"Have any of you heard about what happened last night near the borders of Hi no Kuni and Kusagakure?"
"It was a mass slaughter that actually happened two days ago—" the older woman whispered, her voice trembling as the other women leaned in closer.
"The village lost total contact with a small border settlement, so a special squad was sent out last night to check on them. When they arrived... my son said it looked like a literal war zone."
The women held their breath, completely gripped by the suspense.
"They weren't ninja who died—they were just normal, everyday people..." she continued, her eyes wide with fear.
"Simple families living right by the border, completely destroyed. A massive, violent fight happened there, but those poor people had no way to defend themselves. Their houses were smashed to pieces by powerful Jutsu and pure physical force."
"But the most scary part my son talked about... was the ground itself. The whole area was covered in huge, perfectly round circles cut deep into the dirt. Whatever attacked them used moves so strong that they hollowed out the earth, leaving giant holes behind."
"The ninja who went to check on them are in a total panic. Something with monster-like, terrible power broke right through Kusa border, and it is walking straight toward our village."
Moving past the whispering women outside, the sliding doors of the dango shop opened up into a warm, comfortable room. Inside, the shop was clean and simple.
Directly opposite the main entrance stood the serving counter, where the shopkeeper prepared the fresh treats.
Over on the left side of the room, sitting at a table between the entrance and the counter, a group of four young shinobi were enjoying a break together.
The first boy sat quietly, his shoulders slumped as a deep tiredness showed all over his face. He had striking, spiky silver-white hair that stood up in every direction.
A dark blue mask covered the entire lower half of his face, hiding his nose and mouth completely. He wore a simple, dark sleeveless shirt with matching dark pants, and thick white bandages were wrapped neatly around his shins.
Right next to him sat his companion, who looked completely different and full of energy. This boy had a thick, black bowl-cut hairstyle that was perfectly straight.
He wore a bright green, tight jumpsuit that covered him from his neck down to his ankles. White bandages were wrapped tightly around his hands and wrists, and he wore thick, orange leg warmers over his shins.
Across from them sat the other two friends. One was a boy with spiky black hair wearing a blue headband on his forehead. He wore a white, puffy sleeveless vest over a dark mesh undershirt, paired with loose gray pants and dark mesh socks.
Next to him sat a young girl with wavy, dark black hair and quiet eyes. She wore a simple, short dark sleeveless dress, with dark mesh armor covering her arms and her long legs completely.
The four of them sat together in the shaded corner of the shop, eating their sweet treats, completely unaware of the scary rumors being shared just outside the door.
The silver-haired boy kept his eyes closed, his breathing slow and heavy as he leaned his head back against the wall, trying to shut out the world.
The other three friends lowered their voices into quiet whispers, leaning across the wooden table as they talked.
The boy with the spiky black hair and white vest glanced toward the shop entrance before speaking. "Hey... did your dad mention anything about the front gates this morning?" he asked the girl sitting next to him, his voice tense.
The girl with the wavy dark hair nodded slowly, her quiet eyes turning serious. "Yes. He said the two guards at the A-un gate were found completely slumped over their desks around dawn. The village thought it was an enemy infiltration at first."
"But that's the weird part—" the boy in the bright green jumpsuit chimed in, leaning over his plate of dango.
His usual loud, energetic face was twisted into a confused frown. "My Sensei said the medical ninja rushed over there right away, but before the medics could even use their healing Jutsu, the guards just... woke up on their own. They were completely fine. No poison, no wounds, nothing."
"Exactly!" the boy in the white vest whispered, his expression growing darker as he tapped his finger against his ceramic tea cup. "And it gets even stranger. I heard a secret report just an hour ago. The exact same thing happened to a patrol unit near the deeper borders."
The girl gasped softly. "The border shinobi too?"
"Yes!!" the boy in the vest nodded grimly.
"An entire scout team went completely dark for three hours. When the backup squad finally tracked them down, they expected a bloodbath. Instead, they found the whole team lying flat in the grass, fast asleep. Just like the gate guards, they woke up perfectly fine before anyone even touched them. But here is the piece that is driving the sensory division crazy..."
