It took twenty minutes of searching before Asuma finally hit on three lines of chakra carved into the lee of a weathered elm. Then another five before he found the next glimmer of chakra and worked out which way Tsume was heading. Genin or chuunin, the only signs of her passage were the marks she'd left with metal and energy; he couldn't find a single scuffed footprint or disturbed leaf to point the way and, despite all nasal claims, he wasn't a bad tracker.

Well, he could hunt game and civilians. He'd leave the ninja to Tsume.

Once he found it the trail was easy enough to follow, cutting an arrow-line away from Konoha and heading south-east. If it kept going, the runner was probably going to be dead-right about reaching the ocean...

The distant flicker of moving chakra scraped his senses long before brine and seagulls became a landscape feature. Asuma slowed briefly, then sped up when the flicker became nothing: a shinobi gone to ground.

White and black in the middle of a bright green forest was actually pretty hard to find. He stayed on the same straight heading, eyes open for movement, and ran out of markers before he ran into Tsume. If she was hiding--

He turned on one heel, preparing to backtrack, and spotted a whip-cord shape painted in shadows, masked face tipped to one side. Cat-masked face, which was probably Arakaki's version of stellar humour.

"Afternoon, sweetheart." His weight canted onto one hip. "Where's your pooch?"