40. Information Leaked.

(Powerstones please)

Itachi's eyes opened just as the alarm rang once; he placed his hand to stop it from ringing more.

The alarm was portable because it could be stored in a storage seal.

Everything becomes portable when storage seals are involved.

These things are the dream of the average modern world people.

Everyone loves being lazy, so if such an item came into the world, it would definitely be a must.

He did some stretching and light exercise, then started brushing.

Storage seals could be used for getting water out of them, but also using them as a sink.

He even took a bath like this.

He usually would skip bathing, but he was with two Elite Jounins, so he could be safe for some time.

Plus, the tent he was in was a strong one with too many seals on it.

It would easily take dozens of B-rank jutsus before breaking and even one or two A-rank jutsus before breaking.

Such were the privileges of being a Clan head's child.

'There is still 1 hour before we are supposed to regroup,' Itachi looked at the time and decided that he would do some chakra control exercises to pass the time.

He got out of his tent and sealed it back in a scroll.

Then he took a seat on a tree branch, still close to the tents, as he didn't want what happened yesterday to happen to him.

Like this, 30 minutes passed.

Yukio came out of his tent and glanced at Itachi, who met his gaze.

"Ohayo, ni-chan."

"Ohayo," Yukio nodded and then summoned cooking utensils.

He started cooking food for everyone.

Generally, people only eat food that can't be cooked, or jerkies, or multi-purpose bars that also taste good.

As cooking in the wild is just asking for enemy shinobi to find you and kill you.

It's pretty dumb.

Unless you are a Fuinjutsu seal master who won't let the smell and things like that leave the area itself.

Yukio's cooking was superior to all the options present, so it would definitely be preferred by everyone.

Itachi continued his chakra control exercises for the next 30 minutes.

Miyuki came out of her tent just two minutes before with a yawn.

"Why did I even choose this time to meet," she muttered while taking a seat at the table.

Last night was long, to say the least.

They arrived back at this tent a few hours ago only to sleep.

At least Yukio knew Medical Ninjutsu, or it would have been a problem for both of them.

Yumi came out a few seconds before the time with her hair wild.

It seems she had just woken up.

They had a heavy breakfast and then left.

"What's the plan?" Miyuki asked Itachi and Yumi.

"We will first enter the Land of Stone through the paths we have, and then we will make our way towards Iwa secretly till we reach it," Itachi started.

"Then we will somehow enter the village in the disguise of merchants or something similar, as you guys probably have a better way to enter," Yumi continued.

"Yeah, don't worry about entering the village," Yukio said.

"Yeah, after that we will discreetly get into contact with the spies after a few days by sending shadow clones. If it was a trap, then we would at least be able to hide there for some time before leaving."

"How are you going to make sure that we are not monitored, as we would reach the village only 2 days before the meeting day?" Miyuki asked him.

"They don't exactly know when we are going to get into the village, so they would have to search a lot, and even if they ask somebody to monitor us, it would probably be a chunin if not a genin at most, so tricking him won't be that hard. Meanwhile, we could get another identity there to switch in those 2 days in case it was a trap," Yumi answered her.

"Hmm, good plan. Let's see your execution then," Yukio commented.

They reached the Land of Earth's border and entered it through one of the paths that didn't have much security.

The intel they had on the guard movements at the border was latest and made this process much easier.

Whoever got the intel was definitely not the same spy; they only know it's a different guy, as they wouldn't have followed his intel as that would mean getting into a trap if it was an ambush.

The scroll even had information on the best paths to take to reach Iwa without much obstruction.

The journey was smooth.

"Who gathered the intel for the routes? Was it another spy in Iwa or maybe in the Land of Stone instead?" Yumi thought that a spy in the Land of Stone would be much easier and feasible as their movement could be more unrestricted and so would their possible actions.

"Yeah, the routes really are good. We only saw the patrol team twice since we entered the Land of Stone," Itachi also commented.

The patrol team's patterns change on a daily basis, so getting hold of this information would definitely be hard.

Whoever was responsible had to be very good at hiding themselves and observing the team, either that or they had infiltrated deep in the external security department of the military.

"Oh, it was me," Yukio's nonchalant response made the other two almost stumble.

"Wait, if you can get information already, why are we doing the mission then?" Yumi asked. If he could get this information, then there's a high chance that he could get the information about whether the spy is compromised or not.

"Because it's your first mission, duh."

Itachi hadn't asked this as he was anticipating this response.

Soon, they reached the Gate and disguised themselves as merchants.

"You guys are on your own; I would be watching from far." With that, Yukio ditched them along with Miyuki.

"Uh, what do we do now?" Yumi said with a flustered expression.

They were just near the gate, like a hundred or so meters away.

"It's fine, let's continue with the plan with two people only; it would be much easier," Itachi said, and they continued walking.

They had transformed and put on seals which won't be detected normally unless the guy is going to check for dozens of minutes.

The seals will make it such that they are able to hide their chakra and maintain their transformation jutsu.

Just as they reached the gate, Itachi was going to take out the card which he had got beforehand for the mission.

This job is done by a department in their village that focuses on forging identities not only for spies but for people going on covert missions.

The guard took it and nodded.

'Phase One Completed,' Itachi nodded, and just as he was going to step into the village, he felt chakra moving from behind him.

'What-' He felt his vision shifting, and he consciously stopped himself from activating sharingan due to the familiar feeling of body flicker.

He can't give away his exact identity as that would be problematic.

He was currently dragged from his position with body flicker by Yumi.

The place where he was a second ago had a lot of earth spears coming from the ground.

Itachi weaved hand seals for body flicker, and just as Yumi stopped for a second as a break, he turned around and flickered away.

Their identity was compromised somehow.

Somebody probably internal has leaked their identity about coming to Iwa.

Itachi's eyes widened as he sensed two large chakras.

"You guys are unlucky that you had to face us; your chances for escape were impossible from the first moment you stepped near our village."

Itachi looked from the periphery and recognized the guy to be an Elite Jounin from Iwa.

He deduced that the other guy with large chakra was also an Elite Jounin.

They were doomed, as in front of Elite Jounins they can't do anything other than just watch.

Watch as they were being swallowed in a swamp before they even knew that they were in one.

'When did I even stop moving?' Itachi thought; he had just noticed that he wasn't moving despite not stopping the body flicker.

He realized that his feet were still releasing chakra, but due to the ground, they weren't able to move.

"Have a good sleep, because the next time you wake up, you will regret not being dead." That was the last thing Itachi heard as he felt his body being almost down on the earth and his eyes slowly closing for some reason.

'Poison? Or is it genjutsu or something else?' Itachi wondered as his eyes closed.

The last thing he saw was the disbelief on the Elite Jounin's face and a sword passed through its heart.

The sword was very familiar to Itachi.

After all, he had seen that sword since he was an infant and was fond of it.

That sword was older than him by a bit.

***

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