He paused, looking around the dango shop to ensure no other customers were getting too close to their table. The heavy, serious tone in his voice made the green-suited boy break out into a nervous sweat.
"When those border shinobi woke up..." the boy in the vest continued, his voice barely audible,
"They had absolutely no memory of the last twelve hours. Their minds were a total blank. The barrier division checked the logs, and no foreign chakra signatures triggered the village walls last night. It's like whatever did this is completely invisible to our sensory systems. It can walk right past our strongest defenses, put elite ninja to sleep without a single scratch, and leave without leaving a single trace of chakra behind."
The girl shivered, looking down at her reflection in her green tea. "A technique that bypasses the barrier and deletes memories... That's not just regular Genjutsu. That's something terrifying."
Suddenly, a soft, low sound drifted over from a shaded table in the back corner of the shop.
"KUKU... FUFU..."
It was a cold, muffled chuckle. It sounded like a woman's voice, but it had a strange, heavy weight to it that made the air in the room feel instantly colder.
"Yare yare...," the voice purred lazily from the shadows, dripping with a strange, dark pride. "To think our names are spreading so quickly already. People just can't stop talking about us, can they? True talent really is impossible to hide."
The young girl blinked, her eyes widening slightly as she turned her head toward the dark corner. "What was that?" she whispered, looking completely confused.
The black spiky haired boy didn't even look back. He just sighed, tapping his ceramic cup against the table. "Don't mind her Kurenai. She's just some crazy traveler who arrived in the village and thinks she is a fortune teller who can see the future."
The boy with bowl cut instantly grinned, his eyes lighting up as he saw a golden chance to tease his friend. He leaned across the table, pointing a finger directly at Asuma's face.
"Oh ho! Is that so, Asuma?" he mocked loudly, his eyebrows wiggling up and down. "Tell me, have you been sitting inside this dango shop since yesterday night all the way until seven this morning just to watch her arrive? How on earth do you know exactly when she got to the village, huh? Maybe your youthful heart is secretly interested in getting your fortune told!"
"Be quiet, Gai!" Asuma snapped, his face flushing a bit out of sheer annoyance as he glared at him.
"I just overheard the customers talking near the counter when I bought the tea! Word around the street is that she's just some crazy traveler who arrived in the village just a few hours ago. People outside are already whispering that she looks like one of those weird fortune tellers who claims they can see the future because of how weirdly she's dressed."
Over at that corner table, the stranger paid absolutely no attention to the boys bickering. She was slumped over lazily, lying half on the wooden table with her upper body resting heavily against it.
Her head was down flat on the surface, and her long, dark hair fell completely forward like a messy curtain, hiding her face entirely from view.
To anyone else, she just looked like a bizarre, exhausted traveler taking a strange morning nap. But completely hidden beneath that curtain of dark hair, a sharp, knowing smirk remained glued to her face.
Meanwhile, the silver-haired boy remained completely motionless in his seat. The loud bickering between Asuma and Gai, the strange chuckling from the corner, and the clattering of tea cups didn't seem to register with him at all.
The boy sat there with his head tilted back slightly, his single dark eye completely shut beneath his messy bangs, totally unaffected by the conversations spinning around him.
It was as if his mind had completely drifted out of the dango shop, leaving only an empty, exhausted shell sitting at the wooden table.
Seeing that their friend was completely lost in his own thoughts and clearly wasn't going to join in on the teasing, the other three slowly let the playful mood fade away. The heavy reality of the morning's rumors settled right back over them like a dark cloud.
Asuma leaned back over the table, his expression turning deeply serious once again as he lowered his voice. "But putting that strange woman aside... we need to think about what this means for the village defenses. If the border shinobi were caught that easily, whoever did this must have a terrifying amount of power."
Kurenai nodded slowly, her dark red eyes filled with worry. "Exactly. To put an entire patrol unit to sleep without making a sound means they didn't even have time to raise an alarm. If they can just walk past the outer barrier undetected, no one in Konoha is truly safe right now."
