(June, year 54 AK)
Shortly after, the group led by Shisui starts moving further to the east, to the area where the border patrol operates, this time they were moving not that fast as before, since there is a chance now to encounter the enemy at any moment and they need to be on guard and to preserve their strength.
After about an hour and a half, the group reached a clearing in the woods, it was a border patrol camp that was located here. On the way here Yuta sensed a few times ninja chakra's signatures among the trees in a distance, but since Shisui didn't react, and with Shisui's skills he was sure to notice them first, Yuta assumed it was Konoha's border patrol ninjas.
As the group approached the border patrol camp, Yuta saw there were about a dozen tents and a few dozen ninjas that were resting there, either sitting at the campfire or sleeping inside the tents.
As the group entered the camp unobstructed, Shisui signaled the others to stay there and went into the central tent alone. Other border patrol ninjas only spared a passing glance at Yuta and the others and returned to their business uninterested.
As Yuta and the others stood there waiting for Shisui, Hikari looked around, scoffed and said with some disappointment, "Why they are so relaxed and not even a little bit suspicious? What if we are imposters or something?"
As Shinji looked at Hikari and was about to answer, Yuta said first, "They probably knew about our arrival long before we approached the camp, they are the ones who send the help request to the village in the first place, and the village must've sent a response after we were dispatched on this mission, so they knew that we are coming. Also, I sensed some border patrol ninjas on our way here, so they must've warned the camp about us in advance, that's why they aren't suspicious."
"Yuta is right." Shinji said, "But there is also something that you didn't notice, when you sensed a border patrol ninja on our way here, Shisui exchanged code signals with them, so our identity is already confirmed."
"I didn't notice any of that..." Hikari said.
"I did." Itachi said.
Yuta looked around the camp one more time. He observed the ninjas that were inside the camp, most of them are in their thirties and older, there are only a few ninjas in their early twenties, and the rest of them are a lot older. Yuta concentrated on his chakra senses and sized up their chakra levels. Most of them were at a Genin level, and the rest is anywhere between Genin level chakra up to Chunin level, but not past that. The highest chakra Yuta sensed from them was about 2C amount of chakra, or the amount of two average Chunins, that chakra signature belongs to someone inside the central tent that Shisui went to, and the rest of the ninjas had less than that.
'Hm, considering that most of the ninjas here is past thirties, having chakra between Genin and Chunin levels, I would assume that all of the ninjas here could be considered having quite low potential as a shinobi. There is a stark contrast between them and Shisui's previous teammates, all three of them are in early twenties, and each of them having at least 4C of chakra.' Yuta thought as he waited for Shisui.
'Border patrol duty is necessary and very important for the village's security, and there is a significant number of ninjas that should be assigned to it at all times, but the border patrol assignments are implying long-term stationing on the border, where is rarely something happens during peace times. Ninjas that are assigned here are likely to have to patrol the border for months without any action, and they aren't able to train here much, since they should stay on guard. And considering this, from how it looks like to me, village assigns its lowest potential ninjas to such duties...'
'If someone tries to cross the border illegally, they would be able to send the alarm and try to stop the intruders with numbers and reinforcements from the neighboring border patrol camps, and if they fail, the village will quickly dispatch a more capable squad to handle the threat, like us.'
...
'I could've ended up in here for the most of my ninja life if I wasn't able to figure out my Time Control ability and to forge the connection with the River of Time and figure out the time-travel... If not for that, my overall potential as a shinobi would've been quite low, no matter how hard I would've trained. I would've been able to reach the level of a Genin by the end of six full years of the academy, and would've been stuck in the Genin Core or border patrol duty for many years. And maybe by the age of twenty-twenty-five I would've being able to reach the level of a Chunin, just like Yuta's original father did... What a bleak future perspective that is...'
...
After just a minute or two of waiting, Shisui came back and signaled the group to move out. As they left the camp and moved some distance from it, Shisui stopped, turned around and said to the group, "There are about ten to twenty enemy ninjas that were infiltrated into our teritory. They successfully tricked the border patrols and sneaked past them last night. Our mission is to track them down and deal with them."
