The smell of fresh bread and roasted chestnuts drifted through Kitaura's morning market as Nawaki and I made our way back toward the base, arms loaded with enough ingredients to keep the cooks happy for the next few days. The kid was practically bouncing on his feet, chattering about some jutsu Orochimaru had shown him yesterday while balancing three bags that looked ready to split at the seams.
"—and then he did this thing with his fingers, like—" Nawaki attempted to demonstrate one-handed, nearly upending a bag of radishes in the process. "—and the whole thing just whooshed, you know? But when I try it, nothing happens. I think I'm doing the hand signs wrong or something."
"You're probably overthinking it," I said, shifting my grip on a rice sack that felt like it had been packed with actual rocks instead of grain. "Just keep practicing the basics. You'll get it eventually, muscle memory and all that."
"Yeah, yeah, muscle memory, I know." He huffed out a breath that sent his bangs flying. "But once I nail it? I'm coming for your spot. You're gonna wake up one day and realize I've gotten way stronger than you."
"Oh, absolutely. I fully expect to be weeping into my pillow when that day comes." I reached over to steady one of his teetering bags before it could make a break for freedom. "Try not to crush the tomatoes before your meteoric rise to power, though. I'll just remind you who controls the kitchen, and therefore your stomach, for the rest of your hopefully long, tomato-bruise-free life."
The market was its usual madhouse, vendors bellowing about their wares like their lives depended on moving every last turnip, customers haggling over prices with the dedication of seasoned diplomats, and kids weaving through the crowd like they'd been born with some kind of supernatural ability to avoid getting trampled by adults who clearly had places to be.
That's when I spotted the old guy, and immediately knew this was going to become Nawaki's problem.
The man had to be pushing sixty at least, hunched over this beat-up wooden cart that looked like it had seen better decades, trying to load what appeared to be half a shop's worth of merchandise onto a frame that was already protesting under the weight. Cloth, baskets, ceramic jars, wooden carvings, the whole pile looked ready to stage a gravity-assisted rebellion against him at any moment. The poor guy was sweating bullets and clearly losing what was shaping up to be an epic battle between sheer willpower and physics.
"Oh man, that doesn't look good," Nawaki muttered. "That poor guy's gonna hurt himself."
Before I could even open my mouth to remind him that we had our own heavy loads to worry about, he was already jogging over, our carefully balanced bags bouncing with each step like they were personally offended by the sudden change in momentum.
"Hey!" Nawaki called out, dropping his load beside the cart with zero concern for the cabbages at the bottom. "Let me get that for you."
The old man straightened up, or tried to, one hand pressing into his lower back with a wince. His eyes swept over Nawaki's hitai-ate, then crinkled at the corners. "Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes. And a sore back. And sore everything else, if I'm being honest." He stepped aside, gesturing at the chaos before him. "She's temperamental, this one. Wheel sticks if you load the left side too heavy."
I stayed put while Nawaki launched into full-scale good deed mode, again. The kid couldn't walk past someone who needed help if his life literally depended on it. It was either going to get him killed someday, or forge him into shinobi the world desperately needed.
While he and the old guy wrestled with the cart, I let my eyes wander around the market. Vendors, shoppers, some kids running around by the fountain—
Oh?
There was a guy leaning against the wall between two shops, trying to look casual. Middle-aged, nothing special about him except for the way he kept glancing in my direction.
When he caught me looking back, he jerked his head slightly toward the alley next to him.
Great.
"—honestly can't thank you enough," the old man was saying as Nawaki loaded the last bundle onto what I was now convinced was less a cart and more a mobile disaster waiting to happen. "My grandson usually handles the heavy lifting, but the poor kid's been laid up with some nasty fever all week." He shook his head, clicking his tongue. "Doctor swears it's nothing serious, but you know how it is. You worry anyway."
"That's rough." Nawaki stepped back to survey his handiwork, giving the cart an experimental nudge to make sure nothing was about to slide off. "I'm sure he'll bounce back soon. Kids are pretty resilient like that."
The old man chuckled, already gripping the cart handles. "Listen to you, talking like you're not one yourself." He lifted a hand in farewell as he started off. "You take care now. And thank your friend too, for letting me borrow you."
