"Hinako, I….er...well..need to ask you something.”

Following Kento's directions and advice, Yamazaki and Hinako were heading for a small cave located beside the Yodo River.

They were expecting to meet the carrier of the fourth fragment of the Star of Izanagi, or more accurately, the Emerald of Invisibility.

Even though Yamazaki had been injured in his last battle with the monk, he was in a steady state to fight the next opponent, though the potential of his previous strength hadn't recovered fully.

The duo had already engaged in casual small talk to fill the void as they were navigating through the greenery into the cave. Being the talkative loudmouth, Yamazaki was expecting to ask Hinako about her brothers’ details but his mouth stuttered.

But Hinako managed to reply with the smoothness that Yamazaki couldn't achieve.

"What is it, Yamazaki?"

"It's about your brothers, Hinako."

Hinako’s tone amped up.

"What do you want to know about my brothers, Yamazaki?"

"Though I said, brothers….who I really meant was Kento."

"Onii-chan? Why are you asking about him?"

"Well, for one thing…he is so serious all of a sudden! Did you just see how he burst into flames when me and Isoko were having our usual child’s play? And…the calm Kento that I used to remember from the experiences of our previous missions…I guess aren’t a thing anymore."

Hinako halted her movement abruptly and started speculating the meaning behind Yamazaki's sentence. When she was halfway done, a fly started circling her face, irritating her a great deal. She went into a completely anxious state when the fly hilariously touched down on her nose, welcoming a new annoying itching state. Hinako's unsettlement swelled promptly, causing her to almost drag out one of her iron Tessen, or one of her metal war fans if explained more straightforwardly.

"Get out, you annoying…"

Hinako's crushing blow couldn't get the fly. Instead, she managed to quarterly crush her nose, producing an outburst of laughter from Yamazaki.

"Hinako...looks like the fly has surpassed you in terms of mobility, you know.”

"Haha...very funny, Yamazaki." Hinako was embarrassed and as a result, she immediately changed the topic so that she wouldn't get struck by embarrassment, once again.

"We should be arriving at our destination very soon."

"Yeah," Yamazaki replied. "I just hope that the others are doing fine, especially Nakamura and Kento."

"Don't worry Yamazaki. I am sure that they'll be okay. I was just wondering about what must be happening at Enryaku-Ji right now?"

"Enryaku-Ji temple? What a silly place for a Kōga ninja to hide. I mean...didn't they have a better place to cover up their identity?"

"Or could it be a much better hiding spot? We don't know yet. I just hope that Kumiko made it out. Hopefully, her skills will come in handy."

"She should make it out. For my bro Kento!"

"Yes. And we both have an objective too. We must find the Emerald of invisibility."

"Well then Hinako, why don't we speed up a bit?"

Hinako's face snapped, for she couldn't understand how Yamazaki was motivated enough to speed up his movement even after being hurt in his final battle.

"Yamazaki, are you sure? Aren't you feeling any pain?"

Yamazaki weirdly stared at Hinako, confusing Hinako. Her astonishment kept growing and growing until Yamazaki decided to explain with energy and motivation bubbling through his statements.

"Hinako, get this. I might have been harmed by that stupid monk. But remember, I am your brother’s best buddy. And I just can’t turn my back on him when he’s in trouble. I can vanquish all the pain in my body to help my friends."

“Silly jerk. I guess Onii-chan did meet the right guy as the team’s energetic clown.”

Hinako reacted with a smile and conceded, while Yamazaki ended his speech.

"Hinako, you don't need to worry. Isoko's healing powder has really done the job. I am recovering fast. So, I am all set for the next battle."

After walking for around ten minutes, they both entered an area wrapped with a dense layer of fog. The greenery provided by the abundance of bushes and plants further enhanced the effectiveness of the fog, turning the duo’s ability to see to an extreme low. Ignoring the obstacles, both Hinako and Yamazaki continued to proceed in the direction where they were expecting to find the natural cave where they were told that they could find the Emerald of Invisibility.

