The day after receiving confirmation of his S-rank mission, Chiba Shun went straight to collect the reward. It was the lowest-tier payout, one million ryo, but to him, it felt like a fortune. He took the money and went directly to find Aoki Yuu, determined to clear the debt that had been hanging over his head for months.
When Aoki Yuuichi saw him enter, his face darkened at once. For half a year now, Chiba Shun had been borrowing money from him with shameless regularity. The first two hundred thousand ryo had been a gesture of goodwill, a quiet investment in their relationship—but after that, Chiba Shun had somehow turned borrowing into a habit. He would receive his salary, then come back to borrow again before the month was out.
Most people repaid their debts after payday. Chiba Shun seemed to treat payday as proof that he was qualified to ask for more.
If he had not repeatedly sworn that another S-rank reward was on the way, Aoki Yuu would have cut him off already. More than once, he had regretted making peace with this glutton for debt. Yet the moment Chiba Shun pulled four neat bundles of bills from his pouch and set four hundred thousand ryo on the desk, all that irritation froze in place.
Aoki Yuuichi stared, then counted the money himself as if afraid it might vanish midway through. Only after confirming the amount did he look up and ask, "Where did all this come from? Did your S-rank reward finally arrive? You really had a secret S-rank mission?"
Chiba Shun laughed. "Yes. The mission was completed a while ago. It just wasn't officially confirmed until last night."
Then, grinning like a man who had finally broken free of shackles, he added, "So I came to pay you back the moment I got the money."
Aoki Yuu put the money away and gave a slow nod. That much, at least, softened his mood. But before he could enjoy it for long, Chiba Shun cheerfully continued, "I'll be leaving the village again soon."
That wiped the relief right off Aoki Yuu's face.
"Another S-rank secret mission?" he asked flatly.
Chiba Shun thought for a moment. "Probably not this time. Most likely A-rank. But definitely secret."
Aoki Yuuichi found that answer deeply suspicious. In the normal order of things, the village assessed a mission first, then assigned the appropriate ninja. Chiba Shun, on the other hand, seemed to get dragged into all sorts of strange operations first and have the mission level decided afterward. In the end, Aoki Yuu chose not to probe. He simply waved a hand and told him to go.
Chiba Shun left the office with a spring in his step.
Repaying a debt was a happy thing for the lender—but for the debtor who had finally broken free, it felt even sweeter.
***
Half a month later, Chiba Shun set out from Kumogakure again. This time he carried a thick stack of intelligence on surviving members of the Uzumaki clan—scraps of rumor, fragmented reports, half-confirmed sightings, and hearsay collected by the village. Some of it was probably useless. Some of it was almost certainly false. But one lead in the Land of Grass stood out enough for the village to take seriously, and once again they chose Chiba Shun to handle the persuasion.
The village did not value Uzumaki orphans nearly as highly as it valued the Hyuga bloodline, which meant this mission required far less protection. In theory, Chiba Shun could have gone alone.
Instead, he picked three children from the Ninja Academy and formed a temporary team.
Two of them were Ayana and Shosuke—the same two children who had gone with him to Konoha and somehow survived the bloody return journey. That brush with death had changed both of them. Afterward, Chiba Shun had hammered the Will of Lightning into them until their minds and spirits sharpened around it. Their bodies were still weak, but in terms of mentality alone, he judged that once they graduated, they would at least be qualified genin.
Ayana also had a talent he was unwilling to waste.
Her aptitude for sealing scrolls was real. Not overwhelming, not miraculous—but real. Chiba Shun had no intention of letting that kind of seed rot in the ground. Bringing her along would serve both as protection and as training.
Shosuke, meanwhile, possessed no rare gift that would impress Aoki Yuu. What he had was temperament. He did not fight others for attention, did not grow resentful when someone else received help, and never complained when things were hard. If Chiba Shun gave him guidance, he took it with quiet gratitude. If not, he trained on his own. In a world full of sharp edges, that kind of steadiness was unexpectedly precious.
The third child was another orphan named Hayato.
Like Ayana and Shosuke, he had no family name. Unlike them, he had never stood out in any dramatic way. He was not bold. He was not fierce. His talent was the sort of thing most people would overlook entirely.
His chakra control was exceptional.
At seven years old, he had climbed to the top of the training wall on his very first attempt. For most children, even talented ones, that would have taken repeated failures and bruised determination. Hayato had done it instinctively, as though his body simply understood how chakra ought to move.
To Chiba Shun, that was worth more than most people realized.
Chakra control mattered in everything. Ninjutsu. Sealing. Medical techniques. Even the simplification of hand seals that he himself had been chasing so obsessively. So while Aoki Yuu saw Hayato as a frail child with too little chakra to ever become anything impressive, Chiba Shun looked at him and saw possibility.
