Messy? Greasy?
Kei subconsciously touched his face. Well, with his current appearance, that description was indeed fitting.
But in all his life, this was the first time someone disliked him for his looks. Wait, no, that wasn't the main point! The main point was—who was trying to trick someone into bed?!
Was he that kind of person?!
Hu... When I said 'taking a nap,' I meant you should rest for a bit, not sleep with me. Kei took several deep breaths and patiently explained to Nonō.
A secure route?
Nonō furrowed her brows slightly but felt a sense of relief in her heart. She knew that some extremely confidential routes required transferring agents to be blindfolded or put to sleep to ensure maximum security. If such a route existed, it was indeed much safer than the escape plan she had initially prepared.
Mhm, are you coming or not? Kei scratched his cheek and asked.
For him, escaping from Kumo safely, even under a full lockdown, wasn't difficult. The simplest method? Using the Flying Thunder God Technique for instant spatial teleportation. As for how to explain it when he reported back to the village, that would depend on the attitude of those old geezers.
If they didn't give him trouble, he didn't mind enjoying a peaceful life for a while longer.
He could always use the excuse that the Hydrification Technique allowed him to escape through the underground water system to brush off any questions. But if those old geezers tried to pick a fight, well—sorry, but it was time for the Hokage to step down. The new era belonged to the young.
How many people can the secure route accommodate? I found two more Konoha spies earlier, Nonō asked again.
Although intelligence agents were never supposed to know each other's identities, let alone make contact, Through observation and analysis, she had identified two other spies from Konoha while gathering intel. With the current situation in Kumo, if they didn't retreat soon, they would undoubtedly be captured.
And once critical village intelligence was leaked, no one could predict how disastrous the consequences would be.
…No problem. One hour from now, at Training Ground 14 in the east. Kei paused for a moment and designated a location close to an underground water vein.
He wasn't sure how many Konoha spies had infiltrated Kumo, But since they had risked their lives for Konoha, if he could lend a hand, he wouldn't mind doing so.
Understood. Nonō didn't linger with Kei and immediately headed toward the mission reception area.
---
One hour later, Nonō and two ninjas arrived at the training ground from different directions.
Hidden underground, Kei checked their status pages. Confirming they were indeed Konoha spies, he slowly surfaced from the ground and exchanged the coded identification signals with Nonō and the two others.
"Phew~"
The two male's faces lit up with joy, and they quickly returned the coded signal. Earlier that morning, when they learned that Kumo was under a complete lockdown and conducting a large-scale search for spies, they had thought the sky was falling!
They could only prepare for the worst—destroying all documents and intel, then trying to survive the interrogation, hoping to slip through undetected.
No one knew better than them what fate awaited captured spies.
Having a chance to escape now was nothing short of a miracle for them!
"Miko, shall we begin?" Kei didn't call Nonō by her name, instead using her codename.
"As soon as possible. The operation was too rushed—I can't guarantee we didn't leave any traces."
Nonō nodded. The two ninjas also nodded in agreement.
Kei clapped his hands together, and white feathers began to fall around the three of them.
As they stared at him, their vision blurred. The next moment, an overwhelming drowsiness overtook them, and they all fell into deep sleep. With his right hand, he supported the collapsing Nonō. And with his left, he grabbed the waistbands of the other two ninjas.
Closing his eyes, he used [Spatial Insight], which granted him an extraordinary sense of spatial awareness, to quickly lock onto a Flying Thunder God mark located several dozen kilometers outside Kumo.
Activating the Flying Thunder God Technique, he and the three unconscious ninjas vanished instantly.
Swoosh—
The scenery around them shifted. The rocky pillars and yellow soil of Training Ground 14 were replaced by a dense forest with lush green foliage.
This location was over fifty kilometers west of Kumo, well beyond the patrolling range of the village's security forces.
Back when Kei was traveling from the Land of Iron to Kumo, he had rested here to allow his falcon to recover. He took a map of the shinobi world from his storage scroll, roughly marked their current position, and placed it into Nonō's hand.
Glancing at her sleeping face, which had lost its usual disguise of innocence and vulnerability, now looking peaceful, he smirked.
