Crouching in the tree gave him a good view.
Shuo could vaguely see the villagers gathered in the clearing at the center of the settlement, along with two shabbily dressed rogue ninja berating them.
Obito and Rin had already crept close, hiding behind a broken wall.
The woods to the east were quiet. Minato and Kakashi had probably succeeded already.
He focused most of his attention on the forest farther out.
Wind, birdsong, chirping insects... nothing unusual.
His faint light energy sense was like a broken radar, picking up only vague heat sources from living things without distinguishing people from animals.
Keeping watch... really just meant watching the show and standing by.
Shuo adjusted his crouch to steady his center of gravity.
The job wasn't tiring, just a little boring.
He was pondering what to eat after the mission-the dumpling shop in the village seemed to have reopened-when his ears suddenly caught something out of place.
It didn't come from the settlement, but from deep in the woods roughly a hundred meters behind him and to one side.
It sounded like something heavy snapping dry branches underfoot, faint but continuous, and... coming from more than one direction?
Shuo's gaze sharpened slightly, and he turned toward the sounds.
The dense forest was dim and difficult to see through. He concentrated, trying to amplify that faint light energy sense.
A blurry image of "heat sources" surfaced in his mind, roughly three or four of them. They weren't large, but they moved quickly, spread out in formation, silently closing in on the settlement-or rather, on his position!
They weren't human.
Their chakra felt frenzied, very... animalistic.
Were these those summoning beasts?
Hadn't the intelligence placed them in another village?
Shuo frowned. Apparently, there was more than one group of rogue ninja, or the summoning beasts had come over on their own.
He estimated the distance and their speed.
They would reach the settlement's outskirts in twenty seconds at most. Left alone, they might charge inside and interfere with Minato and the others' rescue, or discover him in the tree.
Troublesome.
Should he alert the others? He glanced toward the settlement. Obito and Rin had just taken down one guard and were fighting the other, while Minato and Kakashi had yet to appear.
Shouting now might disrupt their rhythm.
Handle it himself?
It wasn't out of the question, but he didn't know how many summoning beasts there were or what kinds. What if one spat poison or self-destructed...
Tch. They really knew how to pick their moment.
Shuo grumbled inwardly.
He just wanted to quietly blend into the background and collect his pay for observing. Why did he have to work unscheduled overtime?
The summoning beasts drew closer. He could already make out dark shapes moving among the trees, along with crimson eyes.
They looked like modified ninja dogs, a size larger than ordinary dogs, with exposed fangs and saliva dripping from their mouths.
Three.
No, four.
They approached from two directions, clearly targeting the settlement.
Shuo sighed and pulled four ordinary shuriken from his ninja tool pouch.
Let's try out the new toys.
He locked onto the two leading ninja dogs and tried attaching a faint layer of light energy to the shuriken.
It went a little more smoothly this time. A pale golden film covered the blades almost instantly-though it remained unstable.
With a flick of his wrist, two shuriken shot out silently, nearly thirty percent faster than usual, trailing two almost invisible golden threads through the dim forest!
He didn't aim at the ninja dogs themselves, but at two tree trunks directly in their paths.
Thud! Thud!
The shuriken sank deep into the trunks.
The instant they struck the wood-
Hum! Pop!
The light film on one shuriken successfully triggered that "low-probability" flash!
A fist-sized burst of golden light erupted against the trunk, not particularly dazzling, but completely sudden!
The other didn't flash, but the impact scattered its surface light energy, producing a faint pop and a few golden flecks.
The two leading ninja dogs were clearly startled by the sudden light and noise. Their charge abruptly faltered, and they instinctively turned, growling as they watched the light warily.
In that brief pause, Shuo had already locked onto the third ninja dog circling around the flank.
This time, he didn't use a shuriken.
His eyes narrowed slightly as he called up that hazy concept of the Yata Mirror Hypothesis again.
He fixed his gaze on a slightly raised rock one meter ahead of the charging ninja dog.
"A little to the side..."
He concentrated, imagining an invisible track of light cutting in from the side and gently nudging the ninja dog's front paw.
There was no golden light, no fluctuation of energy.
Yet just as the ninja dog's front paw was about to land on the rock, it seemed to slip inexplicably. It instantly lost its balance, let out a howl, and toppled sideways in a thoroughly ridiculous pose, crashing into a nearby tree and leaving itself dazed.
[Successfully used 'Light Shuriken' to create a distraction and made an initial practical application of 'Yata Mirror Hypothesis' for combat interference. Evaluation: highly creative, subtle effects, cost-effectiveness unknown. Imitation Points +15!]
One left.
The fourth ninja dog was the craftiest. It seemed to notice its companions' unusual behavior and the threat in the tree. Instead of charging straight ahead, it used the trees as cover and darted out through low bushes, opening its foul-smelling jaws as it lunged straight beneath Shuo's tree!
It wanted to attack Shuo himself!
Shuo watched the gaping maw draw closer, his face expressionless.
He neither jumped away nor used a shuriken.
Only when the ninja dog leaped into the air, its fangs almost reaching the branch where he crouched-
Did he casually lift his right foot.
The movement didn't look fast. It even seemed a little lazy.
A faint but concentrated point of golden light instantly appeared at the tip of his shoe.
Light-Speed Kick: Faint Spark.
Rather than kicking out a projectile of light, he concentrated that small burst of acceleration and impact entirely in his toes, then lightly tapped the roof of the ninja dog's open mouth.
"Bang!"
A muffled impact rang out.
