The Birds Have Stopped Singing

The two-day journey was more exhausting than imagined.

The terrain along the border of the Land of Birds was complex. The main road vanished halfway through, leaving nothing but gravel and wild trails.

Jiraiya was the first to collapse.

He sprawled out on a rock by the roadside, his legs dangling like a scallion wilted by the sun.

"Let's rest for a bit... just a little while... my legs don't feel like they belong to me anymore..."

Tsunade was doing better than him, but only by a small margin.

She braced herself against her knees, gasping for air. Strands of hair were plastered to her forehead by sweat, and her lips were pale, yet she gritted her teeth and didn't utter a single complaint.

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

Jiraiya let out a mournful wail.

Tsunade turned her head and shot him a glare.

Kitahara Kaede walked at the very back, his breathing steady.

He reached into his ninja tool pouch, pulled out a Military Ration Pill, snapped it in half, popped one piece into his mouth, and handed the other to Tsunade.

Tsunade took it and glanced at him.

"Aren't you tired?"

"I'm alright."

She didn't stand on ceremony, tossing it into her mouth and chewing.

The bitterness made her face wrinkle, but after she swallowed it, her legs stopped trembling.

Jiraiya raised his hand. "I—"

"You have your own."

"I finished them."

"I told you to bring three before we set out."

"I did! I ate two when I got hungry on the road, and another one when I got thirsty—"

"That's your problem."

Jiraiya opened his mouth, found he had no rebuttal, and wilted even further.

Tsunade scoffed, dug half a ration bar out of her own pack, and tossed it at him.

"Don't die on the road. It's embarrassing."

Jiraiya's eyes lit up as he caught it. "Tsunade, you really are—"

"Say one more word and I'm taking it back."

Jiraiya shut his mouth and began gnawing on it faster than anyone.

Kitahara Kaede glanced at Tsunade.

She was tough-talking but soft-hearted; she hadn't changed a bit since they were children.

They set up camp by the stream.

At Murakami Takuya's command, Jiraiya collapsed face-down on the grass, motionless, snoring faster than he could set up a tent.

Tsunade took off her pack and kicked him. "At least turn your head. If you suffocate, who's going to take the blame?"

Jiraiya grunted incoherently, turned his face to the side, and kept sleeping.

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

Kitahara Kaede didn't stop.

He placed his pack next to Tsunade's and then circled the campsite.

Then, he began to set things up.

He strung thin wires along the northern edge of the woods—three tripwires, unevenly spaced and at varying heights, with empty cans and gravel tied to the ends.

He wedged a smoke bomb upstream; if anyone waded through the water, it would trigger.

In less than ten minutes, a perimeter of early-warning traps surrounded the camp.

Tsunade finished pitching her tent and turned around just in time to see him walking back from the northern woods, his hands stained with mud.

"What were you doing just now?"

"Setting up a few things."

She walked to the northern edge of the woods, crouched down, and scanned the ground several times.

At first, she saw nothing.

Then, she spotted the first wire. It was so thin it nearly blended in with the withered grass, positioned exactly at the height of an adult's lower leg—anyone charging through would be tripped at least once.

Furthermore, the three wires weren't parallel; they were staggered.

If someone tripped on the first, they would collide with the second while trying to scramble up.

She looked back at Kitahara Kaede.

This fellow genin, who had graduated from the Ninja Academy with her and spent three months catching fat cats together—when did he learn these things?

"The Ninja Academy didn't teach this kind of setup."

"I read it in a book." Kitahara Kaede's expression didn't change as he crouched by the stream to wash the mud off his hands.

Tsunade stared at him for two seconds.

His expression was the same as always—indifferent. There was no difference between when he was lying and when he was telling the truth.

She opened her mouth, wanting to press him for more.

But in the end, she didn't.

She turned around and walked 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, his hand resting on the hilt of his blade, his gaze shifting away from Kitahara Kaede.

The tripwires weren't distributed evenly; they were arranged according to the blind spots of the terrain.

The northern side had the worst visibility, so he'd placed three lines; the southern side was open, so he'd only placed one.