He clapped his hands together again, leaving behind a shadow clone before his real body quickly teleported back to his house in Kumo.
The shadow clone surveyed the surroundings, formed a hand seal, and used his half-mastered Moving Earth Core to sink the ground beneath them slightly.
Then, he created a layer of camouflage over the depressed ground. Only after ensuring that passersby wouldn't easily notice them did he hide himself underground.
---
After nearly ten hours of sleep, Nonō struggled to wake up from the dreamscape induced by the Kei's genjutsu.
She pinched the unfamiliar-feeling map in her hand, carefully scanning the dark surroundings. After confirming her own safety, as well as that of the other two Konoha spies, she cautiously explored the area.
After a brief search, she used a kunai to cut a small opening in the Earth Release barrier above them.
Starlight shone down into her eyes.
Using the dim light, she examined their marked location on the map. Her tense body relaxed slightly.
She returned to the pit and checked on her two companions. Seeing that they wouldn't be waking up anytime soon, her gaze shifted to the river about a hundred meters away.
Deciding to reapply her disguise, she set up a simple alarm trap before jumping into the cold river. She quickly washed away her facial disguise, removed scents from her body, and ensured no traces remained.
Moments later, as she was drying off, her eyes landed on her thigh.
A palm-sized, extremely conspicuous tally marks was stamped right on the front. She furiously scrubbed at it for a long time.
At that moment, even with all her professional training—she nearly burst into tears!
T-T-Tally marks? Seventeen times?!
All she did was borrow a secret escape route, and he... he actually kept count?!
…Wait… nothing actually happened, right?
Nonō cautiously checked her physical condition.
After confirming that she was completely unharmed, her tears immediately dried up, but her face cycled through shades of red, blue, and white in pure frustration.
Fortunately, she hadn't truly been... marked.
But the tally marks... she didn't believe for a second that it was just an imprint left through her clothes! And... this thing clearly involved sealing techniques, which with her abilities, she couldn't remove!
How would she explain this to others? Would anyone believe her?
How could she go to hot springs in the future?
How could she swim?
Would she even be able to face anyone again?
"Pervert! Shameless! Lecherous! Scumbag!" Nonō muttered angrily under her breath.
She had successfully escaped Kumo safely, but at what cost...
---
"Achoo~ Achoo~"
Far away in Kumo, Kei sneezed continuously in the middle of the night. He felt the memories passed back from the shadow clone. A smirk spread across his face.
It seemed Nonō really liked his "gift."
"Let's see if you dare to maliciously speculate about me again," he murmured quietly in his mind.
He stood by the window, looking at Kumo, still brightly lit well past midnight. He silently observed a brief moment of mourning for the spies of other ninja villages.
Tonight, all the ninja in Kumo were restricted to their homes, unable to go outside, but even in the area he could observe, there had already been three battles since the evening.
This meant that at least three spies had been captured.
To swiftly eliminate the village's internal threats and officially declare war on Kiri, Kumo's higher-ups had clearly acted decisively tonight!
Boom—
As Kei stood by the window, watching the night sky, a flicker of dark blue flame, mixed with black light, erupted from several kilometers away in the streets.
???
The Two-Tails' chakra flame?!
The higher-ups in Kumo were idiots! How could they not have seen this coming?
Hadn't they just finished dealing with Killer B not long ago? At such a time, how could they have let the spies get so close to the host of the Two-Tails?
And those ANBU—weren't they supposed to be alert? Why were they all absent at the most critical moment?
His expression changed several times.
Logically, as a Konoha ninja, why should he care about Kumo's tailed beast host?
But hadn't he stayed in Kumo for Yugito's sake?
If his butterfly effect caused that little girl to be left in danger, how would he be able to sleep peacefully at night in the future?
He thought of her who had been kneeling pitifully at his door, imagining how her face had been filled with happiness and joy while playing games, and he couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt.
"The higher-ups in Kumo are really asking for it!" Kei gritted his teeth, cursing under his breath, and abruptly opened the door, rushing out.
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100 Advance chapters!
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