Surprisingly Gaara actually hugged her, which caught the kages quite off guard--and Shine almost as much so.

"Temari told me you would come, but I was starting to think it was going to be too late," he said, in a tone much more softened by time than he used to talk, though still with his roughness.

"You haven't changed at all..." Gaara said, looking at Shine more closely.

"I haven't exactly had the time to change much," Shine said. "But I've been keeping up with all of you. I'm so proud of your efforts with this uniting of the five nations... These are the other kage, right?"

Only Mei looked vaguely amused by this; the others were affronted that she was speaking of them so familiarly.

"Shine Likstar?" Tsunade finally spoke. "Why are you back? I thought that we were rid of you last time."

"Well, it's nice to see you too, Tsunade." Shine didn't even use her title. "I thought you could use all the help you could get. And you brought Naruto."

Naruto, in fact, wasn't that far away.

"He just left us," Gaara said. "He says he can help us spot the clones."

"Well, I guess that takes care of one problem then," Shine said. "I thought us doing it would take a long time even with Wally's speed. Oh, and the camp is safe, for a while anyway. We blocked it off. Temari is all right also. I haven't seen Kankuro yet."

"He should be all right," Gaara said, relieved. "Thank you. That's already a huge help. Did you all return?"

"All of us and 3 more," Shine said. "You have to meet them--but I guess that can wait." Noticing the looks the kage were giving her. "How else can we help you?"

"I don't know yet. I'd have to consult with the others to see where we most need help," Gaara said more seriously.

"Ahem," Lord Ay said louldy. "Would someone tell me who this person is and why she's acting on your behalf?"

"Oh." Gaara had forgotten they didn't know. "Kage, this is my esteemed teacher, Shine Likstar. She and her team were of great help to me 3 years ago and have kept in touch since then to offer help when we need it."

"This is the first I've heard of her," Onoki, the Tsuchikage, said warily. "Is she a spy?"

"Why does everyone think that?" Shine asked, though she knew.

"She looks foreign," Mei said. "Where is your headband?"

"Oh, in my other clothes, I suppose," Shine said lightly. In fact she did have headbands in her traveling pack.

"She works with Sand," Gaara covered for her swiftly. "Wearing the headband openly right now would give her away to the enemy. I assume you were gathering intel." He really hoped that Shine in fact had.

Thankfully he was right.

"I do have some," Shine said. "But how useful it will be, I can't say. My team is focused on the clones right now. We should let them know Naruto is going to help with that...but wasn't he not supposed to be here?"

"Well, he persuaded us to let him fight," Tsunade said. "And we need his help. I would like to know where you've been for years that you have intelligence on our enemy? In the Akatsuki?"

She was fully expecting to insult Shine by that idea, but Shine just laughed at her, which made her mad.

"Do I have purple nail polish on?" She held up her hands. "Or that ugly coat they all wear? Geez, I'm not Sasuke, all right? I don't join terrorist groups. But listen, you probably should know that Kabuto has a trump card."

"And who could be that powerful?" Tsunade said. "Not Orochimaru."

"Orochimaru could not handle all of you," Shine said. "I'm not sure I should say it, just in case I have it wrong, but surely you can think of some unfortunate possibilities."

"There is my grandfather," Tsunade said.

"Well, that's not too far off the scale," Shine said.

"And when will he use this person?" Lord Ay was suspicious. "And how do you know this?"

"I'm not sure I need to explain it to you," Shine said. "I work with Gaara, and he is well aware of my reliability. It will be in an open area with rocks, that's all I know. Warning you is the only thing I can do. Regular soldiers will be nothing to this person, however. You all might stand a chance of delaying him."

"Delaying him?" Mei said. "You're so sure we can't destroy whoever it is?"

Shine shrugged. "No one knows what can happen, but it's not likely, not yet. As an aside, I hate this reincarnation jutsu. It's highly forbidden in my religion, and nothing good will come of it using it, not even to the user."

"None of us like it," Gaara said. "But can you stop it?"

"Directly? Yes, it should be easy," Shine said, startling the kages yet again. "But that will be picking off ticks one by one off of a host. Taking out the caster is the only way."

