Hideki crouched low against a thick branch, trying to steady his breathing.
His palms were sweaty.
Annoyingly sweaty.
He wiped them against his pants for what had to be the fifth time in the last minute before peeking carefully through the leaves ahead.
Nothing.
Just trees…
And darkness.
And somewhere beyond them, the faint orange glow of the bandits' campfire.
Hideki swallowed.
'Calm down…'
Easy to think but hard to do.
Every sound made him tense. Every shifting shadow looked like a person waiting to jump him. Even with the Concealment Tag active, he still felt exposed.
'What if it failed?'
'What if the bandit sensed him somehow?'
'What if—'
A branch cracked softly ahead.
Hideki froze instantly.
A rough-looking man stepped into view moments later, lazily dragging a short blade along his shoulder as he walked.
'One of the lookouts.'
Hideki's throat went dry immediately.
The man looked bigger and menacing up close.
Not like Kaito-sensei, but still dangerous.
Hideki instinctively shrank further behind the tree as the bandit moved closer, humming drunkenly under his breath.
Too close.
Hideki could already imagine everything going wrong.
He misses the tag.
The bandit shouts.
The camp wakes up.
Then suddenly seven armed men are charging at him through the forest while Kaito-sensei watches them fail their first mission.
Hideki clenched his teeth hard enough to hurt.
"…Dammit."
His voice came out barely louder than air.
Then Murakami's earlier words surfaced in his mind.
'If something goes wrong, fall back toward me. Don't force a fight.'
Hideki took a slow breath.
Right.
He wasn't alone.
That thought steadied him more than he expected.
Carefully, he reached for the Silence Tag.
Hideki exhaled slowly through his nose, then activated the Silence Tag.
Instantly, he felt the world around him dull in an instant.
The rustle of leaves, even his own heartbeat, felt like it had been wrapped in thick cloth. The sudden quiet made his nerves spike for a moment before he forced himself to focus.
'Now…'
The bandit was still walking.
Closer.
Closer.
Hideki lowered his stance, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet.
The man yawned again, completely unaware.
'Just a civilian with a weapon.'
'Just a target.'
Hideki swallowed and kept repeating to himself.
His fingers tightened around the Binding Tag.
Don't miss.
That was all he needed to do.
One clean hit and he had completed his part in the mission.
Just then, the bandit stepped into range and Hideki moved.
He dropped from the branch in a silent descent, landing behind the man with a controlled impact that barely disturbed the ground.
The bandit stiffened slightly, like he felt something, but it was too late.
Hideki slapped the Binding Tag onto his back.
The paper ignited with chakra as the man's body jerked once, then locked completely.
"What—?"
His voice came out strangled.
Hideki didn't hesitate this time.
He struck.
A quick, sharp blow to the side of the neck.
The man collapsed forward without another sound.
Just like Sora, for a few seconds, Hideki just stood there.
Staring at the unconscious body at his feet, his breathing hard, his hands still shaking, but not like before.
This time, it wasn't pure fear.
It was something else.
Realization.
He had actually done it.
Hideki swallowed slowly, then looked toward the dark forest where Murakami had gone.
"…We're really doing this," he whispered to himself.
Then, tightening his grip on his remaining tags, he slipped back into the night to regroup.
…
Just as Hideki left, a figure seemed to spill out from the darkness and approached the fallen bandit.
"These kids…" the shadowy figure muttered to himself.
Kaito crouched beside the unconscious man, briefly checking his breathing and the Binding Tag still faintly pulsing with residual chakra.
"Clean enough…" he murmured.
His eyes shifted toward the direction Hideki had gone.
His gaze held neither disappointment nor surprise, just observant.
A light breeze passed through the forest, rustling the leaves overhead.
Kaito straightened slowly, slipping his hands back into his pockets.
"Their first contact went better than expected," he said quietly to himself.
Then his gaze turned deeper into the forest, toward where Sora had moved, "At least one of them remembers the objective of the mission."
And further down his line of sight was Murakami. "Let's see how far they can go before they break."
Without another sound, Kaito melted back into the darkness, following at a distance only someone of his level could maintain as the mission continued.
…
Having observed the successful dispatch of the two lookouts, Murakami immediately moved closer to the camp.
From the outside, nothing changed, the fire still burned steadily, the bandits still spoke in low, careless tones, unaware that their outer eyes had already been removed from the field.
He stopped at the edge of the clearing to confirm what he already knew.
Five signatures.
All confirmed.
Murakami exhaled slightly, then formed a hand seal.