I waited until he'd wheeled his engineering marvel around the corner before wandering over to where Nawaki was gathering up our abandoned supplies. The kid looked annoyingly pleased with himself, which was pretty much his default state after doing anything remotely helpful.
"Hey." I glanced past him toward the far end of the market, then back. "Why don't you head back with these? There's something I want to check on real quick."
He blinked. "Check what?"
"I forgot to grab something earlier. Shouldn't take long."
"Okay, sure." He hefted our bags. "Meet you back at base in a bit?"
"Yeah, shouldn't take long."
I watched him disappear into the crowd, then headed for the alley. The narrow space between buildings was exactly as inviting as I'd expected, dim, cramped, and perfumed with that special urban bouquet of old grease, rotting vegetables, and things I probably didn't want to identify. The guy was already waiting about halfway down, hands shoved deep in his pockets, managing to look like he belonged in this particular slice of atmospheric squalor.
The guy pushed off the wall when I got close, giving me a casual nod. When he spoke, his voice was all rough and gravelly, like he'd been chain-smoking for decades.
"Boss." A nod. "Been runnin' surveillance like ya asked. Got some intel you're gonna wanna hear."
I stared at him. "Really? We're doing this?"
"Doing what?"
I rolled my eyes. "Drop the voice acting."
His whole demeanor shifted immediately. The gravelly voice disappeared, replaced by something that sounded exactly like me.
"Better?"
"What've you got?"
"So one of the clones on rotation caught something interesting." He folded his arms, leaning back against the wall. "There's a local official, some mid-level bureaucrat, nobody special, who's been acting real squirrelly lately. Hushed conversations with people who don't look like they belong anywhere near a government building. Meetings at weird hours in places that aren't his office."
"Could be an affair."
"Could be, except fancy things keep showing up at his house. New furniture. Artwork. The kind of stuff that doesn't exactly fit a civil servant's salary." He raised an eyebrow. "Someone's bankrolling him for something."
"Any threads leading back to Kumo?"
"That's the frustrating part, nothing concrete yet. Could be garden-variety corruption, could be something with teeth." He shrugged. "You want me to loop Dan in, or keep digging first?"
I thought about it, running through the pros and cons. On one hand, suspicious officials definitely fell under our mission parameters. On the other hand, bringing Dan half-baked intelligence about a possibly corrupt bureaucrat would make me look like an idiot if it turned out the guy was just doing the time-honored tradition of skimming money from municipal projects like every other sane politician in the civilized world.
"Not yet," I decided, shaking my head. "We need more than 'this guy's probably corrupt and also owns some nice things.' That's not intelligence, that's just Tuesday in local government."
"Fair enough." He tilted his head. "So what do you want us to do?"
"Dig deeper, but do it smart. I want to know who's paying him, what they want in exchange, who he's been meeting with, and whether any of those people have interesting connections to places that aren't supposed to be friendly with Konoha." I paused. "But keep it quiet, if he really is working with enemy forces instead of just being your garden-variety corrupt official, he might have people watching his back. People who very much notice when strangers start asking too many questions about their business arrangements."
"Got it. We'll keep at it until we have something solid."
He melted back into the crowd, and I waited a few seconds before heading back to the market.
…..
The next few days passed in routine tedium that seemed to define our current assignment. Team 7 got stuck with the usual grab bag of tasks that nobody else particularly wanted to do, recon missions at various government buildings around town that involved a lot of standing around looking official while memorizing floor plans, escort runs to nearby villages for officials who were probably important enough to warrant protection but not quite important enough to rate their own dedicated security detail, and basic supply line work that mostly consisted of making sure nobody was stealing from the convoys. Nothing particularly exciting, just boring but absolutely necessary jobs that kept the gears of international diplomacy turning smoothly.
When we weren't working, we trained with the dedication that came from knowing our skills might be the only thing standing between us and a very bad day. Mikoto spent most of her free time hunched over her clan's jutsu scrolls like they contained the secrets of the universe, methodically working through increasingly complex fire release techniques because she understood that sloppy fundamentals led to explosive accidents.
