Yakushi Yeyue Steps into the Bait Field

"Someone entered the clan grounds last night."

Chiba pushed the stone box back beneath the floorboards, leaving the photograph tucked in his sleeve. The name on the back was exactly the same as his own.

The shrine seals had not sounded an alarm, nor had his sensing roots detected any footsteps.

The intruder had bypassed his arrangements, yet only slipped a photograph into the wooden plaque. Clearly, they were waiting for him to investigate on his own.

"Chiba, get into the classroom."

Iruka stood by the door, with a boy clutching old textbooks behind him.

"We have a new transfer student today. Don't linger in the hallway."

Chiba glanced over the textbook. The color of its worn cover matched the paper scraps along the photograph's edge.

The boy followed Iruka up to the podium. He set down his textbook first, then gave the students a slight bow.

"My name is Yakushi Yeyue. I used to live in an orphanage in northern Konoha. Please take care of me."

Naruto was the first to raise his hand.

"You lived in an orphanage too? Then can you cook? I only know how to make instant noodles."

"I can make porridge and treat simple injuries."

"Great! Sit next to me, then. Sasuke never lends me his notes."

"The teacher assigns the seats."

Iruka looked around the room before pointing at the empty seat in the last row.

"Yeyue, sit next to Chiba for now. You can share his textbooks if you're missing any."

Yakushi Yeyue picked up his books. When he reached Chiba's side, he did not strike up a conversation.

He wiped the dust from the edge of the desk first, then carefully separated and arranged their books. His movements matched the habits of someone who had lived in a communal dormitory for years.

"This one is yours."

Chiba pushed the old textbook back to him.

"The teacher said we can share. A few pages are missing from mine, but it won't affect your reading."

"Which pages are missing?"

"The chakra pathways and basic bandaging. The kids at the orphanage tore them out to fold paper."

Yakushi Yeyue opened the textbook. Fresh tears remained along the damaged section.

The pages had not been casually ripped out by children. Their edges were neatly cut, and the missing content happened to cover cell extraction and blood treatment.

"Your hand is injured."

Yeyue looked at Chiba's right hand, where a shallow cut remained from forcing his sensing roots last night.

"A paper cut."

"There are wood splinters in the wound. You should wash it clean."

"You know quite a lot."

"The orphanage lacked medical ninja. We had to deal with fevers and injuries ourselves."

Yeyue took out a roll of clean bandages and placed it between their two desks.

"If you don't like others touching you, you can bandage it yourself."

Chiba picked up the bandages and sniffed them. There was no medicinal smell, nor any chakra that could be used for tracking.

"Thanks."

Yeyue watched him for a moment before opening his notebook.

Throughout the lesson, the new student did not speak to him again. Whenever Iruka filled the blackboard, he simply pushed his neatly organized notes to the center of the desk.

The handwriting had been deliberately made childish, but there were no mistakes in the terminology.

When the lunch bell rang, Naruto squeezed over with his lunchbox in hand.

"Yeyue, can you really treat injuries? Kiba got bitten by Akamaru during training yesterday."

Kiba sprang up from the back row.

"Akamaru was practicing coordination! Who told you to blab?"

"The hole in your pant leg is still there."

"Better than falling into a river like you."

Yakushi Yeyue took two rice balls from his lunchbox and handed one to Naruto.

"The Inuzuka Clan's ninja dogs do not bite their owners for no reason. The wound was most likely caused by training equipment."

Kiba was about to argue, but when he lowered his head and saw the rice ball, he swallowed his words.

"Are there any more?"

"Only one left."

Yeyue placed the last one beside Chiba's desk.

"I made too much this morning. You can have it if you don't mind."

"What about you?"

"I tasted some in the kitchen."

Chiba broke open the rice ball. Inside were only pickled vegetables, while the rice carried the scorched flavor of the large communal pots used in orphanages.

To imitate it this perfectly, Danzo had truly put thought into selecting his hidden pawn.

"Are you like this with everyone?"

Yeyue's hands slowed by half a beat as he packed up his lunchbox.

"At the orphanage, if you shared food, someone would fetch water for you the next time you got sick."

"This isn't an orphanage."

"I know."

"Then why give it to me?"

Yeyue closed his lunchbox and avoided his gaze.

"The teacher said you lived alone in the Senju Clan Grounds. I thought no one cooked for you either."

Naruto reached for the remaining half of the rice ball.

"If he doesn't want it, give it to me. I don't mind."

Chiba slapped Naruto's hand away and finished the rice ball.

"It tastes average."

Yeyue pushed over his water bottle.

"I'll use less salt tomorrow."

With one sentence, he made bringing lunch again tomorrow seem perfectly natural.

Chiba took a sip of water and set the bottle back where it had been.

"Make it sweet tomorrow."