The chakra around him shifted subtly, dispersing outward into the surrounding space like a thin, invisible veil.
Genjutsu: False Surrounding Technique.
The forest did not change, but perception of it did.
To anyone inside the camp, the world beyond the firelight blurred inconsistently.
Not enough to induce panic, just enough to misread presence.
Murakami continued forward slowly.
The illusion wrapped around him as he walked, layering his real presence beneath a falsified environmental veil.
And then, he crossed into the clearing and stopped right in front of them.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Four bandits continued talking.
One scratched his neck lazily.
The leader at the back shifted slightly, eyes half-lowered.
Then, he paused and his gaze sharpened.
"…Huh?"
One of the others looked up next.
Then another.
The illusion did not hide Murakami's presence anymore, only delayed their recognition of it.
And now they saw him.
Standing there.
Still as a tree.
In the center of their camp.
Silence hit instantly.
"W-what the hell—?!" one of them snapped, scrambling backward.
"Where did he come from?!" another barked, grabbing for his weapon.
The leader rose slowly, axe scraping against the ground.
His eyes locked onto Murakami.
"You—"
All four bandits snapped fully into alert stance at once, tension exploding through the camp.
Murakami didn't move.
He simply looked at them… the mission just entered its next phase.
And he had to conclude it as swiftly as possible.
…
"Gentlemen…" Murakami began slowly, "I have a proposition for you all."
The words landed strangely in the tense air, especially due to the sound of the voice.
One of the bandits blinked.
Then squinted harder into the darkness around Murakami's face.
Only his eyes were visible beneath the shadow of his hood and mask. They were calm, unreadable, and almost detached from the situation entirely.
"…Huh?"
Another bandit tilted his head.
"What the hell is this supposed to be?"
The leader narrowed his eyes, studying him properly for the first time.
Upon sighting the reflection of light on Murakami's forehead, his expression shifted but he didn't immediately make a move.
"…Wait."
One of the younger bandits leaned forward slightly, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
"Is that… a kid?"
With that question, the silence broke, not from fear this time, but disbelief.
"What?"
"A kid?"
"You're joking, right?"
The tension that had snapped into place just seconds ago began to warp.
Not into caution, into mockery.
The largest of the four let out a rough laugh, stepping forward and pointing his weapon loosely toward Murakami.
"What? He's just a kid?"
Another chuckled, relaxing his stance slightly. "I thought someone dangerous showed up…"
The leader didn't lower his guard entirely, but even his eyes shifted, measuring again, reassessing.
In his experience as a bandit, he understood that a child Shinobi showing up here means one of two things.
Either he was truly lost, or he was on a mission.
If he was lost, then that was fine. They only need to kill him, dispose of him and change location.
But if he was on a mission…then he most definitely wasn't here alone.
"Hey," one of them called out, smirking now. "You lost or something? This ain't a place for brats to be wandering into."
Laughter began to spread unevenly through the group.
The fear was gone, replaced by arrogance.
Murakami remained still.
The laughter continued for a moment longer, uneven and careless, like men convincing themselves they were in control again.
But the leader didn't laugh.
His eyes stayed locked on Murakami.
Slowly, the amusement in the camp began to thin.
It didn't vanish, just… loosened.
Because something about the boy didn't fit.
The stillness, the way he stood without shifting his weight.
The fact that he hadn't reacted at all.
The leader's grip tightened on his axe slightly.
"…Enough," he muttered under his breath.
The nearest bandit glanced at him. "Boss?"
The leader didn't answer immediately.
Instead, his gaze sharpened.
"If he's alone," he said slowly, "he dies here."
A pause.
"But if he's not…"
His eyes flicked once toward the treeline.
"…we don't take chances."
The camp grew quieter again.
The laughter stopped completely now.
Just then, Murakami finally moved. He had taken the time to observe how this supposedly group of bandits could handle the false surrounding illusion and had come to a conclusion.
It was a waste of his chakra.
They weren't worth it.
With a thought, his chakra shifted and the False Surrounding Technique began to unravel.
The edges of perception around the camp flickered, like the forest itself was remembering how it should look.
The bandits stiffened instantly.
"What the—?"
"Something's wrong!"
The leader stepped forward fully now, axe lifting.
"GET READY!"
And in that moment, Murakami's voice cut through the air.
"You misjudged the situation."
The illusion collapsed completely, causing the forest beyond the camp to no longer feel empty.
And then Murakami stepped forward again, fully visible now, standing just a few paces from the firelight.
"You should've listened to my proposition."
"GET HIM!"
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
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