"A nice thought," Onoki said, "If we knew where he was."

Shine winked at Gaara.

"Is that safe, though?" Gaara asked her.

"It's not safe to not try," Shine said. "But I'm not sure my team will agree with me...and we can't do anything unless you ask us to."

"What kind of bull is that?" Lord Ay said, loudly.

"Sir, do you mind?" Shine glanced at him. "I'm trying to confer with the Kazekage and you're kind of distracting me."

"Why, you..." Ay turned purple. "Insolent..."

"Yes, she is that," Tsunade said, flatly. "But I heard that she once bested Orochimaru nearly single handedly, so we can't just not use her if she's offering."

"Interesting," Mei said. 

"Ask you to?" Gaara asid.

"Yes, we have to work together," Shine said. "But you have to stay on the battlefield, and Temari can't be away from it for long, can she? Someone else will have to help us..."

Suddenly, she felt her pocket.

Then she pulled out a piece of paper and scanned it.

"The Lord is with us," she said, looking up. "I can't believe it, but it seems the girls have had the same idea I did. In spades. Can you authorize us to go look for Kabuto? It seems they want your stamp of approval over at the Intelligence office."

"I can," Gaara said, "though such a decision perhaps should be a team one." He looked at the kages.

"You want to find him, alone?" Mei said.

"Not alone, my team and I... It seems they want to recruit Sai," Shine said. "It's not a bad idea. It seems that all of us thought of it at almost the same time, which is a pretty good sign we should just do it."

"If that's the case, then I have no reason to dissuade you," Gaara said. "Does that agree with all of you?" To the others.

"If they want to try, I don't care," Tsunade said. "The only risk to us is if they die...or become puppets."

"That won't happen, whatever else does," Shine said staunchly.

"It doesn't hurt us either," Mei said. 

Onoki grunted. "Go kill yourselves if you want, as long as we don't have to do anything more."

Ay didn't object, just frowned and nodded.

"Right, that's settled then," Shine said. "If it works, you'll hear from me by tomorrow morning. And we can take Sai, if he's willing?"

"If it's a direct order, he won't have much choice," Tsunade said.

"I wouldn't force him to do something so uncannily dangerous like this," Shine said. "War or no war, there are limits."

"We can spare him if he wants to try it." Tsunade waved her hand. "Why not? If you find Kabuto, give him my regards."

"I think my team will be busy giving him their own, but if I think of it, sure," Shine said dryly.

She hurried around some rocks and vanished.

* * *

Shine joined Wally and startled Ino and Choji.

"It's so weird that you guys thought of the same thing," she said, without much of an introduction. "Because I was literally just talking to Gaara about it when I got the message."

"That's crazy," Wally said. "We're so in sync, maybe we can mind meld too?"

"Huh?" Ino said, confused.

"I got the go ahead from the kages to try this," Shine said. "Hello, Ino. Sorry, I'm being rude. It's nice to see you again"

"Oh...uh...likewise," Ino said blankly, "Likstar-san."

"You've grown too," Shine said. "You're all so tall now. And good looking."

"Oh, well..." Ino reddened.

"Stop with the butt kissing," Bakugo told Shine.

"Oh, please, Katsuki, I would say the same thing to you," Shine embarrassed him by replying dryly. "With that cute little face of--"

"Shut up!" Bakugo cut her off.

"Cute?" Choji said. "He's not at all."

"Shut up, Fatso!" Bakugo said.

Choji gave him a furious look, and his hand reached out to try to clock Bakugo in the head.

Bakugo dodged it however.

"Bakugo," Shoto said. "That's not a fair thing to make fun of."

"To be fair, Choji started it," Shine said, grabbing Bakugo by his collar and pulling him away. "Let's just call it even. We have to go. Babe?"

"Yeah, I'm ready." Wally rubbed his hands.

"Actually...Ino, do you mind coming with us?" Shine asked.

"Me?" Ino said.

"I just thought of something," Shine said. "We might need your help."

"Mine? Uh, I mean, I'm not really doing anything else right now..." Ino shrugged. [Typical, right?]

