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Chapter 71 Clones, Tracks, and a Cold Shower
🕑 Added 2025-06-21 14:13:11 +0000 UTCI couldn’t believe it. Not once, but twice, had we been interrupted, twice had things gotten steamy, only for something to stop us.
Worse yet, this second time we got stopped right as he went into me, after I had to deal with the humiliation of having to beg. Not that I had to—but I let myself get swept up in it anyway.”
Yet, I didn’t get to enjoy the payout!
I was in a right foul mood as I activated my Byakugan. Instantly, the world expanded from just this small, dark alley to a vast area, encompassing the entire town and the surrounding area.
Everything was the same, people and their tiny amount of chakra, nothing special. I spotted both Haruto and Arata; they had split up, which was a risky move, but understandable.
Arata was eating at a small place right next to what was the most important place in town, the brothel.
Which just happened to be where Haruto was currently at. Not that Arata was some pure and innocent saint, he just finished faster, because I could see another woman that had certain parts of her body glow in the same way my own chest was.
A well-known fact among shinobi is that seed from a male shinobi leaves strong chakra traces behind.
There still weren’t any other notable chakra signatures within town, but I did spot what caused Kuro to interrupt us. Not far outside town, four strong chakra sources had appeared, four shinobi, all at least Tokubetsu Jōnin.
And from their current position, I guessed they might very likely be following us… fuck.
“Koji, we got company, move it.” I said, as I body flickered towards the others.
There was no time to waste, and if I had to get blocked, there was no way I was going to allow Haruto to finish what he was doing either.
Flashing across the town, we arrived at our destination in seconds.
“Ha! I knew those two would be at the brothel!” Koji said as we came to a halt.
As we moved, I flashed my chakra in a unique Konoha pattern to alert the two of them.
Arata was already outside, waiting for us as Koji, Kuro, and I came to a stop.
“Not now, Koji,” I told him off. “Arata, we got incoming, likely someone on our tail.” I told him, as I kept signalling for Haruto. Who appeared a few seconds later, still throwing clothes on his body as he jumped down from an open window.
“What’s happening?”
I didn’t even give Haruto time to land fully before I turned and shot away again, leading the way back toward the edge of town. “We’ve got four chakra signatures, all Tokubetsu Jōnin or stronger,” I called over my shoulder, voice clipped and sharp.
Haruto cursed under his breath as he caught up, still fumbling with his gear. “How close?”
“About a minute out.” I replied after doing some quick math with their speed and distance.
“Could be a Suna hunting unit,” Arata said grimly. “We knew it was a risk after the last fight.”
I nodded equally grim. It was a reality we had to live with, but I had hoped we would get lucky, but it seemed like they had somehow found our trail, despite our attempts at concealing it.
“I’m just glad Kuro found them before they found us,” I said, casting a glance at the Ninken.
I honestly didn’t know how he manged it, because damn, that’s an impressive sense of smell right there.
However, now wasn’t the time to ask him about that.
“Yeah, bad timing for sure, but still better than if they had caught us doing the act.” Koji said, giving away what we had been doing, and he sounded so damn smug about it as well. He was very much doing it on purpose.
I would punish him for everything later, but first, we had a job to do.
“Enough, let's go, I don’t want a fight to break out here.” I called as I shot backwards, jumped onto the roof of the restaurant, and from there, jumped from roof to roof, moving through the town in moments, and making our way out.
The trees swallowed us as we raced toward the edge of town, feet pounding against damp earth and rooftops alike. Koji ran beside me, just a touch behind, keeping pace but clearly waiting for orders.
“Plan?” Haruto asked, his voice as tense as his shoulders.
“We could try to run. We’ve got a lead—only about a click—but it’s something. We might be able to widen it, since they don’t seem to know just how close they are… or we could stand our ground and face them.” I said, not slowing down at all. Because we could always stop and fight, but if we stopped running, we would lose the chance altogether.
Koji kept pace, his expression uncharacteristically serious now. “Depends who they are. If it’s a tracking squad or capture team, they’ll keep pushing until they’re sure we’re not doubling back. But if it’s a combat team… they’ll catch up. We’re lighter, but they’ve probably got chakra to burn.”
“We don’t know their intent,” Arata called from just behind. “If they’re following signs of us, we might still shake them. But if they’re using sensor-type ninjutsu…”
“They’ll have our trail for good,” I finished grimly.
There were only four, our number, though more could be behind them, though I found that unlikely.
Personally, I saw two possibilities. “One, they are just a random team, following a random trail. Two, they are a personal elimination squad, sent to hunt and take us down.”
The team fell silent for a few heartbeats as we leapt branch to branch, sliding down a slope of slick moss and launching into a clearing beyond. The air was thick with mist and tension.
Haruto was the first to respond. “We’ve pissed them off enough to warrant an elimination squad.”
“No way this is random,” Arata agreed. “Not after what we did to that puppet unit. That wasn’t just a patrol—they were testing us. Measuring our strength. This is the follow-up.”
Koji let out a low growl. “So what’s the call, Captain?”
I didn’t answer right away. My Byakugan was already active again, tracing the terrain ahead, the chakra signatures behind. They were moving fast. Cohesive. Trained. A tight formation that screamed professionalism—these weren’t green Genin, or even common Jōnin. These were killers.
