Consciousness came back in fragments, antiseptic smell, hushed voices, and a bone-deep ache that felt like someone had used my ribs for batting practice. The taste of blood lingered in my mouth, metallic and wrong, while something sharp dug into my ribs every time I tried to breathe properly.
I cracked my eyes open to familiar walls and the fuzzy shapes of medical equipment. Kitaura medical facility, I recognized the layout from previous visits. The trip back was mostly a haze of stumbling through forest paths and trying not to pass out, but somehow we'd made it.
Could've been a lot worse, all things considered. I ended up carrying Mikoto most of the way back while the patrolling chunin dragged Tsume and what was left of our squad. My clones had kept everyone from bleeding out, but hauling three half-dead people back to civilization was its own brand of torture.
"He's awake." A woman's voice, probably one of the medics.
I rolled my head to the side, felt like moving a concrete block, and saw Mikoto on the bed next to mine. She was conscious, propped up on pillows and looking like roadkill. Her skin had that gray, waxy look people got when they'd lost too much blood.
"Hey." My voice came out like gravel. "You look like shit."
She managed a weak smile. "You're one to talk. You've got more holes than a fishing net."
Tsume lay on the bed beside us, still out cold. One side of her face was swollen purple, and her left arm was in a splint. A medic knelt beside her, hands glowing green as he worked on what I assumed were internal injuries.
The surviving chunin from our escort was on the fourth bed, his skin was gray, and the rise and fall of his chest looked labored. Still alive, but it was touch and go.
"How did we get here?" Mikoto's voice came out thin and confused. "Last thing I remember was fighting those Kumo bastards, then..." She pressed a hand to her bandaged ribs, wincing.
"Patrol found us," I said. "Three chunin had been working the area when they heard the explosions. Took them about an hour to grow a pair and actually investigate the noise."
Couldn't blame them for being careful. When they'd first spotted me slumped against that tree with two unconscious teammates and a guy bleeding out, surrounded by what used to be a forest, they'd crept up like they expected the ground to explode under their feet.
Which, considering what I'd done to the landscape, wasn't entirely unreasonable.
"Explosions?" Mikoto's forehead creased as she tried to fill in the gaps in her memory.
"I might have gotten a little carried away," I said, staring at the ceiling tiles. Definitely not my finest moment.
I filled her in on the basics, how the ambush had gone sideways, the explosion fest that followed, and our stumbling march back to civilization. She listened with growing amazement, then started laughing despite the pain it obviously caused her ribs.
But when I finished, she went quiet, staring at me with an expression I couldn't quite read. Her dark eyes had gone bright and wet, like she was seeing something that wasn't quite there.
"Hey." I studied her face. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing." The words came out too fast, followed by a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Just tired, I guess. These painkillers are messing with my head."
"Mikoto—"
"It's really nothing. It's just..." Her voice dropped to almost nothing. "You're alive. When I saw that blade punch through your chest, when you went down... I thought you were..." She turned away, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. "God, I'm being such an idiot."
"Hey." I pushed myself up from the bed, my ribs screaming in protest, and shuffled the few steps to her bedside. "You're not being an idiot. You saw me go down, you thought it was over. Of course you were scared."
I reached out and gently patted her head. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere." That was all it took, the dam burst. Her breath hitched, and the tears she'd been holding back spilled free, streaking her pale cheeks.
"Shinji..." My name came out broken as she grabbed my shirt and buried her face against my chest. Her whole body shook as everything she'd been holding back, the fear, the terror of watching me nearly bleed out, hit her all at once.
I wrapped my arms around her and held on, one hand stroking her hair while she cried. Across the room, I caught a medic pretending to check equipment while her face went red, clearly enjoying the free drama.
"I'm not going anywhere," I said into her hair. "Takes more than some Kumo assholes with sharp objects to kill me, remember?"
She nodded against my chest.
A medic approached my bed, a woman who'd been sneaking glances at our moment. When she asked how I was feeling, I told her it was like getting trampled by a herd of angry elephants.
