Naruto: The Nine-Tails' Legacy

"The target location should be right ahead. I'm detecting a fairly obvious chakra signature."

Hinata, who was scouting ahead through the forest, suddenly seemed to notice something. She immediately turned around and reported to the others.

At her words, Kakashi raised a hand, signaling everyone to stop and gather around him.

Following Hinata's directions, they advanced carefully and finally spotted the location—

A cave hidden beneath the cover of surrounding trees. Without looking closely, it would have been nearly impossible to notice.

"Hinata, can you see any movement inside?"

"...Most of the chakra signatures seem to belong to barriers or some kind of fixed, continuous chakra constructs. I can't detect any human chakra signatures, so they're probably traps or mechanisms of some sort. However, the cave extends very deep, and the internal space is huge. I can't completely rule out the possibility that someone is inside."

After scanning the area with her Byakugan, Hinata answered with a slight frown.

"There's also a barrier at the entrance."

Naruto focused his senses as well.

His negative-emotion sensing was specialized for living beings, yet he couldn't detect any hostile emotions nearby either.

"...Looks like there's a high chance this is just a decoy, but we still need to eliminate every possibility."

Kakashi rubbed his chin thoughtfully before turning toward Mei.

"How about this? The two of us go in and investigate directly. If something happens, we can watch each other's backs."

"No problem."

Mei nodded, then glanced toward Naruto's group, silently asking whether Kakashi intended to leave behind a shadow clone or some other safeguard for the three children.

"Don't worry! We'll be ready to support you at any time!"

Naruto noticed Mei's slightly puzzled expression and completely misunderstood its meaning. He flashed a thumbs-up and grinned.

[I'm worried about the three of you.]

Still, seeing that Kakashi looked as though this arrangement was perfectly normal, Mei decided not to say anything.

In her eyes, Naruto, Sasuke, and Hinata were merely talented rookies under Kakashi's supervision. It was understandable that they wouldn't be directly involved in a high-risk mission.

Kakashi and Mei lingered outside the cave for a while, locating the barrier before disabling it and entering.

Time passed.

Yet neither of them came back out.

If Hinata hadn't been continuously monitoring their chakra with her Byakugan and confirming that both of them were still moving deeper underground, the others would have already gone inside to search for them.

"Kakashi-sensei and Big Sister Mei are almost a hundred meters below ground now."

"This place is really that huge? Who even built something like this?"

Naruto sighed in amazement before glancing at Sasuke, who had his eyes closed as though concentrating on something.

"What's wrong?"

"I have a bad feeling about this."

Sasuke frowned.

"Do you hear anything?"

"In a forest this deep, animal noises aren't exactly strange. I—"

Naruto suddenly paused.

He heard it too.

Something was crawling toward them.

The sound was growing clearer by the second, and there seemed to be more and more of them.

At the same moment, Hinata noticed something as well.

"Kakashi-sensei and Mei are rushing back! Something is chasing them!"

The moment her warning left her mouth, Kakashi and Mei burst out of the cave.

Almost simultaneously, both of them spun around.

Their hand seals were already complete.

"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique!"

"Earth Release: Earth Flow Wall!"

A massive water dragon condensed from the surrounding moisture before roaring straight into the cave entrance, flooding everything in its path.

At the same time, two giant earthen walls carved with enormous canine faces erupted from the ground, shielding both them and Naruto's group.

BOOM!

Almost the instant the walls rose, a muffled explosion thundered from deep within the cave.

The entire cavern collapsed.

Rock and soil blasted skyward.

Although Mei's Water Dragon Bullet had absorbed most of the explosion's force, the remaining shockwave was still powerful enough to shake the ground violently.

Boulders and dirt flew everywhere, mixed with countless tiny black shapes.

When those objects finally landed, Naruto and the others immediately understood what had been making those noises.

Snakes.

An enormous number of snakes.

Most had already been blown apart beyond recognition. Some still carried fragments of explosive tags stuck to their bodies, while countless others had been shredded into pieces and launched skyward by the blast.

Kakashi let out a sigh.

"The trap you triggered was probably a Reverse Summoning Technique. It summoned ordinary snakes that had explosive formulas attached to them."

"What do you mean I triggered it?"

Mei immediately protested.

"You were the one who said you didn't know how to dismantle it and asked me to try!"

"I thought your Lava Release could simply melt through it."

Kakashi immediately raised both hands in surrender.

"My mistake. My mistake."

"Hmph. At least you know better."

Mei lifted her chin proudly.

"Still, setting up a trap like this in a secret escape tunnel—one designed to destroy the entire base while specifically luring pursuers into activating it—means there's no way anyone was actually hiding inside."

Then she turned toward Naruto.

"Naruto, come here for a second."

Naruto had been examining the giant dog carvings on Kakashi's Earth Flow Wall with Sasuke, wondering how Kakashi had managed to add decorative artwork while performing ninjutsu.

Hearing his name, he immediately walked over.

Kakashi led him into a nearby grove.

"You left Flying Thunder God markers in the village, right?"

"Of course. Didn't you notice I barely brought any luggage? Everything's still at home."

"Smart."

Kakashi nodded approvingly.

"Then I need you to return to Konoha and deliver a message to the Hokage. Tell him we've confirmed the target location was one of Orochimaru's bases, but the base itself was nothing more than a trap."

"Orochimaru?"

"After becoming a Chūnin, you should've reviewed the bingo book files on missing-nin."

Kakashi explained.

"Orochimaru is one of the most dangerous names on that list. He's also one of the individuals this mission was meant to investigate."

Naruto immediately understood.

Then, with a casual motion, he left a Flying Thunder God marker on a nearby tree.

The next instant—

He vanished.

"...Flying Thunder God really is convenient."

Kakashi couldn't help sighing.

Then he stepped back out of the grove and cheerfully addressed the others.

"Naruto said he needs to take care of some personal business. Let's wait here for a bit, then we'll head to a nearby village and get some rest."

"Your little brother Naruto is remarkably calm under pressure. He's even in the mood for leisure activities at a time like this."

Mei glanced at Hinata and Sasuke, whose expressions clearly showed they were completely accustomed to this sort of thing.

She instantly understood that Kakashi's explanation was a flimsy excuse.

Still, she merely smiled and chose not to expose it.

After all, these were Konoha's internal affairs and mission details. She was only tagging along because she currently had nowhere else to go. Whatever Naruto was doing wasn't really her concern.

Mutual respect for one another's secrets was the foundation of any alliance.

At least, that was how Mei saw it.

Some time later—

Naruto emerged from the grove once again.

The excuse he offered upon returning bore almost no resemblance to the one Kakashi had provided earlier.

Kakashi immediately rubbed his forehead.

Next time, they really needed to agree on a code phrase beforehand.

After all, Flying Thunder God was simply too effective for transmitting information.

There was no way they would only use it once.

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