Welcome back to the Smoke and Mirrors AU.

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Team Yuki, so far, was not having an amazing time on their mission. As no one on their team had awakened their Clan’s Dojutsu yet, scouting was actually somewhat difficult.

Of course, that didn’t stop them from accepting the mission Hattori had given them. It didn’t make them complain about the difficulty, either. They had a mission, and they would accomplish it. Plain and simple.

Right now, they were camped out in the woods. The rogue Samurai they had been after, Batsuma no Seijin, was in this forest. She was positive of it.

She looked around in the low, orange glow of the smokeless fire. Sasori, Mitaro, and Amanai were all smiling as they told stories to eachother. She couldn’t help but let one creep onto her own face as well.

Her three subordinates, students she supposed, were adorable. They were the same age, sure, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t find them adorable.

They still had that childish innocence, that naivete about the world. She was worried this mission would take it away from them. She prayed it would not.

But, the world does not care about the wants or needs of a Shinobi. So with a sigh, she closed her eyes and tried to sense the Chakra around them.

Chakra Sensing, Asahiro had told her, was like the opposite of Chakra Suppression. You have to spread out your Chakra.

So she tried. It hadn’t ever worked, not fully, since her range was barely five meters. Even that felt bad to do. For the last few weeks, she had been trying something new. Moulding her chakra into a thin ring, and sending it out, attached by a few wire-thin strands of chakra.

Once the connected Chakra-wires went taut, the ring of chakra was pulled back in. This somewhat worked.

It was easy to sense, even to her, and while it did provide a picture of her surroundings… It was blurry. More than just that, it consumed a fair bit of Chakra, most of it being sent into the sky, or into the ground.

She would refine it eventually, but for now, it was still pretty useless. She sent out another sensory ping. At the farthest edge, barely a millimeter, she felt something.

Her eyes snapped open, and she shouted orders immediately.

“Ready, now! South-southwest, one hundred meters, potential enemy contact.” With that, she blurred in that direction. Three other, slightly slower figures followed her. She was pushing her pace to the fastest they could go, but it was still slow.

By the time they had gotten there, whatever she had felt with her Chakra sense was long gone. She fired another ping, and this time, she felt nothing.

“Shit. They’re gone.”

“It’s okay, Yuki-san.” It was Amanai who spoke, a gentle smile on her face. Yuki smiled back, though hers was a bit more forced.

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She really did love the girl. She was like a little sister, even though they were the same age down to the microsecond, and Yuki truly appreciated her.

Something tickled her sixth sense, and she fired another chakra ping.

Panic exploded in her gut as she felt something below them–

Her Chokuto’s blade slammed into the ground, as whatever she felt died. Hesitantly, she unsheathed her sword from the dirt, and dug out slightly.

“What happened?” Sasori questioned.

Yuki sighed dramatically as she brought up the form of a cute mole, one who had a rather large sword puncture through its back.

“I thought I sensed something. Turns out, it was just a mole.”

Mitaro chortled as she brought up the mole, and a fierce glare shut the boy up again.

“My Chakra Sensing is basically our only warning. We listen to it, no matter how many false flags it raises. Because the second we don’t, one of us could die.”

The mood turned grim after she finished speaking.

“We’ll be fine, Yuki-san.” It was only Amanai who spoke after that. The rest of the evening was spent in awkward silence.

…

Team Yuki, so far, was on their third week of hunting Batsuma. Yuki herself was exhausted, so she didn’t even want to think about how tired her subordinates were. She spared them a glance anyway.

For the past week, their fire had been ‘doused’ so to speak. They were tracking a ghost. All the information they had was given by civilians, or by strings of corpses.

The guy seemed to always be a step ahead, somehow outpacing their twenty-hour days. However, Yuki had learned a lot.

She had grown. The last three weeks had been a masterclass in information gathering, and this time, she was sure of it.

Batsuma no Seijin was here.

As always, her eyes were scanning everything as she walked down the towns streets. Sasori, Mitaro, and Amanai were following her.

Without fanfare, she spotted him.

Batsuma.

She slowed down, letting her three charges catch up. They were close enough all she had to do was whisper.

“Brown hair, blue sword. To the left, a few dozen meters ahead. That’s Batsuma.” They had tracked the man to a relatively large town called ‘Ryusei.’ Supposedly, it was his birth place.

As they tailed him for the rest of the day, making sure to be as stealthy as possible, they confirmed that piece of information.

Batsuma had a mother and wife within the town, though his father seemed to be either dead or long gone.

Night fell quickly as they watched over his house. The front was being watched by the three Chunin on her team. She was watching the back, and the windows.

A few hours after the last light had flicked off, she reconnected with her team. “It’s time to infiltrate. Silent. Assassinate. Use Kunai.” She rapidly said in sign language. Hattori’s hidden language was rather handy.

Hah. Handy.

A small smile made its way to her face, as she slid a black mask over her face. Since this was an official mission for the Land of Fire, of course, she wasn’t allowed to use her Anbu uniform.

With that, the three approached the locked front door. Mitaro was watching the back door. Yuki knelt, and pulled out a lockpicking set she had picked up a few towns ago. She had been practicing, and could only hope this was a standard lock.

After a few minutes, the lock softly clicked open. She tested the door, and it was quiet as three of them stepped inside.

The entrance was a hallway, which lead to a few rooms. Yuki had already confirmed which one was Batsuma’s.

The second door on the left. “Two. Left.” There wasn’t a sign for second, but two would work. The other three understood.

Amanai stood to the left of the door. Sasori stood to the right. Yuki gingerly slid the door open, her breath entirely halted, as she waited for any indication Batsuma was awake.

There was none. A light snoring was all that could be heard.

Cautiously, she looked inside, a Kunai raised in case a blade was flung at her face.

There was nothing.

In bed, asleep, was Batsuma no Seijin.

She let the breath she was holding go, as she silently walked to his bedside. The man slept on his side. So, she approached the opposite side from the direction his face was pointed.

Her kunai plunged into his neck, and that was it. Batsuma was dead.

With a sigh of relief, she turned and scanned the room, looking for the blue-tinted Wakizashi. Not seeing it, she called the other two in with a low whisper.

The three searched the room for nearly twenty minutes before locating it under a floorboard. With that, they left the house, collected Mitaro, and ran like hell towards home. Hattori had forgotten to tell her what to do with the blade, so she would just keep it until they got back.