Unknownfate
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Chapter 64
🕑 Added 2025-06-13 17:54:37 +0000 UTCAs we zipped through the forest of Rivers, I had to admit that I might have overdone it last night, or rather that brute Koji had.
My entire body felt sore in ways that even hours of training and fighting couldn't cause. Not to mention, we spent a great deal of energy right before setting out on a long, hard journey.
Still, I didn’t regret it; it had been fun. I felt alive. And honestly, anyone who had been sealed up inside the moon for a thousand years, forced to watch the world, would understand why it was so important to feel alive.
And Koji did a great job of making me feel alive as well as loved.
But now I had to focus and keep my head in the game.
There was no doubt that this mission was nearing its end, and I couldn’t afford to mess up now, too much had gone into this by now. I needed success; it would be key to my plan.
“Stop!” I said, voice low and hard.
Our entire group instantly stopped moving. With chakra, it was easy enough to instantly go from flying through the forest at high speeds to stopping on the spot. And that was what we did. As soon as my voice fell, everyone stopped as soon as their feet touched down again.
In the range of my Byakugan, a group of chakra signatures had appeared.
“Seventeen large, about two clicks out.” I said as I called the team together near me.
Koji was at my side first, his usual cocky grin dulled by focus. Kuro crouched low, sniffing the air with his hackles raised. Arata landed to my right, already unrolling a map from his belt pouch, and Haruto dropped in behind, eyes sharp, hand resting lightly on his sword hilt.
“Formation?” Arata asked, voice quiet but steady.
“No standard Konoha Formation, so likely either Suna or Rain, my money is on Suna, they aren’t heading our way, but will get close if we continue forward, might get close enough for their sensors.” I tracked their movements.
Haruto gave a faint nod. “Avoid or eliminate?”
That was the key question. Our mission was to eliminate any Suna shinobi we could, so going after them would be normal, but their numbers… seventeen against our four… it wasn’t good odds.
I was without a doubt an Elite Jōnin, likely on the level of Might Guy, without him opening any Gates, or maybe with one or two of them. The future Guy that it, the current one is just a Genin.
But taking on that many? That carried a risk, a deadly one.
“We avoid them, I can see at least four Tokubetsu Jōnin or higher. I don’t want to take any risks, so we stay here where I can track them, and we react should the situation change.” I finally decided.
No one argued. My team knew when to trust me.
So we stayed there, hunkering down as I watched from afar, keeping an eye on our enemy while tracing their path on a map, trying to find clues to where they might come from, and where they might be headed.
“They are gone,” I reported a few minutes later as they left my vision. But I made no move to continue, better to wait for a while longer, one couldn’t be too safe.
We stayed motionless for another full minute.
Birds chirped again, undisturbed. The tension in my chest didn’t ease until even the smallest flickers of chakra vanished into the distance. Seventeen shinobi, four of them near-elite—if they had found us, it might have turned into a bloodbath.
“Clear,” I murmured finally.
Haruto lowered his hand from the kunai pouch. Arata exhaled slowly. Kuro gave a faint growl, still unhappy, but Koji was already glancing my way, silently awaiting orders.
“They were traveling at a steady pace,” I said. “No chakra spikes in movements. Likely a scout division. We are entering the enemy area of activity, so Koji, Kuro, keep your noses ready.”
Both man and ninken nodded as they took off again, them in the lead, the rest following closely behind.
“It might be dangerous to set up camp where we planned.” Arata said in a low voice as we moved.
“We always knew it was a risk, but I still want to check it out, I’m not committing to anything yet.” I just said calmly.
He nodded, Haruto gave a grunt of acceptance, and Kuro a low bark that almost caused Koji to slip; thankfully, his training allowed him to recover.
“Kuro, play nice, we are on a mission now, tease Koji later.” I lightly reprimanded him. There were times and places for games, and while on the move so soon after seeing hostiles, this wasn’t it.
Kuro gave a huff but obediently surged ahead, his form melting into the shadows between the trees. Koji muttered something about traitorous partners and rubbed his shoulder, but I could see the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. At least the tension hadn’t drained their spirits.
My Byakugan swept out again, scanning for chakra signatures. Nothing immediate. No traps, no shinobi, and certainly no civilians.
We pressed on without much said between us until Kuro let out a bark, and both he and Koji stopped, which had the rest of us stop as well.
The two of them seemed to examine some scents for a bit. “This must be where that team from earlier moved through. “He said, looking back at me for confirmation.
I quickly checked the map and nodded to him.
“Should we follow the trace back to where they came from?” he asked.
“Personally, I would rather not; we have no safe place to rest nearby. So getting into a fight could be dangerous,” I mused as I looked at the map, checking the terrain along the path the enemy might have used to reach here.
“Best to just move on then,” Haruto added his thoughts, with Arata nodding.
“Very well, we continue on.”
With that decided, we moved on again. Jumped from tree to tree, over creeks and river streams.
