Shitaka's leather jacket had been acting rather floaty. Instead of being weighed down and completely defying the laws of physics like it used to, the piece of attire flapped and lagged behind its wearer. Mana suspected that it was because he was beginning to run short on supplies. It tended to happen when ninja tools, whether they be blades or something more refined, like jars with chemicals in them, were the crux of one's combat ability.

Everyone looked banged up. Even the clash with the Daisushi Brothers had been taxing on the Allied Ninja as they've had to fight in a nasty brawl where they were completely outnumbered. It didn't much matter how potent the enemy was, even dealing with a handful of genin made one put a flick of effort into it and even such small battles might have added up. With their encounter with the crow-transforming clone brigade recently, a whole myriad of new bruises and cuts added on top of the already impressive array of wear and tear.

"We need to stop at an inn," Mana declared, raising her voice so that she didn't need to break formation again. While she felt like she hadn't spent all that much chakra so far, her stamina was a whole different matter entirely and while she had the chakra to go through a couple more battles like those, her will to do so was a whole different matter entirely.

"We do," Junichi agreed with a nod. "We will, once we leave the Fire Country border."

"And what if we get attacked before that happens? We risk getting wiped out in our current condition," Mana objected. Normally, she'd have had no leeway in speaking out like this, apart from being just a part of the traveling group, in this case, she was the VIP that was being escorted, giving her voice a bit more weight than usual.

"We've had two encounters with the Nine Tales Gang already. It's clear that whatever bounty's hanging on your head, they're willing to invest some heavy resources to get it. That being said, it would be incredibly unlikely for their influence to extend past Fire Country's border, bandits are very territorial like that, heck, the bounty can only be cashed in in the country it was issued in," Junichi replied.

"Don't sweat it, you're a rocking good sensor, just keep your eyes open… Or closed… Whichever works out best for that sniffer of yours and keep your eyes… Nose… Whatever organ's responsible for sensory… Open," Shitaka snickered, giving Mana a look like he was talking down to a child. He might have been hopping around with empty jars in his pockets and he'd still have had the same spirit of empty bravado.

Mollay, the one with the most injuries as the Daisushi Brothers rightfully identified him as the most dangerous member of their group, traveled in silence. His bright eyes stared through the night's shade and on ahead into the oblivious thickness of the woods. Nobody was surprised by the fact that the man didn't speak his mind, though Mana had hoped that maybe his common sense would supersede his shut-in nature just this once. His entire face had streaks of dried out blood on it, even if his life was no longer at threat, even if it wasn't immediate medical attention that was in need, he could have used a shower, at the very least. They all could have.

"We've been through two clashes with the enemy already," Mana objected, using Junichi's own argument and flipping it against him. "We haven't as much as stopped to eat our rations yet, our chakra won't even begin recovering at this rate."

"If we're stopping for rations now, may as well stop at an inn. If we stop at an inn, we're basically courting the third encounter. It's not unheard of for innkeepers to cooperate with bandit gangs and supply them with information or even pull errands for them. Those Nine Tales guys seem like the kind of band to hold large influence over the area, we can't afford to take that chance. I know it's hard now but we've got to pull ourselves up and keep moving," Junichi spoke mostly to Mana, even though his words might have been interpreted as a reassurance to the whole Allied Ninja squad.

"You should trust our esteemed leader, Mana," Cailar beamed a serpentine smile her way before he completed that thought Mana knew that he was about to poke fun at the leader he just praised. "Even if he corrected our destination and now we're no longer headed toward Otogakure anymore…"

Mana wasn't that good with directions and geography, to be frank, but she had noticed the shift in direction too. Instead of heading toward northward to the Otogakure border which was by far the closest to their location before they were attacked by the crow-ninja, they were moving far too off to the north-east to be heading that way anymore.

"Otogakure is no longer to be considered safe. It's no secret that gang influence extends to that location as well. It was always meant to just be a pit stop anyway, it was off-course toward our final destination but the closest from our location at the time. I've made the call to redirect us toward Land of Hot Water. Traveling there will take us until the morning but it's a more direct route to the HQ and, I'd argue, it will make for a safer pit stop location to resupply and lick our wounds," Junichi explained himself.

