The canopy swallowed the last vestiges of twilight, leaving the forest a world of ink and silver. Hazy moonlight filtered through the leaves, casting jagged, skeletal shadows that danced across the forest floor. The squad moved in a rhythmic, muffled hush—the only sound was the soft creak of the stretchers and the rustle of leaves beneath boots.
Lin Yue walked at the center of the formation. He had already deactivated his Sharingan; the drain on his chakra was manageable, but the crimson glow was a beacon in the dark that he couldn't afford to light. He relied on his ears and the heightened peripheral vision of his Uchiha heritage, while behind him, Kage, Rai, and Ho moved like three silent wraiths—invisible nets protecting the heart of the unit.
Despite the tactical security, a cold weight sat in Lin Yue's gut.
The ledger, he thought. The unregistered are always the first to burn.
He could use the "clan reinforcement" excuse to satisfy Tanaka for now, but the temporary base was a different beast entirely. Konoha's wartime bureaucracy was a machine of ink and paper. Every shinobi was logged, every squad accounted for. You couldn't just walk into a forward command post with four high-level "cousins" who didn't exist in the village archives.
If the Root or the Military Police caught wind of them, the summons would be detained as spies—and Yue would be lucky to end up in a cell rather than an interrogation room.
Suddenly, a notification from his initial binding flickered in his mind: [World Travel (Cooldown)].
Lin Yue's heart hammered a sudden, frantic rhythm against his ribs. Of course. The system wasn't just a summoning tool; it was a gateway. If he could transfer his units to another world—a "storage" of sorts—he could bypass the Konoha checkpoints entirely.
System, he called out mentally, detail the World Travel function. What triggers the end of the cooldown?
[Ding—World Travel: Status Cooldown.] [Function: Opens a spatial aperture to transport the Host and Summons to an unlocked world.] [Cooldown Condition: Trigger a Special Variable (Condition Locked; Exploration Required).]
"Exploration required," Yue muttered under his breath. He began to sift through the variables of his new life like a manager auditing a failing project. He had Summoning Points, he had a growing roster, and he had mission completion marks.
Is it the headcount? he wondered. He had four summons now. Perhaps the system needed a "critical mass" of Uchiha energy to stabilize a portal. Or perhaps it was a point threshold. If the system was an engine for the "Uchiha Rise," then "Rise" implied a population—a legion.
"Xiao Yue?" Rin's voice was a mere breath in the dark. She had noticed his sudden halt. "Is there a ripple in the brush?"
Lin Yue snapped back to the present. "No," he whispered, shaking his head. "I was thinking about the base. Rin, how tight is the security at the forward command posts?"
Rin's expression clouded. "Extreme. They check the mission scrolls against the roster. Anyone not on the list is treated as a potential Iwa transformation spy. Without a record, Kage and the others... they won't make it past the gate."
"I know," Yue replied. "I'm working on a way to make them 'disappear' before we hit the perimeter. We'll find an excuse—reconnaissance or a separate mission order. We can't let them be seen by the base commanders yet."
Rin looked at him, her eyes reflecting the moon. She didn't ask how he planned to hide three living, breathing people. She simply nodded. "I trust your judgment."
A sudden hand signal from Kage at the rear brought the group to a dead stop. He pointed into the black depths of the woods to the right.
"Uncle Tanaka," Yue signaled. "Iwa patrol. Two o'clock."
Tanaka's hand went to his hilt instantly. "Rin, with me. Scout it. Yue, hold the center with Sato and Takahashi. The rest—stay in the shadows and wait for my word."
The veteran and the Uchiha girl vanished into the gloom. Kage closed his eyes, his sensory net expanding like an invisible ripple. He held up three fingers, then tapped his thigh—three Genin. No heavy hitters.
Minutes later, Tanaka emerged from the brush, his face grim. "Stragglers. Probably looking for their lost scouts. We're circling wide to the left. We don't have the luxury of a loud fight with these wounded."
The group shifted, drifting through the forest like smoke to avoid the encounter. As they moved, Lin Yue watched his summons. Kage was scanning, Rai was setting "trip-wire" alarms behind them, and Ho was silently monitoring the chakra of the sleeping wounded.
Whether the key to World Travel was population or points, one thing was clear: he needed to grow. He needed more Uchiha. He needed to build the legion that would force the world—and the system—to open its doors.