Tsume did her own specialized training with her dog, running them through coordination drills that looked more like elaborate dance routines than combat preparation, and when she wasn't doing that, she was enthusiastically trying to beat the crap out of me and Mikoto during sparring sessions, apparently considering violence a legitimate form of social bonding.
Between missions, I kept getting updates from my clones through their memories when they dispelled. Nothing earth-shattering, just steady surveillance of that official. Turned out the guy wasn't just taking bribes; he was actively screwing with trade agreements and meeting with people who definitely weren't locals.
But what my clones found on the fourth day was actually interesting.
I was lounging on some rooftop garden in the shopping district with Mikoto and Tsume, enjoying one of those rare moments where we didn't have anything urgent to do and nobody was expecting us to be anywhere in particular. The sun was pleasantly warm without being oppressive, the view of the town spread out below us wasn't terrible, and for once nobody was shooting at us or trying to blow anything up in our general vicinity. It was almost enough to make me forget we were technically on a mission that could go sideways at any moment.
Then one of my clones decided to dispel itself, and suddenly I was having someone else's afternoon.
The memories hit me all at once in that familiar disorienting rush, images, conversations, sensory impressions, everything my clone had experienced in the past few hours compressed into a few seconds of mental data transfer. I sorted through it quickly, skipping past the boring surveillance footage until I found the genuinely interesting stuff buried in the middle of an otherwise routine intelligence report.
"Huh." I sat up.
Mikoto cracked an eye open from where she was sprawled next to Tsume's dog. "What?"
"Just got some interesting intel." I stretched and grinned at them. "You two want to do something fun?"
Tsume pushed herself up, already raring to go. "What kind of fun are we talking about here? Please tell me it involves more action than watching people fill out paperwork."
"The kind involving that corrupt official I mentioned a few days ago. Turns out he's been even busier than we thought. And maybe we should consider messing with him a little. You know, in the interest of gathering more intelligence."
"Oh?" Tsume's grin promised someone was about to have a very bad day. "That definitely sounds like my kind of fun!"
"Remember Matsumoto? That merchant we helped escort to the Fire Country capital?"
"The paranoid guy who thought someone was out to get him?" she asked. "Yeah, what about him?"
"Well, turns out he wasn't being paranoid." I stood up and dusted off my pants. "One of my clone have been tracking this official who's been taking bribes. Standard corruption stuff, but then they found something interesting."
I waited just long enough to let them get curious.
"This guy's been helping some wealthy merchant systematically screw over his competition. Sabotaged shipments, canceled contracts, making trade routes 'dangerous.'" I grinned. "Guess who the target was?"
Mikoto's eyebrows went up. "Matsumoto?"
"Bingo. All those 'bad luck' incidents he kept complaining about? Someone really was out to get him."
"Shit," Tsume chuckled. "Poor bastard was right all along."
"Yep. And now we know who's been doing it."
"But why would they bother?" Mikoto asked. "Why would they waste their time ruining some random merchant's day? Seems like a lot of effort for a pretty small target."
"Could be lots of reasons, actually. Maybe they needed to control certain trade routes for operational purposes, or maybe Matsumoto saw something he wasn't supposed to see and they decided he was a security risk." I shrugged. "Point is, we've got solid proof now that this official isn't just skimming money from municipal budgets."
Mikoto frowned, getting that look she always got when something was bugging her. "There's something weird about this whole thing."
"Like what?"
"Remember what Matsumoto said? It wasn't just his business getting hit. His family was getting targeted too. His daughter almost got hurt a bunch of times."
I thought back to the escort, remembering how scared the guy had looked when he talked about his family. "Yeah... the roof tiles, that runaway cart, the dog incident I think?"
"Exactly." Mikoto's expression hardened. "That's not business. That's personal. And it means they wanted more than just to destroy his career."
"Yeah, that's fucked up," Tsume said bluntly. "You don't go after someone's family unless they like... kicked your puppy or something equally heinous."
"I want to check this guy out personally."
"You sound way too excited about this," Tsume observed.
