Two days later, Sakura decided Naruto should never be allowed to determine a travel pace again.
The first day had been bad enough. Naruto alternated between running, walking, and what he insisted was a "moderate jog," despite Sakura being fairly certain normal people didn't leap between trees at forty miles per hour while calling it moderate. Sasuke had made the mistake of keeping pace with him out of pride, which naturally meant Sakura had refused to fall behind either of them.
By the second afternoon, all three were tired.
Naruto simply hid it better.
"How much farther?" Sakura asked.
Naruto unfolded the map while walking. "Maybe forty minutes."
"You said that an hour ago."
"Different forty minutes."
Sakura's eye twitched.
Sasuke walked between them, wisely refusing to participate.
The forest gradually thinned as they traveled farther into the Land of Hot Water. Thick woodland gave way to rolling hills, rocky ridges and shallow valleys where white steam rose naturally from cracks in the earth. The smell of sulfur had been faint that morning, but by evening it clung to nearly everything.
Then they saw the town.
Wooden inns and bathhouses filled a shallow valley between two forested ridges. Steam drifted between tiled rooftops while lanterns began glowing along narrow streets, bathing the resort town in warm orange light.
Naruto stopped on the ridge.
"Looks nice."
Sakura stared down at the town. "People disappeared here."
"Still looks nice."
Sasuke adjusted his pack.
"That's probably why they came."
Naruto glanced sideways.
"Was that a joke?"
"No."
"Sounded like one."
"Move."
Naruto grinned and started downhill.
The first thing Team Seven learned about investigating missing people was that civilians were extremely good at providing information that sounded important and wasn't.
The second thing they learned was that everyone remembered Daichi Matsuda.
Unfortunately, none of them remembered him for useful reasons.
"He complained about the towels."
Naruto stared at the bathhouse attendant.
"The towels?"
"Too rough."
Sakura wrote something in her notebook anyway.
The attendant nodded solemnly. "Very particular young man."
Naruto leaned toward Sakura.
"Are you actually writing that down?"
"Everything could matter."
"He didn't get kidnapped because the towels were scratchy."
"You don't know that."
Naruto stared at her.
Sasuke had already walked toward the next employee.
Their first real stop was the Moonlit Steam Inn, where Daichi had stayed with two Fire Country officials. The owner remembered him immediately, although mostly because he'd been wealthy, loud and apparently incapable of leaving a room without forgetting something behind.
"He lost his room key three times," the woman explained.
Naruto nodded seriously.
"Suspicious."
Sakura lowered her notebook.
"What exactly is suspicious about that?"
"Three times."
Sasuke rubbed his forehead.
The innkeeper looked between them uncertainly.
Naruto cleared his throat.
"Right. Did he mention where he was going the night he disappeared?"
"The public baths."
"Which one?"
The woman hesitated.
"That's difficult."
Sasuke's eyes sharpened.
"Why?"
"There are eleven."
Naruto's shoulders fell.
They checked all eleven.
The first bathhouse remembered Daichi because he'd argued with an elderly man over a stool.
The second remembered him because he'd tried to impress two girls from Lightning Country.
The third had never seen him.
The fourth insisted they had until Sakura showed them his photograph, at which point the owner admitted he had confused Daichi with another rich teenager.
The fifth produced their first promising lead.
"He came here."
The elderly receptionist adjusted his glasses and examined the photograph again.
"Definitely."
Naruto leaned forward.
"What time?"
"Late."
"How late?"
The old man thought about it.
"After dinner."
Sakura immediately opened her notebook.
"Was he alone?"
"At first."
All three shinobi became still.
Sasuke stepped closer.
"At first?"
The receptionist nodded.
"He spoke with a young woman."
Naruto's eyes widened.
Sakura wrote faster.
"What did she look like?"
"Pretty."
Sakura stopped writing.
Naruto waited.
The old man smiled.
"Very pretty."
Sasuke's expression flattened.
"Hair?"
"Yes."
Naruto turned away before he laughed.
