Naruto: This Uchiha is too innocent.

Waaaaah—

The sandstorm finally subsided, and the hurricane had swept away the cheetah carcasses without a trace, leaving only a vast expanse of yellow earth.

Uchiha Sora and Hyuga Ame slowly emerged from the cave entrance, both remaining silent, an awkward atmosphere hanging in the air.

Uchiha Sora touched his nose, his heart filled with mixed feelings. He deliberately ignored the gaze beside him, only feeling a headache coming on.

Question: A beautiful but aloof young woman looks directly into your eyes and says something like, "You are special." How should you respond to this situation?

Uchiha Sora chose to escape, acting as if he hadn't heard those words, and shifted his attention to observing his surroundings.

Beside him, Hinata Yu silently stared at him. Seeing that he remained unmoved, she couldn't help but sigh softly, then looked away and gazed at the shocking deep pits not far away.

"Those deep pits, if I'm not mistaken, were caused by that monster," Hinata Ame's voice broke the silence.

Upon hearing this, Uchiha Sora was about to kowtow to her, and the awkward atmosphere was finally eased by her words.

He stared at the enormous crater before him and clicked his tongue in amazement. "Tsk, this is terrifying... Momonosuke really thinks highly of me, sending me to investigate this thing."

Hinata Yu frowned slightly and slowly said, "Our mission this time is to investigate an unknown force that is hostile to Hanzo. You seem very certain that the monster is related to the target we are looking for."

"Ah, this..." Uchiha Sora blinked, "A man's intuition."

He knew perfectly well that the so-called unknown force referred to Nagato, and the monster was the Ten-Tails that Nagato had summoned. However, besides him, probably only Hanzo and Danzo knew this truth.

Therefore, this mission didn't really mean much to him, since he had initially come with the goal of finding the answer through the process. But he couldn't reveal the truth, because he couldn't explain how he knew all of this.

He really didn't expect that Hinata Ame would be so perceptive. He had only mentioned it casually, and she was able to accurately grasp the key point.

Hinata Ame gazed at Uchiha Sora silently for a while, and finally accepted this somewhat ridiculous excuse. She understood the secret Uchiha Sora was hiding, but she wouldn't press him for details.

"What should we do next?"

Upon hearing this, Uchiha Sora looked around, his gaze falling on the shocking craters, and said, "Follow these tracks all the way. If we're lucky, we might just encounter the mission target directly. In that case, this mission will be over."

He and Xiao Nan could barely be considered friends. Besides completing the mission, he also wanted to understand the current situation.

Looking at the traces around us, it's clear that the Ten-Tails has been destroying things along the way. If we follow these traces, we'll most likely find Nagato.

The two followed the signs of destruction, encountering sandstorms several times along the way, but they managed to find shelter in time. Hinata Ame opened up a hole large enough for the two of them, so no awkward incidents occurred.

Soon, the two followed the signs of destruction along the way and arrived at a valley. Inside the valley, the air currents clashed violently, producing hoarse sounds like those of ghosts.

Uchiha Sora raised his hand and gently tapped the wall in front of him. After listening for a moment, he said, "This place is most likely the source of the sandstorm."

"Get rid of it?" Hinata Ame raised her fist, as if she were about to block the entrance completely with one punch.

Indeed, she possessed that ability. Due to wind and sand erosion, the walls here were merely a facade, seemingly hard but actually quite brittle. With the two of them working together, it wouldn't take long to seal the entrance.

"Hmm... no need." Uchiha Sora shook his head slightly. "This sandstorm is a unique feature of the loess slopes, so let's leave it as it is. ...The deep pits end here, so the target is most likely hiding in this valley. Next... it's mission time."

After saying that, Uchiha Sora reached out and opened the sword box, took out a mask and mission uniform, and threw one of them to Hyuga Ame.

Since arriving in Amegakure, in order to minimize unnecessary trouble, the two of them traveled light, wearing raincoats just like the local villagers.

Now that we've entered the mission phase, it's natural to change into an ANBU uniform.

Hinata Ame fastened the fox mask, revealing only a pair of jet-black pupils. These black pupils were actually a clever illusion, meticulously crafted from special materials. They neither revealed the existence of her Byakugan nor affected its effects, making them practically tailor-made for Hinata Ame.

Uchiha Sora had changed his clothes. The two exchanged a glance and silently prepared to step into the valley.

Swish-!

Suddenly, a sharp, piercing sound came from afar. The speed was so fast that it was unbelievable, like a black lightning bolt.

Before Uchiha Sora could even react, danger was already upon him. At the critical moment, Hyuga Ame struck out with a palm, accurately deflecting the whistling kunai, while simultaneously grabbing Uchiha Sora and quickly retreating.

It turned out that, at the instant the sound of something cutting through the air rang out, Hyuga Ame used her Byakugan out of instinct. With a 359-degree field of vision and only a 1-degree blind spot, she immediately detected the direction of the kunai's attack and saved Uchiha Sora in time.

Coming to his senses, Uchiha Sora calmly gazed at the approaching ninja in the distance, lost in thought.

"They actually found out? Are the ninjas of Amegakure this elite?"

He reflected on his experiences in Amegakure these past few days. He and Hyuga Ame had spent most of their time gathering information in the tavern, and he didn't think that this would expose their identities.

The only unexpected thing...

He thought of something and turned his gaze to Hinata Yu beside him. The latter had obviously thought of it as well, and was staring at him with an apologetic look in her eyes.

"I'm sorry, I should have killed him," Hinata Ame said decisively.

If there's one thing that could possibly expose their whereabouts, it's that drunkard. At the time, Hinata Ame felt there was no need to kill the drunkard; she just wanted to make sure he had no offspring.

Clearly, something happened during that time, and the drunkard reported their whereabouts to Hanzo.

"It's not your fault. As a senior, I was careless." Uchiha Sora shook his head.

Regardless, their whereabouts have been exposed. It seems Hanzo is very angry with Konoha, sending so many ninjas to surround and annihilate them.

He could even sense the presence of a Jonin from their aura.

All we had to do was find Nagato, have a quick chat, and the mission would have been over. But we never expected to run into this mess.

"White Fox, we may be facing a tough battle ahead," Uchiha Sora said softly, slowly raising his Kusanagi sword.

"The Dance of the Crescent Moon"