She flipped through my chart without looking up, explaining that wasn't far off the mark. Punctured lung, three broken ribs, moderate blood loss. Whoever had done the emergency work had kept me from bleeding out on the forest floor.
My clones. Right.
I was still processing the medical report when heavy, tired footsteps echoed in the hallway outside. The door swung open, and Dan walked in looking like he'd been awake for thirty-six hours straight. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and his uniform was wrinkled.
"Team 7." He stopped at the foot of Mikoto bed. "Good to see you're still breathing."
"Dan-san," Mikoto said, trying to sit up despite the obvious pain it caused.
"Don't strain yourself," Dan said, then looked at me. "I need to know what happened out there. The patrol team said they found you in the middle of..." He paused, searching for the right word. "Well, a battlefield."
I glanced at Mikoto, who nodded slightly. I walked him through the whole mess, how the Kumo squad had hit the convoy without warning, butchered two chunin and all the merchants before we could blink. How they'd outnumbered us with multiple jonin and enough chunin to make it a slaughter. How I'd rigged explosive seals to my clones and started throwing them around like grenades when everything went to hell.
Dan's face got harder with each detail, his jaw working like he was chewing glass. When I finished, he was quiet for a long moment.
"Get some rest," he said finally. "Don't worry about the mission."
He turned and walked out.
After Dan left, I summoned a few clones and had them work on patching us up properly. A few hours later, Tsume finally came around. She was groggy at first, blinking at the ceiling like she couldn't figure out where she was.
"Where's Kuromaru?" she mumbled, trying to focus on my face. "Did we finish the mission?"
Her eyes widened slightly when she got a clear look at me. "Shinji... you're alive." Relief flooded her voice, then shook her head. "Should've known you're too stubborn to die."
Before I could respond, a familiar whine came from the doorway. Kuromaru padded into the room, tail wagging as he spotted his partner awake. The ninken hopped onto her bed and immediately started licking her face.
"Okay, okay!" she laughed despite her injuries. "I'm fine, boy. I'm fine."
When we filled her in on the ambush and its aftermath, her expression cycled through confusion, anger, and finally settled on pure rage.
"Those bastards jumped us?" She tried to sit up despite her arm being in a cast. "Where are they? I'm gonna rip their fucking throats out."
"Already taken care of," I said. "They're not jumping anyone else."
"Good." She fell back against the pillows, sweat beading on her forehead from the effort. "How long are we stuck in this place?"
"Few days minimum," Mikoto said, shifting carefully to avoid pulling her stitches. "The medics want to make sure we don't keel over."
Tsume made a disgusted noise. "I hate hospitals. They smell like death and bleach."
"That's the smell of medicine," I pointed out. "You know, the stuff keeping you from bleeding internally."
"Whatever. Still smells like shit." She wrinkled her nose. "And the food tastes like cardboard. I want a hangi!"
"Spoken like a true Inuzuka."
"Damn right."
…..
I woke up to find three medics clustered around our beds with expressions that ranged from confused to downright suspicious. The head medic, a stern woman in her forties named Ishida, was holding a clipboard and glaring at it like it owed her money.
"Something wrong?" I asked, though I had a pretty good idea what they'd discovered.
"Your wounds," Ishida said slowly, tapping her pen against the chart. "All three of you. They're healing way faster than they should be."
I blinked innocently. "Is that bad?"
"Not bad, exactly. But we don't have elite Iryonin here who could pull this off." She studied my face like she was looking for lies. "Makes me wonder if Dan brought in reinforcements we don't know about."
Across the room, Mikoto was fighting back a smile. Tsume sat up in her bed, glancing between me and the medics with barely contained laughter.
"Maybe we're just naturally tough," I offered.
"Nobody heals serious wounds that fast," another medic said. "And not all three of you at once."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," I shrugged. "I just slept really well. Must be something in the water."
