The splinting took twenty minutes. Tatsuya worked methodically, channeling chakra into the binding material until it hardened into a rough cast. Functional, if not elegant.
Sora didn't scream. Didn't cry. She breathed through the pain in controlled gasps, knuckles white against the stone she was gripping.
"The ambush," Tatsuya said, more to distract her than from curiosity. "How did they know where to find you?"
"Good question." Her voice was tight. "We were running standard reconnaissance. Ghost protocol, no fixed patterns, randomized routes. They shouldn't have been able to predict our position."
"But they did."
"They were waiting for us. Knew exactly where we'd be, when we'd be there." She hissed as he adjusted the splint. "Akane thought—she thought maybe someone talked. Back in Konoha. Patrol schedules, rotation patterns. Information that would let you set up an ambush weeks in advance."
"You don't sound convinced."
"I'm not convinced of anything right now." Sora's eyes were hard. "Three days ago I had a team. Now I have a broken leg and a lot of questions nobody's going to answer."
Tatsuya filed that away. Intelligence leak. Possible, even probable, given the precision of the ambush. But that was a problem for people above his pay grade.
Right now, the only problem that mattered was getting Sora out of this cave and across the border.
"Can you handle the pain if I manage it at about seventy percent? I need you alert for the extraction."
"I'll manage." She almost smiled. "I was a sensor before I was an intelligence asset. Not much range, but I can tell you if someone's within fifty meters."
"That helps."
"It's the least I can do." Her voice dropped. "They died for me. Akane and Daisuke. They had the option to—there are protocols. Ways to end it quick if capture is inevitable. They didn't use them. They chose to suffer so I'd have time to hide."
"I heard."
"No, you don't understand." Sora met his eyes. "You're what, twelve? Thirteen? You don't know what it's like to listen to your friends die slowly while you hide in a hole and do nothing."
Tatsuya was quiet for a moment.
"You're right," he said finally. "I don't." He finished the last adjustment on the splint. "But you're here. And I'm getting you out. So let's start with that."
Sora watched him for a long moment, then looked away.
"You're a strange kid, Tatsuya."
"Probably."
________________________________________
Extraction began at dusk.
Jiraiya's plan was simple: move fast, move quiet, reach the Fire Country border before Iwa realized their witness had been recovered. Thirty kilometers of hostile territory. Twelve hours if they pushed it. Sora couldn't walk, so they rigged a field stretcher. Takeshi and Ren would take turns carrying while Tatsuya maintained her pain management and Jiraiya ran point.
Simple. Clean. Plans like these fell apart the moment they met reality.
They'd covered maybe eight kilometers when Tatsuya felt the signatures.
"Contact," he said sharply. "Multiple signatures, northwest. Moving to intercept. Maybe a kilometer out."
Jiraiya didn't slow. "How many?"
"Four. No, five. They're spread out, search pattern."
"Distance closing?"
"Fast."
Jiraiya's expression didn't change, but his weight settled lower. Combat readiness. The transition was seamless, like flipping a switch.
"Ren, you and Takeshi get Sora to the secondary rally point. Grid reference seven-seven. Tatsuya, you're with me."
"With you?" Tatsuya blinked. "Shouldn't I stay with the stretcher team?"
"If those five catch up to the stretcher team, Ren and Takeshi can't protect Sora and carry her at the same time. They need time. We're going to buy it." Jiraiya's smile was sharp. Predatory. "Consider this a field education."
They split. Ren and Takeshi melted into the forest with Sora, heading southeast toward the rally point. Jiraiya and Tatsuya turned northwest, toward the approaching signatures.
Field education. Right.
________________________________________
The Iwa team found them twelve minutes later.
Or rather, Jiraiya let them find him.
Tatsuya was positioned thirty meters away, hidden in the canopy, watching as the Sannin stood in a moonlit clearing like he was waiting for a tea service. Casual. Relaxed. Utterly certain of what he was.
Five Iwa shinobi emerged from the trees in standard tactical formation. Two forward scouts, two flankers, one command position in the rear. All chunin, from their movement patterns. Well-trained. Professional.
They stopped at the clearing's edge, assessing the situation. A lone Konoha shinobi, standing in the open. Obviously a trap.
But what kind?
"Evening," Jiraiya said pleasantly. "Nice night for a walk. Though I have to say, you're a bit far from home."
The Iwa commander, older, probably late twenties, with the flat eyes of a veteran, stepped forward. "Jiraiya of the Sannin. We weren't expecting someone of your... reputation... on a simple recovery mission."
"I'm full of surprises." Jiraiya's smile didn't waver. "You know, you could turn around right now. Walk away. Pretend you never saw us. Nobody has to die tonight."
"The survivor. Where is she?"
"Gone. Long gone by now. Whatever she knew, whatever your people extracted from her teammates, Konoha has it. The mission is over. You're chasing ghosts."
