If anyone had told Genma that the way to Kirigakure was going to involve: a boat, body grease, underwater lava caves, giant carnivorous eels, a killing field full of corpses, tropical heat with endless mosquitos, giant carnivorous leeches, chakra-sensing ninja sharks, kilometers of swimming, a geyser of seawater, sheer cliffs, near hypothermia, mountain climbing, and near death, he’d have told them to go try to scare a genin and leave him alone. Clearly the first point (boat) and the last (near death) were inevitable. But the rest? Pure BS.

Except of course it wasn’t.

Fucking Kiri.

The only good thing that had happened recently, besides Abe not falling to his death thanks to Ginta’s acrobatic save, was the stingy ten minutes Kuroda had allowed them at the top of the sea cliffs to strip the swim grease from their skin and hair, apply fresh bandages to the injured, and don warm, anonymous dark clothing.

As midnight drew nearer, and they climbed higher, the country’s eponymous heavy mist chilled the air and hid details, turning rocky contours velveteen, concealing obstacles. Concealing traps.

Satomi was the first to spot a trip wire, half buried in leaf litter. They had to disarm one, then another and another, until their pace felt glacial. Kuroda kept consulting his watch, glaring at whichever of them was attempting to disarm the current trap, and snapping at them to get moving as soon as the way was clear.

“We aren’t trying to get to the village outskirts at the stroke of midnight,” Genma said at Raidou’s shoulder. “I understand keeping to a schedule, but this is ridiculous.”

“Punctuality is the politeness of kings,” Raidou murmured. It was a maxim Genma had heard from him often, usually just before he made the rookies do a hundred pushups for every minute either of them were late to team training. But this time Raidou added pointedly, “And the weapon of tiny tyrants.”

Genma covered his snicker with a throat-clearing cough, for which Raidou elbowed him in the side.

At least they were on the downslope now, both of the actual mountain pass, and of their time with Kuroda. As soon as they reached a checkpoint Fukuda had described as the last chance to not die, Usagi and her team were fanning out to create a diversion. Team Six with Fukuda would be starting the actual rescue part of this rescue mission. And Kuroda, Kurenai, and Satomi, gods help the two women, were infiltrating the famously unmapped village on a reconnaissance mission.

If Kuroda didn’t make it back, there’d be plenty of possible legitimate reasons for it, and only two witnesses, both of whom were exceptionally skilled at deception. It was a comforting thought.

There wasn’t much noise in the night-shrouded forest, but the occasional animal scurried by unseen, and a particularly industrious nightingale decided to serenade them. Satomi and Kakashi did most of the leading, with Fukuda between them. Ginta, who had spent his war years as a scout, was on rear guard several meters back. They’d managed a kilometer since the last trap when the bright whirring call of a quail rang out. As one, ninja flattened themselves into shadows. Genma held his breath, listening intently, until he heard what must have alerted Ginta to signal. All but the best trained would have dismissed the sound as wind in the vegetation, but there was a subtle rhythmic quality to it: the sound of human movement.

Not five minutes later, a patrol of Kiri ninja passed right by them, evidently returning to the village.

“Did you hear the one about the Yuki clan?” a brash-voiced man asked.

“No. What?”

“They got their assets frozen.”

Rough, callous laughter rose from the group.

Yuki... Genma tried to call to mind a page in the Bingo Book, and eventually came up with a plain-faced Mist ninja, Yuki Hisuhiro, reputed to possess a bloodline limit that let him manipulate ice.

The sick twist in his stomach as he got the joke was probably nothing compared to Fukuda’s. He didn’t even know what bloodline her niece was carrying, but after the horror of the sea caves, and that joke about a clan that was probably nothing more than bloodstains and bodies now, it didn’t seem such a bad idea to hurry.