KONOHA
The massive trunks and boughs of the trees that made up the forest blurred past as we navigated our way north. On our heels were Naruto and Sakura, the two lagging behind despite our already significantly reduced speed. At such a sedated pace we might not get to our destination before sunset. The mere thought was irritating.
“Oi!” the blonde shouted from behind us, utterly obliterating our efforts to remain stealthy. “Sasuke! Slow down!”
We did, but not without turning around to shoot the boy a stern glare. “Be quiet would you,” we told him. “You are making a racket.”
“I AM NOT!”
“Yes, you are, Naruto. And if you don’t stop you will alert everyone within a mile of here to our presence.”
“I AM NOT! AND YOU NEED TO SLOW—” We flickered behind him, placing our open palm on his back. Chakra surged out from our guts, invading his meridian system with practised ease. The demon fox within him instinctively tried to push back against our intrusion, but as usual, smothering it with the mere weight of our attention was all it took to make it behave. Naruto’s eyelids grew heavy before suddenly shutting close as he fell asleep. His body however continued to fly towards a tree in front, carried forth by his forward momentum. But before he could collide with the obstacle we pulled on the scruff of his jumpsuit, dragging him aside before tossing his limp body over our left shoulder.
We shot a glance at Sakura. The girl blinked suddenly realising we were no longer in front of her. She stopped, her head whipping about, seemingly in search of us. “N-naruto, Sasuke’s gone—” We stared at her panting form, one brow raised inquisitively. She stared back slack-jawed.
“You both need to work on your stamina,” we told her before leaping forward again. It took another second for her brain to catch up, but when it did, like the good pet she was maturing to be, she quickly made to follow after us.
“Sasuke,” she panted. “Naruto had a point. Please. S-slow down…”
We sighed, stalling for a moment to allow her to catch up. When she did, we dialled our pace back a bit more to something she should be more comfortable with before continuing forth.
“...Uhm, S-sasuke,” she called, “what happened to Naruto?”
“Nothing,” we replied. “I just put him to sleep.”
“Oh. Oh…”
We glanced at her before turning back towards the forest ahead. Her face was flushed for some reason. “Sakura.”
“...Yes?” came a whispered reply.
“I will need you to work with me,” we tell her. “Is that OK?”
“Yes!”
“Good,” we tell her as we pull out the mission scroll from the pouch by our thigh. “According to this,” we continued, tossing the scroll at the girl. She fumbled to catch it, only succeeding at the last moment before it escaped her grasp. “The location of one of the castles is just fifty-two miles due north. At the pace at which we are going, we can only get there in about two and a half hours; and given the time now is six twenty-three it should be nightfall by the time we arrive. Since it doesn’t seem possible for us to go any faster, I would like us to maintain our current pace. That said, I would also like that we do not give away our position unnecessarily like this fool here just did. Can you help with this, Sakura?”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Ai!” The girl replied, falling silent for a few moments as she skimmed through the mission scroll before making a small noise, seemingly confused. “But there is nothing here about the location of any of the castles,” she said, “only details regarding the first clue to find them. I thought this was supposed to be some sort of treasure-hunt-esque assignment where we find clue after clue till we discover the location of the castles.”
“Oh, it is,” we tell her. “I am sure that if we vigorously investigate the lead mentioned in the scroll we would eventually find one of the castles. But why do that when we’ve already been given the answer to the problem?”
“You mean—”
“Yes. The instruction for finding the first clue is a steganographic message embedded in the third, sixth and seventh paragraphs. The first line written in the scroll is the key to deciphering it. It’s a rather easy cypher; you only have to look to find it.”
Our conversation lulled into a relaxing silence for about a minute as Sakura slowly dug out the hidden message in the script. “...These are coordinates,” she breathed in amazed realisation, quickly pulling out a map from her pouch to confirm what we already knew.
Her gaze whipped over to regard us, full of worship and wonder. “How did you know?” she asked.
“Shinobi read the hidden meanings within the hidden meanings. Always,” we reply vaguely.
“That’s Kakashi-sensei’s line… You found it so easily. You are amazing, Sasuke.”
We smiled at her as was appropriate for the situation before returning our gaze forward. Human emotions still sometimes did get tiring to keep up with. Thankfully, the rest of the trip continued in blissful silence. By the time we arrived at our destination, the moon had already begun its ascent into the night sky. Naruto remained unconscious as we laid him down in his sleeping bag.
Our camp was a rather simple one. Rather than set up tents that would be hard to conceal, we simply found a patch of flat earth underneath a fallen log that was just large enough to house all three of us and occupied it. A light application of mud wall jutsu was used to seal one end, while head hunter jutsu was used to create a booby-trapped escape tunnel to a concealed exit point about a hundred meters away. Camouflage netting was used to break up the camp’s silhouette, further concealing it in the forest foliage.
Satisfied, we shot a glance at Sakura who knelt on her sleeping bag as she stared intently at us. The girl sat stock still, appearing expectant. Seemingly awaiting instructions perhaps? At least we thought so until we heard the dull thumping of her erratic heartbeat. The girl’s face flushed red and she immediately looked away when we made eye contact.
Hormones, we realised with some sympathy. Even we found our body’s propensity to begin spontaneously making decisions of its own annoying. The girl's inhibitions and almost nonexistent grasp on her emotions must have faded away with the lack of restrictions our current scenario spawned. The feeling ought to be maddening. The poor thing.
“...Uhm—”
“Secure the perimeter,” we said, interrupting her. “I will go have a look around to make sure we weren’t tracked before surveying the “castle”.” Hearing this, her shoulders slumped in disappointment. We ruffled her pink hair in passing as we exited the shelter.
“I am leaving Naruto in your care because I trust you, Sakura,” we lied, noticing as she immediately perked up at that. “Please take care of him. And yourself too. I will be back soon.”
Without waiting for a reply we flickered away, travelling up into the forest canopy as we made our way towards the castle. Upon arrival, we looked around taking in the sight. Our target hung from a massive tree bough in front of us. A small treehouse hidden amongst the leaves. Our castle. But, at the moment it was not our objective. We turned around to directly face our tail.
“Come out,” we said. “I know you are there … You are Shiore, right? I am curious as to why you and your buddies chose my team out of everyone to tail. You’ve been on our tracks for nearly three hours now. Does my team truly look so weak and defenceless as to be worth the investment?
The bark on one of the trees shimmered as a young woman phased out of it. Two other Kusagakure shinobi appeared out of the foliage behind her. “Sasuke...” she purred, calling out our name with a dramatic, hissing lilt. “It’s so nice to finally get to meet you. You probably cannot understand how happy I am to see you. I am a big fan of yours, you see.”
“What do you want?” we drawled, entirely uninterested in engaging in senseless banter with another weird human. We’ve had our fill for the day it seems.
The kunoichi smiled, her tongue lopping out to lick the bottom half of her face. Her gaze turned predatory, glinting with a fierce light. “I want you…
“Sasuke-kun.”