Just like that, word about my medical talent spread through the facility faster than a ninja with his pants on fire. Over the next few days, I found myself spending more time in the medical wing than in my hospital bed. Ishida had given me unofficial permission to assist with cases, partly because they were understaffed and partly because she seemed genuinely fascinated by my talent despite my age. I helped with everything from stitching up knife wounds to more complex procedures that left the other medics scratching their heads.
On the third day, our surviving chunin finally came around. He blinked at the ceiling like he couldn't quite remember how he'd ended up staring at it. When he asked about his teammates, the room went dead quiet.
"I'm sorry," I told him. "They didn't make it."
His face collapsed. "The merchants?"
"Gone too."
He stared at nothing for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice came out like sandpaper. "What happened out there? Kumo ambush?"
I glanced at Mikoto. "Yeah. They hit us hard and fast. We managed to drive them off, but..." I let the sentence hang. "Too late for most people."
We didn't mention that the ambush had probably been meant specifically for me. No point making the guy feel worse about surviving.
…..
"Um, excuse me. Team 7, please report to the briefing room."
The messenger was some kid who couldn't have been more than twelve, probably fresh out of the Academy and already shipped off to this frontier shithole to run errands.
"Thanks," I told him. "We'll be right there."
After he scurried off, I looked at my teammates. We'd all been cleared for duty the day before, though Ishida had insisted on additional rest time for observation.
"Think this is about our next assignment?" Tsume flexed her recently healed arm, testing the range of motion. The bone had set perfectly, no stiffness, no weakness, like it had never been broken at all.
"Probably," Mikoto said. "We've been off active duty for a week. Dan's got to be running short on personnel."
The briefing room was the same one where we'd received our escort mission assignment. Dan was waiting for us, along with two other jonin I didn't recognize. All three looked like they had been having a serious conversation, judging by their expressions.
"Team 7," Dan said as we filed in. "Good to see you back on your feet. How are you feeling?"
"Like we could take on the world," Tsume said, cracking her knuckles.
"Fully recovered," Mikoto said.
"Ready for whatever you've got planned," I said.
"Good. Because we have a situation." Dan paused, his eyes scanning each of our faces. "Your assignment here is finished. I'm sending you back to Konoha."
Tsume's jaw dropped. "What? But we just got cleared for duty. I thought—"
"Circumstances have changed," he said. "Pack your gear. You're out at first light."
I kept my mouth shut, already seeing the writing on the wall. This had been coming since our debrief about the convoy massacre.
"Just like that?" Tsume's voice rose. "We sit around in a hospital bed for a week and now you're kicking us out?"
Mikoto studied Dan's face. "This is about the ambush, isn't it?"
Tsume's eyes went hard as the pieces fell into place. "The botched escort mission... Are you pulling us because we screwed up?"
"No. Mission parameters have changed. That's all I can tell you. You'll get new assignments once you report back to the village."
I watched him carefully. The man was lying through his teeth, but I had a pretty good idea what he wasn't saying.
...
Dawn bled orange and pink across the horizon as I rolled out of bed and stood at the window, watching the first light spill over Kitaura's grimy rooftops. Time to plan my next move.
Dan wasn't shipping us back because we'd failed the mission. He was getting rid of us because we'd succeeded too well. Because I'd succeeded too well.
If Kumo managed to snatch the supposed "Nine-Tails Jinchuriki" on his watch, even though that wasn't what I actually was, the political shitstorm would destroy Dan's career and reputation. So he was covering his ass by yanking me out of the combat zone before anyone else came hunting. Smart play, honestly. I couldn't blame him for it.
But letting those Kumo bastards walk away without consequences? Not fucking happening.
I ran through the hand seals for shadow clone, feeling my chakra split as another version of myself took shape beside me.
"Lightning Country," I said quietly. "Deep cover, long-term infiltration. Build a network, gather intelligence, and make their lives miserable. Check in every week by dispelling."
The clone nodded, already moving toward the window. "Any specific targets?"
"Use your judgment. But remember, they started this shit by targeting civilians and coming after us specifically. Make sure they regret that choice." I paused. "Obviously, no killing innocents."
