The guards were already watching the road when they reached the gate. One stood on either side of the timber frame. Another sat at a narrow desk just inside, brush in hand, ledger open across the wood. Izumo and Kotetsu already on gate duty. Still early in their run.
Genryu stepped up first. The scroll was already in his hand by the time he stopped. He passed it over without speaking.
The seated guard took it and loosened the tie with his thumb. He didn't open it fully. Just enough to see the seal. His eyes moved once over Genryu, then Roen, then Itachi before the scroll went back across the desk.
"Mission?"
"C-rank."
The brush touched the page. A short line. The tip lifted.
"Proceed."
Genryu was already moving.
Roen stepped through the gate after Genryu, wood giving way to packed dirt under his sandal.
Behind them, the village noise dropped off fast.
The road ran straight ahead, wide enough for carts, pale dirt pressed flat with old wheel tracks cutting through it. Trees lined both sides, thick and close, branches hanging over in places where the light didn't reach clean.
Genryu took the lead without looking back.
Roen stayed on his right.
Itachi moved on the left, a little further out.
A cart passed them heading toward the village, wheels grinding softly over the road. The driver pulled slightly to the side as they came through, then carried on.
After that, it was just the road.
Trees. Dirt. No voices.
Genryu's pace didn't change.
Neither did theirs.
The road narrowed after a while and the surface changed underfoot, hard-packed dirt giving way to a rougher path where roots pushed close beneath it and loose gravel collected near the edges. The trees thickened first, then broke apart again as the ground opened into wider stretches of low brush and rolling hills. Sunlight sat higher now, stronger than it had been at the gate, pressing across the path in long, clean bands where the shade no longer held it back. Roen didn't count the time. The way the light moved over the road did it for him.
Genryu stayed ahead, not far enough to be separate, just enough to set the line. Roen and Itachi kept the same pace they had held leaving the village, never touching shoulders, never crowding the center. The road dipped where rain had worn it down. Genryu angled around it without slowing. Roen moved with him. Itachi came in a step after, closing the gap.
By the time the sun had climbed into early afternoon, the road had gone quieter than it should have been. No fresh wagon tracks. No voices from the bends ahead. No one heading toward Konoha.
Roen's gaze dropped once to the dirt old wheel marks, worn prints then lifted again.
A cart sat ahead near the edge of the road.
One wheel sunk deeper than the other. The side rail was cracked. A torn sack lay beside it, grain scattered into the dirt.
Genryu slowed.
Roen matched it. Itachi's attention shifted from the cart to the trees beyond it, then held.
No one spoke.
Then Genryu said, "Keep moving."
They passed the cart without breaking formation. Up close, the wood was marked where something heavy had struck it more than once. Roen's eyes caught it, then shifted to the trees along the road.
That's not random.
They're not hitting people they're hitting the carts.
Cut the movement between the villages and Konoha… fewer traders, fewer supplies.
The road bent again and the land opened wider. The trees pulled back enough to show more of the hills ahead, dry grass running up their sides in long pale strokes, patches of stone cutting through where the soil had thinned. The path split once around a shallow rise, then came back together. At the far end of it, smoke sat in the air too low and too thin to belong to cooking.
Genryu's hand lifted once, low at his side.
They slowed together.
Roen's foot landed more carefully after that, the rhythm shortening without becoming hesitant. Itachi drifted a little closer toward the center, not enough to touch the line, enough to tighten it. Genryu stopped at the edge of the rise and looked over.
"We're here."
Below them, a small settlement sat spread unevenly along the road, more a cluster of homes and storage sheds than a village. One roof had caved in near the left side. Another building still stood but its door hung crooked. Two fences had been broken apart and not repaired. Nothing moved in the open street between them.
Genryu crouched slightly and set the mission scroll against his knee before opening it once more, eyes moving over the lines as though checking the wording against the place itself.
"Bandits hit supply lines," he said. "Then the outlying villages."
He looked up again.
"They killed, looted, moved on."
The scroll rolled shut in his hand.
"Nearby villages put money together for it."
Roen kept his eyes on the buildings below.
"They're hitting the roads first," he said. "Then the villages."
Genryu gave a small nod.
"They don't stay long," he said. "In, out. Before anyone can respond."
His gaze moved between them.
"We check the village first. See what's left. Then we track."
A brief pause.
"No rushing. We don't know how far ahead they are."
Roen's hand dropped once to check the position of the kunai at his side, then left it alone. Itachi said nothing, but his eyes had already moved past the broken fence line toward the first alley between the houses, tracking entry points instead of damage.
Genryu stepped off the road first.
Roen followed him down the slope. Itachi came in on the other side, tighter now, the three of them leaving the path together as the village waited below.