The caravan was making decent time for Yunokawa.
Samui had done the math twice—because that was the kind of shinobi she was—and she'd delivered it like a report, not a hope.
"Six days," she'd said. "Late day six, if we keep this pace."
Today was day one.
Which meant the road still felt clean.
Too clean.
Team Eleven wasn't upset about that. They were tense because of it—because every mission story that started with quiet was usually waiting to become something else.
They moved in formation without anyone needing to say it.
Samui took the rear. The anchor. The one who could turn around and see everything coming.
Reina held the front. The spear tip of the squad—eyes sharp, posture upright, hand never far from her sword.
Raizen stayed in the middle with the caravan itself, walking between wagons, counting people, reading faces, listening to the wheels and the harnesses the way he listened to an opponent's breath.
And that's when the problem hit him.
They didn't have a real sensor.
Not a dedicated one.
Not someone who could sweep the treeline with chakra and tell you two signatures, left ridge, moving fast.
Raizen had Web-Sense… but Web-Sense liked stillness. It wanted time. It wanted him anchored long enough to spread his threads into the ground and let the world talk back.
On the move? With wagons rolling and civilians chatting and hooves and clinking cargo?
His field shrank.
His sensing became a whisper instead of a net.
Samui wasn't a sensor. Reina wasn't a sensor. And Raitaro—
Raizen hadn't seen his sensei do it.
Maybe Raitaro could. Maybe he couldn't.
Either way, Raizen hated not knowing.
It felt like walking with one eye closed.
So when the caravan called a break—wagons pulling off the path near a low creek, merchants cracking open waterskins and ration bags—Raizen used the pause the way a medic used a lull: not to relax, but to check everything that could fail.
He walked over to where Samui and Reina were sitting in the shade of a wagon's canvas.
"Alright," Raizen said, dropping down beside them. "How are you two enjoying our scenic stroll through the Land of Lightning?"
Reina didn't even look up from tightening a strap on her forearm guard.
"It's boring," she said flatly. "Painfully boring. And one of the civilians keeps sneezing near me like they're trying to summon a demon."
Raizen snorted.
Samui's mouth curved just slightly. "It's pollen season."
Reina's eyes narrowed. "Then he should wage war against the pollen somewhere else."
Raizen leaned back on his hands, glancing toward the wagon line.
The merchants were in good spirits. Laughing. Sharing food. The kind of relaxed that made shinobi feel like ghosts standing too close to warmth.
He looked back at his team.
"You know," he said casually, "mission details only say we have to deliver the caravan. Not ensure every person reaches Yunokawa breathing."
Samui turned her head slowly.
Her expression didn't change.
But her eyes did.
"Raizen," she said, voice calm in the way calm could be a blade, "don't give her ideas."
Reina smirked without shame. "I'm just saying. Accidents happen. Wheels slip. People sneeze into rivers."
Raizen laughed under his breath, then his gaze sharpened again—quietly, automatically scanning the ridgelines.
Jokes were fine.
Jokes were good.
But he didn't let them soften him.
Reina stretched her shoulders once, then leaned forward like she was bored of waiting.
"On a serious note," she said, "I hope we get some action. Something simple. Some cocky bandits. Let me test my skill."
Samui took a sip from her waterskin and swallowed before answering.
"Be careful what you wish for."
Reina scoffed. "We're in Kumo territory. What's going to happen?"
Samui didn't respond.
She didn't need to.
Because Samui was the kind of person who understood that territory didn't mean safe—it just meant the threats learned how to hide better.
⸻
They moved again.
Hours of steady travel.
The kind that looked easy until your legs started to hate you and your shoulders started to carry the weight of vigilance like it was a second pack.
The sun dipped.
Shadows stretched.
By the time night arrived, the caravan peeled off the main road and formed a tight camp in a shallow clearing: wagons in a crescent, supplies inward, horses tethered, small cooking fires kept low.
Raitaro finally spoke like the mission had truly begun.
"I'm scouting ahead," he said, already walking off before anyone could argue. "Don't let them die while I'm gone."
Reina's jaw tightened like she wanted to say something.
Samui gave a small nod.
Raizen watched their sensei disappear into the dark and felt that familiar irritation flare in his chest.
