The Birds Had Gone Silent

The two-day journey had been more exhausting than they'd expected.

The terrain along the Land of Birds' border was complicated. The main road ended halfway there, leaving nothing but rocky trails.

Jiraiya was the first to collapse.

He sprawled across a rock by the roadside, legs dangling, looking like a scallion wilted under the sun.

"Let's rest... Just for a little while... My legs aren't mine anymore..."

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Tsunade was doing better than him, but only slightly.

She braced her hands on her knees and panted. Damp strands of hair clung to her forehead, and her lips had gone pale, but she gritted her teeth and didn't say a word.

Murakami Takuya didn't look back. "There's a stream two kilometers ahead. We'll rest when we get there."

Jiraiya let out a wail.

Tsunade turned and shot him a glare.

Kitahara Kaede brought up the rear, breathing steadily.

He pulled a Military Ration Pill from his ninja pouch, broke it in half, popped one piece into his mouth, and offered the other to Tsunade.

She took it and looked at him.

"Aren't you tired?"

"I'm fine."

She didn't make a fuss. She popped it into her mouth and chewed.

It tasted bitter enough to make her face scrunch up, but once she swallowed it, her legs really did stop shaking.

Jiraiya raised a hand. "I—"

"You have your own."

"I ran out."

"Before we left, I told you to bring three."

"I did! I ate two when I got hungry on the way, then ate the last one when I got thirsty—"

"That's your problem."

Jiraiya opened his mouth, realized he had no comeback, and wilted even further.

Tsunade snorted, rummaged in her pack, and tossed him half a piece of hardtack.

"Don't die on the road. It'd be embarrassing."

Jiraiya caught it, his eyes lighting up. "Tsunade, you really—"

"Say one more word and I'll take it back."

Jiraiya shut his mouth and wolfed it down faster than anyone.

Kitahara Kaede glanced at Tsunade.

Tough on the outside, soft on the inside. She hadn't changed since they were kids.

They made camp by the stream.

At Murakami Takuya's command, Jiraiya flopped facedown onto the grass and didn't move. He started snoring faster than they could put up a tent.

Tsunade dropped her pack and kicked him. "At least turn your head. If you suffocate, who's going to answer for it?"

Jiraiya mumbled something, turned his face to the side, and went on sleeping.

Tsunade couldn't be bothered with him and crouched to pitch her tent.

Kitahara Kaede didn't stop.

He set his pack beside Tsunade's, then circled the camp.

Then he got to work setting things up.

He strung thin wires along the northern edge of the woods: three tripwires at irregular intervals and different heights, with empty cans and bits of rock tied to their ends.

He wedged a smoke bomb upstream, where anyone wading through the water would set it off.

In less than ten minutes, he'd set up an early-warning perimeter around the camp.

Tsunade had finished pitching her tent. When she turned around, she saw him returning from the northern edge of the woods, mud still on his hands.

"What were you doing just now?"

"Setting up a few things."

She walked to the northern edge of the woods and crouched, scanning the ground.

At first, she didn't see anything.

Then she spotted the first wire, so thin it nearly blended in with the dead grass. It was positioned right at an adult's shin height—anyone charging through would trip at least once.

And the three wires weren't parallel. They crossed one another.

Trip over the first, and you'd hit the second when you got back up.

She looked back at Kitahara Kaede.

When had her classmate, the Genin who'd graduated from the Ninja Academy with her and spent three months catching fat cats alongside her, learned to do this?

"They never taught us this kind of setup at the Ninja Academy."

"I read it in a book." Kitahara Kaede kept a straight face as he crouched by the stream to wash the mud from his hands.

Tsunade stared at him for two seconds.

His expression was the same as always, calm and unreadable. There was no difference between his face when he lied and when he told the truth.

She opened her mouth, wanting to press him.

But in the end, she didn't.

She turned and headed back toward the tents, kicking Jiraiya again as she passed.

"Get up and set up your own tent."

"Five minutes... Give me five more minutes..."

"Three seconds. Three, two—"

Murakami Takuya leaned against a tree, one hand resting on his sword hilt. His gaze shifted away from Kitahara Kaede.

The tripwires weren't evenly spaced. They were positioned to cover the terrain's blind spots.

Visibility was worst to the north, so he'd set three wires there. The south was open, so he'd placed just one.