"Got it."
The clone slipped through the window and dropped into the alley below, vanishing into the pre-dawn shadows. By the time the sun cleared the mountains, it would be miles away, starting what might be years of work behind enemy lines.
I felt better already.
...
Three hours later, we were walking through Konoha's gates with the morning sun beating down on our necks. No ambushes, no drama, just a quiet march home through countryside that didn't want to kill us.
Tsume had spent most of the trip bitching about Kumo dishonorable tactics, while Mikoto stayed quiet, lost in thought and shooting me occasional glances.
"Home sweet home," I said as we passed under the village gates.
"God, I missed this, an actual civilization!" Tsume groaned, eyeing a fruit vendor's stall.
"First thing I'm doing is burning these clothes," Mikoto muttered, picking at a bloodstain on her sleeve that hadn't come out despite multiple washings.
I just wanted to collapse in my own bed and not think about anything more complicated than what to eat for lunch.
"We should probably check in first," she said, nodding toward the Hokage Tower. "Get the paperwork over with."
Tsume made a face. "Can't we pretend we got lost on the way back?"
"For about three minutes, sure."
A shower and a change of clothes later, we handed over our mission report, thick enough to choke a horse, and for once they didn't immediately slap us with another mission. Just told us to rest up and wait for orders.
So that's what we did. We split up and I trudged back to my apartment, already yawning at the thought of my Konoha clones doing whatever the hell they'd been up to while I was gone.
...
Sunlight crept through my bedroom window like an unwelcome houseguest, jabbing me in the eyes until I finally gave up on sleep. I'd been having the weirdest nightmare about my clones going rogue, not just developing opinions about breakfast, but actually forming their own version of the Akatsuki in every major village.
What time was it, anyway?
The apartment was quiet except for the usual morning noise from the street outside. No explosions, no screaming, no signs that my clones had decided to redecorate with fire while I was unconscious. Always a good sign.
I dragged myself out of bed, bare feet hitting cold wood. My hair was doing that thing where gravity had given up, and my mouth tasted like I'd been chewing on old leather. Just another beautiful morning.
The living room looked like a tornado had thrown a party, empty sake bottles clustered on every surface, medical textbooks splayed open with pages torn and bloodstained, and the sound of what was definitely two clones trying to murder each other somewhere nearby. Pretty typical morning, all things considered.
Sure enough, the wet smack of fists meeting flesh drifted from the dining area, followed by what sounded like someone getting their face introduced to my furniture.
I grabbed a sake cup from the kitchen and poured myself something to take the edge off. Then I collapsed onto my couch, balancing the cup on my chest as I watched two of my clones beat each other senseless on my dining table. Their punches came fast and ugly, connecting with wet smacks as they tried to knock each other into next week.
"Come on, lefty," I muttered, taking another sip. "Use your damn footwork."
Around the room, other clones sat hunched over books in various corners, quietly absorbed in everything from medical texts to whatever manuals they'd swiped from the library. The apartment had basically become my personal study hall and training ground, which beat the hell out of doing all the research myself.
But right now, my mind kept drifting back to the sake in my cup.
I'd never seen anyone in Konoha selling whiskey, rum, or vodka. Sake was fine, good even, but sometimes a guy wanted options. The idea of brewing my own had been nagging at me for weeks, and today, with nothing pressing to do, it seemed less insane and more... doable.
The problem was nobody here seemed to make those drinks. I drummed my fingers on the couch, trying to remember what I'd need. Barrels for aging, obviously. A big pot for mashing grains. Some kind of fermentation setup, maybe wooden vats or clay jars.
The real headache would be the distillation still. A basic pot still might work, but that meant convincing some blacksmith to craft both the still and a condenser. Copper would be perfect, but even iron could get me started.
Doing it inside the village was completely out of the question. People would start asking too many questions.
But outside the village? Maybe somewhere like Tanzaku Quarters, with its gambling halls and endless booze flowing. That sounded more plausible. A place where people minded their own business and weird smells from workshops wouldn't raise eyebrows. And if I got it right, it could turn into serious money down the road.
