The banyan tree's massive aerial roots hung down, breaking the noon sunlight into scattered flecks.
Hyuga Xiao and Kurenai Yuhi held their breath, their figures completely blending into the shadows of the canopy. Thirty meters below, three Root shinobi wearing blank animal masks searched through the bushes in a fan formation. They carried the formaldehyde stench of people who had spent years steeped in underground laboratories, mixed with the rank smell of soil, drifting into Xiao's nostrils on the breeze.
"Direct Soul Search?" Hong lowered her voice, dark red chakra already coiling around her fingertips.
"Too boring." Xiao released his grip on the kunai and pulled two tattered grayish-brown cloaks stained with mud from the sealing scroll at his waist, casually tossing one to Hong. "Put these on. Hounds only spit out the bone when they think they've got their prey in their teeth."
Hong immediately understood Xiao's intent. She took the cloak and draped it over herself, then tore off a strip of bandage and tightly wrapped her eye-catching silver-gray right eye, leaving only one red eye exposed. In an instant, she became a ragged one-eyed female shinobi.
Xiao pulled his hood low, concealing most of his face. He circulated the chakra within his body and subtly adjusted the blood flow through the capillaries in his eyes. Within seconds, his flawless white Byakugan filled with murky red blood vessels, while the azure starlight at the edges of his pupils was completely concealed. He looked like a drifter with depleted chakra and clouded eyes.
Half an hour later. Beside a stream outside a border outpost in the Land of Fire.
A campfire made from fresh branches gave off choking black smoke. Burning pine resin crackled sharply. Xiao and Hong leaned against a moss-covered rock, holding shriveled Soldier Provision Pills as