This child's method of deployment was experience earned with one's life in actual combat—investing limited resources into the most dangerous directions.

This wasn't something one could learn from a book.

Could this kid... really be leaving the village for the first time?

By the time the fire was lit, the night had turned pitch black.

Tsunade crouched by the fire, gnawing on a ration bar, frowning every time she chewed.

"It's like chewing on wood."

"It'll do."

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

"You're paying."

"Why should I?"

"You lost a bet last time and haven't paid up yet."

Tsunade choked, decided not to respond, and lowered her head to take a vicious bite of the ration, as if taking her frustration out on the food.

Jiraiya was long dead to the world, his snoring growing louder with every wave.

Kitahara Kaede noticed that even in his sleep, Jiraiya was clutching that tattered notebook. The open page featured a crooked stick figure with a line written next to it: "The cool pose of a hero descending from the sky (TBD)."

Kitahara Kaede closed the page.

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

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

"Do you think those wandering samurai... are really just ordinary people?"

"I don't know."

"The mission scroll says seven to ten people."

"Yeah."

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

Kitahara Kaede added a piece of wood to the fire.

"I don't know."

Tsunade tilted her head to look at him. The firelight reflected off his profile, his expression devoid of fluctuation.

But his hand, which was adding the wood, paused—only for a split second, less than a second.

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

Her upper and lower lids fought a battle, and the top ones won.

"You should sleep first," Kitahara Kaede said.

"I'm not tired."

No sooner had the words left her lips than her head tilted uncontrollably.

She sat up straight with a start.

"Really, I'm not tired."

Kitahara Kaede didn't call her out.

A minute later, her eyelids closed again.

This time she didn't sit back up. Her body slowly leaned to the side, like a small tree bent by the wind, falling very slowly.

Kitahara Kaede didn't move.

Only when her center of gravity had completely shifted did he lean slightly, letting her head rest perfectly on his shoulder.

The movement was very light.

A few strands of her ponytail fell across his arm.

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

The wind blew, and the shadows swayed, but the outlines of the two remained connected.

Murakami Takuya sat a few meters away, his sword resting on his lap.

He glanced at them, then looked away.

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

Kitahara Kaede nodded.

They were quiet for a moment.

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

"I saw them," Murakami Takuya interrupted, his tone calm. "Not bad."

Kitahara Kaede didn't respond.

On his shoulder, he could feel Tsunade's steady breathing, one breath after another, light and warm.

The fire burned brightly.

Nights like this were actually quite nice.

In the second half of the night.

Murakami Takuya took over.

Kitahara Kaede gently moved Tsunade's head from his shoulder to her rolled-up pack, his movements even more careful than when he'd set the tripwires.

Tsunade frowned and mumbled something vaguely.

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

Kitahara Kaede's hand paused, the corners of his mouth twitching, though he didn't truly smile.

He leaned against the tree and closed his eyes, not truly sleeping but remaining alert to his surroundings.

At dawn.

The birds in the northern woods stopped singing.

They had been chirping intermittently before—chickadees, nightingales—the normal background noise of the night.

Now, it was all gone.

It was as if something had wiped the sound out of the woods.

Kitahara Kaede opened his eyes, his gaze sweeping toward Murakami Takuya.

Murakami Takuya was also looking north.

Their eyes met.

Murakami Takuya gave a slight nod.

Kitahara Kaede's hand reached into his ninja tool pouch.

A faint mist began to rise over the stream.

Thirty meters, twenty-five meters, twenty meters—

The sound of grass being crushed was very light.

More than one person.

Kitahara Kaede's right hand surged forward, a shuriken thrusting straight toward the north.

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

"Get up!"

The shuriken struck something, a crisp metallic clatter ringing out.

It had been blocked.

Figures rushed out of the pale mist.

Black shadows surged from three sides simultaneously, the light of blades carving arcs through the air.

Tsunade bolted upright, her pupils constricting sharply.

Kitahara Kaede had already appeared by her side.

Murakami Takuya drew his blade from its scabbard.

"Enemy attack!"