A small but extremely precise force sent the airborne ninja dog back faster than it had come. Like a ball being swatted away, it flew backward three or four meters and crashed into a thick clump of bushes, whining and struggling a few times without managing to get up immediately.
Shuo withdrew his foot and shook it, as though he had merely stepped on a bug.
From spotting the summoning beasts to dealing with all four ninja dogs, the whole process took no more than fifteen seconds.
The battle in the settlement also seemed nearly over. Obito and Rin worked together to take down the other guard, and Minato and Kakashi appeared at the edge of the clearing.
Shuo jumped down from the tree, landing silently.
He walked over to the ninja dog he had "kicked" away. The beast was still a little dazed, but had struggled to its feet, baring its teeth and growling without daring to leap at him again.
Shuo looked at it, considered for a moment, then took an unfinished half of a rock-hard soldier pill from inside his clothes and casually tossed it in front of the dog.
The ninja dog froze, sniffed it warily, then... actually picked up the soldier pill with great care and swallowed it in two or three bites. Its tail even gave two unconscious wags before it immediately realized something was wrong and resumed baring its teeth, though with much less menace.
"All right, go play somewhere else."
Shuo waved a hand, his tone like someone shooing away flies. "Come at me again... and there won't be any snacks next time~"
The ninja dog seemed to understand the threat. It whined, tucked its tail between its legs, and darted away into the depths of the forest.
The other three had long since disappeared as well.
Shuo dusted nonexistent dirt from his hands and looked up, just in time to see Minato Namikaze appear before him with the Body Flicker Technique.
Minato's gaze quickly swept over the scene-the still-smoking marks on the tree trunks, the traces left by the ninja dogs, and the soldier pill crumbs on the ground-before settling on Shuo's face.
"Run into trouble?"
Minato asked, his gaze gentle but appraising.
"Ah, a few lost puppies."
Shuo nodded, his tone as flat as if discussing the weather. "Probably wanted someone to play with, but... it seems they picked the wrong person."
Minato's gaze lingered on the tip of his shoe, where a few golden particles had yet to dissipate, before shifting to the scorch marks on the trunks. His smile deepened.
"You dealt with them quickly."
He offered the praise without asking for details. "The enemies in the settlement have all been dealt with, and the villagers are safe. The mission went very smoothly."
Just then, Kakashi, Obito, and Rin came over as well.
Obito's face was flushed with post-battle excitement. The moment he saw Shuo, he asked, "Shuo! Everything all right over here? I thought I heard something just now!"
"Everything's fine." Shuo shook his head. "A few wild dogs. I chased them off."
Kakashi's dead-fish eyes swept over the surrounding traces, lingering particularly on the scorch marks on the trunks and the tip of Shuo's shoe. He said nothing.
Rin asked with concern, "You're not hurt, are you, Shuo?"
"No."
Shuo flexed his wrist. "It just... cost me some of my afternoon tea time."
[Ding! Encountered and casually resolved an unexpected threat during a temporary watch assignment, maintaining an unruffled and slightly complaining attitude throughout. Perfectly matches Kizaru's mission execution style. Imitation Points +20!] [Current Imitation Points: 272/100! Conditions met! 'Physique Enhancement: Light Energy Affinity (Basic)' can be unlocked (requires 250 points)!]
Unlock!
A warm current instantly surged from the system throughout his body, more noticeable than any previous unlock!
He could distinctly feel that the formerly weak, sluggish source of light energy inside him seemed to have grown a little larger, and its connection to his body had become closer and more natural. Its recovery also seemed a fraction faster.
Although the increase in his total reserves remained limited, the feeling of going from almost out of power to having a small backup battery was quite nice.
Minato clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention back. "All right, mission complete. Let's check the scene to make sure we haven't missed anything, then return to the village to report. Obito, Rin, go reassure the villagers. Kakashi, check the enemies for any valuable intelligence. Shuo," he looked at Shuo, "come check the perimeter with me again. Let's make sure those 'lost puppies' really have gone."
"Yes."
Shuo answered and followed Minato deeper into the woods.
After they had walked some distance and confirmed the others couldn't hear them, Minato suddenly spoke. His tone remained gentle, but his words made Shuo's heart jump:
"Shuo, your control over 'light' seems to be growing more effortless. That way you interfered with its path just now... was very unusual. Was that an application of some Kekkei Genkai? Or a technique you developed yourself?"
Shuo's steps faltered slightly.
Sure enough, he'd noticed after all.
And Minato was far more observant than that Uchiha Tekka.
He fell silent for two seconds, then put on his usual expression, a little troubled and a little indifferent.
"I'm not really sure myself... Jonin Minato."
He spoke slowly. "It just felt... like doing it that way would take a little less effort."
He looked at Minato, his gaze open-at least on the surface. "After all, never stand when you can sit, never exert yourself when you can save the effort... that's my principle."
Minato looked at him, then suddenly laughed. It was a quiet laugh, yet he seemed to have seen through a great deal.
"The principle of saving effort..."
He repeated it and nodded. "A good reason."
He asked no further questions, turning to continue the inspection.
Shuo followed behind him and quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled light and shadow on the ground.
Shuo lowered his head to look at his palm and clenched his fist.
My strength... really does seem to have increased a tiny bit.
But the trouble... seems to have increased a tiny bit too.
He raised his head, looking at Minato's back, then at Obito and Rin speaking to the villagers in the distance.
Joining a team like this...
Would this kind of "unscheduled overtime"... become the norm from now on?
He sighed.
Ah, what a pain.
Before you continue