Snow had started to pile up on the anti-detection barrier, and when I noticed, I muttered a string of curses. Quickly, I modified the barrier to let the snow fall through. Then I felt the urge to curse again, as the snow had covered the book I had been reading. I had forgotten to close it first. Carefully, I pinched the edge of the book and gave it a light shake, causing the snow to fall off.

I rolled my eyes and made to sit up, closing the book and setting it down besides me. Standing up, I stuck my head outside the barrier and activated my sharingan. Quickly looking around, I failed to see any foreign chakra signatures. That was a relief, as it meant no enemy ninja had spotted the dome of snow.

With a sigh, I sat back down and turned to regard my teammate, who was lying still besides me. That had been a terrible lapse in judgment. I shouldn't have allowed myself to get so damned distracted. Thankfully we hadn't punished for it, or my teammate and I could have found ourselves up shit creek without a paddle. Speaking of which, it would probably be a good idea to check up on him and change his bandages.

Carefully, I checked his body signs to make sure he was still alive and breathing, before checking my supplies to make sure I had enough material to actually clean his wounds and change his bandages. It seemed we did, enough for four more cleanings and changes. I breathed a sigh of relief and wiped a spot of cold sweat from my brow.

Now came the hard part, undressing his wounds, cleaning them, then redressing his wounds, all without jostling him to much or waking him. I unpacked my supplies and got to work, working as quickly and efficiently as possible.

It seemed my teammate was starting to mend, and would hopefully make it, which was good. But I wondered if he would appreciate me taking the time to save his life. He had lost a limb in the altercation, and had been severely tortured in the few hours between the time he had been captured, and the time I had managed to rescue him.

For most ninja, the loss of a limb was a career killer, but thankfully he had only lost his lower left leg, and would hopefully be able to get by with a peg leg. My teammate and I were hidden in a small ravine, which was only just wide enough for the two of us to lay down in side by side in, and I had chosen the ravine because it seemed pretty well hidden.

Satisfied that my teammate's wounds were clean and well dressed, I checked the anti-detection barrier again for any flaws. Thankfully there weren't any to be found, so I sat back down on my mat and picked up the book that had held my interest so keenly: a freshly published Bingo Book of Iwagakure-no-sato.

I had already memorized the book with the Sharingan as soon as I had the chance, of course, but still, there was one page of the book that kept drawing my interest, despite me already memorizing it. Carefully, I opened the book to the page I had been reading:

Bounty number: 43

Name: Kazuto Uchiha

Nickname: The Escape Artist

Village: Konohagakure-no-Sato

Age: 17 or 18

Rank: S

Operational Procedures: Approach with extreme caution, and only when teamed with a chakra sensor. Avoid eye contact. Interrupt any technique with lightning sparks around the fingers. Avoid chakra strings at all costs. Use chakra reinforced kunai to cut chakra strings when not avoidable.

Bounty: 20,000,000 Ryo.

Bloodline: Sharingan.

Important information: Subject posses a lightning style technique that allows him to kill a large number of ninja in a single use. This technique is impossible to avoid, and the Subject is known to use it from a position of stealth. Be especially weary if the Subject is known to be in the area. Interrupting the Subject while they are charging it, is known to disrupt the technique. Subject is known to posses a number of escape techniques that make him hard to pin down. Subject is known to use chakra strings to navigate, set up traps, and restrain opponents.

Other information: Subject's Taijutsu style is focused on avoiding hits. Subject is known to use senbon. Subject is known for use of poisons and paralytics. Subject is known for a strong command of Genjutsu, commonly using Genjutsu to misdirect and hide details. Subject is known for a strong command of lightning and fire Ninjutsu, but commonly holds such techniques in reserve. Subject is known to have a strong command of intelligence gathering abilities. Subject is estimated to have a chunin level chakra pool. Subject is estimated to have jonin level chakra control.

Known kill count: 122

Status: Alive, active

Wanted: Alive

I read the whole page again, but my eyes came to linger on the sixth line of the text, the one that mentioned rank. Apparently, in-between this edition and the last edition I had read, I had gone up a rank in Iwa's bingo book. Iwagakure-no-sato, the enemies of my home village, considered me to be S rank.

I didn't know how to feel about this. I didn't feel like I was S rank, but my enemies obviously thought that I was, and would fight me much more seriously in the future. My nindo was that I never underestimated my enemies, and now they probably wouldn't underestimate me either. I couldn't count on hubris to be on my side, not any more.

It was kind of funny: this had been my goal for my whole life. To become an S rank ninja. And now my enemies thought I was, and it was possible that they were right.

The kicker was, I was still a Chunin.

Oh, I probably could have been promoted to Jonin earlier, if I hadn't been spending the past year behind enemy lines, but still. Chunin. An S rank Chunin.