"Hey, I told Matsumoto I'd look into his problems if I ever got the chance. Plus I'm bored out of my mind with all this boring work, and this actually seems like it might be fun for once." I grinned at both of them. "So, anyone want to help me mess with a corrupt official who's been terrorizing innocent merchants and their families?"
Mikoto blinked. "Shouldn't we report this to Dan first? If this guy's actually connected to a larger spy network and we move on him without authorization, won't that tip everyone else off that we're onto them?"
"Oh shit," Tsume said, smacking her forehead. "She's right. We're gonna get our asses thoroughly chewed out if we screw up the bigger operation because we couldn't wait for proper orders."
"Relax. I've got a plan." I held up my hands. "Little breaking and entering, gather some evidence, you know, financial evidence. The kind that's... portable. And shiny. Evidence that might accidentally end up helping with our team's logistics problem."
"Shinji..." Mikoto's voice carried that warning tone suggesting she knew exactly where this was heading.
"Ah, don't worry, Mikoto. I'll also enact justice on behalf of Matsumoto, give his face a friendly introduction to my fist. Then I'll have one of my clones replace this corrupt official. Problem solved."
"Ooh, that's actually pretty smart!" Tsume gave me a thumbs up.
"You're both talking complete nonsense," Mikoto said flatly. "We're still gonna get in serious trouble for acting without explicit permission, regardless of how clever you think you're being."
"What? Why?" Tsume's eyes went wide.
"Because we're genin. We're not supposed to be running solo operations, especially ones that involve assault, theft, and impersonation of local officials. There are protocols for this kind of thing."
"Hey, a little scolding never hurt anyone," I said. "It builds character."
Tsume's eyes lit up. "Damn right! Character building at its finest!"
Mikoto just sighed. "I can't believe I'm friends with you two."
…
The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across Kitaura's residential district as we made our way through the winding streets toward our target's neighborhood. The area was nicer than the merchant quarter, wider streets, better-maintained buildings, exactly where local officials and successful businessmen set up house. Trees lined the walkways, and most of the homes had small gardens that suggested their owners had both money and time to spend on appearances.
"Fancy," Tsume said, looking around at the well-kept yards and stone decorations. "Being corrupt must pay pretty damn well these days."
"Or he's got other sources of income that aren't exactly listed on his official tax documents," Mikoto said, keeping her voice low as she scanned the street.
I nodded toward a two-story house about halfway down the block. "That's the one. According to my clones, he usually gets home around sunset, stays in for dinner, then heads out again around nine for what he claims are evening business meetings."
"Convenient schedule for someone trying to maintain a respectable cover," Mikoto said. "Makes his nighttime activities look like normal professional obligations instead of whatever shadowy bullshit he's actually up to."
I glanced at the sky, trying to figure out how much time we had. "Probably an hour before he shows up. Should be enough."
"So, what's the plan?" Tsume asked, cracking her knuckles. "Front door, back door, or do we use the roof?"
"Back door's probably our best bet. Less visible from the street, and if anyone asks, we're just friends stopping by for a visit."
"Friends who break in when nobody's home," Mikoto pointed out.
"Hey, maybe he gave us a spare key and we forgot to mention it." I grinned. "Could happen."
At the back door, I turned to her. "Hey, can I borrow your hairpin?"
She immediately touched the one in her hair, the one I'd given her. "This one? No way."
"Seriously?" Tsume shook her head. "Shinji, you're an idiot."
"What? I was just gonna borrow it for a few minutes," I protested, though I was already realizing that asking someone to let me use a gift I'd given them as a lock-picking tool was probably not my most thoughtful moment. "It's not like I was going to break it or anything."
I sighed and dug around in my storage seal until I found some random looted paperwork held together with a standard paperclip. "Fine, whatever. I'll make do with this." I straightened the paperclip, then worked it into the lock mechanism. It took a few tries and some creative cursing under my breath, but eventually the satisfying click of success sounded.
"And we're in," I announced quietly.
"Where'd you learn to do that?" Mikoto asked as we slipped inside.
"You pick up all sorts of useful skills when you read a lot," I said, looking around.