Choji could not be left alone, but there were other shinobi not that far off whom he joined, including Tenten, who was very surprised to see them, but there was no time to explain to her.

* * *

Shine and Wally moved so fast that Shikamaru had hardly finished his explanation to the girls and Dabi when they joined them.

The whole plan had taken them hardly 15 minutes to come up with, and Temari was impressed. She knew Shine acted fast and with confidence, and the other three had been strong fighters, but to find all of them so in sync was a surprise--last time had not gone so well, to her mind.

Sai had been sent for. Fortunately he was not that far away anyway, as they'd drawn back for the night.

He had been with Kakashi, who returned with him and was greatly surprised to find the DJ team there.

Camie was enthused to meet him, but not given much time to do so. Shikamaru was explaining to Sai what they wanted him to do.

"These people think they can find and subdue Kabuto and put an end to the reincarnation and the clones," he said. "At least, making new clones. There's still the 7 Tailed Beasts to think of, but we'd be a lot closer to winning the war...but it is dangerous. No telling what Kabuto might be capable of doing to anyone who gets close, so, they didn't want to force you to go."

"It's not much of a question, is it?" Sai said, with his monotone. "I'm here to be of service, the same as all of you."

"I thought you'd say that," Shikamaru said. "However, all you'll have to do is fly them close anyway...but since we don't have a specific location, you'll have to go with them. I guess you could retreat."

"What about me?" Ino asked. "Why am I here?"

Her father was looking from her to them warily.

"If it's okay with them--" Shine nodded at the Intelligence group. "--I thought, in the event that we're delayed or get in over our head, it would be good to have someone they can contact with us. You know us already, and you know them, so you make a lot of sense...but since it is risky, you can opt out. I wouldn't make you go."

"The one thing that bothers me," Momo said aside to the others. "Is not really Kabuto. It's Itachi. If he does show up after all, and we're in the area, we'd be likely to run into him. He'd be suspicious of anyone that close. And I don't think we can take him."

"That b-----d doesn't scare me," Bakugo said.

By now, even Momo knew that he might be lying.

"As long as his dopey Mangekyo doesn't do anything to us," Camie remarked, "I think we could take the other attacks he does."

"Really? You think we can take that demon armor?" Dabi said. "And there's the black fire."

"Susanoo and Amaterasu," Camie supplied.

"Yeah, you know, you can recall all those terms that we don't even use, but you need Bakugo's help to pass math," Dabi said.

"Who told you that?" Camie said.

"All I said was that he tutored her," Wally said. "I never said she needed him to pass."

"They're different skills anyway," Momo said.

"Not my point," Dabi said.

"What is your point?" Wally said. "Stop talking crap about your own teammates. It's not good for morale."

"Whatever," Dabi siad. "I didn't mean anything by it."

"Lowkey, still kind of a jerk move, bro," Camie said. "Btw, don't you think that Cloud lady has been eyeing us a lot since we walked in here?"

Mabui was, in fact, still not convinced of their credibility--with some reason, if they were honest.

But so far they hadn't shown any definite sign of being spies or clones, and she had nothing to say about it that would be helpful.

The Stone ninja present didn't seem to care at all about what they were doing. Neither did Ao of Mist.

"She's suspicious," Dabi said. "Why don't I remember her? I know she's Cloud... Did she do anything at all?"

"You don't remember her?" Camie said. "She didn't beat Naruto up (that was Karui--she's not around here). She's not one of Bee's students. She's Ay's secretary/assistant person, like Shizune is for Tsunade. Probably as overworked, too. She's the one who has to replace his windows."

"Oh, yeah," Dabi said. "I remember that part. That was one of the only things I thought was funny."

"It was kind of funny," Camie said.

"Ahem." Shine got their attention. "Sai and Ino both agreed to help."

Ino tugged her bangs. "If I can... I mean, you just need me to watch, right? Not fight. Not that I can't fight, but I doubt my jutsu would work very well on...that man."

"No s--t," Dabb said.

"I don't think we've met," Sai said. "My name is Sai."

"Hey!" Camie put herself forward. "I'm Camie Utsushimi. You can call me Camie--everyone does. I'm a huge fan."

