the distant ridgeline.

"At least twenty. Their formation is a standard encirclement. They already know we're here."

Tenzan took out a modified scalpel from his ninja tool pouch. Its blade was longer, narrower, and sharper, while its handle was wrapped in non-slip bandages.

Sakumo stood between them, facing the northern ridgeline. His silver-white hair turned pale gold in the setting sun, and the White Fang short blade had already been drawn from his back.

"Retreat!"

The encirclement began to close in.