Of course he's leaving the important part to us.
But the truth was—this was the important part.
Night was when people got sloppy.
Night was when fear made civilians do stupid things.
Night was when bandits found courage.
Team Eleven went to work.
Raizen handled traps, because he was the only one patient enough to make them invisible.
He laid wire low across likely approach points. Tied warning tags to brush lines. Set two barrier seals—not enough to stop a real assault, but enough to buy seconds and force an enemy to reveal themselves if they rushed.
Samui mapped patrol routes with the same precision she used for swordwork. She chose paths that kept them close enough to the caravan to respond fast, but wide enough to see the treeline.
Reina split the night into three watches.
"Rotations," she said. "No arguing. We each patrol a third. If anything feels off, you wake everyone. Even if you think it's stupid."
"It won't be stupid," Samui said.
Reina's gaze cut to Raizen. "Especially you."
Raizen held up his hands. "What did I do?"
"You look like the type to think you can handle it alone," Reina replied.
Raizen blinked.
Then quietly… he couldn't deny it.
⸻
The night went smooth.
No alarms.
No footsteps.
No sudden shadows.
Just wind and insects and the low crackle of the smallest fires.
Raizen's shift was the middle one—when fatigue hit hardest. When your eyes started to blur and your mind started to suggest nothing will happen.
He kept Full Body Circulation humming low through his muscles. Not for speed.
For steadiness.
For the mental edge it gave him—like his body was holding him awake from the inside.
By the time dawn came, Raitaro returned like he'd never left—silent, casual, hands in his pockets, as if scouting a road alone in enemy territory was just a morning stroll.
His presence alone made the caravan stir.
Merchants yawned, stretched, packed fast.
And just like that—
Day two began.
⸻
Raizen's POV
Raizen stayed on high alert.
Not because something had happened.
Because nothing had.
He'd lived long enough in this world to understand the pattern: the moment you believed you were safe was the moment the world reminded you you weren't.
He walked beside the wagons, close enough to hear conversations, close enough that nervous civilians would look at him and feel steadier.
They were a new trading group—young nobles mostly, but not the type he'd expected.
They were kind. Polite. Generous with food and water. They talked like they actually cared about the people they represented.
It threw Raizen off more than he wanted to admit.
In his old world, rich people didn't risk roads.
They risked other people.
Here… Genzo Arakawa did.
Raizen learned it piece by piece from idle conversations.
Genzo had gathered several wealthy families from Yunokawa and formed an alliance. Not a noble club.
A trading company—built to grow their village.
They pooled money, hired carriers, bought goods cheap from smaller settlements, then sold them to bigger villages like Kumo for profit.
Then they used the money to improve Yunokawa: roads, supplies, repairs, medicine, food stores, even a small guard expansion.
It worked.
Yunokawa started growing.
Kumo took notice.
And when Kumo invests, the world pays attention.
Bandits noticed too.
At first, the raids were dumb. Hungry men with blades and bad plans.
But as Yunokawa got richer, the raids got smarter.
More coordinated.
More patient.
And that's where Kumo stepped in—escort contracts, route protection, mission postings like the one Team Eleven was on now.
Genzo wasn't just some rich man paying for safety.
He was building a lifeline for his village… and walking that lifeline himself.
Raizen found himself watching the man when he thought no one was looking.
Genzo laughed easily, but his eyes were always counting.
He checked wagons himself. Talked to everyone. Took blame when someone was tired. Offered his own water when a carrier's hands were shaking.
He's not pretending, Raizen realized.
And something in Raizen's chest shifted.
Because in another life, he would've looked at someone like Genzo and assumed "corrupt" by default.
Here… it was different.
Here, he saw the kind of leader who got targeted first.
And without even deciding it out loud, Raizen made a promise in the quiet part of his mind:
I'll get you home.
I'll get all of you home.
And as the caravan rolled deeper toward Yunokawa, the road ahead still looked calm—
but Raizen didn't trust calm.
Not anymore.
Not with a world that loved to punish comfort.
Not with a team that didn't have a true sensor.
Not with a mission that had been quiet for too long.