Sakura took over.
"What color was her hair?"
The old man frowned in concentration.
"Brown."
"Eye color?"
"Didn't notice."
"Clothing?"
"A robe."
Sakura's pencil paused.
They were inside a hot spring.
Everyone wore robes.
"Anything unusual?"
The old man became thoughtful.
Then his eyes brightened.
"She had very large—"
Sakura slammed the notebook shut.
"THANK YOU."
Naruto lost the battle.
He burst out laughing.
Sasuke walked outside without them.
The mysterious woman consumed nearly three hours.
They questioned waitresses, bath attendants, street vendors and finally discovered a brown-haired woman matching the description working at a dumpling shop.
She stared at Daichi's photograph.
"Oh, him."
Naruto leaned forward.
"You were with him the night he disappeared?"
"For maybe ten minutes."
Sakura narrowed her eyes.
"What did you discuss?"
The woman smiled.
"He asked me to meet him after my shift."
Naruto's expression became smug.
Sakura ignored him.
"Did you?"
"No."
"Why?"
"He was annoying."
Naruto's smug expression disappeared.
The woman returned the photograph.
"He spent half the conversation telling me who his father was."
Sasuke nodded.
"Sounds believable."
Naruto looked offended on behalf of a person he'd never met.
That lead died immediately.
The second false lead involved gambling.
One missing Fire Country merchant had owed nearly thirty thousand ryō to a local gambling house. Naruto became convinced they'd discovered a kidnapping ring until the owner produced three separate witnesses confirming the merchant had paid the debt two days before vanishing.
The third involved a jealous husband.
That investigation ended when Team Seven discovered that the "missing woman" the husband believed his wife had been secretly meeting was actually her sister.
The fourth lead was Naruto's favorite.
A local fisherman claimed he'd seen "hooded figures carrying a body through the mist."
Sasuke questioned him for twenty minutes.
Sakura mapped the location.
Naruto followed the route personally.
The hooded figures turned out to be bathhouse employees carrying a drunk customer back to his inn.
Naruto returned looking betrayed.
"I thought we had them."
Sakura crossed another line from her notes.
"We're ruling things out."
"We've ruled out everything."
"That's still progress."
Sasuke looked over the pages spread across the floor of their rented room.
"Not everything."
It was nearly midnight.
Six Fire Country victims had become nine.
That was the first useful thing they'd discovered.
Three residents of the Land of Hot Water had also disappeared during approximately the same period.
Nobody had connected the cases because the locals had vanished separately and none came from important families.
Sakura arranged nine pieces of paper across the floor.
"Different ages. Different jobs. Different levels of wealth."
Naruto sat cross-legged opposite her.
"Men and women."
Sasuke nodded.
"Two travelers were alone. Four weren't."
"No ransom," Sakura added. "No bodies. No valuables consistently taken."
Naruto stared at the reports.
Something bothered him.
He picked up Daichi's page.
Then another.
Then one belonging to a local carpenter named Eiji.
Naruto frowned.
"Where did this guy disappear?"
Sakura checked her notes.
"His wife said he was coming back from the western baths."
Naruto grabbed another page.
"And her?"
"Last seen near the market."
"Which market?"
"The western—"
Sakura stopped.
Sasuke was already moving toward the town map.
They gathered around it.
Daichi disappeared after leaving a bathhouse on the western side of town.
The merchant disappeared after leaving the gambling house two streets east of it.
One local woman vanished while walking home from the western market.
The carpenter disappeared near the same district.
Another Fire Country traveler had last been seen leaving a restaurant nearby.
Sasuke drew a circle around the area.
"Five."
Sakura checked again.
"Six."
Naruto looked up.
"Six of nine disappeared within maybe ten minutes of each other."
"Walking distance," Sasuke corrected.
Naruto waved dismissively.
"Same thing."
"No."
"Close enough."
Sakura ignored them.
"What about the other three?"
Sasuke examined the reports.
"Different locations."
Naruto looked disappointed.