Oh well. The first thing I was gonna do when I got back to the village was apply for promotion-

"What- Kazuto?" My teammate said suddenly, interrupting my train of thought."What's going on… ?"

He gave a hiss of pain after trying to sit up, his wounds protesting the motion.

"Ssshhh, don't move, you've been badly wounded," I made to sit up, lightly pressing a hand on his chest to get him to lay back down. "You've had a pretty rough go of it there, Toyokuni."

"What happened?" Toyokuni looked at me, eyes wide. "Last thing I remember, we were making our way to the bunker..."

"We were intercepted," I explained with a frown. "Iwanin. Two jonin level and four chunin level. Our other teammates died in the battle, but I managed to escape. The team leader's orders were to run to the bunker and inform them about the team's situation, but it turns out that the bunker was compromised.

"With the mission now defunct, I decided to turn around and do what I could to rescue our team, but you were the only one left. You were in their custody for two and a half hours, and when I got to you, you had been heavily tortured, but thankfully I was able to… deal with… the remaining Iwanin. After I did that, I cleaned and dressed your injuries, and I didn't want to risk jostling you too much in case I exacerbated your injuries, so I found a safe spot to hide in and tend to you. We've been here for two days, and you've been asleep until now."

By the time I had finished that summary of events, Toyokuni was staring at me, slack-jawed. After we had lingered in silence a moment, I decided that Toyokuni need time to digest all of that, and turned my attention back to the bingo book.

"Ok..." Toyokuni spoke a minute later, clearing his throat. "Ok… just for my peace of mind, please perform the code signs, so I know it's really you and not some freaky Genjutsu."

"Very well," I replied, before flashing through a series of complex hand signals in Konoha signal language, the code signs we had agreed upon before the mission.

"Fuck," Toyokuni cursed faintly when I finished the hand signals. "Fuck… I… I don't remember… I don't remember anything… Are you saying I really was tortured?"

"I cleaned and dressed your wounds myself," I replied offhandedly, reading my page in the bingo book again. "It looked like torture to me."

"Shit… God damn it," Toyokuni hissed in frustration. "Shit… I'm sorry, Kazuto. I'm not sure if I said anything."

"Don't worry about it," I turned a page in the bingo book, having decided to look at other pages again. "You were only in their custody for a few hours, I'm sure you didn't say anything."

Toyokuni stared at me for a moment, before looking away. "That's… a pretty blase attitude to have, Kazuto. Most ninja would be worried… shit, what happened to my leg?!"

It seemed he had finally discovered his missing leg situation. "Beats me, you were like that when I found you."

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" Toyokuni yelled with sudden force as he tried to sit up and claw at the stump of his leg. "MY FUCKING LEG IS GONE!"

"Keep it down," I hissed angrily, sitting up and making to press him down with my hand. "We're still in enemy territory! Do you want to die?!"

Toyokuni glared angrily at me, before lying down and looking away. With an annoyed grunt, I stood up and make to check and see if we had been spotted by enemy ninja. Carefully checking the immediate area with my Sharingan, I didn't detect any chakra signs, so it didn't seem that we had.

With a sigh, I checked the anti-detection barrier for flaws again, correcting the few I found, before laying back down.

"Look, Toyokuni, I'm sorry I couldn't rescue you fast enough to save your leg," I remarked after a few moments of silence. "But at least you're alive. That's better than can be said for the rest of our teammates."

"I'm thirsty," Toyokuni commented a moment later. His stomach rumbled. "And a little hungry."

"Alright, give me a moment," I replied, getting to look through my pack and get out the canteen and bag of foodpills.

I then kneeled over Toyokuni and helped him sit up a little, before holding up the lid of the canteen to his mouth. I let him drink as much as he wanted, then put a foodpill in his mouth and waited for him to chew and swallow. Once he had, I gave him another swig of the water, before setting him down to rest and stowing the canteen and foodpill bag.

Then I laid down myself and we lapsed into a comfortable, but tense, silence, and I picked up my Iwa Bingo Book again. A few minutes later I heard snores coming from my side, indicating that Toyokuni was asleep again.

A minute later, I put the bingo book down, and looked up at the skies. It was late in the afternoon, and the snow was still coming down. It was pretty thick now. I could feel it as it passed through the barrier, feeling like little sparks that fizzed on the edge of my awareness. I sighed, and let my mind wander again, if only for a moment.

For as long as I had been a ninja in this world, I had been fighting. Fighting in the Third Shinobi World War. But for most ninja, it was known as The Great War, for there had only been a fourteen month hiatus in between the Second War and the Third war. Sure, that hiatus had been marked by an armistice, but that was pretty much the only reason why the two wars had separate names.