"There is more of them than we initially thought..." Shinji said thoughtfully, "Should we request reinforcements from the village?"
"No." Shisui replied, "First we need to find them and assess their numbers and strength more precisely, we can't request reinforcements just based on speculations."
'With Shisui here what more reinforcements do we need? I bet Shisui could've dealt with those intruders on his own easily, he is a Jonin and he has MS after all, if my understanding of his strength is correct, he is an S-rank level ninja already, the likes of him can easily deal with hundreds of ninjas, just a dozen or two is no threat to him.' Yuta thought as he listened to the conversation quietly.
After that Shisui led the group further to the west, in a slightly different direction than they had come from. After half an hour they stopped in an unassuming spot in the middle of the forest and Shisui and Shinji started to look around.
'We are looking for the tracks now?' Yuta thought as he also looked around, 'I had learned how to read the tracks and also Shisui had thought us a little on the subject back in the village, but I don't see anything suspicious here or on our way here...'
After a few seconds Shisui had signaled to the group and as everyone came closer and hooped on the tree branch beside him, Shisui pointed on the nearby tree branch, as Yuta looked closer on the spot that Shisui is pointing, he didn't saw anything out of place there.
"There are vague footprints here, I can't determine how many ninjas are passed here, but it was about four to six hours from now, we are on the right track" Shisui commented.
"I don't see anything there." Hikari stated.
"The bark on that place are slightly bended, it's hard to spot." Itachi said.
'Hm, still not seeing anything, the spot looks the same as anywhere else to me...' Yuta thought, then he glanced at Shinji and other Chunins to check if they are able to see the tracks, but the Chunins looked calm and unreadable, so Yuta failed to determine if they see the tracks or not.
"What now, do we pick up the pace to catch up to them?" Shinji asked as the group stood up and ready to move out.
"No, we should move carefully from now on, the enemy could spot the pursuit and set up an ambush, we should move slow and be on guard." Shisui replied and led the group forward.
"What if they get away?" Shinji asked as they were hopping through the trees from branch to branch.
"We will pick up the pace if the trail starts to become colder." Shisui replied, "Sooner or later they have to stop somewhere, we are in no rush to catch up to them, this is our territory, we have a natural advantage here."
With that the group proceeds to follow the trail, that Yuta wasn't able to see no matter how much he tried, but seeing Shisui's confident look Yuta dropped his futile attempts to spot the trail and simply followed, focusing on his chakra senses just in case.
After about four hours of following the trail, Shisui stopped once again.
"Something isn't right." Shisui said as he started to look around.
After a minute of careful examination of the tracks, he finally said, "I think they split the group, there are fewer footprints here than before, they are probably discovered that they are being pursued by us somehow. Wait here, I'll check the surroundings." Shisui said and flickered away.
Yuta looked at the sky as he thought, 'It's evening already, we only have about four hours before dark, and I'm quite tired from constant running and staying on guard, it's exhausting, and not only physically but mentaly as well. Shisui said it was anywhere from ten to twenty enemy ninjas that had infiltrated into our territory, and there is only seven of us, with this odds, it is very likely that I will have my own share of enemies to fight...'
As Yuta looked around in a futile attempt to spot the footprints on the bark of a surrounding tree branches, he thought, 'They split up, huh. Now, what are they want to accomplish here I wonder... The most likely "by the book" play here - is that they want to sneak out the part of the group away so they could follow up on their mission, whatever that could be, while we would continue to pursue the rest of their group and stay occupied, allowing the others to accomplish their mission unobstructed... The sacrifice tactics, huh... But Shisui happened to be too good at tracking, and he managed to discover the split of their group.'
...
'Shisui will likely find the tracks of the other group that had split up... What will we do next?' Yuta continued to quietly analyze the situation, 'We can't allow any of the intruders to get away, if we do, then finding them later would be almost impossible. We will have to split up as well and pursue both groups simultaneously... What a drag...'
--- AN ---
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