Chapter 1

Running his finger along the river of a giant map in front of him, The Third Hokage explained the mission's details.

"This is the route you will take, it will be the safest and efficient way to get to the marked position." He took his finger away from the map and leaned all his fingers from one hand on the fingers of the other.

"I take it that you understand the objective of your mission?" questioned the Hokage. Minato nodded his head to the given question.

"Yes, sir. We are to head to the marked position in order for us to gather information on the location of the stolen scroll." Minato replied.

"Good." The Hokage said. He then addressed the younger members of the meeting and directed his next words to two of the students in particular.

"I expect all of you to work together on this mission, especially you two, Kakashi, Obito. You will put aside your differences for this mission, understood. Kakashi and Obito nodded.

"That scroll contains information on the Hiden Justu of our village. Information on the Hyuga, Aburame, Nara, Akimichi, Yamanaka even the Uchiha clan, all of those clan's secrets are contained in that scroll. It is paramount that you find the scroll, bring it back, and discover how the scroll was taken. Now go." The Hokage finished.

"Understood"

Minato and his three students met in front of the Leaf village's front gate together shortly after the briefing.

"Listen up everybody, stay together and keep up, we head straight to our designated destination, we have two planned rest stops and no more," Minato explained.
"Alright, let's move out."

It took team Minato nearly a whole day to finally reach the river which was on the outskirts of the Land of Fire, bordering the Land of Grass.

"Well, the good news is we're heading the right way, as long as we stick to traveling along this river we should be fine. The bad news is our leads end here. From now on, we will have to gather information for ourselves. Leaf ANBU tracked the thieves in this direction but eventually, the tracks went dead." Minato said.

"So it's possible that both the scroll and the thieves are hanging around in this forest. Seems kinda dumb to hang around here when they could have returned back to their hideout." Said Obito.

Kakashi interjected, "Actually, it's quite the opposite of dumb if the enemy knew they were being followed it would have been dumb to return to their hideout. They would have only risked returning if they knew that our ANBU had lost track of them."

"Our ANBU did lose track of them."

"Yes, but they may have anticipated that more squads would be sent after them. As a precaution, it's likely that the thieves have moved to another secure location."

"Well done, Kakashi, that is a good analysis and I believe it to be true as well." Obito turned his head, rolled his eyes and mimicked Well done, Kakashi, with a face of mockery. Rin let out a secret giggle.

"Alright team, for now, we'll have another short rest, and continue in a couple of hours."


An eagle flew through the sky, the wind ruffling its feathers. The eagle swooped down closer to the dense canopy of the forest. It then changed its path and turned, flying towards a large open area filled with smaller trees and large boulders. The eagle hovered above the area, its yellow eyes scanning for any prey. Eventually, the eagle circled back over the canopy and then dived straight towards the ground. The eagle busted through twigs and leaves like nothing more than nuisances, until it spread its wings and steadied itself to perch on the arm of a stone ninja. The eagle wore a tiny red scarf with the Stone villages symbol sowed on its front with brown string.

"Nice work, girl." The eagle disappeared in a puff of smoke. "Reconnaissance is done. There's no one following us." Said a young man.

"Not yet anyway. Don't let that make you rest easy, Ametsuchi." Said a stone kunoichi sitting down, pouring steaming hot soup into a bowl and offering it to her partner. Ametsuchi took the bowel at sat next to the kunoichi.

"Thanks, Sayatsuchi. Where's the new guy?"

"Hamatsuchi!? Come, get your dinner!" Sayatsuchi called out. Another stone ninja with short dark hair wearing an even darker smile took a bowl of soup and sat down silently.

"That guy gives me the chills." Said Ametsuchi. Sayatsuchi ignored him. "You think the leaf sent more men after us?"

"It's obvious that they would. We have their scroll full of sensitive information, even if their ANBU failed the Leaf won't give up that easily."

"You think they can catch up?"

"We're not the only group of stone ninja out here, there are several more groups located further into the Land of Grass, the scroll is being passed onto each group like a baton race. That way, no one group will have hold of the scroll and it also makes moving the scroll back to the village easier and more contained. I doubt they have a shinobi fast enough to catch up to us now. Our group should be getting the scroll tomorrow morning. We will leave immediately to the next group."

"You said the Leaf don't have a shinobi whose fast enough. What if they send the Yellow Flash?"

"Hmph, if he comes we will take care of it." Sayatsuchi gestured to a whip that was wrapped around her waist like a belt.

"What about you Hamatsuchi?"

Hamatsuchi stayed silent but his grin widened.