The place was definitely several steps above what I'd expected on the inside. The kitchen alone probably cost more than most people made in a year, actual marble countertops that looked like they'd been imported from somewhere expensive, copper pots hanging from hooks like some kind of professional cooking setup, cabinet hardware that gleamed with a finish that screamed quality. Way fancier than anything a mid-level government salary should realistically afford, even with the creative bookkeeping that seemed rampant to local politics.
Tsume grabbed an apple from a bowl on the table and took a bite. "Kuromaru?"
Her dog sniffed around for a second, then made a quiet sound.
"Nobody's here," she reported.
"Good. I'm gonna check the study—that's where my clone said he keeps the important stuff. You two can look around, but don't touch anything obvious."
"This guy's definitely living beyond his means," Mikoto said, running her finger along the fancy stonework. "This kind of work costs serious money."
"Yeah, well, corruption pays." Tsume finished her apple and tossed the core in the trash. "Guy's got expensive taste, I'll give him that."
I headed toward the home office, which turned out to be a surprisingly compact but well-organized space. Desk made from what looked like actual hardwood instead of the usual cheap alternatives, filing cabinets that probably contained more interesting reading material than their official labels suggested, and a bookshelf that mixed legitimate government manuals with what appeared to be personal reading choices. Just like my clone had reported, there was evidence of financial irregularities practically everywhere I looked, receipts that didn't match declared income, correspondence that seemed suspiciously vague about actual business details, all the red flags that painted a clear picture for anyone who knew what to look for.
But something else caught my eye, a big family photo on the wall, the guy we were investigating, along with what looked like a wife and kid.
"Find anything?" Tsume appeared in the doorway with Mikoto right behind her.
"Yep." I started pulling out papers and spreading them on the desk. "Letters. Between our guy and that merchant who's been screwing with Matsumoto."
"Let me see that." Mikoto leaned over the desk and started reading through the papers. "Oh wow, this is incredibly incriminating. 'Escalate pressure tactics on the target'... 'implement additional intimidation measures to ensure compliance'..." She looked up. "They're definitely talking about Matsumoto."
"And they're not even trying to be subtle about it," Tsume added, reading over her shoulder.
"So what's the plan now?" Mikoto asked, setting down the papers. "Wait for him to get back, beat the crap out of him, then drag him to Dan?"
"Pretty much." I made a quick hand seal and created a clone. "Alright, you're gonna be our corrupt official for the foreseeable future. Try to look appropriately bureaucratic and morally flexible."
The clone just stared at me. "Great. Lucky me."
"He doesn't look particularly happy about his new assignment," Tsume observed with amusement.
"Does Shinji ever look happy about anything?" Mikoto asked. "I'm pretty sure his default expression is 'mildly annoyed with the universe.'"
"Hey, I'm standing right here."
Mikoto had wandered over to look at a big family photo on the wall, the official with what looked like his wife and a little girl, maybe eight years old.
"This same picture's in the living room too," she said.
"And there's another copy in the hallway," Tsume added from where she was poking around. "Guy's really into this photo."
I shrugged. "Probably his family. Rich people have multiple houses all the time. They're probably somewhere safer while he deals with this shady stuff."
"Still weird to have the same picture everywhere."
"Maybe he misses them," Tsume said. "Or maybe he's trying to make himself feel better about all the shady shit he's doing."
"Doesn't matter." I stuffed the letters into a storage seal. "The guy helped terrorize Matsumoto's family, and he's been doing a lot of shady stuff around town. That's all we need to know."
I looked up from the desk. "Alright, that's enough chatting. Tsume, keep an eye out for our target, let us know the second you spot him coming down the street. Mikoto, can you set up some subtle traps around the house in case he decides to bring friends to this little homecoming?"
"Sure thing."
"Got it."
They headed out to handle their respective tasks while I finished gathering intelligence in the study, making sure to collect anything that looked like it might be useful for understanding the broader scope of whatever operation this guy was involved in. A few minutes later, just as I was sealing away the last batch of suspicious financial records, Tsume's voice carried through the house.
"He's coming."
Mikoto was already at the window. "There—that's definitely him."
I checked the guy walking down the street against the family photo. Same balding head, same gut. "Yep, that's our target alright.
