"That cunning little son of a bitch!" Inoue-sensei gave a wry laugh before passing the note to the three genin.

Hazō studied the "response" that the mysterious missing-nin of the forest had left on the back of their note. The top half was a simple but exact map of the area, with a dozen marks scattered across it. The bottom half was more complicated. Twelve separate lines were filled with very small, neat markings, each line different in style from the others. At the bottom, something was written in common script.

One genin only. The rest stay at the village. I will know.

Hazō thought about it. "If those are the instructions for who is to meet him, then the other part must be where and when. But there are lots of different marks on the map. So presumably, the lines are supposed to tell us which mark to use."

Wakahisa rolled his eyes. "Great, so he's a missing-nin puzzle specialist. Wonderful. Remind me why we want to contact this guy again?"

"It could have been a girl," Mori muttered. "Inoue-sensei did say she didn't get a clear look."

She studied the note for a few seconds longer, aware that Inoue-sensei was watching, and probably expecting her to figure it out before the boys did. There was something familiar about the patterns...

"Inoue-sensei, are these military cyphers?"

"Very good," Inoue-sensei nodded. "I only recognise the fourth one, though. It's a retired Mist cypher, meaning it's not in use anymore because someone outside Mist managed to crack it. It says dawn tomorrow, Location D. And I'd bet my portable torture kit the other lines are retired cyphers from other villages. When we go to meet him tomorrow, we'll automatically be telling him which village we're from."

"Uh, Inoue-sensei, why do you have a portable torture kit?" Wakahisa nervously asked.

"Rule One of infiltration: have as much information as possible before going in," Inoue-sensei explained matter-of-factly. "Take note of that one, it's one of the most important rules of being a ninja full stop."

Hazō frowned. "But by showing us he knows all these cyphers, isn't he giving away the fact that he's an ex-codebreaker? If he thinks we might be enemies, it's weird for him to reveal his abilities."

"Wow, you guys are all sorts of on the ball today," Inoue-sensei beamed. "But in this case, it's a good trade for him. We already know he's into seals, and it's standard practice for sealcrafting students to be assigned to the Cryptology Department when they're not training. The required personality traits and skillsets overlap more than you'd expect, and it means they're useful even before they can be trusted with mass seal production.

"So he's trading away a small amount of information about him for a large amount of information about us. And that's not all. Take a look at the points he's put on the map."

This time, it took longer for anyone to work it out. Needless to say, Wakahisa never stood a chance against him, but on this occasion, Hazō even beat Mori to the solution. Her rueful expression only made him feel better.

"Those areas have two things in common—they're within sight of the forest, and they're places the villagers told us in no uncertain terms not to go near if we didn't want to get eaten. So whoever goes there has high odds of getting attacked by something. Then the missing-nin can watch from safety and take notes, and at the end he can come in and have free choice of which side to finish off."

"That's right!" Inoue-sensei smiled happily, as if Hazō hadn't just explained that one of their team would have to be put in mortal danger before they even met their target. "If I were him, I'd personally make sure that the other person had an unexpected encounter with something bitey, because it's really hard to keep up a disguise and only fight at genin level when there's something trying to eat your face. In other words, while the sensible thing to do normally would be for me to go in disguised as one of you—I'm thinking Keiko, for cuteness value—our friend has neatly ruled that option out.

"So, which one of you is volunteering to go into hostile territory without backup and negotiate with an antisocial chūnin-or-higher mad bomber? Don't raise your hands all at once, now."

o-o-o-o

"Hey, Mr Ninja, where do you come from? Is it cold like it is here? Is it full of trees? Are there giant fish? Are you married? Can you do ninja magic? Would you like some berries? Is that lady your girlfriend? Are any of the ninja villages bigger than our village?"

Hazō had been through a thousand D-rank babysitting missions, and hated each more than the last.

In fairness, this one was probably more like C-rank. After all, there were dangerous creatures to be found out here, though probably not enough to justify the villagers hiring all four of them just to look after a few girls. And anyway, who sent a bunch of little girls to forage for fruit and berries such a long way away from the village, and in the evening at that? Were they trying to get their offspring eaten by dire wolverines?

