Aokawa looked at the scene inside the mine shaft, instinctively feeling something was off.
The damp environment and poorly maintained supports didn't look like a place for storing strategic supplies at all.
"What's it like? Are there many people inside?" Uchiha Shisui asked in a low voice.
Aokawa shook his head: "The mountain wall is too thick, and there's a barrier set up at the mine entrance. I can't see what's inside."
"What should we do then? Should we go in and check?" Might Guy flexed his limbs, already prepared for a fight.
"We have no other choice!" Aokawa responded.
Since they had already accepted the mission, even with doubts, they could only brace themselves and go in to investigate first.
They couldn't just abandon the mission because of this little abnormality before them.
Just as the three were about to move to deal with the guards outside the mine.
Aokawa's Byakugan caught a slight abnormality in the ground beneath their feet.
"Wait!" He hurriedly stopped the other two, carefully brushing aside the top layer of soil with his hand.
"It's wheel tracks!" Uchiha Shisui exclaimed softly upon seeing the one-finger-wide indentations beneath the soil layer.
"Isn't it normal to have wheel tracks when transporting supplies?" Might Guy was somewhat puzzled.
Aokawa didn't respond. He focused his gaze completely on the ground, his vision sweeping from the direction of Fuyuan Bridge all the way to their current position, then following the hidden wheel tracks into the distance.
"This is a decoy!" he suddenly declared.
"A decoy?"
Aokawa nodded, pointing at the ground and explaining in a low voice: "The wheel tracks coming from the north, from the direction of Fuyuan Bridge, are very clear. They extend all the way to the mine entrance here and then disappear, making it look like all the supplies were transported inside."
"But underneath, there's actually another set of wheel tracks extending to the west, they've just been treated to be hard to notice. Combined with all the oddities in the mine shaft, we can guess this is a decoy."
"The real supply warehouse is probably somewhere else."
"Ah!" Might Guy widened his eyes, his expression bewildered: "Then what do we do? Do we still carry out the mission?"
"We do!" Uchiha Shisui was decisive and straightforward: "As long as we find the hidden wheel tracks and follow them, we'll find the warehouse."
"Follow me!" Aokawa took the lead, stealthily entering the sea of trees.
Inside the forest, the moonlight was completely blocked by century-old trees. The ground was covered with a thick layer of decaying leaves, and visibility was extremely low.
But under the vision of his Byakugan, those deliberately concealed traces were intermittently discovered.
Combined with the faint, almost imperceptible Chakra fluctuations detected by his Reishi Network.
A path pointing towards the nearby vast primeval forest appeared in his mind.
The three of them continued to stealthily move along this path through the forest.
Suddenly, Aokawa stopped: "Found it."
About three kilometers away, in a forest clearing disguised by genjutsu and Earth Release, there were large and regular Chakra fluctuations.
"How many people?" Uchiha Shisui asked.
Aokawa shook his head: "There's a genjutsu cast on the perimeter, I can't tell."
"However, such a large-scale genjutsu is probably just a smokescreen. It shouldn't work once we get close."
The three of them carefully crept forward.
Pushing aside the final bushes, the sight before them made Shisui and Kai hold their breath.
It wasn't a warehouse at all, but a warehouse complex consisting of several semi-underground fortresses.
Each fortress was reinforced with thick Earth Release techniques, its surface covered with camouflage nets blending with the environment. The outer perimeter also had some genjutsu barriers to enhance the disguise.
On the outskirts of the warehouse complex, piles of sacks covered with waterproof tarps were stacked. On them, the lightning emblem of the Hidden Cloud Village was clearly printed.
"That was close," Uchiha Shisui said with relief. "If it weren't for Aokawa, we'd probably still be wasting time in that fake mine shaft."
Aokawa didn't speak. He looked through the tarps with his Byakugan; the sacks were packed full, all containing grain.
He scanned the warehouses and found they also only contained grain, no other supplies.
Strange!
Weren't there supposed to be Ninja Tools?
But having come this far, regardless of what it was, they just needed to destroy it all.
"There are too many guards. A direct assault won't work, but infiltration won't be easy either."
Uchiha Shisui looked gravely at the guards constantly patrolling outside the warehouses.
"Then what should we do?" Might Guy asked.
Uchiha Shisui turned his gaze to Aokawa, who was currently using his Byakugan to analyze the weak points in the entire warehouse complex's defensive deployment.
After a long while.
Aokawa quickly stated the analysis results: "On the southeast side, there are four perimeter guards and two patrol groups, each with three people."
"There's a patch of shadow there. Every 10 minutes, when the patrol groups cross paths, they create a 2-second blind spot in the shadow. We can teleport there at that moment."
"But the four guards will still be able to see us," Might Guy questioned.
Aokawa looked at Uchiha Shisui: "Shisui, what about four?"
"No problem!" Uchiha Shisui's eyes turned crimson, three tomoe slowly spinning.
The three began to move, crouching low as they stealthily approached the southeast corner.
Aokawa's eyes were fixed on the patrolling guards, mentally counting the time.
"Three, two, one..."
The moment the two patrol groups' figures crossed, three black shadows flew out.
Before the four guards could react, their vision was replaced by a sea of crimson.
When they rubbed their eyes and looked forward again, they found nothing there.
As the night deepened, the three infiltrated the warehouse area like phantoms.
Only then did Uchiha Shisui realize there were so many supplies inside the fortresses. He frowned: "This is troublesome."
"What's wrong?" Aokawa asked.
Uchiha Shisui pointed at the thick fortresses and the supplies, his face showing some worry: "With this level of defense and this quantity, I'm afraid the Explosive Tags we brought won't be enough."
"Hey, it's no big deal!"
As he spoke, to Uchiha Shisui's astonishment, Aokawa directly pulled out two large handfuls of Explosive Tags from his ninja tool pouch, giving one to each of them.
"Wh-where did these come from? So many!"
Uchiha Shisui took them with a look of surprise, hefting them and finding they were heavier than ordinary Explosive Tags. He looked questioningly at Aokawa.
"So sharp!" Aokawa raised an eyebrow. "Little things I made myself. I packed them with plenty of Chakra. They're a bit unstable, but they pack a punch."
"Un-unstable?"
Uchiha Shisui tried to push the Explosive Tags back, but Aokawa pressed his hand down: "They'll be fine for a few days. Remember to apply for reimbursement at market price for me when we get back!"
Uchiha Shisui nodded helplessly:
"Then let's split up and act."
...
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