They arrived at the front line the following day.
Yuji felt the difference the mont they crossed into the combat zone. This was not an outpost or a border patrol position, it was a garrison, active and inhabited, built into the landscape with the permanence of sothing that had been there for years and expected to remain.
Tents covered the desert floor and spread into the areas behind the mountains. The distant peaks had Sunagakure footholds cut into them. Shinobi moved through the camp in steady streams, coming and going with the purposeful rhythm of a force that had long since stopped treating this as temporary.
A welcoming party t them at the edge of the zone and walked them in, directing most of the explanation toward Yuji. Among their group, he was the only one genuinely new to a front-line posting.
Nearly two thousand shinobi in the daily garrison alone, excluding the scattered outpost personnel. Logistics, dical, Intelligence, Puppeteers, Military Affairs, Analysis, Reconnaissance, every operational function represented and staffed.
For Sunagakure’s current reserves, the scale was considerable.
It felt nothing like the missions he had done before. The border near Agakure had carried nothing close to this weight of presence.
That difference said sothing clear about how Sunagakure ranked its threats, Iwagakure on one side of the scale, Agakure on the other, and no ambiguity about which end concerned them more.
Further north lay the Land of Birds. Iwagakure treated it the way Konoha treated the Land of Grass, a buffer, a forward position, but Sunagakure lacked the reach to push conflict into that territory and keep it there.
Without that ability, any exchange with Iwagakure would eventually co back to the Land of Wind itself, which gave Iwagakure room to operate without risking its own ground.
As they moved deeper into the garrison, voices called out from among the shinobi nearby.
"Yuji? That’s Yuji."
"You actually ca out here, kid."
He recognized so of them. Others he didn’t, but they clearly knew him, people he had treated at the hospital, shinobi who were still walking around because of work he had done at a bed sowhere in Sunagakure.
He returned each greeting with a nod, unhurried, genuinely warm.
Sasori glanced at him sideways.
He hadn’t expected this.
Shimizu was a lean, dark-skinned man, and he ca to et them himself. The unit leader stepped forward imdiately, reporting and making introductions. Shimizu listened, then looked at their group with an expression that briefly registered disappointnt before settling back into neutrality. He didn’t comnt on the numbers.
His gaze moved to Yuji and stayed there. He had been on this front for years and had only heard things about the village’s rising talent secondhand; this was their first eting. Sasori, he already knew.
Two Puppeteers tended to know of each other regardless of circumstance, and Sasori’s ability was not sothing that stayed quiet for long.
"Get a few captains and Squad Leaders," he said to the unit leader, still looking at the docunt that had been handed to him.
The leader left.
Shimizu read through it.
"Yuji."
"Here."
"dical Ninja?"
"Yes."
Shimizu started to say sothing and stopped. His eyes had reached the mission data.
A-rank and B-rank missions, at this volu, at this age. A-rank missions were Jonin-level assignnts by definition. The number in front of him could not be described as outstanding, it had passed that point entirely. He looked at it for a mont longer.
dical Ninja operated differently from combat Ninja. Long-term battlefield postings, support roles, and extended deploynts, the nature of the work kept mission counts low. This record did not belong to that pattern.
"What kind of missions?" he asked.
"Intelligence work, mostly. Independent squad assault operations." Yuji smiled.
"..."
Shimizu’s expression shifted slightly as he closed the docunt.
From a purely functional standpoint, Yuji belonged in the dical Corps, that was straightforward. But a dical Ninja with a mission record like this sitting in logistical support was a waste of ability that was difficult to justify cleanly.
"Who was your ntor?"
"Arai-sensei. Most of these missions, Sasori and I completed together."
"Not bad," Shimizu said, which was the most neutral thing he could find.
He turned it over privately. The volu of missions made more sense if Yuji had leaned heavily on Arai and Sasori, he was a dical Ninja after all, and while his Chunin promotion had co early, dical Ninja assessnts weighed clinical skill over combat output.
He had also heard sothing about a Kekkei Genkai. Perhaps the missions had served as a way to develop that side of his ability. Shimizu had been on this front for long enough that village news rarely reached him in any detail, and he had too many daily matters to chase it down himself.
He was not aware that Yuji’s Chunin examination had been personally overseen by the Third Kazekage.
"Shimizu."
Several captains and Squad Leaders were approaching from across the camp, the one at the front calling ahead as they ca.
Shimizu set aside the thought. "Roster’s here," he said to them as they drew near. "Co take a look, pick who you want."
Before anyone had properly looked at Yuji, a figure broke from the group at speed, crossed the distance between them, and wrapped both arms around him without slowing down.
Yuji went still.
He had no idea who this woman was.
"You’re even cuter in person," she said, holding him with the complete ease of soone who had already decided this was entirely acceptable.
"Hands off, all of you, he’s a dical Ninja, which ans he’s coming to the dical Corps. That’s final." She turned on the other captains and Squad Leaders with her arms still around Yuji, her expression making clear that the matter was settled.
"Saori," said a captain with a heavy stubble, sighing with the resignation of soone who had been through this before. "You’re going to frighten him."
"I don’t care. He’s mine. None of you are taking him."
The dical Corps and a dical Squad were not the sa structure. The Corps was the central body, the main hospital, effectively. dical Squads were the branch units, one embedded in each team across the force, smaller in number and far more exposed. The distinction was not trivial.
Several people in the queue exchanged glances. The boy had been claid before he’d had a chance to say a word. That was either connections or reputation, and with Yuji it was apparently both.
"Think about it properly," Saori continued, turning back to the other officers with the air of soone delivering a lecture they had already decided to ignore at their peril. "In the Corps, his skills reach the entire army. In one of your squads, he leaves the garrison on missions. That is not happening.
And before anyone suggests his age is a reason to underestimate what he can do.." her eyes moved across the group "...I would encourage you to consider how well my mory works when it cos to which of your people co through my ward."
The silence that followed was complete.
"She has a point," soone said eventually, with considerable reluctance.
Saori ignored this entirely and turned back to Yuji, pressing her cheek against his with visible satisfaction. "Big Sister has been waiting since she heard you were coming."
Yuji, who considered himself reasonably adaptable in most social situations, had run out of responses. He raised one hand toward Shimizu with the expression of a person appealing to a higher authority.
"Can I choose for myself where I’m assigned?"
...
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