Chapter 59.2- One Thousand Hands

XXXXXX- SHIKAHIME

“This is so fucking stupid” She heard Inojin whisper in hr ear, and didn’t nod but agreed with him all the same. It was stupid, and risky, but it was the way to get the job done. She and Shori might have been the only ones who knew how well and truly fucked Konoha was at this point. Shori’s innate insanity might have been the only thing keeping the people from protesting his reign in the streets but he needed to deliver something, and deliver it quickly. That was where this mission came in.

“Quiet” Kizuru hissed in their direction before he went back to whistling. His genjutsu, auditory by nature, would mask their presence here while both Toshiro and Shiba worked to eliminate any traces of their presence here. Even their scent was eliminated with every step they took. .They had to be ghosts for this mission. At least for the beginning chunk of it. Quiet in, make a bit of noise in the middle, and then sneak out like ghosts at the end. It was the kind of plan she would have made. That made it all the more shocking when Shori delivered the thing fully formed to her all those days ago.

They moved out of the treeline, once again in a plain mountainous area. One difference between moving in Iwa and moving in Konoha was the lack of immediately available tree cover. It meant that they could be easily spotted from a distance, but that was where Toshiro’s own genjutsu came in. If it could even be called genjutsu at this point. Once they stepped into full view, even without any signal, they folded in to get closer to Toshiro and thus within range of his jutsu.

This was the last few hundred metres until they made it to Iwagakure’s mountain proper. Their spies had been able to give them a general area, and Shiba’s sensing had helped narrow it down so they had a good grasp of the location and whatnot. They travelled in silence while Shika worked out the plan for what they would be doing when they got there. They wouldn’t be using any of Konoha’s spies beyond the information Shori had already given them. She had no doubts that Iwa had spies within their spies so it would have been much more difficult to carry out a false flag operation like this one when their whole intelligence apparatus had their paw prints over the thing.

When they arrived at the base of the mountain, she reached out with her earth release, creating a small cavern for them to hide in. Trying to tunnel into the mountain itself to get to the village would probably kill her with exertion as well as get them all killed from being found out. Even this much earth manipulation was dangerous next to a village filled with people who made the art their bread and butter.

“Now put these on” She whispered to her team, taking out the Kumo headbands. She consciously stopped her hand from shaking as she reached up and took off the Konoha headband wrapped around her neck before replacing it with the kumo headband, trying not to think about what had definitely happened to its former owner— what might happen to her if anything went wrong here.