CH_91

Chirp-chirp-chirp, chirp-chirp~ Birds were already hopping and singing among the trees, though the sky had barely begun to lighten.

"Awake?" Neru, sitting in a tree, saw Tōji open his eyes.

"Morning, Neru." Tōji wasn't feeling particularly alert yet.

"Morning. Want to sleep a little longer? Natchi's still out cold—it's not even five yet." Neru said.

"Nah—once I'm up, I can't fall back asleep." Tōji sat up and looked at Neru.

"Suit yourself, then." Neru didn't seem interested in making conversation. She picked up a scroll and resumed reading it—that was when Tōji realized she'd already started studying some technique as soon as the sky had begun to brighten.

"What a strange girl." Tōji muttered under his breath.

In his impression, Neru was the type who feared death and craved strong protection—someone who worked hard to improve herself, yet had no real dreams.

Tōji didn't want to dwell on random thoughts. He walked over to a nearby stream to wash his face.

By the faint light, he gazed at his blurry reflection in the water…

He'd dreamed of his previous life last night—of the same ordinary version of himself.

An ordinary birth. Ordinary learning ability. Ordinary talent.

Yet he'd had a heart that refused to settle for the ordinary—he'd gone to the big city to chase his dreams, only to end up with nothing.

『If only I'd been born into something better in this life. But I'm just average—what can I do about it?』

Slap! Tōji struck the water with both hands, scattering his reflection. He scooped up handfuls of water and splashed them onto his face.

The spring water was still cold, but Tōji found it refreshing.

More awake now, he walked back to the mound and found that Natchi was no longer asleep either. He had that look of wanting to sleep but not being able to.

"Can't sleep, Natchi?" Tōji asked.

"Can't—the birds in this Forest of Death are way too loud!" Natchi's mock-annoyed expression was a little funny.

"Then let's grab some food and get moving." Tōji was already reaching for his rations. "No matter what we decide for day three, I'm not going to waste the remaining time. Let's search for scrolls first."

"Fine." "No problem." Both agreed.

…

"Tomorrow at noon, we'll find out if our guess was right!" Natchi said between chews of dried meat.

"It probably is. There's no way to find them otherwise. I doubt any of the 13 teams will find a single scroll." Neru waited until she'd swallowed before speaking.

"Eleven teams, actually! Tōji already tricked two teams with his fake scrolls." Natchi tore off another piece of dried meat.

"You think those fake scrolls can actually fool anyone?" Tōji said with a hint of exasperation.

He'd put some effort into making the fake scrolls look convincing—but in reality, they were just blank scrolls with a few lines of text he'd written, with no chakra signature or any jutsu sealed inside.

"They looked pretty real to me." Natchi didn't seem to care about Tōji's dubious look.

"After all, nobody knows what the real ones look like—someone might actually fall for it. Besides, we put on a decent act, didn't we?" Neru recalled the two times they'd run into other squads.

"It doesn't matter whether they believe it or not—one or two more teams out of the way wouldn't hurt." Tōji wasn't bothered either way.

His original intention in buying blank scrolls was to use them as decoys if another team tried to steal the real one after they'd found it.

But when they'd encountered another squad, Tōji had a sudden idea—could he trick some of these opponents into leaving the Forest of Death early?

The contents of his fake scrolls included a fabricated location for Yūhi Shinku.

Neru said, "Let's rest well tonight—tomorrow's the critical moment!"

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The connection was so bad yesterday that I couldn't even log in, so I ended up not updating.