"Recall Kambara Sogetsu immediately!"
Inside the Hokage's office, Hiruzen Sarutobi set down the infiltration request, his tone leaving no room for discussion.
Gojō Ryūsen stood before the desk, dust from the mountain roads of the Land of Flowers still clinging to his robes.
He remained silent for two breaths.
"I'm afraid it's too late."
Hiruzen Sarutobi's pipe hand stopped in midair.
"What do you mean?"
"He's already left for the Land of Rain."
The office went abruptly silent.
The ANBU taking notes nearby looked up, then quickly lowered his head again.
Hiruzen Sarutobi picked up the document on his desk once more.
Only then did he notice the words written clearly across the top.
Application for a long-term infiltration mission.
Mission objective: investigate the identities, abilities, bases, and ultimate goals of Akatsuki's members.
Risk level: unknown.
Operative: Kambara Sogetsu.
At the bottom, a small line of text sat in the remarks section.
The applicant has already received an invitation from the target organization and will shortly infiltrate it independently. Konoha is requested to complete the necessary paperwork as soon as possible.
Hiruzen Sarutobi stared at that sentence for a long time.
"He's already left."
"How is this still an application?"
Gojō Ryūsen recalled the sight of Cangyue lying on the Flame Sword as he wrote the application, a complicated expression crossing his face.
"He said the paperwork could come later."
Crack.
The pipe gave a faint crack.
Hiruzen Sarutobi took a deep drag, forcing himself to calm down.
"Start from the beginning."
"Don't leave out a single detail."
Gojō Ryūsen nodded and recounted the entire encounter.
The two of them had been ambushed on their way to the Land of Flowers.
Their attackers had worn Akatsuki cloaks.
One wielded a triple-bladed scythe and appeared to be immortal. Even after taking a powerful Lightning Release attack and lethal sword wounds, he had continued fighting.
The other could manipulate black threads inside his body and use ninjutsu of multiple elemental natures. After Cangyue pierced his heart, he suffered only a minor injury. His body contained at least several independent hearts.
By this point, Hiruzen Sarutobi's expression had turned utterly grave.
An immortal body.
Multiple hearts.
An organization capable of recruiting Missing-nin of that caliber was far more dangerous than Konoha had previously judged.
"How did you escape?"
"We didn't."
Gojō Ryūsen paused.
"They called for help first."
Hiruzen Sarutobi looked up.
Gojō Ryūsen continued, "Cangyue severed one of the scythe-wielding ninja's arms, then destroyed one of the other man's hearts."
"Both became noticeably less willing to continue fighting."
"The one who lost his arm contacted their leader through his ring."
The ANBU beside the desk finally failed to contain himself and looked up again.
Two Kage-level Missing-nin with special abilities had joined forces to ambush them.
Yet they were the ones forced to call for help?
Had this not been the Hokage's office, he would almost have thought someone was telling a tall tale.
How could a twelve-year-old boy defeat two experts of at least jonin caliber head-on?
The battle's outcome was not Hiruzen Sarutobi's first concern.
"Was Cangyue injured?"
"No."
"Are you certain?"
"Not a single attack actually landed on him from start to finish."
Hiruzen Sarutobi's tense shoulders relaxed slightly.
Then another issue occurred to him.
"You just said he destroyed one of the enemy's hearts."
"Yes."
"Gojō, are you sure that wasn't a figure of speech?"
"I saw a mask shatter inside that man's body with my own eyes. Its chakra signature disappeared immediately afterward."
Gojō Ryūsen's tone was solemn.
"There was more than one chakra source remaining inside his body."
Hiruzen Sarutobi sank into thought.
Multiple hearts meant the enemy possessed survivability far beyond that of an ordinary person.
Paired with the seemingly immortal scythe wielder, the two made an extremely troublesome team.
Cangyue had run straight into enemies like these on his very first trip outside the village.
And he had won.
"What about Akatsuki's leader?"
"He used a remote projection that appeared through the ring."
Gojō Ryūsen recalled those peculiar eyes.
"He had Orange Short Hair and several black rods embedded in his face. Most importantly, he had a pair of eyes unlike any I've ever seen, with concentric rings filling them."
Hiruzen Sarutobi's grip on his pipe abruptly tightened.
Eyes with concentric rings?
His first thought was a name found only in ancient records.
The Rinnegan.
But those eyes had not appeared in the Shinobi World for far too long.
A description alone was not enough to reach a conclusion.
"Why did he invite Cangyue?"
"Cangyue demonstrated sufficient combat strength."
Gojō Ryūsen said, "Their leader promised high-level missions, underground intelligence, and opportunities to fight truly powerful opponents."
"Cangyue neither accepted nor refused."
"He demanded that someone with the authority to make decisions meet him in person."
Hiruzen Sarutobi fell silent.
A newly graduated genin had demanded, to his face, that the leader of a dangerous Missing-nin organization personally receive him.
Even more absurdly, the man had agreed.
Akatsuki's leader had given him the location of a base in the Land of Rain and arranged a meeting time with Cangyue.
That meant Cangyue needed neither a false identity nor a fabricated reason for abandoning his village. He did not even need to scheme to earn their trust.
They had already opened Akatsuki's doors to him themselves.
[Valor Points +20]
Far beyond the border of the Land of Fire, a notification flashed before Cangyue's eyes.
Lying on the Flame Sword, he casually swiped the notification away and continued flying north.
Inside the Hokage's office, Hiruzen Sarutobi opened the application again.
"You didn't stop him?"
"I tried."
Gojō Ryūsen answered without hesitation.
"I couldn't."
It was not that he had never considered forcibly bringing Cangyue back to Konoha.
