Naruto: We Agreed on a Simulation, But They Actually Came to Life?

Chapter 103: Chapter 103 Sometimes I Wonder

Some time had passed since the incident with the ANBU.

Kitahara Kaede no longer detected anyone tailing him. During this period, he had met with Pakura twice. The routine remained the same: exchange scrolls, confirm, and store.

Each time, Pakura would stand and make her way toward the door. As she reached the exit, she would pause. She never turned around fully, merely tilting her head slightly.

"That intel you gave me last time," she had said.

Kaede looked up at her.

"I completed the mission, and Sunagakure gave me a commendation."

Kaede didn’t respond immediately. There was no logical reason for a handler to turn around and tell her asset that she had been praised by the village. He watched the profile of her face.

"That’s good, then."

Pakura remained standing, motionless. After a moment, she frowned. The expression was fleeting, as if she herself didn’t quite understand why she had felt the need to mention it. Then, she turned and left.

Their second meeting was even shorter. Kaede primarily wanted to confirm one thing: that no new eyes had appeared after the death of that ANBU member.

Upon hearing this, Pakura didn’t seem relieved. Instead, she stared at him and asked, "Are you certain?"

Kaede met her gaze. "At least within the range I can confirm, there is no one."

Pakura searched his eyes for several seconds. "Fine."

She rose and departed.

After that, the two did not meet again until three days ago, when Kaede returned to his residence and discovered a signal. After verifying it, he left the village at the appointed time.

***

The shack atop the slope.

He had arrived early. He sat leaning against the corner of the wall, listening to the sound of the tide outside. As the sky darkened, the sound of footsteps approached from the bushes to the east.

Pakura entered, scanning the room first as she always did. Unlike the previous few times, she didn’t remain standing. She walked over to him and sat down, leaning her back against the wall. One leg was bent with her arm resting on her knee, while the other remained stretched out.

"The scroll."

Kaede handed it over. Pakura unfurled it and flipped through the pages. Her pace was significantly faster than usual; she barely skimmed the key sections before moving on. Her mind wasn’t entirely on the intelligence.

Once finished, she tucked it away and produced a new set of instructions from Sunagakure, handing them to him. Kaede took them and read through the contents. It was routine.

As he put the instructions away, his gaze drifted from the line of Pakura’s shoulder to her back. The neckline of her backless outfit dipped low, revealing clean skin between her shoulder blades. At the site of her previous wound, there wasn’t even a faint scar.

He withdrew his gaze. Pakura’s finger paused on her knee.

"What are you looking at?"

"The medicine worked."

Pakura didn’t respond to that. Kaede didn’t press further; instead, he studied her face. Her brow was slightly furrowed, and there was a faint bluish shadow beneath her eyes. It didn’t look like something that had developed in just a day or two.

"What’s wrong?"

Pakura’s hand stopped moving. She didn’t answer immediately. A few seconds later, she pulled a folded piece of thin paper from her clothes. She gripped it in her palm and looked down at it, but she didn’t hand it over.

"Recently, the orders from Sunagakure have changed."

Kaede waited.

"It used to be one every half-month. Recently, it’s been one every three or four days." She paused. "A few times, the mission targets overlapped with previous ones. It’s as if they’re trying to confirm my location."

Kaede remained silent, processing the information. The Third Shinobi World War was over, and Sunagakure had been hit hard. The economy of the Land of Wind had always been precarious, and the war had only made things tighter.

But the aftermath of the war wasn’t over. Border frictions between Sunagakure, Iwa, and Kirigakure were still ongoing. The Third Mizukage was dead, and Yagura had immediately ascended to power. Sunagakure was reaching its breaking point, and the people at the top were certainly looking for a solution.

What kind of solution?

A thought surfaced in Kaede’s mind, but he suppressed it. "Has something happened within Sunagakure?"

Pakura shook her head. "There’s no concrete news, but my intuition is sounding an alarm."

Her voice was very low. Kaede looked at her. Pakura never spoke like this. She either had a definitive judgment or she remained silent. For her to say her "intuition was sounding an alarm" meant she had investigated everything she could and found nothing she could piece together.

"Pause for now," he said. "Put any high-risk actions on hold. Wait until their intentions are clear before moving again."

Pakura was silent for a few seconds. "I can’t stop."

She didn’t look at him. "When an order arrives, it must be executed. If I suddenly stop moving, they won’t think I’ve run into trouble." She stuffed the paper back into her clothes. "They’ll only think I’ve become a problem."

Kaede opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. She was right.

Pakura pushed herself up from her knee and stood. She didn’t head for the door; instead, she walked to the window opening and looked outside. The sky had grown dim, and the sea was a blur of gray.

Kaede remained where he sat, watching her silhouette. The edge of her backless dress pressed against the line of her shoulder blades, making her look strikingly thin.

After a while, she spoke. "Sometimes I wonder..."

Her voice drifted back from the window. "If I weren’t one of Sunagakure’s people, would I be living a completely different life?"

The sea breeze swept half of her voice away. After speaking, she let out a small laugh of her own. The corners of her mouth curled slightly, then quickly flattened.

Kaede didn’t respond. She pushed herself away from the wall and brushed off her clothes with a brisk movement. As she turned, she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"Stay safe."

With that, she left. Kaede stood up and watched Pakura’s figure recede into the distance.

She had never shown him that piece of paper. Was it because she didn’t want to say, or because she couldn’t?

There was another possibility: she was afraid that if he saw it, he would do something unnecessary on her behalf.

It seemed he needed to start making preparations.