And somewhere, in the middle of day two—
the incident finally came.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The sound hit the caravan first—deep and heavy, like the earth itself was getting punched in the ribs.
The civilian chatter died instantly.
Wheels stopped. Horses snorted and stamped, harnesses clinking as heads turned toward the treeline.
A few merchants looked at the genin the way civilians always did in that moment—
Please tell me you're really shinobi.
Raizen's body went still for half a heartbeat.
Not fear.
Just… the old reflex of don't move until you understand what's moving.
Then his promise snapped back into place like a seal locking.
I'll get you home.
Thud.
Thud.
Closer.
The ground trembled under their sandals. Dust shivered off wagon canvas. One of the horses whined, ears pinning back.
Reina moved first—because Reina always moved first.
"Formation," she barked, voice cutting clean through the rising panic. "Civilians inside the wagons. Keep the line tight."
She stepped forward until she was between the sound and the caravan, hand on her sword, posture upright like a blade planted in dirt.
Samui drifted back without needing to be told, sliding toward the rear wagons, eyes scanning for second threats the way she'd been trained.
Raizen climbed.
One step, two—he was on top of a wagon in a breath, boots on canvas, knees bent.
He exhaled slowly and snapped his wrists.
Thin chakra threads spat outward—fast, quiet—anchoring into brush, into dirt, into the roots beneath the path like webbing seeking bone.
He closed his eyes.
Let the world talk back.
Vibration.
Weight.
A single massive mass.
Moving fast.
Raizen's jaw tightened.
"One signature," he called down, voice controlled. "Large. Charging hard. Not human. Chakra beast."
The merchants gasped like the word itself had teeth.
Reina didn't flinch.
She ran chakra through the cloak Raizen had given her—just a pulse.
A seal answered.
With a soft shhk, metal slid into her palm like it had been waiting there all along.
Chakra metal.
Her sword looked too clean for the road. Too serious.
"Prepare for combat," Reina said—calm, hard, final.
Boom!
The brush exploded.
A boar the size of an elephant burst into the open, shoulders like boulders, tusks thick as spear shafts. Steam blasted from its snout and ears in violent jets, turning the air white around its head.
Its eyes were red and stupid and furious.
And it was coming straight for the wagons.
Samui didn't hesitate.
"Suiton: Suijinheki!" (Water Release: Water Encampment Wall)
The creek beside the road answered her like it owed her money.
Water surged up in a thick, curved wall—dense enough to look almost solid—right in the boar's path.
The beast hit it like a battering ram.
WHAM!
Water detonated outward in a spray. The boar's charge slowed—only a little—but it was enough. Enough to steal momentum. Enough to create an opening.
Raizen vanished.
A short Body Flicker—no wasted flash—just a relocation into the boar's blind spot.
He landed low behind it, one knee down, and snapped both hands forward.
Threads lashed out and wrapped the boar's legs and torso in tight bands, biting into its bristled hide, anchoring it to the ground like a caught monster.
The threads trembled under the animal's strength.
Raizen didn't fight that strength.
He redirected it.
He breathed.
In—two—three.
Out—two—three.
Full Body Circulation hummed through his muscles like a second skeleton.
His hands formed signs—clean, minimal.
Three.
That was all he needed.
"Raiton: Raijū Tsuiga." (Lightning Release: Lightning Beast Running Technique)
Lightning gathered in his palms—
but it didn't scream.
It didn't crack and spit like wild stormfire.
It hummed, smooth and low, like a wire carrying current with discipline.
Full Body Circulation kept his lightning vibration tight—controlled—trading some of the harsh, jagged bite for stability.
It looked… quieter.
More dangerous for how calm it was.
The lightning beast formed at the base of his threads, jaws opening in a silent snarl—
and then it shot forward.
The threads became rails.
The beast became the train.
It rocketed down the web-line and slammed into the boar's side in a brilliant blue flare—
KRAAASH!
The boar howled, flesh scorching where it hit.
And the water still clinging to its hide from Suijinheki made the shock spread wider—crawling over its body in crawling arcs.
For a second, the beast staggered.
For a second, it felt pain.
Then it roared like pain was an insult.
It ripped its head around and charged at Raizen.
Straight at him.