He fumbled with his keys for a bit before getting inside. We waited a few seconds, then made our move. I could hear him clanking around in the kitchen, probably getting dinner ready.
When we got closer, the guy was standing at the counter with his back to us, humming something terrible while he set up what looked like wine and fancy cheese.
Tsume had him down and tied up before he knew what hit him. One second he's reaching for a wine glass, the next he's eating floor with rope around his wrists.
"What the hell—who are you people?" He was struggling as Tsume dragged him to the living room. "This is illegal! I'll call the authorities—"
"About that," I said, dropping into his fancy chair. "We're kind of the authorities right now."
He got a proper look at us then, three teenagers in ninja gear sitting in his fancy living room like we owned the place, which I suppose we technically did for the moment. I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he tried to process what the hell was happening to his peaceful evening routine.
"You're just... kids," he said, and I could hear him relaxing slightly as he apparently decided that dealing with minors meant he could somehow regain control of the situation. "Look, whatever this is about, I'm sure we can work something out like reasonable people. You probably don't get paid much in your line of work..."
"Oh, here we go," Tsume said, shoving him down on the couch harder than necessary.
The guy tried to straighten his clothes despite being tied up, still acting like he was in charge somehow. "I have important connections in this town, you understand. People who depend on me for various services. If you let me go right now, I can make sure you're all properly rewarded for your... discretion regarding tonight's misunderstanding."
"Discretion," I repeated, glancing at Mikoto. "That's an interesting word choice, don't you think?"
"Very interesting indeed. Almost like he's automatically assuming we already know about his illegal activities and just need to be bought off."
"Exactly. Makes you wonder what kind of shady business he's been conducting that would require paying off random teenage ninja for their silence."
His face was starting to go pale as he realized his attempt at subtle bribery had just gone wrong. "Wait, no, you don't understand—I can explain everything! I have money, gold, whatever you need to make this whole thing disappear!"
"Whatever we need?" I raised an eyebrow. "That's pretty generous."
"Yes! There's a safe upstairs—combination's my daughter's birthday, easy to remember. Take everything in it! And I'll leave town tonight, I swear to you. Pack my bags and disappear, you'll never see me again!"
I let that offer hang in the air for a long moment, watching him squirm under the weight of his own panic while I pretended to consider his proposal.
"You know what I'm really curious about?" I said. "How professional interrogations actually work in practice. Think they'd let us observe a real one sometime? For educational purposes?"
The way his face went white was almost funny. Almost.
"Please," he whispered. "I have a family."
"If you cared about your family, maybe you shouldn't have worked with Kumo to target innocent people and their kids," Mikoto said.
The guy's eyes went wide with what looked like genuine shock rather than the calculated surprise of someone who'd been caught. "What? Kumo? What are you talking about? I don't have anything to do with Kumo! I just made some trade deals, picked routes that seemed safe for commerce—I was trying to help the town prosper!"
He was breathing hard now, words spilling out. "You must be from somewhere that's currently fighting with Kumo, but I swear I'm not involved in any of that political stuff! I'm just a town official! My job is keeping this place safe and profitable for everyone who lives here!"
I could see Mikoto and Tsume starting to exchange uncertain glances. His panic seemed pretty genuine, and the confusion in his voice didn't ring like a rehearsed performance under this kind of pressure.
"Keeping the town safe," I said. "Sure, that's noble. But what about what happened to Matsumoto's daughter? All those convenient 'accidents' that almost killed her?"
"Matsumoto?" He blinked. "Who?"
"The merchant," Tsume said, clearly annoyed.
"What merchant? What does any merchant have to do with this?"
"Don't play dumb. We found the letters."
"What letters?"
"The ones in your study," Mikoto said. "About using 'pressure tactics' on Matsumoto and his family."
The guy just stared at us for a long moment, his face cycling through confusion, concentration, and then something that looked like dawning comprehension. When understanding finally hit, he looked genuinely horrified in a way that was impossible to fake.
"Oh god. No, no, no." He looked at us with wild eyes. "You don't understand—I never meant for anyone to get hurt. I just approved some permits and route changes! I never authorized violence against anyone, especially not children!"