Gai's usual wide grin vanished, replaced by a tight, uncharacteristic frown as he crossed his arms tightly over his green jumpsuit. "A stealth attack like that goes against everything we know. Usually, an enemy infiltrator leaves some kind of trace—a broken branch, a disturbed chakra flow, something! But for an entire squad to just wake up with completely blank memories... it feels like we are dealing with ghosts."
"Hey, Kakashi! Are you even listening to us?" Gai yelled, his thick eyebrows jumping up as he tried to snap his friend out of his thoughts.
"You've been staring at nothing since we sat down. Do you have any idea what actually happened out on the borders?"
For a second, there was complete silence.
Then, Kakashi's single visible eye snapped wide open. The sleepy, exhausted look vanished instantly, replaced by a sudden, sharp panic.
Before anyone could blink, he slammed both hands onto the wooden table and stood up so fast his bench scraped loudly against the floorboards.
"BORDER?!!" Kakashi demanded, his voice suddenly loud and shaking with an intense, raw fear. He leaned across the table, staring straight at his friends.
"What do you mean, the border? Which border?! What exactly happened out there?"
The sudden outburst startled the entire table. Gai almost choked on his dango, while Kurenai jumped slightly in her seat.
"Whoa, Kakashi, calm down!" Asuma said, quickly raising his hands in the air to try and quiet him down.
"Keep your voice down, man. People outside are already looking at us."
"Yeah, my youthful rival, take a deep breath!" Gai joined in again, flashing a ridiculously bright smile and giving a thumbs-up. "Your inner fire is burning way too hot today! Did you have a bad dream behind those closed eyes, or is your youthful body just craving the thrill of a thousand push-ups to wake up? I, Might Gai, will gladly join you in a race around the village to clear your mind!"
Kurenai immediately turned and smacked Gai hard on the back of his head. "Be quiet, Gai! This isn't a joke!" Kurenai scolded him, her quiet eyes flashing with real anger.
"Look at Kakashi—he is completely serious. Stop making everything about your weird training rivalries when something is clearly wrong!"
Gai rubbed the back of his head, whining softly, but the table quickly fell into a heavy, tense silence.
Asuma didn't join in on the teasing. Instead, his dark eyes narrowed into a sharp, calculating stare.
He kept his hands flat on the table, leaning forward just a fraction as he studied Kakashi's trembling shoulders and wide, panicked eye.
As the son of Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Asuma knew how to read people, and his friend's reaction was completely abnormal. It wasn't just shock; it was the specific, terrifying look of someone who knew a secret they weren't supposed to know.
"Why are you reacting like that, Kakashi?" Asuma asked, his voice dropping into a low, questioning whisper.
"We didn't even say which border it was, but you look like you just saw a ghost. You've been acting weird all morning. Your headband is missing, you look like you haven't slept in days, and now you're losing your mind over a classified border report."
Asuma paused, letting the silence hang heavily between them before dropping a hidden detail that made the air freeze.
"The Anbu patrol found traces of silver dog fur near the Border next to that Border settlement where the incident occurred previous night —"
"The sensory division thought it belonged to a wild animal, but I know your summoning contract. Tell me the truth... are you somehow related to what happened out there? Did you see something last night?"
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⚡NEXT CHAPTER⚡
A single strand of silver fur...
A missing forehead protector...
A panicked reaction at the mention of the border...
One by one, the pieces begin falling into place.
As suspicion spreads through the dango shop, Kakashi finds himself standing at the center of a storm he never wanted.
But are the clues really pointing toward the truth...
...or toward the wrong suspect?
And just when the tension reaches its breaking point—
a forgotten traveler in the corner finally raises her head.
What Kakashi sees next will leave him completely speechless.
👉Chapter 34: The Wrong Suspect
SNEAK PEEK LINES 💬
'....a single stray hair from my ninken summoning is the one thing that could completely undo me.'
"I was returning from my mission, handed my report directly to Hokage-sama, and went straight to my house."
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—With love, one forehead poke away from collapse,
Sakura Shinomiya 💫
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