Mist rose in the forest, undercurrents stirred

The tent was so quiet he could hear his own heartbeat.

Everyone else was fast asleep. Only Jin Uchiha lay sprawled on his bed, his head tilted toward the sliver of night outside the window.

His mind was full of bitter reflections.

They really didn't treat cannon fodder like people.

Look at the Hidden Leaf's Class A. A Jonin led them through bell tests and odd jobs around the village, letting them build bonds little by little before giving them a C-rank mission to test the waters.

And Class B?

Not a damn thing.

A cannon-fodder Chunin led the team, and they expected a bell test?

Fail to get a bell and get sent back to school?

Dream on.

Teams of cannon fodder like theirs were nothing but bodies sent out to die.

There were no bonds between the members, let alone anyone they could trust. Instead, they schemed against each other and stabbed one another in the back often enough.

Ever since leaving the village, he'd been surrounded by one mess after another. All he could do was shake his head at the thought.

What a pain.

With a team like this, surviving until the war ended was already next to impossible.

And now they'd shoved that piece of shit Itsuki Ishikawa back in with them. Just thinking about it made his head throb.

At daybreak, they got up and grabbed a quick bite before Shin Kudo spoke.

"This time, we're heading to Outpost 27, over on the left side of the Land of Whirlpools."

"Once we get there, we'll keep a close eye on every little movement out at sea. The moment we spot any sign of the Hidden Mist, we send up a signal."

"Then we'll find a way to hold them off and give the main camp behind us time to respond."

"Let's move."

After those brief instructions, Shin Kudo turned and darted out of camp ahead of them.

Jin Uchiha and Kazama Nara exchanged a glance. Without another word, they followed right behind Shin Kudo.

Only Itsuki Ishikawa stayed put.

He knew perfectly well that he didn't get along with this team.

But he was so arrogant that he would never admit anything was wrong with him. Instead, he dumped all his anger on his teammates.

As far as he was concerned, these people had held him back. Otherwise, he would have earned credit during their last encounter with the Hidden Mist, and might even have exchanged his war merits for ninjutsu at camp a few days ago.

Instead, he'd come away empty-handed and been subjected to repeated questioning by the ANBU.

Every last bit of that was their fucking fault.

He shot the three of them a vicious glare with his gloomy eyes, gave a cold snort, and finally followed.

The four didn't travel on foot. They leaped between the towering trees in the Woods, covering long distances in the blink of an eye.

After nearly half a day, they finally reached their destination.

It was just a roughly built wooden shack perched on a thick branch of an old tree. From inside, they could watch the sea through gaps in the dense foliage without easily giving themselves away.

"All right, stay sharp and keep watch."

"We'll split into two shifts and rotate between day and night. I'll pair up with Jin Uchiha, and Kazama Nara will pair up with Itsuki Ishikawa."

"Jin and I will get some sleep first. You two keep watch, and we'll relieve you after dark."

No one objected to Shin Kudo's arrangement.

Even Itsuki Ishikawa merely nodded with a cold expression.

After suffering once, he at least no longer dared to cause trouble openly.

Jin Uchiha said nothing more either. He simply gave Kazama Nara a meaningful look, and only after seeing him nod discreetly did he return to the shack and lie down to sleep.

He didn't trust Itsuki Ishikawa one bit.

The venom in the man's eyes when he'd looked at them last night still seemed branded into Jin's mind.

With someone like that, a man who failed to take precautions might die without even knowing how it happened.

Kazama Nara was no fool. Even though Jin hadn't said a word, he immediately understood.

The days dragged by like that, and before they knew it, six days had passed.

There wasn't the slightest movement at sea. The water lay as flat as a mirror.

They hadn't caught even a glimpse of the Hidden Mist, and doubts began creeping into their minds.

If they hadn't fought the Hidden Mist for real a while back, they might almost have believed the village's intelligence was false.

Were those Hidden Mist bastards coming or not?

Jin Uchiha was especially uneasy.

Unlike the others, he knew a great deal about what was really going on.

Shisui had specifically told him that the Hidden Mist had already declared war on the Hidden Leaf.

Together with his memories from his previous life, that made the Hidden Mist's involvement in the Third Shinobi World War a certainty. This was when Might Duy's Eight Gates had made its name.

So the more unnervingly quiet the sea became, the tighter his nerves stretched.

During a shift change, he made a point of pulling Kazama Nara aside.

"Keep your guard up."

"Something feels off. There's bound to be a brutal fight coming."

"Stay sharp. Don't get yourself killed."

Kazama Nara froze for a moment, then quickly recovered and gave a firm, silent nod.

He wasn't stupid. If Jin Uchiha was saying this, he must have picked up on something.

They had spent a fair amount of time together, and Kazama Nara was willing to trust his judgment.

That very night, in the middle of the night, Jin Uchiha was sound asleep when Kazama Nara shook him awake, then pushed Shin Kudo awake as well.

"Something's wrong."

"Mist is spreading through the Woods. I think it might be the Hidden Mist's ninjutsu."

Shin Kudo and Jin Uchiha rolled out of bed and hurriedly looked outside the wooden shack.

Sure enough, it was exactly as Kazama Nara had said. Thick mist filled the entire Woods, dense as paste.

Jin Uchiha's brows knotted tightly.

They had watched the sea for so many days without seeing a single boat approach.

By rights, the Hidden Mist shouldn't have been able to get here. Yet there was no explaining the all-enveloping mist before them as a natural occurrence.

At this time of year, the mountains shouldn't have had fog this thick.

"Maybe it's just a coincidence?" Shin Kudo spoke first. "We've practically stared our eyes out these past few days. Could the Hidden Mist really have slipped past right under our noses?"

Itsuki Ishikawa looked as though he was enjoying a joke. He shrugged, his words dripping with barbs.

"Heh. Always making a fuss over nothing."

"I just told Nara that a little mist doesn't prove anything."

"Too bad he's too stubborn to listen. What can you do?"

Kazama Nara's expression didn't so much as twitch. He didn't take their doubts or disbelief to heart at all.

The only person whose opinion mattered to him, from beginning to end, was Jin Uchiha.

Talking about friendship in a cannon-fodder team was nonsense, but after everything they'd been through, the two of them had at least built a little goodwill.

More importantly, each held something over the other. In that sense, theirs was a partnership that tied them together.

Compared with the other two, there was at least a sliver of genuine trust between them.

"I'm going down to investigate." Kazama Nara looked at Jin Uchiha. "Jin, are you coming?"

He treated Itsuki Ishikawa's snide remarks as empty air and ignored them completely.

Jin Uchiha's brows remained furrowed. After turning it over in his mind, he finally nodded.

"All right, let's take a look."

"Otherwise, we won't get any decent sleep tonight anyway."

Then the two of them turned to Shin Kudo. He was their leader, so they needed his approval.

Shin Kudo narrowed his eyes and studied them both before speaking.

"Fine. No objections from me."

"I think something feels off too. If we're investigating, let's all go together."

"Itsuki Ishikawa, are you coming?"