"Right," Mikoto rolled her eyes. "You just happened to approve a bunch of permits and route changes that systematically destroyed Matsumoto's business while making your merchant friend incredibly rich. Pure coincidence, I'm sure."
"It was just business! Legal business, mostly!" He was starting to sound more defensive than panicked now. "Look, Matsumoto's deals weren't particularly competitive to begin with. When better options came along with more favorable terms for the town, of course I approved them! That's literally my job!"
"Better options that apparently involved threatening a little kid," Mikoto said quietly.
"What kid?! I didn't know about any kids!" His voice cracked. "I swear I didn't know! He told me it was just normal business competition, maybe a little aggressive marketing, but nothing involving families!"
"Who's 'he'?"
"Another merchant! Look, you have to understand how trade works in a place like this—it's absolutely cutthroat. People are always trying to undercut each other, steal contracts, find better deals." He was getting desperate now, words tumbling out as he tried to explain himself. "Even if I hadn't helped this particular guy, they would've just found another official to bribe. That's how these things work! But I swear I didn't know about anyone getting hurt! Why would I want that? What possible reason would I have to hurt some random merchant's family?"
I could see Tsume and Mikoto exchanging looks, starting to think maybe he had a point.
"Look," he said desperately, "I can give you names, everything I know about the trade deals, all the paperwork and correspondence. But I swear on everything I hold dear that I had no idea they were threatening people's families. I was just... I was just trying to make some extra money while bringing more commerce to the town."
"You mean make yourself rich while screwing other people over," Tsume said, kicking him in the ass.
"Ow! Look, I like money, okay? Everyone likes money!" He was practically crying now, the combination of stress and pain finally breaking through whatever composure he'd been trying to maintain. "But I'm not working against your village! I don't even know which village you're from! Please, I have a little girl who needs her father!"
"Tsume, that's enough." I held up a hand, and she backed off with obvious reluctance, still glaring at our prisoner like she was considering whether another kick might improve his attitude.
I looked down at the guy, who was now a mess of tears and snot. "Relax, Mr. Daigo. We're not gonna kill you."
His face lit up immediately. "Really? Oh thank you! I can pay you—"
"If you behave."
He nodded so hard I thought his head might come off. "Yes! I'll behave, I promise!"
"Good. As long as you're not actually working with Kumo, you'll be fine. Just tell our people everything you know later."
I turned to my clone. "What are you waiting for?"
The clone sighed and made another clone. The new one bent down, threw the official over his shoulder like a sack of rice, and headed for the window.
"Wait, what are you—" Daigo started to say, but the clone was already jumping out.
Tsume and Mikoto just stared at the now-empty window for a moment, like they were trying to process what they'd just witnessed.
"Did your clone just kidnap that guy?" Tsume asked.
"More like... temporary custody," I said. "Dan's gonna want to question him properly."
She flopped down in the chair with a sigh. "Well, that was anticlimactic."
"Still useful information," Mikoto pointed out. "Now we know there's a merchant who's been working with local officials to eliminate his competition, and we have a lead on who's actually behind the threats against Matsumoto's family."
My clone finished the transformation into Daigo and looked at me with his, now the official's face. "So how long am I stuck being this guy? And just so you know, if I screw something up and blow my cover, that's on you."
"Just do your best impression of a corrupt government official until Dan's ready to move on the actual spies behind all this," I said with a shrug. "Once they start raiding safehouses and rounding up the real players, you can drop the act and rejoin the land of the living."
"Great. Living the dream."
Tsume stretched out in the chair. "So that's it? We barely did anything today."
"Hey, at least we solved a problem and got some useful intelligence," Mikoto pointed out. "Even if it wasn't as dramatic as we thought it would be when we started planning this whole operation."
"Speaking of which," she continued, "anyone up for hitting the hot springs tonight? I could use a soak after all this."
"Now you're talking," I said. "That sounds perfect."
…..
Word got around fast about my clones, because apparently having thirty identical surveillance operatives at your disposal was something that tended to make an impression on people who spent their careers worrying about intelligence gathering.