"I knew something was up when you changed the formation," Shitaka muttered. "It ain't rocking at all, dude! Land of Hot Water is all wet down there over their own stupid spring water. They don't sell that much quality stuff beyond that. Otogakure would have been a way better place to resupply, now those guys know the value of free-market!"

"We will end up breaking the formation anyway. The Valley of Earth and Moon is ahead, it's separated by a single bridge and it's too wide to leap over without burning through more chakra," Mana sighed.

The Valley of Earth and Moon was a massive split surrounded by waterfalls from all directions. Many rivers ended up flushing their waters down that abyssal fall and it was as deep as the darkest trenches of the ocean washing the shores of Land of Water except part of it was above water. Yet the part that was above water was like a tip of the iceberg compared to the swallowing abyss containing all the water washed down there in hundreds of years since the valley's formation. Some of the water evaporated and rejoined the circulation process eventually but a big part of it stayed down there. The chilling depths at the bottom didn't let the blinding deep to completely empty out.

"We're moving around it," Junichi declared. "The only ways through the valley is either the wooden bridge extended over it or to leap over it, which, I agree with Mana, would burn too much of our remaining strength. We must humor the possibility that we can still be attacked at any point still, despite our effort to leave the country, we can't afford to burn chakra taking leaps like that and the sole bridge would leave us too open for a long-range attack and too helpless if the bridge was to be targeted."

While Mana agreed with the reasoning, all the detours they were taking only felt like they added on to the importance of her point. It felt infuriating being dismissed like that with vague assumptions and speculations about safety. They were going above and beyond to avoid any resting grounds and pit stops when one was exactly what they needed. Now they'll be treading around the Valley of Earth and Moon, something that'll take them the better part of an hour to accomplish. At this rate, they won't reach Land of Hot Water 'till late morning.

From way back when she ended up as an unwilling visitor in Naruto's universe, she recalled the valley having some sort of significance to the locals. It was at a similar location, as the magician could recall, perhaps a bit further down north, judging how most locals spoke of it as splitting Land of Fire and Otogakure, but, judging from what she could recall, it was different from the valley they had too. For one, Mana didn't think that Naruto's valley was formed when the World Tree up and walked away, becoming Ten-Tails and unrooting itself from the Earth's own soil flesh. The Valley of Earth and Moon also didn't quite host any statues to commemorate anything special, it was too far away and too dangerous to work on any major projects as such a venture would have included moving building material in great supply through dangerous territories.

One thing Mana could agree with was that crossing the valley by the one, sorry wooden bridge would have been unwise. The Allied Ninja would have broken formation to move through a bridge in a sorry state that could have easily been the target for any supposed bandits hot on their tail. Also, it would have left no option to evade attacks as they'd have left themselves wide open, surrounded by forests and waterfalls that could have been used for concealing their attackers.

"They really should build a proper bridge over it," Mana sighed, submitting to the fact that the Allied Ninja wouldn't receive the care and supplies they need until they reached Land of Hot Water. "I don't see many ninja choosing to take it due to same reasons we're moving around the valley for and it isn't safe for civilians to take their caravans through either,"

"It's dangerous to take building material out here in bulk. It's the reason why nobody built a huge statue of whatever huge thing happened here," Junichi sighed easier. He was glad to hear that Mana had relented on the topic of stopping at an inn and just chose to move forward.

"I don't imagine it being possible to build a bridge this long anyway. I'm no bridge scientist but I don't think that there's a bridge that wouldn't collapse under its own weight after extending this far," Cailar shrugged joining in on the conversation.

"Man, to see such a massive hunk of bricks fall down into the valley, that'd be rocking good time!" Shitaka shrieked out in glee.

"I don't think that bandits would be our prime concern traveling through that bridge…" Cailar gave his anarchistic ally an uneasy look.

"That valley's like a giant smokescreen of chakra…" Mana sighed. "The Ten-Tails' radiance still persists in the area centuries after its creation and emergence. If there were bandits at either end of the valley or within two hundred meters around it, I wouldn't be able to tell over that looming energy in the air."

"Ten-Tails?" Junichi mumbled. "Is that what gave birth to the valley?"

"Yes, long ago the Earth and the Moon were connected by one, giant tree. It is sometimes called the World Tree, because it connected two worlds, the world of the Earth Clan and the Moon Clan, also, because it was a tree so massive that it could have only been categorized as a tree of the whole world, not one specific country. The valley is what remains of that tree once it transformed into the Ten-Tails and emerged from underground. It might look like one, giant pit from up above but it's actually like a reverse-mushroom down underwater. That's where the Ten-Tails' roots were when it was the World Tree." Mana explained.