As both of them were navigating through the flora, the fog seemed to be getting thicker and thicker each time, distorting their line of sight even further. Hinako noticed this abnormal condition and was determined not to let her guard down. Keeping her senses at an extreme state of alertness, Hinako slowly started laying something on the ground without Yamazaki, who had been clearing up the path using his naginata, noticing.

"Hinako," Yamazaki called out. "You sure that this is the correct way?"

She replied while resuming what she had been doing.

"Yes. I am sure. This is the right way."

"Yeah, yeah whatever…"

Yamazaki was just about to lay his foot on the floor but was interrupted by Hinako, who purposefully obstructed Yamazaki's way using her hands.

"Hinako," Yamazaki was slightly baffled, "Now what?"

As a response, Hinako slowly directed her hand in the direction of a considerably thin and almost transparent thread that had been tied between two small, unmatured plants. Yamazaki was shocked by this, but at the same time, his heart had already been thumping, for he hadn't been able to sense the impaling trap that the enemy had laid.

"Did you see that, Yamazaki? One more step and your heart would have been sticking out from your body."

“Man…what am I doing? I just almost screwed up big time. This is not what I should be letting Kento hear in the first place…”

Unpacking one of her tessen, Hinako slowly cut the thread off, ultimately disabling the trap that would have caused Yamazaki certain death.

"Don't feel embarrassed, Yamazaki," Hinako's unexpectedly developed a flush on Yamazaki’s face. "I got to be honest. Even I couldn't notice this trap until I got close. The foe is quite smart to set up traps this advanced. Anyways, keep an eye out for any more traps. Stay alert all the time."

"Roger that," Yamazaki replied while rubbing the dirt hard with his feet.

"Let’s advance, Hinako."

Diffusing the trap, they continued moving forward until they discovered the cave beside the Yodo River. Their journey was soon bombarded by the encountering of countless numbers of traps along the way. Yamazaki and Hinako, however, could safely pass through all of them without a scratch.

Yamazaki cried with a tensed face and a body drenched right after the duo exited the danger zone.

"Damn, those Kōgas are one hell of an opponent. Did you see the number of traps that this hunter had laid? More than twenty!”

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"It's twenty-two." Hinako finished.

"We have arrived. This is the megalithic cave beside the Yodo River."

Yamazaki's face produced a sudden smile when he realised that they had finally reached the location that they had intended to reach. The thick layer of mist that had been fading the vision of the young shinobi slowly dispersed, providing a clear depiction of the surrounding environment. To be honest, there wasn’t anything suspicious to notice.

Yamazaki was at peace hearing the sounds of the water passing through the river, sourced by the largest freshwater lake in all of Japan, Lake Biwa which is located within the boundaries of Shiga prefecture. The Yodo River was one of the main reasons for the earlier rulers during the Heian Period to choose Kyoto as their capital, which lasted as the central of power until the ending of the Sengoku period when the Tokugawa Shogunate situated Edo as their new military capital. Now the river plays a massive part in the movement of goods between Osaka and Kyoto.

Remembering the mission that Kento had given her, Hinako immediately began scouting the area for any indications of the carrier of the Emerald. Her observations soon made her realise how the cave provided their enemy with enough cover to not be spotted by the vessels transmitting cargo between the Seto sea and the inland ports. Despite the river having a decent width, the vegetation surrounding the cave had enough density that provided enough coverage to not arouse suspicion to anyone passing by. Plus the hollow within the cave was unlit and its darkness only ever aroused thoughts of creepiness amongst its witnesses.

While Hinako was engaged in her job regarding the mission that she had been given, Yamazaki came up with a decision to immigrate towards the cave of unknown possibilities after taking a good look at his surroundings. But hesitation made a sudden appearance unconsciously, pausing Yamazaki from moving forward. His instincts started picking up some hints of incoming danger.

“Wait why do I feel like something is seriously going to go wrong?”

