Night crept in fast, swallowing the forest path in dim shadows.

The caravan slowed to a stop in a small clearing, torches lit low, wagons arranged in a tight circle. Hirotada sat in his main wagon, visibly restless.

Every few minutes, he slid the curtain aside to glance inside, then shut it again with a nervous grunt.

Even his guards, though disciplined, carried a tense air as they patrolled in pairs.

Ryusei circled back from his side of the perimeter, silent steps brushing over dry leaves.

Just as he rounded past one wagon, Kanae appeared from the other side, her pale eyes scanning the treeline before shifting toward him. They nearly bumped into each other.

Ryusei’s lips curled. He tilted his head slightly, keeping that narrow-eyed grin of his.

“So serious, even when we’re guarding merchants instead of fighting enemy shinobi?” he said quietly, teasing. “Careful, Kanae. If you stare into the forest that hard, the trees might start staring back… maybe even the one standing right in front of you.”

Her expression didn’t change much, only the faintest flicker in her gaze, but Ryusei caught it.

That tiny shift, like she couldn’t decide whether to ignore him or retort.

Kanae noticed that he was acting differently toward her now compared to a month ago, during their last mission, up until when she had saved him technically.

Back then, it always felt like he was forcing fake politeness when they interacted, making constant small talk just to fill space, and beneath it all, holding little real regard for her.

Now it wasn’t just empty talk. Now it was teasing, constant jabs, maybe even something more.

And oddly, it felt genuine. He didn’t seem to harbor any bad feelings anymore; if anything, he seemed to enjoy making fun of her, as if he wanted to pull some kind of reaction out of her on purpose.

She could deduce it in his micro-expressions through her Byakugan. Not absolute proof, but not meaningless either. And her instincts told her the same.

“You should focus,” she replied flatly, though her tone had a faintly stiff edge that almost betrayed annoyance. “If something happens, jokes won’t help.”

Ryusei chuckled under his breath, leaning just close enough for his words to reach her but not the nearby guards.

“Relax, I’m focused. And didn’t I warn you earlier that your Byakugan could use a rest before it burns a hole in the dark? Planning to keep it flaring until you drop from overextension? Or is it the gold you’re afraid will sprout legs and run off?”

For the briefest second, Kanae’s eyes narrowed further, and Ryusei swore he caught a flicker of embarrassment beneath her usual cold mask.

But then, as always, she turned away, scanning the dark again, as if he wasn’t worth responding to.

‘Still ice cold,’ Ryusei thought, smiling to himself as they passed by each other and were about to return to their patrols.

Then his eyes snapped wide open, muscles tensing, chakra flooding his body.

“Jump back, Kanae!” he shouted without hesitation.

Kanae flinched at the sudden outburst, suspicion flashing in her eyes, but her instincts obeyed before her mind caught up. She leapt back just as the ground beneath her burst open.

A masked man erupted from the soil, kunai gleaming. The strike missed her by a hair, though a single strand of her bangs was sliced clean off.

Kanae landed lightly, instantly dropping into her Gentle Fist stance. The surrounding guards jerked in alarm, and her teammates rushed toward the commotion.

The intruder, however, didn’t immediately press the attack. He stood silently between them, only a few paces from Ryusei, his mask reflecting torchlight.

His plan had been simple: eliminate the girl first, the weakest link around the gold. Yet the boy’s sudden yell ruined that in an instant.

Narrowing his eyes beneath the mask, he adjusted, intending to silence Ryusei next and teach him a lesson. But as he moved closer, his steps faltered.

‘This chakra signature… no, impossible,’ he thought sharply, his gaze locking on the boy. He also noticed the two other shinobi converging on him. ‘Tch. I can’t take chances. I’ll test him first… separate them.’

He slammed his hands into a seal. Smoke burst, and two identical clones sprang to life.

One clone darted at Okabe head-on.

Another swept at Kanae, only to meet Renjiro rushing in, short sword flashing as the two of them engaged it together.

The original body charged at Ryusei directly, fists lashing out in sharp, dominant strikes, pushing him backward into the dark.

Kanae’s palms struck in tandem with Renjiro’s blade, fending off the clone’s relentless assault.

Yet her eyes flicked, just for a second, toward Ryusei being forced away.

In the back of her mind, a thought throbbed louder than the clash of combat.