Hayato's weakness was obvious. His reserves were tiny—pitifully small, even for his age. By Chiba Shun's estimate, when the boy graduated, he might only have enough chakra for a single C-rank ninjutsu. That was disastrous by ordinary standards. Aoki Yuu would never have given such a child a second look.
But Chiba Shun's thinking had long since strayed from ordinary.
He knew chakra reserves could be improved, if only a little, through better nutrition, stronger physical conditioning, and a firmer will. That alone would never turn Hayato into a prodigy. At best, it might double his output—from one C-rank technique to two.
That wasn't what Chiba Shun was betting on.
He was betting on bloodline evolution.
To most people, that idea would have sounded absurd. Bloodline limits were the domain of monsters and geniuses, of people born for greatness. But Chiba Shun knew something others did not: the fusion of two chakra natures required extraordinary control. If Hayato's control was truly that exceptional, then maybe—just maybe—he possessed the right foundation for a future no one else could see.
That was enough for Chiba Shun to take the gamble.
So the four of them left Kumogakure together and headed toward the Land of Grass.
The route was long and inconvenient. From the Land of Lightning, they would pass through the Land of the Moon, the Land of Hot Water, the Land of Fields, the Land of Iron, the Land of Waterfalls, and only then reach the Land of Grass. There were shorter paths on paper—one of them through the Land of Fire—but Chiba Shun had no desire to step into Konoha's sphere again unless he absolutely had to.
The Land of Fire was trouble.
He would rather walk farther.
Of course, no normal jonin would drag three seven-year-old children on a mission across half the continent. Not unless he had a reason.
Hayato, at first, was thrilled beyond words. This was his first time leaving the Land of Lightning. If one wanted to be precise, it was his first time seeing anything outside an orphanage or the Ninja Academy. Every town, every road, every strange face and unfamiliar smell made his eyes shine.
Ayana and Shosuke felt the exact opposite.
The moment they left the village, their shoulders tightened. Their eyes kept darting to every shadow, every rooftop, every stand of trees. Having once survived an ambush by the Mist ninja, they no longer saw the world outside the village as wide or exciting. To them, it was only dangerous.
Chiba Shun noticed, of course, but said nothing.
Comfort from others only went so far. A ninja either learned to live with danger or broke under it. Their vigilance, however born, was at least useful. In the ninja world, being too relaxed could get you killed faster than being afraid.
So he did not hurry them.
They moved at a measured pace. Along the way, Chiba Shun paused often, giving the children guidance whenever the opportunity arose. He watched their breathing, their stances, their chakra flow. He corrected bad habits before they hardened into instincts. Once they had exhausted themselves, he treated them to proper meals, let them see the local customs, and gave them time to recover instead of grinding them into dust.
By the time they finally crossed out of the Land of Lightning, nearly ten days had passed.
That slow journey had done its work. Hayato's early excitement had calmed into focus. Ayana and Shosuke, meanwhile, had finally stopped looking like startled birds at every gust of wind.
The moment they left the Land of Lightning, however, Chiba Shun changed the rhythm completely.
He stopped letting them burn what little chakra they had on casual training.
Inside the Land of Lightning, danger existed, but it was muted. Wandering ninja and rogue ninja might lurk there, but most avoided Cloud ninja whenever possible. Outside the country, that safety vanished. In weaker nations, even the local ninja villages often failed to control their own strays. Bandits, mercenary ninja, deserters, and killers thrived in the cracks.
These people did not care whether their target came from Kumo, Konoha, or anywhere else.
Sometimes they preferred major-village ninja.
After all, those people usually carried better gear, better medicine, better scrolls—better everything.
Chiba Shun and his little team discovered that fact on their first day in the Land of the Moon.
A group of four men had set their eyes on them.
After watching them for a while, Chiba Shun judged that they were rogue ninja—or perhaps wanderers hardened enough to make the distinction meaningless. In truth, four rogue ninja banding together was uncommon. Most defectors did not trust one another enough to stay in groups for long. But these four moved like former teammates. Chiba Shun guessed they had once belonged to the same squad, maybe been thrown into some suicidal mission together, and chosen to desert as one.
Fortunately, their strength was limited.
All four were roughly chunin level. None of them gave off the pressure of a jonin.
That suggested an old team structure: one real chunin leading three subordinates who had since clawed their way up to the same rank.
Just strong enough to be dangerous.
Just weak enough to make a mistake.
Because Chiba Shun had carefully suppressed his presence and was traveling with three children, the four men had clearly misjudged what they were looking at. In their eyes, this was probably easy prey—a lone village ninja from one of the great powers, saddled with kids and burdened by supplies.
A rookie leader. A soft target. Maybe even someone rich.
Maybe, if fortune smiled on them, they would strip a few scrolls off his corpse. Maybe one or two decent ninjutsu. Enough to make the risk worthwhile.
That thought, more than anything, made Chiba Shun smile.
They had mistaken him for prey.
They were about to learn otherwise.