She used to love researching the lore of the world, history, and legend alike, often trying to find similarities between them. Given her current situation, Mana could only wonder when it would be that she would get the chance to open up a book or unravel another scroll. She was away from the archive and there weren't many historic books being sold. Most of them were owned by the archives of the respective village.

"Holy crap, look at that!" Shitaka pointed at a lovely, spacious manor standing right in their way, well-lit by industrial lighting from each direction. Decorated with plastic sheets of pink and pristine-looking, white roof tiles. It had a sign spelling out "Inn of Hot Chicken" hanging in clear view, on the center of the roof. Probably just a bad wordplay on Land of Hot Water which was just hours away from the location.

"Hmph… A missed opportunity to name the establishment the "Inn of the Earth and the Moon", given the tact choice of location," Cailar cheeked at the inn, making Mana get some mean fox and the grapes kind of vibes from the Allied Ninja.

He wasn't wrong, being so near to the Valley of the Earth and the Moon and being so clever as to actually build their inn right beside the commonly used detour by most people that valued the guaranteed safety of said detour compared to the gut-wrenching feeling of crossing the feeble wooden bridge hanging over the valley, the inn might have emphasized the wrong key location there.

"Such a sophisticated and pristine building," Junichi sighed as the Allied Ninja whizzed past it. Only Mollay resisted the temptation to not follow its shine with his eyes, the elegance, and warmth that remained left behind them in one good dash. "It isn't difficult to believe that such an apt choice of location would leave the inn owner so well-off, I guess…"

It must have been the lights illuminating the inn, or something, but the trees around the Allied Ninja began to seem blurry. A simple visual inspection of the rest of the squad told Mana that she wasn't the only one feeling a bit hazy at the moment. Everyone's eyes looked a tad sleepy and disoriented, something that wasn't quite normal given how long most ninja could last while traveling without rest or food with an occasional fight for their life every now and then along the way.

"We're under genjutsu," Mana declared, stopping at once.

"What's this now?" Junichi looked like he expected Mana to bring up her obsession with having everyone rest at an inn again, seeing her proclamation as nothing but an excuse to do so. "You're not helping anyone by stopping."

"I'm doing exactly that. You can't trust anything you see, we don't know where we're traveling anymore, if we're headed in the right direction or not. Our best shot is to stop here and dispel the illusion before we keep moving," Mana replied.

"An illusion? Are you sure?" Mollay wondered, only becoming interested in socializing with his squad once an immediate danger to their assignment was in question.

"Well, I can't sense it, normally I would be able to make out alterations, alien influences over someone chakra network but… Isn't it just a perfect spot to plant your illusion – veiled by the smokescreen of the Ten-Tails resonant chakra radiance? I suspect those lights from the inn might have been the medium through which the illusion was transferred." Mana pondered.

"What a downer illusion. I could have used some giant monsters, fire and brimstone, a really rocking trip, you know?" Shitaka sighed, deflating his body in disappointment.

"How did you make it out that we're under an illusion?" Junichi scratched the back of his head. His better instincts clearly suggested that Mana knew what she was talking about as a genjutsu specialist with sufficient skill to warrant a promotion for her skill in the said field alone but he still wasn't sure if the entire journey had to be halted for something that seemed like just a hunch that she had.

"Eye movement," Mana pointed out. "Our eyes are moving rapidly like we're all under an especially vivid dream despite our surroundings seeming unchanging and just as boring as they were two hours ago. Think about it, besides the inn, we haven't seen anything notable in the time since we've passed it. No roaring of the waterfalls just half a kilometer away, no notable plants or nocturnal animals, as if someone with a poor imagination had cast an illusion on us."

"Feels like a long-shot, we should keep moving," Junichi dismissed Mana's theory.

"I don't know, I think we should investigate…" Cailar put his index finger to his lip, leaning in an almost taunting manner to Junichi's side, making his intent for disagreeing with the leader crystal-clear.

"Damn it, Cailar! This isn't the time for your games!" Junichi smacked with the back of his hand, knowing full well that his subordinate would dive down under his swing as he was tougher to hit than that. "Let's put it to a vote, I say we keep moving."

