Early the next morning, Kumomi took Makoto to the command room for a briefing.
The detailed state of the battlefield had already been sorted out in a meeting among the jōnin the previous afternoon. Today's meeting was primarily to assign missions.
The reason a genin like Makoto was required to attend was that he was a top-tier sensory ninja.
Because of the nature of chakra, most powerful ninja possess some degree of sensory ability, but that is closer to a sixth sense or combat intuition, limited to a small range around themselves.
Truly specialized sensory ninja—especially top-tier, ultra-long-range sensory ninja—are extremely rare.
Inside the command room, Orochimaru was uncharacteristically seated at the head of the table. Judging by his expression, however, he did not seem particularly interested. By contrast, Uchiha Fugaku, seated beside him, was fully engaged, studying the military map spread across the table together with Nara Suzaku.
In addition, Makoto saw the Hyūga clan jōnin who had come with him to support the front lines, as well as Yamashiro Aoba, who was wearing his usual sunglasses.
The Hyūga jōnin was named Hyūga Terai. At first, Makoto had thought he was Hyūga Hizashi, but later learned that he was not. Hizashi had taken most of the branch family and headed north with Hyūga Hiashi to protect his beloved main-family elder brother.
At present, there were not many Hyūga ninja on the Kirigakure battlefield. Aside from Hyūga Terai and a small number of adult ninja, the rest were newcomers. For example, Hyūga Tokuma was Makoto's classmate; Iroha was also from the same year; while Hyūga Hoheto and Mitarashi Anko were classmates from two years above him.
All of them were branch-family—there was no main family here. This place was the Hyūga main family's land of shame. The war with Kirigakure had only been going on for a few months when a main-family member—an inexperienced, arrogant fool who liked to blunder around and give random orders—fell into a Kirigakure trap. Before dying, he only had time to destroy one of his eyes; the other became Kirigakure's trophy.
To this day, Konohagakure still has not recovered that eyeball.
It is said that the Kirigakure ninja who obtained that eye did not want to stay here and become a public enemy, so he ran off to the southern islands to "grind" with Sunagakure, making the sand-players suffer greatly. In his heart, he must have cursed Konohagakure countless times.
After everyone had arrived, Suzaku looked at them all and said, "Kirigakure is already destined to lose this war against Konohagakure. Right now, their only objective is something we have known for a long time."
"These past few days, all of their actions have been thwarted by us. So the other side has been pushed to the point of a final desperate gambit."
"Yesterday's assault on the defensive line was only a feint. From other directions, we have learned that an elite Kirigakure unit has once again infiltrated behind the defensive line."
"But the problem now is that within this Kirigakure unit, there is a top-tier sensory ninja who can easily evade our search squads."
"So it won't be hard to eliminate them—but how to find them is the real difficulty."
Fugaku glanced at Orochimaru and saw that this highest superior on the eastern front had no intention of speaking. He picked up the thread and said, "Right now, aside from the people staying behind at headquarters and on the defensive line, the sensory-recon experts we can mobilize are all of you."
"Jōnin Hyūga Terai, Special Jōnin Yamanaka Nobuhiko, Chūnin Yamashiro Aoba, and Genin Higashino Makoto—the command headquarters will use the squad you belong to as the core to form four search teams, tasked with flushing out the rats that have slipped into our rear lines."
Although Terai was from the branch family, his Byakugan abilities were outstanding, in no way inferior to those of the main family.
The name Yamanaka Nobuhiko alone made it clear that he came from the Yamanaka clan; that clan as a whole possesses solid sensory abilities.
As for Yamashiro Aoba, this man was highly well-rounded, and sensory capability was one of his strengths. No matter how one looked at him, he seemed like a Yamanaka—except that his surname was Yamashiro.
As a jōnin, Terai naturally had the right to raise questions about the mission. "Since the enemy is an elite unit and includes a top-tier sensory ninja, then judging from the current situation, that ninja's sensory range may far exceed expectations. How, then, do we ensure the safety of the search teams—especially the team that Yamashiro Aoba is in?"
Although he did not say it outright, the implication was obvious. In Aoba's team there was a chūnin named Sarutobi Asuma—damn it, that was the Third Hokage's son. If something happened, who would take responsibility?
Everyone knew this guy was extremely rebellious. Even if he were temporarily kicked out of the team, given his personality he would definitely sneak along anyway, which would make things even more dangerous.
So really, stuffing the boss's kid into the front lines during wartime was genuinely headache-inducing. Wouldn't it be better for him to stay home and stick to being the boss's son, instead of coming to the front lines to play at being a soldier?