Raizen flickered sideways—barely.
The tusks cut through the space he'd been in, gouging the road.
He backpedaled, shoulders steady, hands moving on instinct.
Three lightning-charged shuriken snapped out.
They struck the boar's front legs—
and burst with sharp, stunning shocks.
Not enough to drop it.
Enough to break rhythm.
Enough to make the beast stutter.
Reina took the opening like it was hers.
"Raiton: Chakra Nagashi." (Lightning Release: Chakra Flow)
Her blade ignited.
Unlike Raizen's hum, her lightning was loud—violent—bright and aggressive. It crackled around her sword in jagged tongues, the kind of electricity that wanted to announce itself.
She flashed in.
One slash across the shoulder.
Another across the flank.
She moved in and out with Body Flicker bursts, never staying long enough to get caught by tusks.
But the boar's hide was thick—unnatural thick—and its thrashing made every clean angle a gamble.
Reina could cut it.
She couldn't cripple it fast enough.
The boar changed tactics.
It stopped trying to win the duel.
It turned and sprinted back into the forest—
tearing trees aside like they were reeds, boulders rolling and cracking under its weight.
For one heartbeat the civilians exhaled—
until the brush on the far side split again.
The boar swung around in a wide arc and came back.
Full speed.
Full mass.
A living siege weapon aimed at the wagons.
Raizen's stomach dropped.
"It's going for the caravan!" he snapped.
He turned his head just enough to catch Samui's eyes.
"Samui—Hidden Mist. Now."
Samui moved without question.
"Suiton: Kirigakure no Jutsu." (Hidden Mist Technique)
The moisture from her earlier wall made it easy—mist poured out like breath from a sleeping dragon, rolling low and thick, swallowing the road.
Visibility dropped to nothing.
And inside that mist, Raizen moved like it was his element.
He flicked his wrists again—
threads spread fast, but not wide.
Not a sensor net.
A trap corridor.
He began shaping Birdcage—webs woven tight, lightning threaded through them like live wire—
but he left one gap.
One obvious lane.
A door for the boar to choose.
Because beasts didn't fear traps.
They feared walls.
And he was giving it a "path."
Samui formed another Suijinheki in front of the caravan, bracing like a shield-bearer behind it.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The ground screamed with the boar's approach.
Then—
BOOM!
It burst through the mist, faster than before, blind and furious.
It hit the water wall again—
WHAM!
Spray exploded.
But this time the boar powered through it, tusks down, forcing its way forward on pure momentum.
The civilians screamed.
Reina stepped in to intercept—
and Raizen's Birdcage snapped shut.
Lightning-thread webbing whipped around the boar like chains.
It wrapped legs.
Wrapped shoulders.
Wrapped tusks.
The beast slammed into the "open lane"—
and realized too late the lane was a snare.
Raizen's hands pulled.
The threads tightened.
The lightning inside them flared brighter—thicker, harsher.
Not his calm hum now.
This was his trap lightning—the kind meant to punish contact.
The boar thrashed inside the Birdcage like it couldn't accept the concept of being told no.
Lightning-thread webbing bit into its hide. Water sheeted off its bristles. Mist rolled around its bulk in choking waves.
And for two… three heartbeats…
It held.
Then the beast stopped fighting like an animal.
Its red eyes narrowed—less rage, more calculation—and the steam coming off its ears changed.
Not a constant vent.
Pulses.
Short, timed bursts that turned the mist into a wall and the air into pain.
Reina flinched as hot vapor licked her face. Samui's lashes dampened. Civilians coughed inside the wagons.
Raizen felt it in his threads.
Not strength.
Strategy.
The boar twisted, not randomly—shoulder first, tusk second, using the curve of its own body to hook web lines like they were ropes on a post. It dragged the entire snare forward in ugly, grinding inches.
Toward the wagons.
Raizen's stomach dropped.
Metal rims. Harness buckles. Nail heads.
If his lightning kissed any of that—
"Horses!" someone screamed.
A lead horse reared as the ground trembled again, eyes rolling white. The wagon creaked, one wheel shifting half an inch.
Raizen's hands tightened.
Full Body Circulation hummed low through his arms—steady, controlled—like a second skeleton keeping his nerves from spiking.