While Yamazaki had his eyes fixed upon the darkness inside the cavity, a volley of three shurikens made an appearance out of nowhere, making Yamazaki lose control over his body. He immediately ducked and allowed the ninja stars to whizz over his head. The stony wall repelled the dodged missiles, allowing Yamazaki to prepare himself for the next incoming attack.

"Where is he?"

He thought for a moment while trying to grab the naginata tied to his back.

His hopes were soon destined to be extinguished like a candle. Moments later, a kick landed on Yamazaki’s chest. He had a short flight period of two seconds after which he landed on top of Hinako, who had been checking for intel.

"Augh…wh…what happened? Yamazaki, are you okay?" Despite the trouble she faced when reducing the impact from Yamazaki, Hinako asked about his current condition.

"Take this..." A strange voice began echoing inside the cavern. Then in an almost instantaneous manner, two kunai were fired at Hinako, locked onto her head.

"Yamazaki,” she called out to her comrade to warn him about the incoming kunai knives. But he made no reply, for he was lying on the ground, unconscious.

“Oh...This is gonna get ugly.”

Clasping her hands under Yamazaki’s armpits, Hinako forcefully tried to roll him over while attempting to do the same herself to dodge the incoming Kunai blades. Fortunately for her, one of the kunai knives barely missed Hinako’s head, while the other one thudded into a tree with a few hairs from Yamazaki affixed to it.

Hinako panicked. She could hear her heart pounding rapidly inside her chest, combined with her heavy and fast breathing. She stood up after and immediately dragged out her tessens and wiped the sweat off her face while yelling out words of desperation to motivate her opponent to expose himself.

“Young girl,” An unknown voice made an appearance out of nowhere, followed by the sound of footsteps. Judging from their direction and whereabouts, Hinako immediately positioned herself in front of the cave, while squinting into the pitch darkness inside the cavity. A figure then started to emerge from the darkness, which turned out to be transparent, almost invisible.

“Who are you, freak?” Hinako directed one of her fans towards the glassy body in front of her, and when she didn’t receive the reply that she was expecting, she hurled a shuriken at him, with the obvious belief that it would be deflected like nothing. A few fiery sparkles were produced when the shuriken reached the transparent figure, though Hinako’s eyes couldn’t catch any sign of either iron or any metal.

“Tell me what you are, F…Hattori Hinako?”

Hinako’s instincts chilled when she grasped that the opponent had a clear idea about her name. She asked one more time.

“Tell me. Who are you?”

But this time, her words didn’t go to waste because the transparent figure slowly started to turn back into a middle-aged male ninja, who had black hair, was dressed in a black shinobi shozoku, armed with a steel ninjato and had eyes colder than ice.

But Hinako’s eyes weren’t so keen on studying any of the physical features of the Kōga ninja. Why you may ask… because her eyes were only fixed on one thing; the green gemstone tied onto his chest that was sparkling with a strong, vibrant green colour.

“I get it now. So this is how the gem turned him transparent, or almost invisible. Damn, Yamazaki didn’t remember this, and why would he? Being a sarcastic clown doesn’t help him to recall things like this. What to do? I just got to hope that he is fine…”

“Who am I? The man pulled his ninjato out, slowly rode his fingers along the sharp edge, and replied,

"Futaru. Tokitsune...Futaru."

Futaru smiled when he encountered the puzzled look on Hinako’s face, which made her lock her eyes upon Futaru for a moment.

“Your friend over here tried to interfere with me while I was having a nice nap inside that cave over there. Well...don’t worry too much. I only kicked him. He…probably won’t die…if he’s lucky of course.”

Hinako couldn’t bear the satirising words of Futaru and changed her point of view towards Yamazaki. The fallen, senseless condition of Yamazaki allowed Hinako to bear the hurtful nature of Futaru’s statement.

“Stop badmouthing about Yamazaki!”

“Now, don’t get angry. Let’s do this in a much more diligent, clean way. You defeat me in a duel, and you’ll be able to walk away from here with your friend and with the thing that you are actually here for.”

Hinako answered.

“And if I don’t?”

Futaru chuckled.