Then Sakura noticed something.
"Wait."
She grabbed one of the local reports.
"This man worked here."
Her finger landed on the western district.
Another victim had lived elsewhere but worked at a bathhouse inside the circle.
The final victim delivered food throughout town.
Sakura looked between the boys.
"All nine spent time in the western district."
Silence followed.
Naruto smiled.
Finally.
"Now we're getting somewhere."
The next morning they returned to the western district.
This time they weren't asking about individual victims.
They asked what the victims had in common.
That changed the answers.
A shopkeeper remembered seeing several of them near the same alley.
A bath attendant recalled hearing one missing resident mention a "meeting."
A restaurant worker remembered Daichi asking for directions to an old shrine outside town.
That got Sasuke's attention.
"What shrine?"
The worker immediately became uncomfortable.
"Nothing important."
Naruto leaned against the counter.
"People keep saying that right before something important."
The man looked away.
Sakura softened her tone.
"We're not here to cause problems. People are missing."
The worker sighed.
"There used to be a shrine west of town. Before I was born."
"Used to?"
"Closed."
"Why?"
The man shrugged.
"Ask the mayor."
Naruto blinked.
"The mayor?"
"He knows the old stories."
That became a pattern.
Every time Team Seven asked about the western shrine, someone redirected them toward the mayor.
Nobody claimed anything terrible had happened there.
Nobody claimed it was haunted.
Nobody claimed cultists gathered beneath the moon to sacrifice travelers.
Naruto asked about that specifically.
Sakura punched him.
By noon they stood outside the mayor's residence.
It was considerably larger than any other home in town.
Naruto looked up at it.
"Rich."
Sakura sighed.
"Please don't accuse the mayor of kidnapping people because his house is nice."
"I wasn't going to."
Sasuke glanced at him.
"You were."
"Maybe a little."
The mayor was a broad, elderly man named Tadayoshi Mori.
He welcomed them politely.
Then Naruto mentioned the shrine.
The man's smile disappeared.
Only for a second.
Sasuke noticed.
"So you've heard about it."
The mayor folded his hands.
"There is nothing there."
Naruto leaned forward.
"Then why does everyone keep sending us to you?"
Mori's jaw tightened.
Sakura placed Daichi's photograph on the table.
"Nine people are missing."
The mayor looked at the photograph.
"Nine?"
Sakura nodded.
"Six Fire Country citizens. Three residents from your town."
Something changed in the man's expression.
Naruto caught it.
"You knew about the locals."
The mayor remained silent.
Sasuke's voice became colder.
"Why weren't their disappearances reported together?"
Mori looked toward the window.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then he sighed.
"This town survives on travelers."
Naruto frowned.
The mayor continued.
"Hot springs. Inns. Restaurants. Tourism is nearly everything we have."
Sakura understood first.
"You didn't want people hearing residents were disappearing."
"I wanted evidence before creating panic."
Naruto's expression hardened.
"People disappearing is evidence."
"I know."
The mayor suddenly looked much older.
"Now."
That quieted Naruto.
Mori stood and crossed toward a locked cabinet.
He removed a small wooden box.
Inside were several objects.
A black cord.
A broken metal pendant.
A strip of dark fabric.
And a small symbol carved into wood.
A circle.
Inside it, an inverted triangle.
Naruto stared at it.
Something about the symbol felt wrong.
Not chakra.
Something else. He couldn't quite put a finger on it, but Naruto felt as if he was missing something
"Where did you get these?"
The mayor looked at the box.
"From the families of two missing residents."
Sakura picked up the pendant carefully.
"They belonged to them?"
"No."
Mori shook his head.
"They received them."
Naruto frowned.
"From who?"
The mayor hesitated.
Then finally answered.
"Traveling missionaries."
Silence filled the room.
Sasuke leaned forward.
"What kind?"
Mori looked at the strange symbol.
"They claimed to follow a god I'd never heard of."
Naruto's eyes narrowed.
"Name?"
The mayor swallowed.
"Jashin."