The way this boy had arranged things came from experience earned with his life on the line—using limited resources to cover the most dangerous direction.

It wasn't something you could learn from a book.

This kid... Was this really his first time leaving the village?

By the time the campfire was lit, night had fallen completely.

Tsunade squatted by the fire, chewing on hardtack. She frowned after a couple of bites.

"It's like chewing on wood."

"It'll do."

"When we get back, I'm having three bowls of pork bone ramen. With an egg."

"Your treat."

"Why should I?"

"You still haven't paid up on that bet you lost last time."

Tsunade choked on her words and decided not to answer. She lowered her head and took a huge bite of hardtack, as if taking out her frustration on it.

Jiraiya had long since fallen fast asleep, snoring louder with every breath.

Kitahara Kaede noticed that he still had that shabby notebook clutched in his hand. The open page showed a crooked stick figure, with a line written beside it: "Heroic pose of a hero descending from the heavens (to be decided)."

Kitahara Kaede closed the notebook.

The fire crackled, and the night wind carried the sound of the stream.

Tsunade finished her hardtack and sat with her arms wrapped around her knees.

"Those wandering samurai... You think they're really just ordinary people?"

"I don't know."

"The mission said there were seven to ten of them."

"Mm."

"That shouldn't be too hard, right?"

Kitahara Kaede added a log to the fire.

"I don't know."

Tsunade turned her head to look at him. The firelight reflected off his profile, his expression unchanged.

But his hand paused as he added the log—briefly, for less than a second.

She wanted to say something, but her eyelids betrayed her first.

Her upper and lower eyelids wrestled, and the upper one won.

"Go to sleep first," Kitahara Kaede said.

"I'm not tired."

The moment the words left her mouth, her head drooped against her will.

She jerked upright.

"I'm really not tired."

Kitahara Kaede didn't call her out.

A minute later, her eyes closed again.

This time, she didn't sit back up. Her body slowly leaned to the side, like a little tree bending under the wind, falling ever so slowly.

Kitahara Kaede didn't move.

Only when she'd shifted her weight completely did he lean slightly to the side, letting her head rest against his shoulder.

His movements were gentle.

A few strands had come loose from her ponytail and rested on his arm.

The firelight cast their overlapping shadows onto the grass behind them.

The wind passed, and the shadows swayed, but their silhouettes stayed joined.

Murakami Takuya sat a few meters away, his sword across his legs.

He glanced over, then looked away.

"You take the first half of the night. I'll take the second."

Kitahara Kaede nodded.

They sat in silence for a while.

"I set three tripwires on the north side of the camp—"

"I saw them," Murakami Takuya cut in, his voice calm. "Nice work."

Kitahara Kaede didn't reply.

Tsunade's steady breathing brushed his shoulder, soft and warm.

The fire burned brightly.

A night like this was actually quite nice.

The second half of the night.

Murakami Takuya took over.

Kitahara Kaede gently moved Tsunade's head from his shoulder onto a rolled-up pack, handling her even more carefully than he'd set the tripwires.

Tsunade's brow furrowed, and she mumbled something under her breath.

"...Don't steal my... candy..."

Kitahara Kaede's hand paused. The corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn't quite smile.

He leaned against a tree and closed his eyes, not really sleeping, keeping watch on his surroundings.

Before dawn.

The birds in the northern woods stopped calling.

They'd been chirping on and off before—tits and nightingales, the usual nighttime background noise.

Now they were all gone.

It was as if something had wiped the sound from the woods.

Kitahara Kaede opened his eyes and looked toward Murakami Takuya.

Murakami Takuya was watching the north as well.

Their eyes met.

Murakami Takuya gave a slight nod.

Kitahara Kaede reached into his ninja pouch.

A faint mist began to rise over the stream.

Thirty meters, twenty-five meters, twenty meters—

The sound of grass snapping underfoot was faint.

There was more than one person.

Kitahara Kaede's right hand flashed. A Shuriken shot toward the north.

At the same time, his left foot kicked Jiraiya in the back.

"Get up!"

The Shuriken struck something, ringing out with a sharp metallic clang.

It had been deflected.

Figures burst out of the faint mist.

Shadows surged in from three sides at once, blades tracing arcs through the air.

Tsunade suddenly sat up, her pupils contracting.

Kitahara Kaede had already appeared beside her.

Murakami Takuya drew his sword.

"Enemy attack!"