On the twentieth, inside the Anbu locker room.
Having just wrapped up their daily patrols of Konoha, everyone faced their lockers, unfastening their Anbu Vests.
Yako kept his breathing shallower than usual, terrified of being called on by the captain.
Could anyone imagine how terrifying it was to be singled out by the captain?
It was like slacking off at work all week, only for the manager to ask you to present a project plan. Or like walking through the front door after a sketchy foot massage, only for your wife to demand her dues in the bedroom.
The captain called Yako's codename anyway.
"Fox, keep an eye on Crane Moon Izakaya tonight."
Damn it. Him again.
Was it because he was the most useless?
Everyone else got to rest. Did dead weight not deserve time off?He pulled the Anbu Vest he had just taken off right back on.
This vest was not the standard cloth armor worn by ordinary ninjas, but a gray iron breastplate—identical to the gear Kakashi wore during his time in the Anbu in the original story.
Yet the iron plating offered zero sense of security.
After nightfall, Yako concealed himself in the trees at the corner of the street, staking out the izakaya in the distance.
A moment later, his eyes darted beneath his mask.
He had been paying close attention. He had even anticipated it. Yet he still had no idea how the captain materialized next to him.
When the captain appeared, Yako still jolted.
He asked the captain for funds, shamelessly requesting three stacks of bills this time.
He would be a fool not to take it. He bled for the Anbu; the Anbu couldn't shortchange him.
Stepping into Crane Moon Izakaya, Yako headed straight for his usual corner.
"Bring me your most expensive liquor!"
The proprietress from his last visit carried over the bottle. She sidled right up to Yako with a seductive smile.
Her neckline plunged dangerously low.
Yako stared, completely engrossed.
They were huge and beautiful, but why didn't they bounce? In the end, they were missing that little bit of aesthetic magic.
It was the same routine as before. With his arm pressed snugly between her massive peaks, she guided him into a side room in the backyard.
The proprietress shut the door.
"Lord Ninja, do you prefer Yang Release or Yin Release?"
"Oh, I know all about this. I'm an expert. I dabble in both. When I'm tired, I use Yin Release—you get on top. When I've got the energy, it's Yang Release—I get on top!"
"Hehehe, Lord Ninja, you certainly know what you want."
Yako kept up the playful banter, but his mind snapped to high alert.
Movement!
Something had moved!
Over in the corner, something was tunneling through the ground toward them.
The surface of the floor remained completely undisturbed, but Yako was also a practitioner of the Earth Release: Underground Projection Fish Technique. He could sense the intruder approaching.
"I can't wait anymore! Come here! Let's start with Yang Release!"
Yako shoved the proprietress hard, tackling her straight to the floor in the direction of the shadows.
He drew the hidden kunai from his lower back and drove it straight between her legs.
The proprietress had initially thought this Konoha ninja was just horny and impatient, until she caught a glimpse of the kunai's iron ring over Yako's shoulder.
Crap!
A sudden chill swept between her thighs.
The moment she hit the floor, she prepared to fight back, but heard a muffled groan from beneath her back.
This was even worse!
The kunai hadn't been aimed at her—it was meant for her teammate under the floorboards!
Beneath the ground at her back, her comrade was convulsing.
He had taken a fatal hit, most likely straight through the heart.
This Konoha ninja had struck with perfect precision right through her legs, piercing her spy teammate's heart.
A storm of thoughts raced through her mind.
The village had sacrificed countless comrades to establish her cover. The team members who had fought beside her for years, the teacher who had trained her—all of them had died here in Konoha.
To protect themselves, she and the operative bleeding out beneath her had never even met face-to-face; they communicated strictly through coded dead drops.
Her teammate was compromised, but she absolutely could not afford to be exposed.
Her only chance to save her cover was to play dumb.
Exposure meant death. Discovery meant death. But if she passed out, Konoha might assume she was just an innocent civilian who knew nothing. It was her only shot.
"Ah!"
The proprietress slammed the back of her head hard against the floor and passed out.
Yako distinctly felt the proprietress go limp beneath him, unconscious.
Was this woman a spy or not? If she was, wasn't she afraid he would just execute her right then and there while she was unconscious?
Whatever. He needed to get the captain first. The man was still waiting out in the woods at the end of the street.
Yako slipped out of the side room and leapt onto the roof. With a quick blur of motion, he signaled the captain before dropping back down into the backyard room.
He left the door open. A few seconds later, the captain slipped into the room.
The captain cautiously shut the door and surveyed the scene. "Blood is pooling around that kunai. There's someone under the floorboards! Fox, was this you?"
"Yes, Captain. My chakra affinity is Earth. I sensed someone tunneling beneath us, so I took a shot and drove my kunai into the floor."
The captain nodded. "Good. Excellent work."
The captain raised his hand and shattered the floorboards, unearthing the man buried beneath.
The corpse was caked in dirt and drenched in blood.
After frisking the body, the captain spoke again.
"A master of Earth Release. Judging by his square jawline, he looks like he's from the Land of Earth in the northwest. Most likely an Iwa Ninja spy.
"Well done, Fox. You just completed a B-rank mission.
"For someone who just barely passed the Chunin Exams to take down a target like this... you've got good luck. As Lord White Fang always says, luck is also a form of strength."
Yako hadn't expected his captain to have rubbed shoulders with the White Fang.
Kakashi always claimed luck was a form of strength—he must have picked the phrase up from his father, Hatake Sakumo.
Yako corrected him. "Captain, my skills aren't really that abysmal, are they?"
"If we hadn't lost over a thousand shinobi on the battlefields of the Land of Hot Water, forcing them to lower the standards for the wartime Chunin Exams, you wouldn't have made Chunin for another three years."
Seeing there was no way to salvage his reputation with the captain, Yako turned toward the proprietress, gesturing to the unconscious woman to remind him they still had a live one.
"Don't worry, the proprietress is out cold."
"Captain, do you think she's an Iwa Ninja spy too?"
"Hard to say. We'll take the man first and extract whatever intel is left in his head. If we follow those leads, we might be able to reel in the whole network," the captain said.
"If she really is a spy, she won't get away. I'll transport the body. Clean up the scene—make sure there's no trace the Anbu were ever here—and then report back to headquarters."
The captain threw the dead spy over his shoulder and slipped out of the room.
Yako went through the tedious work of repairing the shattered floorboards before lifting the proprietress onto the bed.
He threw one last glance at her, feeling a tinge of regret. They might not have bounced, and they weren't exactly soft, but they were certainly massive. What a shame.
After retrieving his discarded gear from the woods at the end of the street, Yako headed back to Anbu headquarters.
Rolling the corpse along on a gurney, Yako and his captain delivered the body to the Intelligence Division.
A ninja from the Yamanaka Clan took custody of the remains.
"Captain, could I take a few days off to rest?" Yako asked. "Between the patrols, the stakeouts, and this spy mission, I'm pretty burnt out."
The captain was about to refuse, but considering Fox's miserable skills, his presence made zero difference to the squad's combat effectiveness anyway. Figuring the kid had just wrapped up a spy mission, he relented.
"I can give you three days of downtime, but stay on standby. The village is short-handed right now. You are expected back on duty in exactly three days."
"Understood. Thank you, Captain."
Yako needed to drag things out until the full moon on the fifteenth of next month. Only then would he earn another chance at resurrection.
He had twenty-five days to go, and he intended to stall for every single one of them.