Chapter 170: Unexpected Changes
On the border of the Land of Lightning, a Cloud ninja squad was on a mission. The leader was a young kunoichi with doe-like eyes and a snail shell hair ornament, a sign of her lively personality.
She took out a picture and showed it to her three students.
"Listen up," she said. "Today's mission is to collect a special type of mushroom in this forest. This mushroom usually grows on the upper trunks of large trees and is a rare and precious ingredient. Your mission is to collect all of them that are longer than a finger."
"Sensei Mihara," one of the newly graduated Genin complained, "we finally get to leave the village, and this is the mission we get? I thought we were going to be clearing out bandits."
"You just graduated," she said, rapping him on the head, "and you're already thinking about fighting? What makes you so confident? If you're so strong, why didn't you participate in the Joint Chunin Exams? Every match there was a fight."
The three of them were speechless. They were a long way from being able to participate in the exams. They hadn't even had the courage to sign up.
"And," she continued, "you must use the tree-walking technique the entire time. No climbing with your hands and feet. Do you hear me? Ninomiya, you will supervise them."
She pointed to the most honest of the three, Amemaru Ninomiya.
Their protests were in vain. They had no choice but to go and pick mushrooms. She supervised them for a while, and after making sure there were no problems, she found a place to slack off.
After a while, she got a little bored. She took off the snail shell hair ornament. "Yuyu," she said, "do you want something to eat? I found some raspberries in the forest."
A little slug poked its head out of the shell. Its antennae twitched, and a shy voice echoed in her mind.
"Thank you, Mihara-chan!"
Yuyu was the name she had given her little slug. Many of the ninja had done the same, as a sign of intimacy.
Her eyes crinkled into a smile. She placed the raspberries she had found on her hand, and the little slug crawled out of the shell to enjoy the treat.
The little slug's telepathy was a direct connection to her mind, so it was easy to chat while it ate.
"Yuyu," she asked, "can you contact anyone in the village from here?"
"It's a little far," it said, "but I can try. Is it that Kuroki-kun?"
"Hehe," she said with a grin. "Yes, yes, it's Kuroki-senpai. Try for me, please."
The little slug's antennae twirled in the air, but after a long time, they drooped.
"I'm sorry, Mihara-chan," it said apologetically. "It's too far. I can't reach him."
"It's okay, it's okay," she said, waving her hand. "It's a long way. This is the edge of the barrier. It's fine if you can't connect. I was just bored."
After the little slug had finished eating, she was about to put it back in its shell and put it back on her head.
Suddenly, a figure emerged from the forest behind her.
Her expression immediately changed, and she spun around.
A tall man with long, white hair.
And he was likely a ninja. An ordinary person couldn't have gotten so close without her noticing. And an ordinary person wouldn't be wearing geta in a forest like this.
She placed her hand on her ninja pouch, ready for anything.
The tall, white-haired man glanced at her hand and stopped, not getting any closer. "I'm sorry to bother you," he said. "I wasn't trying to spy, but since I saw, I have to ask. The thing you were just feeding, and the hair ornament on your head, what are they? They look very similar to a friend of mine's summoned beast."
"Who are you?" she said, holding a kunai in front of her. "An enemy ninja? You have the nerve to come to the Land of Lightning!"
"An enemy country?" he said, scratching his head. "I'm just traveling on my own for now. From your forehead protector, you're a Cloud ninja, right? But from what I know, my friend's summoned beast would never be in the hands of the Cloud."
His expression grew serious. He had just finished a long period of training on Mount Myoboku and had, by a stroke of luck, seen the scene from a moment ago. He had to find out what was going on.
She felt a great deal of pressure from the man in front of her. It was not from his tall frame, but from his aura.
"Lady Katsuyu?" he said, speaking directly to the snail shell on her head. "If it's you, please come out. It's me!"
He didn't say his name, but he was confident that she would remember him, or recognize him.
But he was to be disappointed. The little slugs in the Communication Snails all had their own independent consciousness. Even if they had inherited that memory, they would not have appeared. They would only choose to help the person they were with day in and day out.
She didn't know what this "Lady Katsuyu" had to do with her Communication Snail, but she couldn't reveal any information about it to such a suspicious person. It seemed a conflict was inevitable.
As a newly promoted Jonin, she was under a great deal of pressure, especially with her three students, who could come back at any moment.
Her face impassive, she said to her little slug in her mind, "Yuyu, open a public channel for help."
The "public channel" was a special function of the Communication Snail. When activated, the little slug would send a distress signal to all other Communication Snails and their corresponding ninja within range. And any Cloud ninja with a snail within range would be sure to receive it, even if they didn't know each other.
Though this was a remote location, it was still within the Land of Lightning. There might be other Cloud ninja nearby.
Seeing that the snail shell was not moving, and the Cloud ninja was on high alert, Jiraiya's face grew cold. "Then I'm afraid I'll have to be rude," he said. "I'll have to take you down and then ask my questions."
He had to find out what was going on.
In Shikkotsu Forest, Dana was tapping a massive, Earth Release-created blackboard.
"Lady Katsuyu," he said, "you've gotten this question wrong three times now!"
The mountain-sized Katsuyu lowered her dozens-of-meters-long antennae. "I'm sorry, Yotsuki-kun," her low voice echoed in his mind.
He was a little frustrated.
Katsuyu and the little slugs had a special spatial sense. Even if they were on opposite sides of the world, she would know their location. But she couldn't clearly articulate this sense. And to make it accurate, to make it usable, they needed a precise descriptive language.
For example, if an artilleryman wanted to bomb a certain location, he couldn't just say, "Bomb ten kilometers in front of me," or "Bomb thirty kilometers to the right of the command post." He had to report the specific coordinates, the latitude and longitude.
So, for the past few days, he had been teaching her basic mathematics and the concept of a coordinate system. This way, the Communication Snails could be perfectly integrated with the Heavenly Transfer Jutsu, and could have many other wonderful applications.
He had thought that basic math and the coordinate system were not difficult, and that she would be able to master them quickly. But it seemed that in this world, there were just some creatures that were not good at math. Like a certain Eight-Tails Jinchuriki, a certain ANBU elite, and a certain thousand-year-old slug sage.