The commander's jaw tightened. "We have orders—"
"Orders to die?" Jiraiya shook his head. "Look around you. Really look. You've got five chunin against a Sannin. I'm not saying you can't hurt me. Maybe you get lucky. Maybe one of you even walks away. But most of you? You're going to die in this clearing if you don't turn around."
Silence. The forest held its breath.
Then the commander made a hand signal, and the four subordinates moved.
Fast.
The two forward scouts flanked wide, circling toward Jiraiya's blind spots. The flankers hung back, hands flashing through seals, earth techniques from the chakra signatures Tatsuya could feel building. The commander himself didn't move. Analyzing. Directing.
Professional. Disciplined. They weren't panicking, weren't rushing. They were treating Jiraiya exactly like what he was: a legendary threat that required coordinated takedown.
It wasn't enough.
Jiraiya moved. One moment he was standing still; the next he was inside the first scout's guard, a kunai appearing in his hand like it had always been there. The scout's throat opened in a red line. He was falling before his partner even registered the attack.
The second scout tried to adjust, bringing his blade up in a desperate guard. Jiraiya was past him, one hand catching the scout's wrist, twisting, snapping. The sword dropped. Jiraiya's knee came up into the man's solar plexus, folding him in half. A palm strike to the temple finished it.
Three seconds. Two down.
The flankers had completed their seals. The ground beneath Jiraiya erupted, Doton: Stone Pillar Assault, jagged spears of rock shooting upward with killing force. Jiraiya was airborne before the technique fully manifested, hands blurring through seals of his own.
"Katon: Great Flame Bullet!"
Fire screamed across the clearing, not at the flankers themselves but at the ground between them. The explosion scattered debris, broke their formation, forced them to dodge in opposite directions.
Jiraiya landed on the first flanker before the man's feet touched ground. A kunai through the chest. Quick. Clean. The second flanker tried to form another seal, but Jiraiya closed the distance in a heartbeat, too close for techniques, too fast for defense. Three strikes, throat, temple, heart, and the flanker dropped.
Four dead in eight seconds. The commander stood alone.
"Last chance," Jiraiya said. His voice hadn't changed. He wasn't breathing hard. "Walk away."
The commander's hands trembled. His eyes flicked to his fallen subordinates, to the blood steaming on the forest floor, to the white-haired monster standing in front of him.
He reached for his kunai pouch.
Jiraiya sighed. "Damn. They never walk away."
The killing blow was almost gentle. A single strike, precise and final. The commander crumpled without a sound.
Five dead. Ten seconds total.
________________________________________
"You can come down now."
Tatsuya dropped from the canopy, landing beside Jiraiya. The older man was cleaning his kunai on a dead man's shirt, expression contemplative rather than triumphant.
"I told you to hide as backup," Jiraiya said. "In case things went sideways."
"Nothing went sideways."
"Mm." Jiraiya finished cleaning the blade, slipped it back into his pouch. "No, it didn't. But it could have. That commander was good, another few seconds and he might have signaled for reinforcements. Always have backup. Always assume the plan will fail."
"Noted."
"Good." Jiraiya's head turned, eyes narrowing. "We've got more company. Different direction."
Tatsuya felt it too. Four more signatures, approaching from the southeast. From the direction Ren and Takeshi had taken Sora.
They'd been herding us, he realized. The first five were supposed to fix our attention while the second team flanked toward the real target.
"Go," Jiraiya said. "I'll catch up. Protect the extraction."
Tatsuya ran. His ribs disagreed with the pace, but his ribs could complain later.
________________________________________
He found them in a clearing half a kilometer from the rally point.
Takeshi and Ren had put Sora down behind a fallen log, taking defensive positions in front of her. Four Iwa shinobi faced them across the clearing: three chunin and one who moved differently. Older. Calmer. A stillness that wasn't caution but certainty.
Jounin. Or close to it.
Ren had engaged one of the chunin, their weapons locked in a grinding stalemate. Takeshi was holding off another two, using his Inuzuka speed and feral fighting style to dart and retreat, keeping them away from Sora but unable to take them down alone.
The fourth, the jounin, was circling toward the log where Sora lay defenseless.
Eliminating the witness. The whole point of this mission.
Tatsuya intercepted.
He came out of the trees at a dead sprint, chokuto clearing its sheath as he moved. The Iwa jounin heard him, turned, deflected the thrust with a kunai that appeared in his hand like magic.
"A child?" The man's voice was bemused. "They sent a child to stop me?"
Tatsuya didn't answer. Didn't have breath to spare.
The jounin was fast. Not Minato-fast, but speed built from decades of combat refinement. Training with Minato had taught Tatsuya to read faster opponents, to anticipate rather than react. It was the only reason he survived the first exchange.