"Fan?" Sai said blankly.

"Of you," Camie said. "Duh."

"I don't understand." Sai was still confused.

"I'm Momo Yaoyorozu," Mom said hastily. 

Everyone else introduced themselves hastily also.

"Nice to meet you, Sai," Wally added. "I think we'll get along."

Sai didn't understand why he said that either but took it to be a friendly gesture and smiled, though it was hard to know if he was smiling just to be amiable or because he meant it.

"Ino, you know all of us now but Camie," Shine said.

"Hey girl," Camie waved. "It's way tight to finally meet you."

"Oh...I didn't know you'd heard of me." Ino wondered what they'd told Cmie.

"Of course I have," Camie said. "I mean, how could I not know the Ino-Shika-Cho combo?"

"Oh..." Ino deflated.

"And you're way cool," Camie said enthusiastically.

Ino smiled but was also confused. "Oh?"

"Stop with that," Dabi said. "Camie, you're weirding her out. Can we just go do this thing?"

"We don't have any time to lose," Shine agreed.

"We just got confirmation from the Kazekage that all the kage are supporting this," Shikaku informed them. "Report back to us on anything of use you find, even if you don't find Kabuto."

"Of course," Ino nodded.

Her dad gave her a warning look like he wanted her not to trust the guys too easily.

Ino was sure that they meant no harm, but less sure that they would pull this off. She had not been in contact with them like the Sand had, though she'd heard some things from Shikamaru...but somehow, she'd never worked up the nerve to write to them.

She didn't even think they'd remember her.

They all headed outside. The moon was lower now, though not by much.

"We got here so late. I think it'll be nearly day by the time we can close in on this guy," Shine mused. "We'll see how fast I can find him. I don't dare try to portal to him--too much could go wrong."

Sai drew some birds.

"Wait....how do we ride these things?" Shoto said.

"Use your chakra to stick to them," Sai said.

"Uh...the thing is..." Momo said hesitantly, "we can't."

Sai looked at them in utter confusion again.

"I'm not a huge fan of this idea either," Shine said. "But nothing else is fast enough... Can't be worse than being carried, right?" She swallowed. "No big deal."

"You can hang onto the feathers also." Ino patted them. "It's a decently smooth ride... I mean, it is a little fast..."

Ino didn't exactly like flying herself, but of course a shinobi couldn't complain about things like that.

Wally got on one. "Okay...hey, it's not so bad. Like a carnival ride. It'll be fun."

"It can't be worse than Gigantomachia." Dabi climbed on one. "Wait, do we have to double up?"

Everyone but him already had paired up.

"This is going to be so lit!" Camie grabbed onto her bird. "I've always wanted to do this."

Bakugo was less sure he wanted to do this, but he at least had a way to catch himself if he did fall off.

Shoto froze himself partially to the bird, and Momo held onto him.

Wally and Shine were paired up, and Sai and Ino had the last one.

Ino was all business, despite this outcome probably being the one she'd wanted.

"Give us plenty of warning if you see someone," she told Shine importantly, "so there's time to land."

"Will do," Shine said. "And I have to look down...great..."

"Just focus on finding the guy, baby. I got you." Wally put his arms around her waist and held her on the bird.

"I almost get the impression she doesn't want to do this," Sai said, which he didn't really think was true.

"Clearly. She's afraid of heights." Ino had gotten it right away. "But it's not like there's much of a choice."

The bird took off.

"I wasn't aware that you could be afraid of heights," Sai mused, quite at home even as the bird inclined.

"Whoa..." Camie held on tight. "This is so cool and terrifying at the same time."

"I'm going to be sick..." Dabi muttered.

But once the bird leveled out, he was fine.

Shoto found he was fine also, and Momo was more sure of herself.

She formed some night vision goggles/binoculars.

"I might be able to see someone too," she said.

Shine's eyes lit up, which surprised Sai.

"Is that a jutsu?" he asked.

Shine made no answer to that. She might not have even heard.

"It's her tracking jutsu," Ino explained in a low voice. "I'm not sure how she uses it, but she can find anyone, I guess."