The problem was that Cangyue could overpower Hidan and Kakuzu in a head-on fight.
Even if he had truly tried to use force, his chances of success would have been slim.
Besides, Gojō Ryūsen still had no answers to the questions Cangyue had raised.
How many members did Akatsuki have?
What abilities did its leader possess?
Why did the organization keep recruiting dangerous Missing-nin?
What was the ultimate purpose behind their accumulation of money and power?
Konoha had investigated for years and still had no answers.
An opportunity like this would indeed be difficult to recreate.
Hiruzen Sarutobi pressed his fingers to his brow.
"What else did Cangyue do before leaving?"
Gojō Ryūsen's expression grew even more complicated.
"He completed the mission in the Land of Flowers first."
Hiruzen Sarutobi slowly raised his head.
"Why?"
"He said that having a failure on his record from his first mission outside the village would affect his ability to choose high-level missions for himself in the future."
The office fell silent again.
A twelve-year-old boy was preparing to enter a dangerous organization made up of Kage-level Missing-nin alone.
Yet his greatest concern before leaving was keeping a failure off his mission record.
Hiruzen Sarutobi felt as though his pipe was about to crack again.
"How did the mission go?"
"Five wandering ninja and seventeen bandits, all killed."
"The merchant caravan was rescued, with minimal loss of cargo."
"The Land of Flowers has already issued proof of mission completion."
Gojō Ryūsen placed the certificate on the desk.
"Less than half a quarter-hour passed between encountering the enemy and the end of the battle."
Hiruzen Sarutobi stared at the stamped mission certificate for a long time without speaking.
Even while preparing to infiltrate an organization, Cangyue had remembered to finish his original mission along the way.
In a sense, there seemed to be nothing wrong with Cangyue's sense of duty toward his missions.
He simply did everything in completely the wrong order.
[Valor Points +20]
Hiruzen Sarutobi exhaled a cloud of smoke and began reassessing the entire situation.
Forcibly recalling Cangyue might not be the best choice.
Akatsuki already knew he was from Konoha and had witnessed his strength firsthand.
If Konoha suddenly recalled him, they would not only lose the opportunity to enter Akatsuki's inner ranks but might also put the organization on alert immediately.
Viewed another way, absurd as Cangyue's method of infiltration was, it had one enormous advantage.
Authenticity.
He did not need to forge an identity.
He did not need to stage a defection.
Nor did he need to pretend to hate Konoha.
The person Akatsuki had invited was Kambara Sogetsu himself.
As long as they allowed him to retain his identity as a Konoha ninja, he could openly maintain contact with the village.
Under those conditions, he would be even safer than an undercover agent painstakingly trained by Konoha.
Hiruzen Sarutobi finally made his decision.
"Create a top-secret file."
The nearby ANBU immediately stepped forward.
"Mission rank: S."
"Mission type: long-term infiltration."
"Objective: investigate Akatsuki's members, abilities, bases, operational channels, and ultimate goals."
"Operative: Kambara Sogetsu."
As the ANBU recorded this, the tip of his pen suddenly stopped.
He lowered his head and glanced at Cangyue's public file.
The age field clearly read 12.
The ANBU looked up.
"Lord Hokage, the operative's age..."
"Twelve."
Hiruzen Sarutobi remained expressionless.
"There isn't a digit missing."
The ANBU silently lowered his head and continued writing.
Gojō Ryūsen stood to the side, feeling even more conflicted.
Just a few hours earlier, Cangyue had merely been a rookie on the mission he was leading.
Now, with the B-rank mission in the Land of Flowers barely completed, Cangyue had already become the operative for an S-rank long-term infiltration mission.
Even ninja promotions weren't this fast.
[Valor points +10]
Hiruzen Sarutobi continued issuing orders.
"Leave his public records unchanged."
"Cangyue is still a Konoha genin, currently carrying out missions outside the village under Gojō Ryūsen."
"Establish a dedicated dead drop at the Land of Fire's border. Have the ANBU collect intelligence from it regularly."
"Keep a support squad on standby, but do not let them approach the Land of Rain, lest they expose his activities."
The ANBU recorded each order.
"Should we restrict his independent actions?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi looked at the application on his desk.
Restrict him?
He's already entered the Land of Rain. What point is there in discussing restrictions now?
"When the Akatsuki is involved, allow him to act first and report afterward."
"But every time he makes contact with a core member of the Akatsuki, he must send back intelligence as soon as possible."
"Understood."
The ANBU organized the documents and affixed the highest-level security seal to the classified file.
Hiruzen Sarutobi picked up the Hokage's stamp and held it above the approval field.
He still had one last chance to change his mind.
But if he let this opportunity pass, Konoha might never find another person whom the Akatsuki had invited of its own accord.
The stamp came down.
Smack!
A bright red imprint appeared at the bottom of the document.
The S-rank long-term infiltration mission was officially authorized.
At that same moment.
At the border of the Land of Rain.
Dark clouds hung oppressively low, leaving nothing between heaven and earth but the unending sound of rain.
Cangyue lay on the Flame Sword as he passed the border marker.
Purple flames burned along the blade, turning the falling rain into white mist.
The Thunder Sword hovered at his side, occasionally releasing a flicker of blue lightning.
The system panel opened before his eyes.
[Total valor points: 2686] [Currently available valor points: 831]
I haven't been out here long, and I've already earned another eight hundred.
The next swordsmanship upgrade doesn't seem far off.
Cangyue glanced at the mountains ahead, shrouded in rain, and continued flying deeper into the country.
The first raindrop carrying unfamiliar chakra fell within the range of his sword intent.
Atop a high tower.
Deva Path Pain slowly opened his Rinnegan.
"He's here."
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