This time, the mission wasn't chasing anything. No animals, no weird scroll-weasels, no experimental pets with seal tags and an attitude problem.
This time, it was trash.
Training Field 14. Clean-up duty. Debris, discarded tags, fragments of old traps. Real glamorous stuff.
"This is a test of discipline," Genma said as he handed us gloves and a scroll of sealed bags.
"This is a test of my will to live," I muttered.
We walked through tall grass, fallen logs, and the occasional half-buried kunai. Takkun found a boot. Damu tried to wear it on his hand. I found a dead squirrel with a smoke tag stuck to its tail and had questions that no one answered.
Then Takkun shouted.
"I FOUND A SCROLL!"
"Don't touch it—" I began.
Too late.
Fwump.
A soft chakra pulse rippled through the air. Barely visible—but the tree branches twitched. The grass stiffened. Something flickered above the treeline.
"What did you do?" I hissed.
"Treasure?" Takkun offered.
Genma raised an eyebrow, then casually bit down on his senbon. "You just activated a dormant ANBU trap grid. Congratulations. We're now inside a dummy-response test field."
"...I hate it here," I said.
From the shadows, they came.
Not people. Chakra dummies. Old training constructs built to mimic enemy movement without actual harm. They were fast, nearly silent, and utterly unfun.
Damu screamed and ducked behind a log.
Takkun ran straight into one and bounced off.
Genma? Sat on a rock and started writing notes.
"I'm not helping. Let's see how you do under pressure."
Thanks, sensei.
I focused. Not on vision. Not on movement.
Chakra pressure.
I sent soft pulses out. Waited for the feedback.
The nearest dummy stepped—just slightly—and I caught it. The air folded around it. I slipped behind and swept its legs. It dissipated in a flash.
Takkun yelled something about teamwork and flung a kunai that nearly hit Damu.
I shifted Earth chakra beneath the remaining dummy, not to block, but to slide the terrain out from under its step.
It stumbled. I pressed chakra into the ground—just a flick of destabilizing intent—and the dummy folded like a chair at a bad picnic.
Field: clear.
Genma strolled over, plucked the scroll from Takkun's hands, and resealed it calmly.
"Old ANBU gear. Shouldn't have been left here. But hey, look at that—Raika adapted."
He looked at me.
"Did you know she could do that?"
I assumed he was talking to me.
Then I realized—he was speaking to the trees.
Or more accurately—someone else watching.
But no one answered.
Yet.
We left the field with one more mission completed. Genma filed a report. Takkun tried to make the scroll into a hat. Damu said the forest gave him messages in his dreams.
I said nothing.
But I kept thinking about how the pressure moved.
How chakra didn't always warn before it shifted.
And how sometimes, just sometimes...
the forest was listening back.
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— void_chakra