…
The next few days passed in much the same way. We moved around during the day and slept during the night. But without a proper camp, sleep was rough.
No fires, no fresh food, just ration bars and the hard ground with only a blanket to keep us warm.
Koji might still get handsy during the nights, but he was nice and warm, so I allowed both him and Kuro to cuddle up together with me.
It was well worth a few not-so-sneaky kisses and squeezes.
…
“Scents here,” Koji reported as we got close to another small possible site for a camp. “Fresh, a few days old at most.”
“How many?”
“About four or five,” He translated Kuro’s barks.
“We move forward, but be careful, there might be more traps around.”
He nodded to my words and continued on.
We moved slowly, but finally, I saw it at the edge of the range of my Byakugan, Chakra signatures belonging to humans, so shinobi.
“Four up ahead, they aren’t moving, so it's likely a camp,” I reported.
That made things more complicated.
“Exact distance?” Arata asked, already reaching for his map again.
“Just under two clicks. They’re not moving around, so they’re either resting, unconscious, or watching quietly.”
Koji sniffed the air again, his eyes narrowing. “Campfires cold. They haven’t cooked anything in a while, but they’re still sweating—Kuro says they’ve been lying low.”
“Could be scouts,” Haruto muttered. “Or survivors waiting for pickup.”
“No smell of blood.” Koji shut down that last option.
And I agreed with that, I saw no sign of chakra usage around here, nothing that looked like a battle had taken place lately.
We all stopped so we could check the map. “It’s not a bad spot for a camp; we could have used it, so it's highly likely that it is just four scouts or a team like our own that’s camping.”
“A bit early to tug in for the day, though,” Haruto added.
“Which makes it suspicious,” I replied, voice low.
Yet despite how much I looked, I didn’t see anything, and neither Koji nor Kuro smelled anything that indicated this was a trap.
“It’s your call, Yuki,” Koji whispered.
“It’s four, and only around Chuunin level based on chakra, so we move in, and take them out, maybe that will give us an idea about what they are doing here. My current suspicion is on them being scouts or a guard post.”
With that, we made our way closer to them. We moved carefully, not making a single sound as we snuck closer. The Byakugan might be great, but it had its issues, at least in the hands of someone from the Hyūga clan.
Their blood just wasn’t pure enough, so while I could see them, it was difficult to make out every little detail from so far away. If I wanted to count the strands of hair on their heads, I would need to be a lot closer.
So we made our way over, allowing me to see what we were dealing with.
Closer now—within one hundred meters—I narrowed my focus. Their chakra networks were sluggish, unguarded. One was lying on his side with a blanket barely tossed over him, another sat cross-legged, head bobbing like he was dozing off mid-watch.
The last two had their backs to each other, facing outward but clearly not alert. If this was a trap, it was the most convincing one I’d seen. More so, since it was daytime, and they acted as if they had been awake all night.
It was strange for sure.
Yet I trusted my eyes, and I trusted Koji and Kuro; if neither of us picked up anything, there likely wasn’t anything worth worrying about. If someone were skilled enough to hide from us at this range, they would be skilled enough to find us at this range.
So there was no point in trying to pull back, either it was an easy kill, or a fight for our lives.
I gave the signal to the others, and everyone got ready to fight.
Usually, I would have Arata act first and take one down with his long-range ninjutsu, but while its range and power aren’t bad, it’s a bit too loud for my liking.
There was a good chance of more teams like this one around, and they would no doubt be able to hear such a powerful lightning-style jutsu.
No, instead, it was better to do this like proper assassins.
I tapped my fingers twice against my thigh—two sharp beats. Koji and Kuro veered left without a sound. Haruto moved to the right, blades already half-drawn. Arata ghosted behind me, poised to back me up should anything go wrong.
We closed in.
I moved first, a blur of motion that even most sensors wouldn’t catch. My footfalls were muted by chakra control, not even brushing the undergrowth as I slid behind the dozing one.
A kunai was already in my hand when I appeared, and in one clean, smooth motion, I buried it deep into his skull. His body shook once, before I saw life fade, his chakra changing into a dying, dull haze as it started to leak from his body.
Koji also struck at the same time; he appeared behind the crouching shinobi, his hands clamping down over his ears, as he twisted, the loud crack of his neck breaking filled the air. My Byakugan confirmed another death.
Haruto and Arata weren’t to be outdone; they both handled their own kills just as effectively, their Kunai cutting fresh and spilling blood with barely a sound.
Such was the difference between Jōnin and Chuunin. While we might not be experts in assassinations, and of Tokubetsu Jōnin rank mostly, our skills had grown while out here, and we could now deal with a few Chuunin easily enough, more so when they let down their guards.
“Seal,” I called out, and I sealed the body inside a sealing scroll. The others quickly did the same, and then we left under Koji’s lead.
(End of chapter)
Got some properly named enemies coming up rather than random chumps, and chapter 69 will be the next NSFW chapter, because yeah, naturally it will.