“In that case, I will kill both you and your ignorant friend and take your hearts to my master as a gift for lending me the power of this amazing creation. Oh, how sad. I wonder what Lord Izanagi is thinking right now?”

Hinako couldn’t hold her anger anymore.

“You Bastard!”

She tried to clash her tessens with Futaru’s body. Her attack was blocked perfectly. While the attack was being nullified, the image of Futaru started to disperse along with the brilliance of the emerald’s green light.

Hinako was trying to come up with a plan to track down the invisible man. She couldn't see him until he was close enough when the metallic surface of Futaru's cloak started reflecting light. As her eyes didn't help her gather intel on the enemy, she directed her energy into her ears and waited till she started sensing even the slightest noise that would hint at Futaru’s position.

And she didn’t have to wait long.

A very slight noise of a stone scraping on sandy soil rang Hinako’s eardrums. Immediately turning back around, she positioned her fans in a cross formation just in time to block off the ninjato stab. As the metals clashed with each other, Hinako soon realised how the emerald could turn inanimate objects invisible as well.

Futaru didn't decide to launch another separate attack, for he chose to appear in front of Hinako and put more force onto her fans in the hope of penetrating the block and dealing at least a scratch's worth of damage to Hinako. She kept resisting with her force but she slowly started to lose power. When her block was almost about to break, she shot a kick into Futaru's thigh, which downed him by a little. Hinako made a strategic retreat to plan her next move, while the fallen Futaru got backed up and made himself invisible once more.

Hinako kept her senses open till the opponent lay his next move. But unfortunately, she couldn't sense any of Futaru’s movements for a moment. Her heartbeat was increasing with each second. She tried concentrating. It was only a matter of time before Futaru noticed how his enemy was tracking him using sound. He upped his game, increasing his levels of stealth, making it even harder for Hinako to track him. When she had no options, she tried creating a list of all possible attacks Futaru could deal with as a desperate attempt to even the playing field.

A few long seconds passed, and Hinako’s senses picked up a breeze of air, jump-starting and synchronising her entire body to react to the incoming danger. Futaru dashed past Hinako like a horse galloping, while directing the ninjato towards her lower ribcage. Hinako was just in time to avoid the attack, and if she had dared to waste even a millisecond, both her and Yamazaki’s hearts would be at Kōga right now.

“My god…That was so close…”

It was close enough, but she had to start repenting for her earlier mistake, as Futaru had executed another simultaneous attack with a kunai knife, which cut through her gear and her skin, exposing a flow of red essence. The agony generated a small sigh, almost unnoticeable.

As a quick method of escape, she hurled a smoke bomb at the ground and withdrew, while the fully emerged Futaru attempted to grope his way out of the smoke screen.

Hinako climbed her way into a tree and acted fast to stop the bleeding on her arm. Pulling out a bandage from her toolkit, she made a quick wrap around her injury, while trying to keep enough attention on her opponent.

“Ha...thought you could run away you cowardly insect?”

Her instincts were aroused; Futaru had crept up to put pressure on her. Hinako imitated a boomerang throw when trying to execute a ranged attack after dropping into the shallow water of a nearby puddle when Futaru tried to pierce through her stomach with the strong urge to kill. At first, Hinako’s enemy didn’t anticipate the possible outcomes of the attack and only thought of dodging the first move. It didn’t take too long for him to start repenting for underestimating his opponent as the Tessen ripped through his lower abdomen, resulting in a scream filled with the bitterness of pain. The fan returned to Hinako, covered in Futaru’s blood.

“You’re not getting away with this.”

While trying to pause the bleeding of the laceration, Futaru attempted to blend himself once again. Hinako acted and quickly leapt towards the area in front of the cave which had plenty of sunlight falling without being obstructed by trees. Upon moving back into the sunny hotspot, she kept her eyes on her enemy and how he moved into the same location along with her, while being invisible.

Then all of a sudden,

“Wait…”

A breakthrough had occurred. Hinako’s eyes had gained the upper hand. She had finally spotted…Futaru’s weakness; The way of finally fracturing the unseen enemy’s lethality.