"I object," Cailar hummed out with a melodious tune.

"Ugh, I don't know, if we do try to break the illusion here, we'll be burning through a bunch of chakra. That's not rocking at all. I think the reason why this whole trip has been so boring is that the world's just so damn boring. That's why I wanna leave it all in flames, you know? To spice it up a bit, I say we keep moving," Shitaka shrugged. "The sooner we get to Hot Water, the better."

"I trust Mana's judgment," Mollay nodded looking at Mana.

"Care to elaborate why?" Junichi growled. "It matters if I decide to throw out Cailar's vote for obvious reasons…"

"How many of you know a damn thing about genjutsu? It's a fringe art that very few ninja know more about than how to dispel illusions. I say that if the enemy has entranced us and we're traveling in the wrong direction – it's in our prime interests to dispel this illusion now." Mollay spoke, huffing after this explanation as if speaking so many words at once strained him somehow.

"Fine, any chance that this might be one of those illusions that only need to be dispelled once?" Junichi turned to Mana for answers.

"I doubt it. The nature of this illusion reminds me of the False Surroundings Jutsu but this range is far greater and False Surroundings isn't transferred through a medium. This must be a more powerful jutsu, likely an original illusion that the user themselves invented. I won't be able to tell you much about it until I see it in its entirety once," Mana shook her head.

"I see, I suppose we all need to dispel it for ourselves then," Junichi grit his teeth.

"Not necessarily," Mana interjected. "I can dispel it for each of you individually. That'll help you prevent you from losing any chakra by having me dispel it for each of you."

"But then you will lose a whole lot of chakra," Mollay warned Mana.

"Yeah but… It's my suspicion, I'd hate to be the one to blame if it turns out to be false, even though I don't believe it is. Just let me deal with this, I'll know how much chakra dispelling it demands once I dispel it for myself," Mana replied.

"It's your call, protecting you and escorting you to our headquarters is our mission, we'll be ready to give our lives for you even if you choose to burn through your chakra and we'll be ready to fight for you if needed," Junichi pointed out while rubbing his neck. "Heck, you know about that illusion stuff most of us all so we'll know that you won't botch dispelling it too…"

Mana nodded. She pressed her hands together and closed her eyes, imagining a bubble of chakra forming around her outline, and then she just pushed at it from inside, bursting with chakra from each pore in her body. The first push didn't pan out, calculating the force of the resistance, she strengthened the push and muttered: "Dispel".

The gloomy forest wavered like Mana was looking at it from underwater. The vision rippled and then reality broke through, shattering the illusion like a panel of glass. Mana looked around, trying to find the potential user of the illusion as it would have made no sense to cast the illusion unless one planned to follow through with it after but there seemed to be nobody there. Her eyes didn't tell anything and her sensory was blinded by Ten-Tails chakra looming everywhere and seeping into every object in the vicinity.

"We were under an illusion, though I still hear the roaring waterfalls in the distance," Mana pointed out. "We haven't strayed too far off of our path. It's more than likely that the lights around that inn building truly were the medium."

"That's impressive," Mollay commended Mana's skill at identifying the illusion before it made them stray too far off of their path and either tumble down the valley or running into the enemy ambush.

"The illusion is rather powerful, I'd say that the technique is about B-Rank in complexity, the illusion itself is not impressive but the number of targets it affects and its range compensate for that in spades. It is definitely more refined than the generic False Surroundings Jutsu," Mana pointed out before placing her hand onto Junichi's forehead and lifting her other hand, raising her middle and index fingers in preparation to dispel the jutsu.

White smoke began filling the area as loud, feminine cackling filled the area. Mana turned to Junichi, wandering if he was seeing any of it but he looked completely oblivious to it – no wonder. Everyone but her was still stuck in the illusion. Mana hurried up and shattered the illusion for Junichi as well, the man's eyes widened in surprise after seeing the white mist filling the woods and hearing the creepy voice somewhere inside it.

"I'll watch your back, dispel the illusion for everyone," Junichi ordered while keeping his senses sharp for a sign that the witch of the inn might have settled on something more dangerous than creepy cackling and hiding inside the impenetrable, white fog that was no illusion.

Despite Junichi's best efforts to elude trouble, it appeared that trouble had found the Allied Ninja instead.