Makoto and Kumomi exchanged a glance. The latter nodded slightly, and Makoto spoke up. "Senpai, all you need to do is locate the traces of this Kirigakure unit and then notify me."
Hyūga Terai said sternly, "Genin Higashino Makoto, I know your sensory range is very long, but how can you ensure that the enemy will not detect you first? This is an extremely dangerous matter—if anything goes wrong, it could cost both you and your teammates their lives."
Orochimaru, who had been acting as little more than a mascot, suddenly grew interested and extended his tongue to wash his face. "Oh? Higashino-kun, could it be that your sensory ability is different from everyone else's?"
"Yes, Orochimaru-sama, it is indeed different," he replied. "My sensing can not only detect others, but also conceal the presence of the people around me. If Nobuhiko-senpai and Aoba-senpai sense it for themselves, they will understand."
Hearing this, Nobuhiko and Aoba immediately closed their eyes to sense. A moment later, they snapped their eyes open, their faces filled with a look as if they had seen a ghost.
Nobuhiko said in disbelief, "That's incredible. Even though the person is clearly right in front of my eyes, there's nothing at all in my perception. How is this done?"
"Ahem, ahem!" Kumomi coughed a few times deliberately.
"Sorry!" Nobuhiko apologized at once. Even among comrades from the same village, probing into another person's ninjutsu secrets without permission was extremely impolite.
The interest in Orochimaru's eyes deepened further, but he did not say anything more. The ninja world was like this—there were countless strange and unusual techniques, which was precisely why he longed to understand everything.
Before Nara Suzaku could speak, Uchiha Fugaku made the decision. "Very good. This search will take Jōnin Kumomi's squad as the main force. I will dispatch an elite Uchiha squad to follow and provide protection."
"If any of the other teams discover traces, do not take risks by approaching. Notify Kumomi's squad immediately. Once the enemy is located, inform the rear to execute the encirclement plan. We must leave none of these rats alive in the Land of Fire!"
"Yes!"
With their orders received, everyone prepared to depart.
Orochimaru glanced at Fugaku with a faint, inscrutable smile. This clan head of Konoha's foremost noble family would never understand that no matter how great the merits his clan accumulated, they would never lay a hand on the Hokage position.
Having lived so long, and still this naïve!
...
Outside the Konoha command headquarters camp, the four members of Third Squad successfully rendezvoused with the four members of the Uchiha squad. This was the clan's elite unit that Clan Head Fugaku had arranged as their escort.
Whether they were truly elite was hard to say, but Fugaku had clearly put thought into it—the squad included a familiar face from Third Squad.
Makoto greeted him, "Yo, Shisui, long time no see."
That's right. Among the Uchiha squad's members, the youngest was Shisui. Ever since completing the required quota of D-rank missions, he had been stationed on the eastern front. It was just that their assignments usually did not overlap, so they had not seen each other.
It had been quite a while.
He greeted them cheerfully. "Long time no see, Makoto, Hayate, and Yūgao. I didn't expect we'd be carrying out a mission together this time."
After that, he introduced both sides to each other.
His squad leader was a middle-aged ninja whose most striking feature was a head of prematurely graying hair. His name was Uchiha Yashiro.
Of the two teammates, one looked as if he had just reached adulthood—Uchiha Inabi—while the other appeared to be thirteen or fourteen years old, named Uchiha Tekka.
With this lineup, the team perfectly covered four generations: middle-aged, young adult, adolescent, and child.
Makoto suddenly remembered—weren't Shisui's teammates the trio that Itachi had taken down in a single encounter? Three against one, and they were instantly defeated by that "filial son"—truly embarrassing.
The three Uchiha naturally knew about Shisui and cast curious looks at Makoto. To make a clan member awaken their eyes with nothing more than words was something they rarely ever saw.
Fortunately, they understood how eye awakening worked within their own clan. It was mainly because Shisui's talent was exceptional, which was why they did not tie Makoto up and drag him back to the clan to give speeches every day.
After both sides met and got acquainted, they set off immediately, searching in the predetermined direction.
Konoha already knew Kirigakure's objective, so the focus of the search was mainly concentrated in the southeastern regions of the Land of Fire, where lakes and rivers were located.
In fact, some among Konoha's upper ranks had suggested collecting a bit of the Three-Tails' chakra, but Hiruzen vetoed the idea. Tailed beasts were taboos for all villages, and the Third Hokage only wanted to end the war as quickly as possible, without stirring up further trouble over this.
As for whether Orochimaru had obediently followed that order—only he himself knew.
Ever since realizing that he was probably destined to miss out on the Hokage position, this man's actions had become increasingly unconstrained.
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