‘He saved me…’

The realization sent a chill down her spine.

If not for his sudden warning, she would already be dead.

Yet another question gnawed at her.

‘How did he sense the attack… when even my Byakugan didn’t?’

Her pale eyes lingered on Ryusei, who was being driven farther away, a complicated glimmer breaking through her usual cold mask.

‘Yes… just like he joked earlier about my Byakugan use,’ Kanae realized, her chest tightening.

‘I’ve been overusing the Byakugan all day. I thought it didn’t matter. I thought I could handle it.’

Her vision had always seemed sharp, no matter how many times she activated her eyes.

Fatigue was normal, but never crippling. She had trusted that confidence until now.

Against an ordinary foe, it wouldn’t have mattered.

But against someone this skilled, every fraction of a second, every sliver of processing speed, meant life or death.

And tonight, she had been blind to it.

Ryusei’s voice, his sudden warning, had been the only reason she still breathed. On a simple C-rank escort, no less.

‘He must have some kind of advanced sensory field around him at all times… that’s why he caught the ambush before I did,’ She thought, eyes tightening as she fought. ‘If I hadn’t happened to be passing right beside him, if he wasn’t there, I’d already be dead.”

***

‘Am I seriously the unluckiest transmigrator alive? Come on, give me a break…’ Ryusei’s thoughts were bitter, but his face was grave and even visibly desperate as he barely parried the crushing strikes coming at him.

From the instant he failed to sense the attacker until the moment the man erupted from the ground, Ryusei knew the situation had gone to hell.

He never imagined a threat like this would appear on a routine C-rank. Even split into three clones, the enemy’s strength was overwhelming. Ryusei couldn’t even match the one clone in front of him.

Part of him wanted to give up, yet his body refused. He racked his brain frantically, trying to find any opening.

The longer their fists clashed, the more Ryusei was battered back, but oddly, his mind grew sharper. His eyes widened slightly.

‘This taijutsu style? And earlier, he hid his chakra well enough to slip past my sensory field? No way…’

At the same time, the masked man also faltered. Inside, he felt a jolt of surprise.

The boy’s movements, a bit inexperienced but undeniably familiar, mirrored his own. It wasn’t a mistake.

The question now was how closely the boy was connected to him in lineage. It couldn’t just be a coincidence, could it?

He slowed, then stopped, staring closely at the boy’s narrow-eyed face under the moonlight.

The more he looked, the more familiar it seemed.

“Sir, I think we might be related. Someone as advanced as you must have already noticed the similarities between our chakra signatures and taijutsu styles, probably even more clearly than I have. We’re both our own people, so… can we at least clear up these doubts first?”

Ryusei spoke quickly, the words tumbling out before the silence stretched too long.

He didn’t want to give the man a chance to reconsider and strike again.

If there was a connection, he had to force it into the open now, while the hesitation still lingered.

After a few breaths of silence, the masked man let out a long sigh.

“Yes… The age, the face, even the chakra signature all line up. More than you realize right now. Boy, tell me your name. I can already tell you’re Senju, but what’s your first name!?”

His voice was sharp, impatient, yet Ryusei caught the faintest crack in it, a flicker of excitement that slipped through.

‘Oh shit… what a bizarre coincidence…’ Ryusei felt the weight on his chest finally lift.

If this man had been just another enemy, surviving might’ve been harder than his last B-rank mission.

But no, there was a thread of connection here. And not a small one.

Ryusei now even felt like this was the kind of scene only those cliché protagonists from his past life’s fantasy stories ever got to experience, long-lost relatives appearing out of nowhere, connected by fate itself.

‘So… I’ve got a protagonist aura after all? Destiny’s chosen?’ he thought, chest swelling for exactly three seconds.

Then reality smacked him across the face. With his kind of personality, the type that would happily betray the world before letting the world betray him, the type that would kill countless innocents just to make sure one enemy didn’t crawl away alive, he was closer to the final boss than the hero.

And the man in front of him wasn’t exactly radiating “kind uncle energy” either. His chakra was heavy, sharp, full of thirst for desires and blood. Even with Ryusei’s half-baked sensory skills, he could feel it clearly.

‘…Yeah. Forget protagonist. I’m probably the villain here,’ Ryusei decided grimly, though he couldn’t help smirking at the thought.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep