Tsunade fell silent for a few seconds, her gaze turning toward the distance.
The gray sky still pressed down overhead, but the rolling hills made the view feel less empty.
Several slightly taller rocky hills stood in the distance, their outlines barely visible at the edge of sight.
"Kakashi."
"Hmm?"
"What do you think of our current search speed?"
Kakashi thought for a moment and answered honestly, "Too slow."
Tsunade did not argue.
Of course she knew it was too slow. At a normal ninja's marching pace, four hours would have been enough to scout a very large area.
But the distance they had actually covered was only a few dozen kilometers.
The reason was simple: staying on guard against enemies took up too much of their attention.
The five Sealing Squad ninjas had to maintain a pentagonal defensive formation, the two Sensor Ninjas had to keep probing their surroundings, Sasuke had to divide his attention to sense Naraku's chakra, Kakashi was responsible for watching their rear and leaving markers, and she herself had to remain ready to provide support at any moment.
Under those conditions, the team naturally could not move quickly.
"Call Sasuke over."
Kakashi nodded, then turned and walked toward Sasuke.
A moment later, the three gathered around Tsunade.
Tsunade got straight to the point. "We're moving too slowly."
Neither Sasuke nor Kakashi spoke, waiting for her to continue.
"We've been in this alternate space for four hours, and we've only searched an area a few dozen kilometers across."
"We still haven't reached the edge of this alternate space. If we keep going at this speed, we might not find Naraku even after several more days."
Tsunade paused, her gaze passing over them both.
"I want to speed up the search."
Kakashi spoke first. "How?"
"Reduce our