"Like the Byakugan?" Sai didn't know how he'd not heard of this.

"I'm not sure. She has never explained it to me," Ino said. Or any other ninja, that she knew of.

"Can we make these go faster?" Camie asked, as her bird was about parallel to Sai's.

"I can make it go faster," said Sai. "But we should stay in formation."

"Okay, that's cool and all, but like, what if we need to split up?" Camie said.

"These birds aren't really supposed to do that," Sai said. "But if you leaned to one side, it might turn."

Camie started to turn, and Bakugo stopped her. "Don't test it now!"

"So..." Ino was curious. "You two are new. Why did you join the team?"

"Oh, we so wanted to before, but we couldn't," Camie said. "They were full up, but they needed the extra manpower this trip, right? I'm so psyched to be here."

"Psyched?" Sai repeated. "What emotion is that?"

"You know? Jazzed? Stoked? Pumped?" Camie said.

"Excited." Bakugo said the only normal one.

"Oh...I don't really understand that emotion." Sai pulled out a notebook.

Ino winced because he let go of the bird to do this.

"It's a cool emotion," Camie said. 

She surprised Sai and Ino both by not thinking that Sai's remark was strange, as most people did at first.

"Would you mind describing it?" Sai was encouraged to ask more.

"Uh....sure. Let's see..." Camie said. "It's like...electricity going through your whole body? But like it doesn't hurt...or it's like butterflies in your stomach, maybe. You just feel like you have all this energy and it's gonna break out, and you're kind of happy but kind of scared? That's being excited."

"I don't get scared," Bakugo said. "You can be excited just for a fight. Looking forward to it."

"Well, maybe you can, but I always feel nervous first," Camie said. "I legit thought I would throw up my first day at Shiketsu. But like, that was only the first period--when we got to Gym and I saw Shishikura's quirk for the first time, I knew I was going to throw up. I made it to the restroom though."

"Heh," Bakugo said. "That guy would make anyone want to be sick."

Sai was still taking notes. "When would you say people usually feel excited?" he asked.

"Oh, that just depends on the person," Camie said. "Like right now, we're so down for a good fight. But I get excited when there's a sale or a new internet trend too, so it's majorly personal."

"Hmm...that didn't help," Sai mused.

Ino gave him another strange glance and then looked at Camie. "Do you regularly explain this kind of stuff?"

"Sure," Camie said. "I mean no, not usually. But like, why does it matter?"

"Oh...well, it's just that usually people wonder why he's asking," Ino said in a lower voice.

"But I know why he's asking," Camie said without thinking. "Because of that emotion suppression stuff."

Sai gave a start.

"You know about that?" he said with evident surprise.

"Oh...uh...doesn't everyone?" Camie said.

Ino herself knew very little about it, only what Sakura had mentioned in passing and what she could glean from Sai's odd remarks about it.

Camie sounded like she knew more... Weird. Why would she?

"No," Sai frowned at Camie. "Outside of Leaf, I didn't think anyone did."

"I like to stay informed..." Camie said weakly. "It's no big, right? I mean, are you buggin' that I know?"

"Huh?" Ino was lost on that as much as Sai was.

"She's starting to wonder if it bothers you," Bakugo said, flatly. "Can't you idiots understand anything?"

"Idiots?" Ino frowned at him.

"He calls everyone that," Shoto said, from where they were just behind them. "It's not personal."

"Though I wish he would exert himself to be a little more polite," Momo said pointedly. "Shinobi take that seriously, Bakugo."

"Don't tell me what they do, Ponytail. I did the research, same as you did," Bakugo growled.

"But Bae, can we not? I want them to like us," Camie said.

"I don't dislike that, you know, " Sai said after deliberating about it. "I just didn't expect it."

"See? He's fine with it," Camie shrugged. 

"Wouldn't he be fine with anything?" Shoto said.

"Oh, he kinda reminds me of you, Brodoroki," Camie said.

"Camie, I've asked you not to call me that. It doesn't make any sense," Shoto said.

"But it sounds so cool," Camie said.

"No, it doesn't," Shoto said.

"It doesn't," Dabi agreed, "so please keep calling him that."