“For now, we move, if we burn stamina and chakra, so do we, and we just rested, so we have an advantage, while moving, we test them, I want clones making tracks, see if we can figure out how they track us.”
“Shadow clones would be best for that, but too chakra costly if we do get into a fight.” Arata added.
“True enough, so I want you, Haruto, to make a clone, have it make clones, and send it off, making false tracks, while the rest of us will focus on concealing our tracks.” I said, more calmly than I felt.
In truth, I wanted nothing more than to turn around and fight. To take my frustration out on them. And boy, did I have a lot of frustrations bottled up. But the more rational part of me knew better—it was too risky.
We didn’t know anything about the team chasing us other than their number and the fact that their chakra indicated their strength as elites.
If they were a team sent to hunt us, they would know all the information Suna had on us, all while we would know nothing about them.
They would be hand-picked to counter us, a team like that, it's every shinobi’s nightmare. Even someone like Kakuzu was killed by a bunch of kids just because the team knew his weakness and his strength, and was made to counter him.
That was the danger of information; to have ours leaked was deadly.
This threat was why I was willing to hold off a fight, even for just a short while. Because if we could gather a bit of information about them, we could close the gap between us a little, giving us a better chance.
Haruto didn’t argue, just nodded once and began weaving the first clone, hands flashing through the seals even as he ran. The chakra flared bright for a heartbeat before flickering into a perfect copy of himself. That clone took a sharp turn south through the trees, already leaping between branches. Moments later, it made another clone.
Soon, five clones ran in another direction and transformed into copies of us, including Kuro, as they worked to create another trail for our mysterious followers to follow.
“Haruto, focus on recovering that chakra for now. Arata, I want you to focus on concealing our trail; nothing should let them see where we went.” I said as I slowed us down a little, giving him better time to work while we still moved forward.
Counter-tracking is an important skill for any shinobi, but I wasn’t above admitting it was one of the things I didn’t care too much about myself. So I let the better man handle that.
Arata nodded and pulled out a sealing scroll. Counter-tracking involved using a variety of tools to achieve the right results. So he went right to work.
“Got it,” I said, and signaled Koji with a glance.
He caught it instantly.
“I’ll take the north side,” Koji said. “Kuro and I will lay a side trail, maybe draw their sensors wide.”
“Don’t stray too far, I don’t want you away should the situation suddenly change.” I said, as I kept a close eye on the team following us.
Or I would have, but we had moved out of range of them now. It seemed they got sidetracked in the last town. So, either they never followed us, or their method of tracking isn’t as dynamic as the Byakugan or Koji and Kuro’s noses.
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Koji didn’t say anything more as he and Kuro veered off, but his chest warmed slightly at her parting words—don’t stray too far.
She probably didn’t mean anything by it, not really. But still, it lingered. He moved silently, letting his feet carry him over the mossy ground and through shadowed underbrush. Low-hanging leaves brushed his shoulders, and his passing scraped bark just enough to leave clues—signs meant to confuse, to deceive, but never obvious.
The forest was thick with the scent of damp earth and blooming lichen, but through it all, her scent lingered—warm, clean, and maddeningly close in his memory.
“Good job sniffing them out, Kuro,” he muttered. “Though, how did you even manage it? I couldn’t smell anything but Yuki.”
Kuro gave a low, rumbling chuckle, padded paws never missing a beat. “Can’t blame you. She did smell amazing. Too bad she was already soaked in your scent—I barely got a few licks in before you stopped me.”
Koji grimaced. “Don’t remind me. And don’t push that luck.”
“She didn’t seem to mind it all that much,” Kuro said, clearly smug. “But fine. Since you asked—I couldn’t pick out anything useful at first either. The whole town was a soup of smells: smoke, sweat, perfume, food… her. Especially her. It was so strong I had to tune you both out just to breathe properly.”
Koji landed on a sloping branch and paused to drag his heel across the moss, kicking loose a bit of soil. “So tuning us out helped?”
“That’s when I noticed it—four faint scents. Not town folk. Clean, well-kept, but buried under travel dust and chakra residue. Like they’d masked themselves, but not well enough.”
Koji whistled low. “Damn. Good catch.”
“Timing sucked, though.”
“No kidding. A few seconds later and…” He trailed off, face heating. “Couldn’t have been worse.”
“No, the worst time would have been a few seconds later,” Kuro snorted. “Don’t pretend you weren’t about to breed her.”
Koji groaned. “You're not wrong…” Honestly, things considered, it wasn’t the worst moment, a second sooner and he wouldn’t have gotten to hear Yuki beg so sweetly, a second later and he would have hated stopping even more.
“Yeah, maybe next time, you fuck before you eat.”
Koji shook his head, trying—and failing—to suppress a smile. “Are you just saying that so you can eat all the food yourself?”
“Oh please, I will be there, with you, joining the fun.” Kuro teased with a joking bark.
He didn’t comment on it. And honestly? The thought didn’t bother him as much as it should have.
He leapt across a narrow stream and landed in a crouch. “Alright. Let’s get back. We’ve done all we can here.”
His tone dropped, and his expression hardened. He wasn’t done being annoyed, not by a long shot. If this Suna squad did come at them—he’d make sure someone paid for cutting that moment short.
(End of chapter)
