The Zero Tails Jinchuriki #26

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Land of Fire

–Kenta Senju–

He sighed in relief as the capital was finally within viewing distance of him. Granted, it would still take about 10 more hours until they could climb down the mountain they were on, and then cross the large plains between the mountain and the Capital walls, before they could finally enter the Capital itself, the seat of power of the Daimyo of the Land of Fire.

So far, in all the time he had been with the convoy, the Daimyo had not called for him, which was nice but also suspicious at the same time. Not that he wanted to talk with the Daimyo, but it was suspicious for the man not to call him. As they neared the end of their journey, he had expected the man to call for him, even if only for a small amount of time, because the Daimyo knew he was expected to basically just leave the Capital and the convoy as soon as the Daimyo’s carriage was beyond the Capital Walls.

He sighed as the pace of the convoy slowed down, as they were travelling downhill now. It was a curved path, designed to make travel both safe and slow, since this path was in direct view of the watchers on the walls, allowing them advanced warning of any approaching army, though that was unnecessary since no army had ever reached this far in any of the previous Shinobi Wars.

The Seal Matrix held for now, with half of its total capacity still left, which meant that no recharge should be necessary until they reached the Capital, something that relieved the shinobi guarding the Daimyo, no doubt. 

So close to the Capital, he and everyone else expected nothing to happen but then again, this was the most opportune time to take advantage of their guards being down. Thankfully, his habit of slipping into Sage Mode every once in a while helped him ascertain the nature of the area around him, which showed him no humans nearby. 

Not even untrained civilians, since the path was not that busy during the wee hours of the morning, or at night. Only during the day this path was used extensively, which did reduce the flow of goods into the Capital but since it was such a large market, most merchants deployed everything they could to make sure their produce reached the Capital, including hiring shinobi just to get their goods down this path as fast as possible.

XXX

He sighed in relief, standing on the plains, right behind the convoy, hidden away from everyone, as the Daimyo’s carriage, the golden one laced with seals on top of seals, finally entered the Capital, officially relieving him of his duties as he flung a scroll that landed right on top of the carriage, signalling the end of his duty.

As soon as that was done, he was out of that place, hurrying towards the border. It should take him less than a day if he ran full tilt but since he expected violence basically before he even arrived at the border checkpost, he decided to pace himself. Even then, it should not take longer than a day to reach the designated place.

He had no team, no backup and was told to tell the shinobi at the output to leave, and come back in an interval of 12 hours to check on the condition of the border, which was odd, or rather, would have been odd to anyone but him.

Sauroti knew that he could use the Sage Mode to scan vast swathes of land one at a time. Coupled with his ability to blend in with nature and move about mostly unseen, he could keep track of a very large area along the border. Mostly, he was a perfect guard for the border, especially in peacetime since he could keep track of most stuff with ease.

XXX

His eyes narrowed as soon as the checkpost came into his sight. It was constructed underneath a large tree, with dense foliage all around them. It was more akin to a resthouse for the people who were guarding the border, so it was well hidden and in a position to be easily protected from any would be intruders.

A ping from his senses told him that there were currently over 20 shinobi at the checkpost, with two heading towards the border. Only about 6 of them had chakra signatures that shone brightly, indicating proper health. All the others were probably injured.

Sighing, he jumped through the forest, keeping track of the two shinobi who left towards the border despite not having healthy chakra signatures. There were six perfectly healthy people at the checkpost. He wondered why they sent two injured shinobi to the border.

Soon, the clearing around the checkpost became visible to him as he audibly landed in it, alerting the guards. 

“Halt! Identification!” A single shinobi came out of the outpost, with two others hiding to his side, waiting to ambush him. He noted all three of them to be the healthy ones.

He nodded at the Inuzuka clan shinobi before tossing a scroll at him, who hastily read through it and nodded at him, allowing him entry. He noted the two shinobi heading underground, passing through the underground passages that riddled the ground underneath him.

As soon as he took a step in, a pained groan reached his ears as he turned to the side, watching an entire row of injured shinobi, lying on a series of beds, in bandages. Some were conscious, some unconscious, and some partially so, groaning in pain. 

He scanned over all of them with his senses and his eyes narrowed as he saw five of them to be from the Uchiha Clan, the distinct Fire Nature Chakra, and the concentrated chakra in their eyes being a dead giveaway.

He looked towards the wall, eyes closed, ignoring everything else but those two shinobi headed towards the border. Focusing, he sighed as he saw the same Fire Nature chakra and concentration in their eyes.

Uchiha.

He side-eyed the shinobi who were just watching him with wary eyes as he jumped, clearing two floors in a single jump, arriving at the floor where the 3 other healthy chakra signatures were waiting.

All Jounin from the looks of it. The ones below were close but not yet Jounins yet, maybe, Special Jounins.

“Sir!” All three of them saluted him, startled as he just jumped up without getting any debriefing from their lackeys waiting below.

“Report!” He said as he walked around them, looking at the map of the border and the mountains between them and the Land of Lightning, creating an easily defensible geographical advantage for both the Land of Fire and the Land of Lightning, making direct invasions very hard between both countries.

Of course, there were ways around that.

Tunnels. Dug by both sides, by different generations of shinobi, allowing for limited shinobi movement for Jounins and above. Stronger Chunins could make the trip but the unforgiving nature of those caves meant that a Jounin was always recommended to traverse the mountains.

“We are facing standard guerrilla tactics from the Kumo scum for now. We have not sighted any of the notable figures from Kumo so we haven't been able to call for reinforcements but they seemed to be dead set on harassing the border patrol, weakening us for their reinforcements.”

“Hmm,” He kept a watch on their heartbeats as he looked at the map, marked with potential caves, sighting of entire squads of Chunins, backed by Jounins, along with two red marks. “What are those?”

The leader, a veteran of the previous War, stepped forward, “Those are the areas riddled with traps from Kumo, sir. Our people have lost limbs there, and without any meaningful backup, we have been unable to traverse that space, leading us to mark that as Red, sir.”

He side-eyed the trio before turning back to the map, committing it to his memory. Straightening up, he turned to them, “You say that Kumo is set on weakening you and yet, here you are, not a scratch in sight, despite no Medic being amongst you,”

“That-uh-We—”

“Not to mention the two shinobi who left before I came here. Both of them seemed to be in good health, their chakra capacity below half and yet, you sent them while you sit here, warm and covered?”

All three of them tensed up at his accusations, understanding that they were stuck but it was the reaction of their leader that alarmed him the most. One moment, he was all fine, his chakra nature being one of Wind, an uncommon find in Konoha but not unheard of, and the next, it transformed, turning very cold, unfeeling, the same as the ones he found back in Konoha.

The same ones who were targeting the Uchiha, spreading rumours.

And the same here.

The row of injured Uchiha sleeping downstairs, cold. 

Injured Uchiha sent back to the border, with high chances of death.

His eyes narrowed at that. 

Something was not adding up here, and why did he have a hunch that this was something that Sarutobi anticipated. 

Sending him here for a whole other thing, not even telling him about it?

Did….Sarutobi have a spy in his inner circle?