"What horrible weather."
Accompanied by the wind and snow, Hitomi stepped into the cave, shrugging off his coat and shaking the flakes from his shoulders. "I'm back."
"Welcome back," Naori replied.
"Cook quickly," Maki said flatly.
"Really? Is that my only role—cooking?" Hitomi sighed, walking over to her and holding out his hand. "Give them here."
Maki clapped her hands against the ground, summoning a swarm of fat, wriggling insects. All freshly bred and carefully raised under her control.
"Juice some, stew some into soup, grind a bit into meat sauce, steam ant eggs for rice, then eat it all together. How's that sound?" Hitomi asked.
"You decide," Maki replied, clapping again to produce a neat pile of ant eggs.
"For dessert, I want orange jelly," Naori requested.
"…It's snowing outside and you want orange jelly?" Hitomi muttered.
White Fang scratched his head. "I want everything"
Maki clapped her hands once more, and a line of crystal-bottomed bugs scuttled out into the snow, their glowing orange abdomens shining like frozen fruit.
"They look so fresh," White Fang said eagerly.
Fresh in every sense of the word.
At that moment, Hitomi pulled two scrolls from his pouch. He handed one to Maki.
"Here, what you asked for."
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"Confirmed. Everything's inside."
Maki tossed the scroll to White Fang, who caught it quickly and glanced back at her.
"Take the body back to the village and bury it," she said. "Do you want to confirm it yourself, Captain White Fang?"
"…" He hesitated, then bared his teeth in a smile. "No need."
He carefully tucked the scroll away, then declared with forced cheer: "Eat, eat!"
"Don't you carry ration pills?" Hitomi said as she unrolled her own scroll. With a puff of smoke, delicate pots and pans appeared.
A storage scroll for kitchenware. Excessive, but fitting.
White Fang scratched his head awkwardly. "Isn't that a bit much…?"
"Not if you want bowls and chopsticks," Hitomi replied, roughly carving a hole in the ground for a flame-beetle to crawl into and ignite.
"But Naori helped earlier," White Fang tried, gesturing at Naori.
"I'm on guard duty." She rose and sat at the cave entrance, her gaze fixed outside. "If enemy reinforcements arrive, someone has to be ready."
White Fang groaned. Reasoning with her was pointless.
"Help out, Senior Dog," Hitomi urged.
"…Fine, fine!" He rolled up his sleeves, resigned to working for his meal.
"Good. Chop some of the meat-bugs, juice some, cut the rest into pieces."
"…Why do I feel like I'm the one cooking now?" White Fang muttered, scratching his head.
Hitomi smirked. "By the way, Senior Dog… when was the last time you washed your hair? Doesn't it itch?"
"Tch," Naori scoffed from the entrance.
White Fang's hand twitched toward his scalp, then froze halfway. No one had ever asked him that before. He felt his scalp prickle.
"Please, have mercy," he groaned weakly.
Perfect—status confirmed. He was officially at the bottom of the group.
"Mercy? I didn't even do anything." Hitomi smirked. "Get to work, Captain."
"…Understood." White Fang drew his blade and slammed it into the stone floor, chopping the writhing bugs into a sticky paste.
Meat sauce. Simple enough. A single man knew how to cook out of necessity.
After the meal, the four sat in silence. No one mentioned the body. No one spoke of their first kill.
Finally, Maki broke the quiet. "Will you return to the village right after the mission?"
Hitomi packed away the dishes. "No rush. We rarely get to travel—I'd like to see other countries."
"There'll be time in the future," Naori replied. Her tone made clear the mission came first.
"Then let's go shopping!" White Fang suggested.
"Shopping? The mission isn't over?" Maki frowned.
"You've passed the Anbu examination," White Fang said. "Now the real mission begins."
"Investigating this operation's cause?" Hitomi asked.
"No. There's nothing new to discover. This isn't the first time Kumogakure has pulled something like this," White Fang explained. "Our village doesn't have the manpower to check if every bandit raid is a trap. So Kumogakure gambles—sometimes they succeed, sometimes not. Captured shinobi are interrogated for intelligence. If they catch a bloodline shinobi, they retreat immediately."
"Any precedent of one being captured?" Maki asked.
"Yes. The Senju clan. Also Hyūga, though only a branch member."
"What about the Uchiha?" Naori pressed.
"They rarely leave the village on missions. None have been captured since Konoha's founding," White Fang said.
"Kumogakure is obsessed with bloodline research," Maki murmured. "Have they gained anything from it?"
"No idea," White Fang admitted. "Maybe they have. Maybe not."
White Fang spoke in a low voice:
"Kumogakure is less a village and more like a clan—a massive family led by another family. Their bond is brotherhood. From the Third Raikage down to the gatekeepers, most are tied to the same clan.
Tattoos, blades, strange clothes, stranger behavior—arrogant, loud, unlike the traditional shinobi order. Many suspect they were once wandering samurai or underground gangs. Their actions certainly match that: despicable, shameless, willing to do anything.
And yet, despite their posturing, this clan has no real blood ties between its members—at least, that's what ANBU reports suggest. Even so, their unity is absolute. Since the founding of the Five Great Nations, no Kumogakure shinobi has ever defected due to another village's influence.
On the contrary, Kumogakure's spies are the most troublesome for us to deal with.
With such unity, Konoha knows little of their true secrets. And interestingly… in Kumogakure, their Raikages aren't called 'Raikage.' They're simply called 'Boss.'"
White Fang paused, then continued:
"They don't think like other shinobi. Take the Gold and Silver Brothers for example. They staged a coup, killed the Second Raikage on the spot, and are obsessed with hoarding bloodline abilities and secret arts. Their reasoning? Who knows.
But it's… fascinating."
"Yakuza," Maki muttered with a faint smile.
"Back to the point," White Fang said, his expression hardening. "The real mission this time is assassination.
The village has already attempted three assassination operations. All failed. We lost many skilled operatives. This one has been classified as S-rank.
We will be the final squad sent.
Our target is Hanzō of the Salamander, Jōnin of Amegakure.
This means entering enemy territory alone. The target is extremely dangerous, and the mission is almost certain death."
His voice grew solemn.
"A narrow escape, if any at all.
This comes as a direct order from the Third Hokage. No information is to be leaked."
Maki narrowed her eyes. A mission like this wouldn't be sanctioned without Mito's approval. This wasn't about eliminating rivals.
No—this was about Sarutobi Hiruzen's vision, his long-term strategy.
Three medical shinobi, ordered to assassinate Hanzō the Poisonous, master of toxins.
Flying right into the dragon's jaws.
"Understood?" White Fang asked.
"Understood," Maki, Naori, and Hitomi answered in unison.
Still, Maki couldn't help but wonder: what exactly was happening in Amegakure to attract such interest from Konoha?
"The mission can be refused," White Fang added. "The village itself has already abandoned hope of success. You three are exceptions—this operation won't be recorded. No one will know, except us."
"Why refuse?" Maki smirked. "Bring the boat around!"
"…???" White Fang blinked, scratching his head.
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