It started with chunin giving me weird looks during routine briefings, like they were trying to figure out if what they'd heard was actually possible or just an exaggerated rumor that had gotten blown out of proportion. Then jonin started asking casual questions during mission debriefs, seemingly innocent inquiries that were actually careful probes to determine exactly what kind of tactical asset they were dealing with. Before I knew it, Dan was pulling Team 7 aside for what he diplomatically called "special assignments," though what he really meant was "let's figure out how to use this kid's ridiculous abilities to make our lives easier."
"So," Dan said one morning, leaning back in his chair, "exactly how many of those things can you make without passing out?"
"Depends what they're doing. Just watching? Maybe thirty, forty. Actually fighting? Way less." I was lying through my teeth, but he didn't need to know that.
"Thirty," he said slowly, like he was doing math in his head. "And they all report back when they pop?"
"Every boring detail."
He glanced at the other jonin in the room. I could practically see the gears turning.
A week later, we'd been quietly moved from "regular genin stuff" to "special reconnaissance support," which was a fancy way of saying that Mikoto, Tsume and I still did normal missions together like any other genin team, but my clones had suddenly become everyone's favorite surveillance tool for the more sensitive operations that required eyes on multiple targets simultaneously.
"Think of it as advanced training," said a scar-faced jonin who'd been assigned to teach us proper infiltration techniques and urban surveillance methods. "Most genin don't get access to this kind of specialized instruction until they make chunin and prove they can handle more complex assignments."
"Lucky us," Tsume said, but she was paying attention.
"The trick to blending in," he continued, "is acting like you belong. People see what they expect to see, not what's actually there."
He wasn't wrong, and honestly, the training was turning out to be significantly more useful than I'd expected when this whole arrangement started. Within a few days of intensive instruction, we were all getting noticeably better at essential skills like moving through crowds without attracting attention, reading people's emotional states and intentions from their body language, and generally not looking like obvious outsiders who didn't belong in whatever environment we found ourselves in.
It definitely beat the hell out of escort missions and routine supply runs, that was for sure.
"Your clones are giving us better intel than half our official sources," Dan said during one of our evening briefings. "It's a shame other jonin can't spam shadow clones like you can. If we could field this kind of surveillance network across all our operations, we could really put the heat on Kumo's intelligence operations in this region."
"Happy to help," I said, though part of me was starting to wonder if this was how you ended up stuck behind a desk for the rest of your career, managing spy networks instead of actually doing adventure stuff.
Still, I had to admit the system was working better than anyone had expected. My clones had caught enemy agents attempting to poison grain shipments that were headed to Fire Country forces, followed suspicious individuals back to their carefully hidden safehouses, and when corrupt officials got a little too cozy with Kumo operatives... well, sometimes people had unfortunate accidents that looked perfectly natural to anyone who wasn't paying very close attention.
It left a distinctly bad taste in my mouth, but that was apparently what happened when two major powers decided to settle their differences through prolonged military conflict. Everyone else got caught in the middle and had to choose sides whether they wanted to or not. Traders especially were completely screwed no matter what they did, trade with Fire Country and Lightning Country intelligence might decide you were a strategic target, trade with Lightning Country and Fire Country forces might conclude you were collaborating with the enemy. Most neutral territories just picked whichever side they thought would hurt them less in the long run and tried to survive the experience.
The real game-changer came when Dan started embedding my clones directly into trade convoys as an early warning system. Not just as guards, but as merchants, drivers, cart loaders, whatever role would give them the best position to observe and report. When enemy agents finally decided to attack a convoy, the clone would immediately dispel itself and I'd instantly know exactly where the attackers were, how many there were, and what tactics they were using.
"Trade volume is still significantly down compared to peacetime levels," Dan explained during one of our strategic review meetings. "But it's stabilized at about sixty percent of normal commercial flow, which is actually better than we'd projected when this whole mess started. More importantly from a military perspective, critical supplies are getting through consistently to our forces on the western front."
Which meant our guys weren't running out of food, medicine, or weapons. In any prolonged military conflict, that kind of reliable logistical security could easily be the difference between eventual victory and complete disaster.
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