I drained my sake cup and came to a decision.
"Alright," I said, looking at one of the reading clones. "Pack it up. I'm sending you to Tanzaku Quarters."
"Huh?" The clone glanced up from his book. "What for?"
I opened my mouth to explain the whole whiskey operation, scouting locations, finding equipment suppliers, figuring out local laws...
"You know what?" I waved him off. "Forget it."
The clone shrugged and went back to his reading.
I ran through the hand seals and a clone popped into existence next to the couch. He immediately grabbed my sake bottle, and tilted it back, draining what was left in one long gulp. "Back in a few days."
"Take your time and do it right."
He slipped through the window without another word, disappearing into the morning streets. That was the beauty of shadow clones, no need to waste time explaining shit when they already knew everything running through your head.
I settled back into the couch with a freshly filled cup, watching the table fighters try to keep their balance on the wobbling surface while they beat the hell out of each other. The wood groaned with every impact, probably close to giving up and dumping both idiots on the floor.
One of the clones who'd been reading in the corner suddenly tossed his book aside and dropped onto the couch next to me, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. "We finished those Soldier Pill experiments you wanted."
"Did I?" I paused, sake cup halfway to my mouth.
He let out a tired breath. "You mentioned wanting to understand how they work after seeing them used in the field. Something about knowing what we're dealing with if enemies start popping them during fights."
Right. That made sense. Soldier Pills were standard issue for most major villages, but I'd never bothered learning the details of how they actually worked.
"So what'd you figure out?" I took another sip, already knowing from his face that the results were both interesting and miserable.
"They work exactly like you thought, and they're exactly as shitty as we expected. The other clones are pissed about being guinea pigs."
"Details."
The clone sighed. "The pills are mostly medicinal herbs, chakra-rich foods, and sugar. Basic crap you could buy at any market. But the way they work is clever in a completely fucked up way."
He held up two fingers. "Two main effects. First, it's a metabolic booster, forces your body to burn through stored fat, muscle, whatever fuel you've got, and turn it all into energy. Second, it jacks up chakra circulation through your tenketsu, basically overclocking your entire system."
"Makes sense," I said, already thinking about applications. "Perfect for clones."
"Yeah, well, we're not exactly celebrating," the clone said flatly. "Normally, your body can only push combat-level chakra output for short bursts before it needs a break. These pills just ignore that completely by tapping into what the medical texts call 'emergency reserves.'"
He waved his hand dismissively. "That's why the books claim you can fight for three days straight. You're not getting new chakra, the pill forces your body to burn everything you have at maximum speed while shutting off all the warnings that usually tell you to stop."
I nodded. "And the crash?"
"Oh, where do I start? Dehydration, muscle breakdown, organ strain. When the effect wears off, you don't just get tired, you collapse. Your body basically shuts down to prevent permanent damage."
"How permanent are we talking? You did test them on clones, right?"
"Sort of. Clones aren't exactly built for long-term studies, so we only got rough data. But repeated use can fuck up your heart and trash your chakra coils permanently," he said. "The pills don't make energy out of nothing, they just force your body to burn through everything you've got stored up way too fast. It's like redlining a car engine for hours. Eventually, something snaps."
I set down my sake cup. "So Soldier Pills work by jacking up your metabolism, overcharging chakra flow, and blocking the signals that tell you to stop before you kill yourself."
"Basically. And before you ask, yeah, they'd be perfect for suicide runs or when you're completely screwed. And no, none of us want to go through that shit again."
The clone stood up. "The others are calling it 'scientific self-torture.' Hard to argue with that."
"Fair enough," I said. "Good work, though."
"Yeah, well, next time you want to figure out how something works, maybe pick something that doesn't make us feel like we're dying slowly."
"No promises."
The clone gave me a flat look and walked away, muttering about sadistic bosses. I couldn't help but smile, the intel was exactly what I'd wanted, even if it came with a heaping side of bitching.
