"Let's follow our teacher's arrangements and scout ahead!" Uchiha Makoto said helplessly. His hands swiftly formed hand seals, and he called out in a low voice, "Summoning Technique!"
Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop!
A series of small puffs of white smoke burst around him.
Twenty or thirty crows with ink-black feathers and sharp, alert eyes took flight, flapping their wings amid a chorus of hoarse, raucous cries.
"Go. Cover all of Rōran, and remember everything you see. Report anything unusual to me," Uchiha Makoto ordered simply.
Cawing, the flock scattered like a dispersing black cloud, swiftly flying in every direction. They slipped into the shadows of ruined buildings, skimmed deserted streets, and vanished into the depths of the ruins.
Watching from the side, Harada Yuichi once again felt just how unequal the world was.
Someone else's reconnaissance meant summoning an army of animals for "full-map vision," while he still had to rely on his own two legs and eyes... A civilian ninja's lack of resources really did hurt.
After sending the crows out, Uchiha Makoto did not sit idle either.
He took a deep breath, and chakra suddenly burst beneath his feet!
"Moonwalk!"
His body sprang into the air as though defying gravity. His feet stepped repeatedly on invisible chakra footholds, and after a few clean, decisive leaps, he landed lightly atop a broken stone pillar dozens of meters tall, half buried in the sand.
"He... he flew up there?!"
Harada Yuichi stared upward, his mouth slightly open, his envy almost palpable.
For a civilian ninja without an inherited tradition, such a practical, advanced taijutsu technique was a dream come true.
But he also knew that a technique of this caliber would never be shared unless the two were practically joined at the hip.
He could only swallow his envy