The cut fence gave way to pressed dirt within a few steps, the broken boards behind them already dropping out of sight as the trail pulled away from the village. Genryu stayed at the front one hand near the mission scroll at his waist and the other free. Roen moved on the right, eyes low, reading where the prints bit deeper and where they didn't. Itachi held left, a little wider than before, gaze not on the ground but further ahead where the trail bent between scrub and thin trees.
The tracks were too clean.
No break where someone had stumbled. No drag marks. No blood.
Roen's eyes moved over the tracks, then to the bushes beside them.
The leaves were bent back, but not broken.
The trail climbed as it left the last of the village behind, packed earth turning rough where roots pushed up beneath it.
A low branch hung across the path, leaves still green, bark split pale where it had been bent and snapped back not long ago.
Roen's step checked just before it landed. Not a full stop. Just enough.
Across from him, Itachi's head shifted once, eyes dropping to the base of the brush where a thin line of disturbed soil cut straight through.
Neither of them spoke.
Roen changed his next step by half a line. Itachi adjusted from the other side.
The wire snapped anyway.
Behind.
A branch whipped up with a crack and something heavy tore loose from the trees, dropping where they had been a breath earlier. Dust kicked up. One of the logs clipped another and rolled off into the bush, hitting stone hard enough to echo once down the trail.
Genryu didn't turn.
"Stay sharp."
They kept moving.
The trail narrowed after that, then opened into a low stretch of scrub and scattered stone where the ground dipped shallow before rising again. Three men waited ahead, already in position, one near the center of the path and the other two offset far enough that none of them blocked the others. They didn't rush. They watched the distance close, then moved together when it reached the point they wanted.
Roen took the first one.
The man came in with a short blade, shoulder dipping to sell the high line before the real cut slipped in lower. Roen's guard started to follow then Observation Haki caught the split. The front foot planted. The wrist turned after it.
Roen moved on that.
His step slid off the line before the blade reached him, his kunai snapping in near the wrist and knocking it outward. His other hand was already there, catching the forearm and dragging it across the man's own center instead of letting it come back.
The man tried to fix it with his off hand, reaching in to grab and steady himself
Roen cut underneath it.
His hand clamped the elbow and turned it while his foot stepped behind the leg. No pause. He took the balance at the same time he moved it.
The man dropped.
Flat. Hard.
Another one came in from Itachi's left, cutting in late to catch him if he stepped back. Itachi didn't give ground. He stepped forward instead, turning just enough that the blade missed his side, his own cut snapping out and forcing the man to pull back. Itachi moved with him, not chasing, just staying close, taking the space in front of him. The man tried to shift around him left, then right but each step ran into Itachi already there, cutting him off before he could find a clean way through.
The third one went for Genryu.
That ended immediately.
Roen's man was still trying to get up, rolling to a knee with the blade in his hand. Roen stepped in before he could stand. A strike to the wrist. A kick to the leg. The man dropped. The blade fell from his hand. Roen followed it down, kunai already at his throat before he could move again. He wasn't untrained. It didn't matter.
"Itachi," Roen said, not looking over.
"They're covering each other," Itachi answered.
He was already crouching near the second attacker, hand checking the belt, then the pouches, then the weapon. The blade had been maintained properly. No rust on the edge. No loose wrap on the hilt. Light armor sat beneath the outer cloth in matched pieces, not scavenged. Roen looked down at the man under his own knife and saw the same thing guarded joints, reinforced leather where it would matter, no wasted gear hanging off him like a bandit trying to look more dangerous than he was.
Not civilians.
One of the downed men near Genryu's feet jerked once and reached, not for his weapon, for the inside of his vest.
Itachi saw it a fraction too late. His hand caught the wrist after the fingers had already crushed something folded and waxed. The strip of paper tore in half and smeared dark across the man's palm before Itachi ripped it free. The marking on it had been deliberate once. Now it was mostly ruined.
"He tried to destroy it," Itachi said.
Genryu took the torn piece, glanced at it, and tucked it into his own pouch without comment.
The trail went quiet again after that.
Roen straightened and looked toward the ridge line above the path where scrub met shadow beneath the trees. Nothing moved there. No sound beyond leaves rubbing lightly against each other in the wind. Still, the feeling held for a second too long, as if someone had been there and chosen not to be seen.
On the left, Itachi's head turned the same way.
He didn't say anything.
Genryu saw it too. His gaze touched the ridge once, then dropped back to the trail ahead like that answer was enough.
Whatever had been there was gone.
"They're ahead," he said.
His voice came out level. The decision was already made.
Roen wiped the edge of his kunai once against the fallen man's sleeve and stood. Itachi shifted in a little closer to the center line than before, not enough to crowd the formation, enough to tighten it. Genryu stepped over the bodies and took the trail as if the interruption had only confirmed what he already suspected.
The path climbed toward denser ground, narrower now, the prints still too clean where they led through the shrub and up toward the ridge.
Someone was watching them.