"Good work," I said, taking another sip. "Now I want you to push it further."
The clone paused as his face shifted from uncomfortable to deeply suspicious. "Further how?"
"See if you can develop a stronger version. More potent effects. Maybe mix it with other stuff to boost the metabolic kick."
"You want us to make suicide pills," the clone said.
"Exactly. Current ones are built for extended combat over days. I'm thinking more like short-term overwhelming power. Something that could turn the tide in a critical fight."
The clone stared at me for a long moment, then let out a deep sigh that seemed to come from his soul. "So you want us to take something that already makes us feel like we're dying, and make it worse."
"When you put it like that, it sounds unreasonable."
"Because it is unreasonable!" The clone pressed his palm against his forehead. "Do you have any clue what we just went through? It felt like someone poured acid in our veins while making us sprint uphill."
"But did it work?"
"...Yes, it worked. Disgustingly well."
"Then imagine how much more effective a concentrated version could be. Quick burst of overwhelming power instead of sustained misery."
The clone closed his eyes and took a deep breath. I could see him doing the math, how much pain this would cause versus how useful it might be.
"The others are going to hate this," he said finally.
"They'll get over it. Besides, think of it as advancing medical science."
"Medical science." He snorted. "Right."
"Hey, all the best discoveries require sacrifice. This time it just happens to be your sacrifice instead of mine."
The clone gave me a look. "I'm starting to understand why Konoha ban shadow clone jutsu."
"One more thing," I said, waving my hand at the disaster zone that used to be my apartment. "I want you to start buying up the empty rooms in this building. Set them up for experiments, training, research, whatever keeps this circus out of my bedroom."
The clone looked around, taking in the scattered books, the wobbling table with its ongoing brawl, and the general chaos that had consumed my living space. "What's wrong with it?"
I snorted. "Look around, genius. My apartment smells like a chemical plant, there are burn marks on the walls from your practice sessions, and I can't have anyone over without explaining why there's suspicious shit scattered everywhere."
The clone grimaced. "Point taken."
"What happens when I want company? What if Kushina comes over for another cooking lesson and finds you idiots testing weird compounds in my kitchen?"
"That would be awkward to explain," he admitted.
"Exactly. So buy out the empty units. Turn the third floor into a proper lab, set up training rooms, whatever works. Just give me my space back."
"That's going to cost serious money."
"Mission pay's been good. Besides, consider it an investment in our future operations." I gestured at the mess. "Right now we're operating like amateurs out of a single room. Time to upgrade."
The clone rolled his eyes but stood up. "Fine. I'll talk to the landlord about available units and start setting up proper workspace. Anything else, boss?"
"Yeah. Soundproof the lab. I don't want the neighbors calling ANBU because they think someone's running a torture chamber."
"We basically are running a torture chamber."
"Allegedly."
The clone shook his head and headed for the door. "I'll get on it. But how the hell are we supposed to soundproof a lab, anyway? What materials do we even use for that?"
"Uh." I froze, sake cup halfway to my mouth. "Well, this isn't Earth, so new world problems need new world solutions. I'll ask Kushina if she knows any soundproofing seals."
Just as I finished talking, one of the table fighters finally managed to knock his opponent off balance. The losing clone crashed into my bookshelf, sending several volumes crashing to the floor with loud bangs.
"Alright, that's enough!" I snapped, glaring around the room. "All of you, stop what you're doing and clean this shit up. I want my apartment back to normal in the next hour."
The reading clones looked up from their books with mild surprise. The table fighter who'd won his match froze mid-celebration.
"Now!" I added when nobody moved fast enough.
"Where are we supposed to put everything?" one of the readers asked.
"I don't care. Just get it out of my living space."
The clone at the door shook his head. "I'll go talk to the landlord about those rooms."
...
I stepped out into the corridor, needing some fresh air after watching my clones tear my apartment apart. The sake was making my head feel fuzzy, and the constant noise of books being shuffled and furniture moved around was getting on my nerves.
