At midday, the usually quiet Tsurugetsu Izakaya had few customers.
Kyoi sat gloomily behind the counter, absentmindedly flipping through the ledger in front of her.
Where has he been these past few days? Why hasn't he come to see me?
Thinking about how his movements had been getting faster and faster a few nights ago, her cheeks suddenly flushed red.
She had witnessed his growth—both in his skills as a shinobi and in his… masculine vigor.
Maybe he'd taken on some mission and left the village.
Two merchants stepped into the izakaya.
"Boss lady, a bottle of sake, please."
Kyoi froze at the sound.
That voice…
She slowly looked up and saw a girl—someone younger than her.
My sister?
A flash of shock crossed her eyes.
Kyoi worked as a spy for the village, while her more talented younger sister served as a shinobi in Iwagakure.
All of the pay and rewards Iwagakure gave Kyoi for her work were sent directly to her sister, Mei.
Why would her sister show up here?
Could it be… Mei was the contact? Here in Konoha?
Why would the village do this? Hadn't she already done so much for them?
Kyoi had just gotten hold of extremely important intel—Uzumaki Mito's funeral would be held in five days.
Back when the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, was still alive, there had been no need to hide the fact that the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki existed.
With Hashirama's strength, the Nine-Tails alone wasn't something worth keeping as the village's highest-level secret.
It was public knowledge that Uzumaki Mito was the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki.
Kyoi knew the village would value this intel highly. But she didn't expect them to send Mei to her.
With Mei's arrival, Kyoi had no choice but to stake her life on confirming the intel's authenticity.
This was the final order given to a spy.
Either she would succeed in gathering the intel and be recalled to the village, becoming a shinobi in the light—Or she would fail and die, losing everything she held dear.
Mei had disguised herself as a merchant visiting Konoha on business—a cover that was far too easy to expose.
"Coming! We've got mid-range, high-end, and premium sake—what price range would you like?"
"Premium. Let's taste what fine sake a big village like Konoha has to offer!"
The code matched.
Kyoi's last bit of hope crumbled. Mei was not here by chance.
Selecting a bottle of sake, Kyoi brought it to Mei.
Mei was excited—she hadn't seen her sister in three years.
But they couldn't acknowledge each other, forced to pretend they were strangers.
Mei lifted her sake cup and examined it carefully, spotting the special marking.
Two days later, that bottle would appear in a nearby trash bin, containing Kyoi's final confirmation of the intel.
The village had to know the most accurate information about Uzumaki Mito.
Kyoi stepped into the back courtyard and entered her room.
She gathered all her money—ready to act within these two days to confirm the intel.
While tidying the room, Kyoi saw a razor.
It was his razor.
Had he found some other little vixen?
Half the budget for her final mission had come from him.
Every time he came, he'd order expensive beef and the purest sake.
If she really were a Konoha villager, maybe she would've tried to be with him.
She had known him for so long, yet he'd only ever told her one name—Kyoi knew it was fake.
He said his name was "Miqu," which was too half-hearted; it was just the name of an ingredient printed on a sake bottle.
He had a steady temperament—something rare and valuable among shinobi.
Many shinobi suffered from mental illnesses—seeming normal most of the time, but terrifying when they snapped.
Some would drink in an izakaya and suddenly remember things from a past mission, going berserk and smashing everything.
Maybe they'd killed the wrong person. Maybe they'd killed too many. Maybe they'd been tortured by enemies. Maybe they'd been suspected by their own village.
Fortunately, the Uchiha Police Force was nearby, and Uchiha shinobi would handle the rampages.
Kyoi headed to the largest sake wholesaler in Konoha.
"Boss, my izakaya's sales have been dropping lately. I'm planning a promotion tomorrow. How much premium sake do you have in stock?"
"How much premium sake can a single shop of yours handle?"
"At least twenty cases a day, for five days straight."
As she chatted with the boss, she caught the eye of a sales clerk.
The clerk understood her signal immediately and, under the pretext of an important customer, led the boss away.
The boss told Kyoi to wait in his office and said he'd be right back.
That clerk was one of her recruited assets—not very useful until now.
In the boss's office, Kyoi closed the door and took out a key.
It was one she had secretly duplicated long ago.
Carefully opening the safe, Kyoi saw the wholesaler's ledger.
The Senju clan had stopped buying sake?
Checking the date, she saw they had stopped ordering since yesterday.
Reading further, she found something even more exciting—
The Uchiha clan had increased their sake orders!
The Uchiha and Senju clans had always had terrible relations, long-standing rivals within the village.
Especially after Uchiha Kagami's death, the Uchiha had lost their bridge of communication with the outside.
The Senju stopping their sake orders meant they knew something bad might happen to their clan.
The Uchiha increasing their orders meant they believed something good was about to happen.
Taken together, Kyoi was convinced the intel her fellow spy had passed her was true—something bad really was about to happen to the Senju clan.
And that could only be the death of the long-lived Uzumaki Mito.
Leaving the wholesaler, Kyoi headed to her next stop to find more evidence.
All across Konoha, Iwagakure spies were on the move, investigating in secret.
Meanwhile, on the border of the Land of Grass, a middle-aged man floated in the air.
The Third Tsuchikage, Ōnoki, gazed in the direction of Konoha.
Behind him stood five Iwa-nin divisions.
The Five-Tails' jinchūriki, the steam-nin Han, approached Ōnoki.
"Tsuchikage-sama, the troops are assembled."
Han looked at him and noticed the slight rise and fall of his floating posture—a sign of unease in the Tsuchikage's heart.
They planned to strike Konoha with their elite forces, taking advantage of the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki transition and Uzumaki Mito's death, to deal a crushing blow and give Iwagakure the advantage in the Shinobi World War.
It was a gamble. Success would yield massive gains. Failure could mean the death of all 300-plus elites.
Ōnoki said:
"The more critical the time, the less we can afford impatience.
We are a great, unyielding boulder—either unmoving or thundering down like a landslide, destroying everything below.
Once the spies confirm the intel, we march to Konoha!"
This was the most precious opportunity the heavens had given Iwagakure.
The Nine-Tails was said to be violent by nature, a mass of resentment. Sealed within Uzumaki Mito for so many years, it must hate her and Konoha to the core.
With the Nine-Tails, they could surely devastate Konoha.
In a Konoha alleyway—
Mei retrieved a sake bottle from a trash bin.
There were a few etched marks on it—spy code from Iwagakure.
The intel was true!
Once she confirmed the message, Mei quickly left.
She finished her merchant cover mission and was about to depart from Konoha.
Looking one last time toward Kyoi's izakaya, she thought, Sister can finally return to the village. We won't have to be apart anymore.
In the Land of Grass, Ōnoki, now in possession of the intel, waved his hand in midair.
He would personally lead the raid on Konoha—to crush it completely.