An entire generation had grown up and lived into their twenties under the specter of war. War was all they had ever known, and peace seemed like a distant dream. Or worse, a trap that signified weakness. Was it really any wonder that I had, somehow, become an S rank ninja under these circumstances? After all, I was one of the few that had somehow managed to survive their early teens into late adolescence, and when I wasn't doing missions, I was training for the next mission.

A year ago I had been assigned to a mission behind enemy lines in the Land of Lightning, and was basically there to assist with information gathering operations, and to teach our ninja there the escape techniques I had developed over my career. Then a week ago I was assigned a new mission to transition to the Land of Earth, so I had gone there from the Land of Lightning with the courier team. Now I was here, hiding out of sight and out of mind with an injured teammate, and with no support, as far as I knew.

Two days ago, when I had gotten to the hidden base that had been my team's destination, I had been my usual paranoid self and carefully observed the base from afar to make sure it was safe. It hadn't taken me long to figure out that something was wrong: The ninja that had been guarding it had been wearing typical Leaf clothing and headbands, but I could just tell that they weren't Leaf ninja. They moved wrong, they smelled wrong, and their clothing looked ill-fitting. Everything about them just screamed enemy ninja.

Leaf Ninja were lean, as they were built for tree hopping in their native land. As such, they typically smelled like the trees they hopped in. In a relaxed pose, their movements tended to be languid and fluid, but ready to snap into motion at a moments notice. When they were tense, they tended to be slightly hunched, their knees bent, as if they were preparing to jump into the trees. Finally, Leaf ninja tended to be meticulous. They wore form fitting clothing, wrapped their hands and feet in soft bindings, and kept their flax jackets zipped up.

The enemy ninja had smelled like earth, had tended to be sturdy and stocky, had a tendency to lean towards the ground as if they're getting ready to dive into it, and found the form fitting clothing of the Leaf too tight on their bodies.

All of this had told me that not only was the hidden base compromised, but worse, the enemy ninja were running a sting operation, luring unsuspecting Leaf ninja to their doom. When I had realized this, I had made the decision that the mission was now defunct, and turned around to try and rescue my team, and the rest, as they say, was history.

From where I was standing, the situation looked hopeless. I was in enemy territory, well behind enemy lines, with an injured teammate that couldn't even stand, and diminishing supplies. I didn't think I had a hope of getting past the boarder with an injured teammate in tow, and our supplies would last a few weeks at the most, and that was if I rationed them. My best hope was to be cautious, keep an eye on the area, and hope my situation turned around somehow. I needed to find a way to get in contact with other Leaf ninja in the area, if there were any, and hope like hell they could help me.

I gave a soft yawn, and rubbed some of the sleep out of my eyes. I needed to sleep, but didn't dare. It was too risky. The situation was too tense for me to have any hope of getting some sleep, even if I needed to. I was always worried that some chakra sensor was going to happen upon our little camp in the middle of nowhere, so I had to stay awake, I had to keep alert.

Lacking the ability or desire to sleep, I was instead keeping myself alert and aware by using special chakra restoration exercises, which was similar to meditation, but not quite.

Standing up, I focused my chakra and made a hand sign. A moment later, two shadow clones popped into existence. I intertwined my left hand with the leftmost one, and drew most of its chakra out of it back into my own coils. It wouldn't need that much chakra anyway.

The rightmost one gave me a nod, and then body-flickered out of the camp, heading out to scout the area, and checking to see if there were any enemy ninja skulking around out here. The leftmost one walked up the ravine a few feet, turned around, and squatted, keeping an eye on us from his elevated position. Hopefully it would spot any enemy ninja before they arrived.

A moment later, I squatted myself, and intertwined my fingers. The special chakra restoration exercises were special techniques meant to force the brain into a limited REM sleep for a small amount of time, usually thirty minutes. There was a certain danger to using the technique, as once the technique was active, you were basically dead to the world until the technique ran it's course, or unless the technique was forcibly interrupted.

The technique was very useful in situations where you had to remain awake for long periods of time, as a single use of the technique could leave you feeling awake and refreshed for several hours. However, if you used the technique too many times in a row, over a period of a week or two, you could end up with serious brain damage, so most people were encouraged not to rely too heavily on the technique.

A moment later, I finished molding the chakra that formed the technique, activated it, and blacked out.

I came back to awareness what felt like barely minutes later, to the feeling of a blinding headache that felt like my head was cracking open. Raising my hands to rub on my temples, I sent soothing chakra running through my brain, banishing the chakra of the failed technique, and a moment later the headache disappeared.

It didn't take me long to figure out what had happened: one of my shadow clones had popped, the clone I had sent out on patrol. Had it encountered an enemy ninja patrol or something? The prospect seemed likely, so I quickly focused inward, focusing on the memories of the clone in question…