Sure enough, old man Tetsu was standing near his door at the far end of the hallway, watering a small potted plant on his windowsill. When he spotted me, his weathered face broke into that familiar knowing smile.
"Ah, Shinji-kun!" He set down his watering can and shuffled over. "Good to see you getting some fresh air. You've been training very hard lately, haven't you? All day, all the time, such dedication to your shinobi studies!"
I cringed internally. Of course he had been hearing things.
"Sorry about the noise, Tetsu-san," I said, bowing slightly. "I'll make sure to tune it down. I didn't realize how much sound was carrying through the walls."
"Oh, don't worry about it!" He waved his hand dismissively. "It's good to see young people taking their training seriously. Better than the alternative, lazy kids these days, always complaining about hard work."
The old man leaned closer, lowering his voice. "Though I have to admit, some of those sounds… are you practicing a jutsu? It shakes my teacups sometimes. Might be safer to practice that sort of thing at the training grounds."
"Ah, no, it's nothing dangerous like that," I said weakly. "But I promise I'll be more careful about the noise."
As I headed back toward the stairs, a thought struck me. Maybe I really did need to look into getting my own place, somewhere with more space, away from civilian neighbors who might ask uncomfortable questions about why my apartment sounded like a torture chamber half the time.
A house with a yard. Maybe even a basement for the really loud experiments. Somewhere far enough from pedestrian areas that my clones could blow things up without rattling anyone's teacups.
Yeah, that was definitely going on the priority list.
...
I walked through Konoha's familiar streets, sucking in air that didn't reek of antiseptic or burnt flesh for the first time in weeks.
God, it felt good to be home.
That peaceful feeling lasted maybe ten minutes before the familiar crawl of being watched started eating at the back of my neck. The same sensation my clones had been reporting, that obvious feeling of someone's eyes glued to your every move.
I kept walking like nothing was wrong, using storefront windows and quick glances to hunt for my tail. Nothing. Whoever was tracking me knew their business, staying invisible while keeping me in sight. Professional-grade surveillance.
At a dango stand, I bought a tray of the sweet rice dumplings and started chewing while I worked through who might want me followed.
First possibility: ANBU surveillance. Unlikely. I'd already sorted things out with the old man at Lady Mito's place. No reason he'd want to keep tabs on me now.
Second: Kumo spies. Also unlikely but possible, especially if they'd connected me to that crater-filled hellscape outside Kitaura. Which they probably would, eventually. But sneaking into Konoha just to watch one genin seemed like massive overkill, even for revenge-minded kumo bastards. Then again, they'd tried snatching Kushina before, so maybe stupid risks were their thing.
Third option: Root.
I bit into another dango, thinking it through. Danzo being Danzo, I could think of plenty of reasons he might have me watched. Most obvious was recruitment. Root was always hunting for talented shinobi to drag into their ranks. And after the mess in Kitaura and the forest, word had definitely gotten back about what I could do.
Question was whether he'd try the friendly approach or just disappear me one night. Given that I was technically a nepo baby, forceful kidnapping seemed unlikely. Too much political blowback if it went wrong. So probably the diplomatic route, a nice chat about serving the village in more... specialized ways.
Sure enough, after about ten minutes of wandering through increasingly quiet residential streets, a figure in a dark cloak stepped out from an alley. The ANBU mask was generic, but something about the way he moved screamed Root operative, all that emotionless body language, like someone had surgically removed his personality.
"Shinji," he said, "the elder wishes to speak with you. If you would follow me."
Not a request, despite the polite phrasing. But I'd been expecting this.
"Which elder?" I asked, taking another bite of dango.
"Danzo-sama is waiting."
I grinned around the stick. If Danzo wanted to play recruitment games, I could work with that. The old bastard thought he could just waltz in and recruit me, it would be too easy to mess with him. Why not see how much I could get under his skin before telling him to go screw himself? And if I could swindle some S-ranked or forbidden jutsu out of him in the process, all the better.
"Lead the way," I said, finishing off the last dumpling.