"I guess I could call you the same thing though," Camie said. 

"No," Dabi said firmly.

"I'm getting something," Shine broke into the banter by saying.

She pointed down to the rocky horizon. "It's hard to get a bead on it--there's darkness around it, but something is that way."

The bird adjusted.

The terrain on the horizon had changed from flatter dells and ruts to more mountainous.

"He'll be in a cavern there somewhere," Momo recalled. "We must be on the right track."

"Yo, I don't like that," Camie said. "Way creepy. There's always something scary in caves in horror movies."

"Then don't watch horror movies," Bakugo said.

"I may regret that mistake of my youth now," Camie said. "But it's not like anyone told me, you know, Baku."

"I told you not to watch that one with the--"

"I know! All right? Don't bring it up now." Camie made a face.

"My mother doesn't let me watch horror," Momo said.

"Neither does mine," Shoto said.

"It's overrated," Dabi said. "Nothing in those movies ever makes sense. Just focuses on the idiots being scared."

"I agree with you there," Shine said. "Not that I read even classic horror, but at least those ones had a point. The Picture of Dorian Gray is a fascinating story, but it's creepy. I don't read creepy."

"I gotta say, though, when a mind-controlling maniac is invading a city, horror movies do give you an edge on experience," Wally said.

"What is a horror movie?" Sai asked.

"Uh...maybe we shouldn't answer that," Momo said. "I don't think they... Do they have movies here?"

"Oh, sure," Camie said. "But not like those, I bet."

Suddenly something flapped past her face.

"Ah!" she yelped and swatted at it.

"Hey, careful!" Bakugo steadied her as her weight shifted. "You could knock us off!"

"Sorry, sorry, something just hit my face!" Camie was wringing her hands. "Ew! ew! ew! Was that a bat?"

"You can't react like that," Shoto scolded her. "What if you knocked Bakugo off the bird?"

"Well, you try being calm when something flies at your face!" Camie hissed.

"Be quiet," Ino hissed. "Never know who could be listening."

"Bats..." Momo said. "Bats mean caves. We must be close."

"Yes and no," Shine said. "I know I can't really get a clear path right now, but this area itself has to be it. Even if I had a clear path, all those rocks would make it hard to move fast. We'll have to land and continue on foot."

"I'm all for getting off these things," Dabi said.

They landed and dismounted. Shine seemed a little shaky when they did.

"How afraid of heights are you, Likstar-san?" Ino asked.

"Oh...you know, not that bad," Shine said. "Just feel like I'm dangling from a thread in the atmosphere that could snap at any second...could be worse."

"Is that what it's like?" Sai made a note.

"Uh, why do you keep writing?" Dabi asked.

"To remember it later," Sai said, as if that was obvious...which it was, if you thought about it.

Dabi decided not to press. "Should we split up?"

Shine peered up at the mountains. "Camie, how long do you think it'll be before Sasuke gets here?"

"Sasuke?!" Ino exclaimed, and they shushed her at once.

She covered her mouth, but her eyes were huge.

"I dunno, what time is it now?" Camie said. "I lowkey feel like he wasn't there till, like, the next day."

"No, he fought...you-know-who the next day," Momo said. "It must have been the night before."

"Do you have some kind of knowledge of Sasuke?" Sai asked.

"Not precise knowledge," Shine said. "Call it a vision of the future if you will. A vision that depends on certain steps being taken to come true."

"I didn't know you had that ability." Ino recovered a little.

"Because we do not have it always," Shine said. "At least I don't. I've met people who have it all the time, but so far no one in this group shows signs of that. Never know though."

"Well, in this vision," Sai said, accepting this oddly easily (but perhaps ninja were sometimes known to have visions also), "why would Sasuke be here?"

"Sasuke, if our vision turns out the way we think, will come here to find Kabuto," Shine said. "If he comes here to do that, we have reason to think he will not succeed at stopping him, but he will do something that will make this much worse going forward. Which is typical Sasuke, and I don't really need to know the future to know he'll do that."

Bakugo snorted a laugh, and Shoto and Dabi both nodded very bitterly.