He could surge more voltage.
He could make the threads scream.
But if he did, the lightning would jump.
And if it jumped, it wouldn't care who it hit.
So he did what Daigo had beaten into him with laughter and cruelty:
He kept it clean.
He let the current flow instead of flare.
The new gauntlets around his wrists caught the strain like braces—subtle, guiding, smoothing the chakra the way a channel stone smoothed river water. His palms didn't numb. His grip didn't slip.
"Reina!" he snapped. "It's dragging the cage—don't let it touch the wagons!"
Reina didn't ask how.
She moved.
Body Flicker—short, sharp—reappearing near the lead wagon with her cloak snapping behind her. She slammed a hand to the cloth near her shoulder, pulse of chakra running through the seals.
The cloak answered.
The metal of her sword slid into her palm like it had been waiting inside the fabric all morning.
She stepped forward, blade low, eyes up.
"Civilians—down!" she barked. "Hands on the wagon rails. Don't run unless I say!"
Someone tried to stand anyway, panicked.
The boar heard it.
Or smelled it.
Or just sensed weakness the way monsters always did.
Its head snapped toward the sound, steam bursting in a violent plume, and for the first time since the trap closed—
it stopped trying to escape.
It tried to break through.
The boar planted its hooves, muscles bunching under bristles like coiled rope, and heaved.
The Birdcage lines shrieked.
Trees on Raizen's anchor points bent.
One thread snapped—
not lightning, the physical line—whipping back and slicing the air.
Raizen's heart kicked.
Too close.
Samui's eyes flicked once over the wagon line.
She saw the same thing he did.
The caravan wasn't a battlefield.
It was a pile of fragile lives.
She didn't wait for orders.
"Suiton: Suijinheki!"
The creek answered again—this time not as a straight wall, but as a curved sheet, angled like a breakwater.
Water surged up behind the lead wagons, forming a backstop that boxed the civilians in and gave the horses a barrier to press against instead of bolting.
A physical boundary.
A calm place to shove panic into.
Then Samui snapped her wrist.
"Suiton: Teppōdama!"
A compact water bullet didn't fire at the boar.
It slammed into the ground in front of a stumbling merchant—
a hard, controlled blast that shoved the man backward into the wagon line like a rough hand.
The merchant fell on his ass, coughing and terrified, but alive.
Raizen exhaled once.
Good.
Reina's eyes cut sideways at Samui—approval without words.
Then the boar roared.
It surged.
Not forward.
Sideways.
It used the momentary slack in the snapped line to twist its body like a battering ram and rip a lane through the mist.
For a heartbeat, the Birdcage was no longer a cage.
It was a harness on a charging siege beast.
And it was coming straight for the front wagon.
"—MOVE!" someone screamed, uselessly.
Reina did not move.
She stepped in.
Raizen felt his body try to spike—instinct screaming to throw more lightning, more force—
and Full Body Circulation caught it like a hand on his chest.
In—two—three.
Out—two—three.
He forced the panic down into rhythm.
Then he changed the plan.
Birdcage was too big.
Too much surface area.
Too dangerous near wagons.
He needed anchors.
He snapped both wrists and fired threads past the boar—low, fast—into trees and rocks along the roadside. Not for sensing.
For leverage.
For a hard return.
He yanked.
Not backward.
Diagonal.
Like pulling a charging bull's horns off its line.
The boar's head jerked. Its hooves skidded. Dirt exploded up in clumps.
It tried to correct.
That's when Reina struck—not with a slash.
With timing.
"Raiton: Jibashi."
Lightning raced along the ground in a tight line, not a wide flare. It kissed the earth right where the boar's front hooves were about to plant again.
The beast didn't get paralyzed.
It got disrupted.
Its legs buckled for half a beat—just long enough for its momentum to become its enemy.
Samui's Suijinheki—still angled—caught the beast's shoulder like a wave hitting a cliff.
WHAM!
Water exploded. The boar staggered sideways—
into Raizen's anchors.
Raizen tightened every line at once.
The gauntlets hummed. His forearms burned.
Full Body Circulation held the current stable, kept it from spiking into wild arcs.
