Reconnaissance

The cave Hyuga Ning had found was well hidden. Fugaku Uchiha stepped inside and activated his Sharingan, sweeping his gaze over the entire cave.

Deep inside, Fugaku found the remains of a fire. Shinobi had stayed here before.

He went over and examined the ashes carefully.

"We should leave the cave for now," Fugaku Uchiha said. "This may be a temporary base for shinobi from another country. Someone has stayed here more than once, all within the past few days."

"Captain, what's going on?" Satomaru asked. "Did the enemy leave some clue behind?"

Satomaru had already accompanied Fugaku Uchiha on one mission. He knew Fugaku never joked around during a mission.

Hyuga Ning looked at Fugaku Uchiha, puzzled. He could not tell whether Fugaku was deliberately contradicting him or had genuinely found something.

"You can tell from the ashes," Fugaku Uchiha said. "There are irregular patches of lighter ash around the edges. Someone lit fires in the same spot more than once, but the spot shifted slightly each time, leaving patches burned to different degrees.

"The darkest patch is where the most recent fire burned. I checked it with my hand just now, and it hasn't completely cooled. They may have had a fire here as recently as last night."

Hyuga Ning walked to the fire pit at the back of the cave and activated his Byakugan. He even reached out to test it.

"There's still a trace of warmth," Hyuga Ning said. "Judging by the fire pit and the traces they left behind, there were probably about as many of them as there are of us. Should we deal with them here? An ambush could catch them off guard."

Fugaku shook his head. "It won't be that simple. Anyone capable of operating in a squad in the Land of Rain is no weakling. I don't want to lose people before we complete our mission.

"Set a chain of traps here. How much damage they do will depend on the enemy's luck and skill."

The others nodded. No one argued with Fugaku. A shinobi's mission came first, and none of them knew how strong the approaching enemy might be. If they were renowned fighters of the Shinobi World, the Konoha shinobi could be wiped out.

No mission issued during wartime was simple. A problem at one stage could cause several more stages to go wrong.

The squad spread out and planted explosive devices throughout the cave. Fugaku Uchiha placed an Explosive Tag beneath the ashes as well.

If the enemy lit a fire there, it would detonate the Explosive Tag beneath the ashes and bring down the entire cave.

Nozawa left a few Kikaichū outside the cave to watch for anyone approaching. If Konoha shinobi arrived, the Kikaichū would stop them.

The squad pressed on, looking for another place to shelter.

After they had walked for more than ten minutes, a series of explosions sounded behind them. The traps had worked, though they had no idea how many enemies had died.

They looked back. Thick smoke from the explosions blotted out part of the sky. A few Kikaichū flew in from the distance and landed on Nozawa's hand.

"They were from Sunagakure. Nine went in, and six came out," Nozawa said.

Fugaku nodded. "They're no ordinary opponents. Even with that many Explosive Tags packed into the cave, only three were caught inside, and we don't know whether they're dead."

Against a squad that capable, Fugaku Uchiha's eight-person team would have been outmatched even with the advantage of an ambush.

Only at night did the fighting in the Land of Rain ease. Shinobi from every country sought shelter and took a brief rest.

Fugaku Uchiha's group benefited from the cover of darkness and encountered no more shinobi from other countries. They found a cave, rested for the night, and set out again early the next morning.

Fugaku took out the mission map again. "There's a valley in the mountains ahead. The Sunagakure Outpost we're looking for is there. We don't know what's inside. Nozawa, Hyuga Ning, you two will scout the outpost.

"The valley has three approaches. The rest of us will split into three groups and watch for Sunagakure squads coming in for supplies from each direction. We'll meet here in three days and decide on a plan.

"Satomaru, Haranoki, and Qiuze Danye will form one group. Yamada Shinji and Kodamaru will form another. I'll go alone. Move out."

Haranoki and Qiuze Danye were not especially strong, so having Satomaru with them would bolster the group. Besides, Fugaku did not like having a teammate he suspected of being Konoha ANBU constantly at his side.

Yamada Shinji was capable, and with Kodamaru's support, he could handle minor trouble.

The Land of Rain's rugged rocks, combined with the rain, offered good cover. Fugaku concealed himself between two boulders, where he at least had shelter from the rain. Unless a shinobi had exceptional sensory abilities, they would not find him.

His position lay northwest of the valley. Most of the Sand Shinobi coming this way for supplies were fighting Stone shinobi.

By watching their movements, he could also make a rough estimate of the Stone shinobi forces within a certain range.

The three Tomoe spun rapidly as his crimson Sharingan swept the area. Finding nothing suspicious, he let the Tomoe fade and his eyes return to normal.

The sound of rain striking the ground masked footsteps. Shinobi also walked lightly, so the only way to tell whether anyone passed by was to watch.

Over the course of the day, twenty shinobi passed Fugaku on their way into the valley for supplies. They came in three squads: two of six and one of eight.

Two squads came out: one with eight members and one with nine. The nine-person squad had not entered the valley for supplies that day. Two of the squads that had entered, twelve shinobi in all, remained in the valley to rest.

After a day of observation, Fugaku frowned. The mission would not be easy. He guessed plenty of squads were also entering to rest from the other two directions.

He still did not know how many shinobi were permanently stationed in the valley. Of those coming in for supplies, there was at least one squad from each direction, with no fewer than six members per squad.

Fugaku Uchiha reconsidered the mission. He would have to wait until they finished scouting the enemy in three days before making a new plan.

As the sky grew darker, the rain gradually eased. The Sunagakure supply point fell quiet, and Fugaku Uchiha closed his eyes to rest.

Footsteps startled Fugaku Uchiha awake. He looked toward the distant entrance to the valley and saw two nine-person squads emerge.

Fugaku Uchiha recognized twelve of them. They were members of the two Sand Shinobi squads that had stayed in the valley the previous day. Now they had regrouped into two squads of nine.

Fugaku even suspected that both squads had originally had nine members, but each had lost three in battle against Stone shinobi.

Sunagakure and Iwagakure were fighting each other, but both were also fighting Konoha. All three nations were enemies.

With three nations fighting one another—and the Land of Rain drawn into it as well—the four-nation conflict would ultimately come down to their overall strength and which country could hold out longest.