"The orphanage doesn't have sugar. I'd have to buy some."

"Then forget it."

"I can try."

Naruto watched them for a long while before finally leaning in close.

"You've already arranged lunch for tomorrow?"

"Shut up."

"Why can he bring you lunch as soon as he gets here, but I've asked you to go to the river so many times and you never go?"

Chiba grabbed Naruto by the collar and shoved him back into the aisle.

"Because he isn't noisy."

Before lunch break ended, Yeyue went to the washroom to clean his lunchbox.

Chiba opened the other boy's old textbook. A small amount of medicinal powder had been left in the layer between the missing pages, with ingredients similar to the wound-revealing agent commonly used by the medical department.

The powder would change color upon contact with blood.

The bandages were fine. The textbook was the tool meant to confirm the speed of his blood recovery.

Chiba closed the book and pressed his palm to the underside of the desk.

Thin vines burrowed into the ground, tracing toward the washroom in search of Yeyue's chakra trail.

The other boy had not deliberately erased his route, but he had paused at three locations along the way: near the teachers' office, the school infirmary, and the back gate.

Each was suitable for leaving a contact signal.

Before school ended, Iruka assigned the two of them to organize the equipment room.

Yeyue carried wooden targets ahead of him. When his sleeve slipped down, several old scars were exposed on his arm.

The scars were scattered irregularly. Some had been caused by blades, while others looked like burns from failed training.

"Does the orphanage teach children to dodge kunai?"

Chiba closed the equipment room door.

Yeyue leaned the wooden targets against the wall.

"Wandering ninja often appear near the border. If you can't dodge, you die."

"You dodged well."

"Everyone who survives is capable."

"Did you sleep well last night?"

Yeyue bent down to pick up the scattered shuriken.

"The new place is close to the school. Someone in the courtyard talked in their sleep. It only became quiet in the latter half of the night."

"What did they say in their sleep?"

"I couldn't hear it clearly. Why do you ask?"

"I didn't sleep last night either."

Chiba raised his right hand, revealing the wound that had already healed.

"There are always bugs on the eastern side of the clan grounds. They even crawl into my clothes when I train."

Yeyue stared at the wound for a while.

"This morning's injury has already healed?"

"My Sage Body recovers quickly. That isn't a secret."

"You train alone at night too?"

"People watch during the day. I don't like it."

Chiba put the last shuriken back into its box.

"The eastern side of the clan grounds is near an abandoned well. The groundwater can replenish Wood Release. When I train, I retract all my surveillance roots."

Yeyue's breathing faltered for a beat, and the wooden target in his hands bumped against the wall.

"You're telling me this? Aren't you afraid I'll tell someone?"

"You have things you don't want people to know too."

Chiba looked at his old textbook.

"Those missing pages weren't used for folding paper, were they?"

Yeyue hugged the textbook tightly, and some of the gentleness left his face.

"You went through my things?"

"The book was on my desk."

"Those pages recorded the orphanage's medicinal formulas. The director forbade them from being shared, so I had no choice but to tear them out."

"I'm not interested."

Chiba pulled open the equipment room door.

"Don't come to the clan grounds tonight. I can't control the Poison Vine very well when I train."

Yeyue did not follow him.

"Why would I go there?"

"That's why I'm telling you not to."

Naruto's shouts came from the hallway. Chiba did not stay any longer, slung his bag over his shoulder, and left the school building.

After returning to the clan grounds, he first grew paralyzing vines, then had burning vines bore into the soil on the eastern side.

Sleep vines hid beneath the eaves, while hardened vine tips sealed off the routes around the abandoned well.

The different root systems were kept apart, leaving only a patch of open ground in the middle for someone to stand on.

[Composite Toxin Combat Testing Ground established.]

"Hide the system prompt. The person coming tonight may not be an enemy."

Chiba placed Photograph No. 74 inside the eastern wooden cabin, with the Senju wooden plaque beside it.

If Yakushi Yeyue came to retrieve the photograph, it would confirm that he and the sender belonged to the same line.

If the visitor headed straight for the abandoned well, then what Danzo wanted was Root System Water Absorption or the shrine entrance.

The final possibility was that Yeyue would do nothing and let other Root members scout the way for him.

After night covered the clan grounds, Chiba sat beneath the shrine's stone steps and connected his senses to every thin root.

Weight soon came through from the eastern courtyard wall.

After landing, the visitor neither approached the abandoned well nor searched for the photograph.

Those footsteps headed directly toward the shrine where Chiba was hiding and stopped outside the sealed door.

"Chiba, I know you're in there."

Yakushi Yeyue placed the old textbook on the threshold, tore open the layer inside its cover, and revealed another experimental photograph labeled No. 74.

"The one who wants to kill you tonight isn't Root. It's the person in this photograph, who is still alive."