"But if things play out unlike that vision," Shine said, "then we can't be sure. It will depend on if our arrival has already altered some things. You have to be careful with glimpses of the future; they depend on certain things, and we lack the perception to know all of those things. All we can do is our job and see what happens, but it doesn't hurt to be prepared for him, if he does come. And with that in mind, Ino, I want you to stay here and keep watch. You too, Sai. You can send messages, right?"

"I can," Sai said.

"If either of you see him, or anyone else new, send one," Shine said. "But do not meddle with him. And I mean you--" She gave Ino a firm look. "Sasuke would not hesitate to kill either one of you at this point, and he can easily do so. And anyone else who comes will be worse than him. Do you understand me?"

"Uh...are you in charge?" Ino asked.

"Gaara would defer to her," Shoto said. "Wouldn't he?"

"I... Probably," Ino said.

"Then she's in charge," Dabi said. "You've seen her intimidate Orochimaru before. You want to mess with that?"

"No," Ino said. "I'm just...you just got here. And I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but if you knew all this, we could have prepared better."

"I'm glad your concern is at least a reasonable one," Shine said. "And to that I can only say I'm sorry, but this is when we were able to come, and we came as soon as we could. As for doing more, we can't pull any more shinobi out of this war. I think we have sufficient manpower for this as long as there's no surprises. That's why I'm asking you to keep watch. If you don't want to risk that, you can go back to the camp. I understand--this is not a safe place to be in."

"But we should hurry if we're going to do this," Wally said. "I'm going on alone now. I'll let you know if I find anything, but I'm not going in there alone. Even with how fast I am, I'm sure there's going to be a trap of some kind. I've learned that one the hard way."

"I agree with you," Shine said. "We'll follow in a second."

Wally nodded and took off.

"I want to get started looking too," Bakugo said. "Do we need to hear this crap?"

"Wally is more used to how this works," Shine said. "I can rely on his judgment to do the smart thing, and he has a good idea of what I'm going to think of, but you're the rookie on this mission, Bakugo. If you really think you don't need to hear the plan, well, don't blame me when you get easily captured later."

Silence.

Bakugo didn't move, so that must have worked.

"I will stay here," Sai announced. "There is no point not finishing this assignment. If Ino-san does no wish to risk it, I can send her back alone."

Ino didn't like to think that her teammates would all think she was a coward if she said she wanted to go back...that, and Sakura would never let her live it down.

"Of course I'll stay here and watch," she said. "I have to keep the central command informed anyway. I can't do that if I go...but is there anything else you might have had a vision of?"

"That I can tell you about right now, no," Shine said. "Camie, stay with them, please."

"Me?" Camie said.

"You can hide them if necessary," Shine said. "And, to be blunt, you're not that fast. I'll bring you to me once they send word or if we need you... Do you mind missing the fight that much?"

"Uh...well, not really, not against that guy." Camie made a face. "I guess I can stay out here."

"I know I don't have to ask you this, but please keep an eye on her also," Shine said to Sai and Ino. "Camie will protect you, but someone has to watch her back. It goes both ways, and I know you don't know her yet, but she's a very important part of our group."

"I'll treat her like one of us then," Ino said willingly.

"I believe that's how it should be," Sai said. "All of us will keep watch together then."

"Yes, one of you for the air and one on the ground at least would be best, but I'll let you figure that out," Shine said. "Shoto, you can go higher than the rest of us can, but you're very visible, so try to avoid any open spots on those rocks where someone could jump you. Bakugo, shadow him. You're loud, but you're fast. Kabuto would hear you coming, but he won't be able to leave his cave just like that, so it's more likely he'd send someone else to fight you. If you look at different angles nothing should surprise you. Momo and I will look lower down, and Wally can comb over the whole area and let us know. Dabi, you're with us, but a little farther behind us. That way if we're surprised, you may have a chance to jump in and help us."

Dabi nodded.

"She seems more competent than I would have thought for her age and lack of shinobi headband," Sai said, not at all quietly and not as if he thought there could be anything wrong with what he said.

Bakugo gave him an annoyed look, but Shine only laughed. "Thanks, Sai, I appreciate that. Let's go."

They all moved away.