He didn't shock the boar harder.
He held it.
He let the beast pull against itself.
The boar thrashed.
The box held.
And for the first time, something changed in the beast's eyes.
Not fear.
Not surrender.
Fatigue.
Its steam bursts started coming faster, less controlled—pressure dumping because the body couldn't maintain it.
Its shoulders heaved.
Its breath went ragged, frothy.
Reina stayed close, sword ready but not gambling a deep cut on a target still swinging tusks.
Samui kept the water walls positioned like rails, constantly reshaping them in small ways—never wasting chakra on grandeur, always on control.
Raizen pulled, adjusted, anchored—trap combat in pure form.
Not winning by power.
Winning by refusing to let the enemy choose where the fight happened.
The boar's thrashing slowed.
Then slowed again.
Its legs trembled.
It sank—inch by inch—until its belly hit the mud, chest heaving, steam sputtering out in weak jets.
A hush rolled over the caravan.
Civilians stared from behind wagon slats like they couldn't believe the world had stopped trying to kill them.
Raizen's hands shook from strain.
Reina's breath came steady, sharp.
Samui's eyes stayed calm, but her shoulders loosened a fraction.
Then—
the boar moved again.
Not in a charge.
In a decision.
It twisted its head, tusks scraping the ground, and gave one last violent wrench.
Two threads snapped.
Then three.
The Birdcage didn't collapse, but the anchors lost tension—
just enough.
The boar rolled onto its side, then heaved itself up, steam blasting in a final desperate cloud that swallowed the road.
Mist. Heat. Noise.
A cover.
Reina cursed and lunged in—
but Raizen caught her wrist.
"Don't," he said fast.
She glared. "We can finish it."
"We don't need to," Raizen snapped back, eyes tracking the movement inside the steam. "And we can't afford to get pulled into the trees."
Samui's voice cut in, calm and cold.
"Let it go," she agreed. "Our mission is the caravan."
Reina's jaw worked, anger grinding behind her teeth.
Then she exhaled hard.
"Fine."
The steam thinned.
The boar was already halfway into the brush, moving limping-fast—still monstrous, still dangerous, but retreating.
Not defeated.
Chased off.
It crashed through undergrowth, knocking trees and rocks aside—until the sounds faded into the forest like a storm moving away.
Silence followed.
Real silence.
Raizen's heartbeat finally dropped out of his ears.
He released his threads one by one, hands opening slowly, like unclenching from a fight he hadn't realized he'd been holding in his bones.
A merchant stumbled forward, pale.
"Is… is it gone?"
Reina wiped mist from her cheek and sheathed her sword with a sharp click.
"For now," she said.
Samui glanced at the broken threads on the ground, then at Raizen.
"You kept your lightning clean," she said quietly. "Near the wagons."
Raizen swallowed, still breathing in counts.
"Had to," he muttered. "If it arced—"
"I know," Samui said. Simple.
Reina looked at Raizen's gauntlets, then at his hands.
"…You didn't lose control," she said, almost grudging.
Raizen huffed a breath that almost became a laugh.
"Don't congratulate me," he said. "That thing learned. If it comes back—"
A shadow landed behind them.
A familiar one.
Raitaro stood at the edge of the road like he'd been there the whole time, dango stick in his mouth, eyes unreadable.
He looked at the torn brush.
The broken threads.
The wet road.
The shaken civilians.
Then he looked at Team Eleven.
"Good," he said.
Reina snapped, "You call that good?!"
Raitaro shrugged.
"You didn't lose the caravan," he said. "You didn't kill civilians with stray chakra. You didn't chase a beast into the forest like idiots."
His grin showed teeth.
"And you learned something."
Raizen's eyes narrowed. "What?"
Raitaro's gaze drifted to the treeline where the boar vanished.
"That it wasn't supposed to kill you," he said softly. "Not yet."
The words sat heavy.
Samui's posture tightened.
Reina's hand twitched near her hilt.
Raizen felt something cold settle in his stomach.
Because the road had been too quiet.
Because the attack had been too timed.
Because that boar had been too… directed.
And somewhere ahead—
Yunokawa was still four days away.
And day two had finally reminded them:
this mission was not going to stay simple.