Then again, they wouldn't have paid for four ninja's worth of protection if that was their objective. No, this mission just didn't make sense. Even the timing was awkward, coming right as a new group of wanderers came into the village, likely full of useful new information that would help Hazō and the others decide what to do next—only now they might not get a chance to talk to them before the group moved on in the morning.

And the girls never shut up. Not for a second. Nanami was an insufferable know-it-all, Mina took offence at every little thing, and Kimiko was paranoid about ghosts or doppelgangers or something. The rest were even worse. He and Mori, also an only child, swapped many a commiserating glance as the girls verbally and physically tugged them to and fro. Wakahisa, meanwhile, seemed to be entirely in his element, joking and telling stories and successfully using his charm on those too young to see through it. And Inoue-sensei...

Her fingers flickered as she reached over to fix Nanami's sandal, showing the oldest and most commonly used ninja hand sign. Something is wrong.

More followed. I. Distraction. You. Settlement. Investigate.

Then she raised her voice. "Say, girls, can you keep a secret?"

Hazō slipped away as the children instantly converged around Inoue-sensei.

o-o-o-o

Something was wrong. Nearly all the lights in the village were out, except those in the village hall—and outside the building, several burly men stood with torches, their expressions vaguely anxious.

After a couple of close calls, Hazō managed to make his way to a window outside the guards' sight range. They seemed on edge, which made them more alert, but on the other hand it hadn't occurred to them to actually patrol the site they were guarding. Civilians.

The village hall was full to bursting. Practically everyone in the village was there, minus the children and the men stationed outside. At its heart, being listened to with rapt fascination, were the four wanderers who'd come in earlier that day.

Just as Hazō leaned in to listen, Granny Yoshino's voice snapped out like a whip.

"Anyone can make a claim like that. You think you're the first group of troublemakers I've seen in my life, gnawing on the bones of the past like a pack of splinterclaws?"

One of the men waved his hands placatingly. "You can't deny the timing, ma'am. It's been exactly one hundred years."

The crowd murmured.

"Ninety-eight by the Old Calendar," Granny Yoshino shot back. "That is, the calendar the Liberator himself would have used."

"Well, these things are never precise, are they?" The man gave what he doubtless thought was a winning smile. "And anyway, maybe it's not meant to be a hundred years until his return—maybe it's a hundred years until the Liberation. In two years' time, I'm sure the armies of freedom will just be getting ready to march."

"This is fool talk, and the lot of you are fools if you think—"

"Now, now, Yoshino," the village elder interrupted. "I think we should hear more of what these men have to say. You can't tell me you're comfortable having ninja in the village, walking around like they own the place. They could murder us all in our beds just like that, and nobody would be able to stop them!"

Some of the villagers exchanged uncomfortable glances.

"You are the greatest fool of all, Renzō," Granny Yoshino told him. "Those ninja have been nothing but good to us since they turned up. They've sure been a lot more use than some people." She gave him a pointed look. "And anyway, you think this so-called Great Liberation is going to happen without ninja on both sides? Well, tell him, boy. What does your false Liberator have to say about ninja?"

"He is not false," one of the other men growled. "He is Ashikage no Yōtarō himself, reborn to liberate the Land of Iron by any means necessary."

The first speaker waved him into silence. "What my friend here means to say is that the Liberator does not discriminate. To him, there are no 'missing-nin'. There are only the free ninja, and the tyrannical ninja villages that oppress both them and us. Already, countless ninja have joined his force, and are ready to fight for freedom alongside the New Samurai Army."

The murmuring of the crowd turned to full-fledged shouting at these last few words, a mix of excited demands for more information and equally excited demands that the newcomers be whipped for their blasphemy.

"MY FRIENDS!" The man shouted over the crowd. "There is no need to argue over these things. If you don't believe me, you need only travel to the Fortress of White Steel, north of Shinamachi, and witness for yourself that the Liberator has returned. Warrior, craftsman or farmer: all shall be made welcome! All shall have a place by the Liberator's side!"

A flicker of light in Hazō's peripheral vision indicated that the guards were starting to move around. He took one last look as Granny Yoshino began to shout something about exploiting the naïve, and faded back into the shadows. He'd heard enough.