...well they certainly count as cheating.

Good!

...If Tetsuma doesn't win this soon, she's probably going to end up losing. She doubles her efforts (cheating included). 

Dayo is in fact at a disadvantage. She loses with a cry that's cut off into a whimper.

(Oh good Tetsuma can stop biting her lip.)

She kisses Dayo while giggling slightly. "I guess we found something else being a kunoichi prepared me for."

"Oh shut up and kiss me."

She laughs and then obeys.

Such a good girlfriend!

(Tetsuma squirms a bit and blushes if Dayo says that out loud.)

Kisses! Aiming for as many kisses as there's skin to kiss. 

That's so many!

They should sleep soon though.

Yeah probably. Sleep is good.

And the next morning...

...this is better, yes.

Tetsuma: is a very clingy sleeper.

She wakes around the same time as Dayo, kisses her boyfriend once she's fully awake, then starts getting ready for another run before they have to leave.

Kiss! He's not gonna run though, Tetsuma can go have fun.

She does! She runs fast once she's gotten out past where she'd be alarming shepherds - not having anything to run into is fun, since she can pretty carelessly fling herself forward with chakra.

She returns sweaty and nicely exhausted and thoroughly flushed. 

They can head out now, then?

They can!

It's two days to the next stop, which is much the same as the last one - small village surrounded by orchards and then wilderness; good for practicing jutsu, but no shareable or notable magic, and the trade's only interesting to Sarati. 

After this stop is their destination, Chennet. 

Finally.

Yeah it's been only two-ish weeks but it feels like longer. Ships: definitely not Tetsuma's preferred method of travel.

"So, you're the trained spy here, what do we do next?"

"...I think at least one of us should pretend to be a potential new hire. From talking to people in Cloudshear, it sounds like there's a decent turnover, and a castle always needs staff. We should also try and see what the townspeople think of him - a cover as a job-seeker would be good for that. I can also spy with jutsu, especially if he has trees on the property, but that might be foiled by magical protections, and might alert him that we're trying something. There's no warding against gossip."

"I can probably pretend to be the new hire, I don't even need to wear this face."

"We can also under different faces pretend to be passing through and curious about the local lord, see if we get different answers that way - luckily the town itself is populated enough people should be mostly incurious. I can probe at the edges of his castle with my wood-sense - that shouldn't set off any alarms - and I think I should be able to send wood clones through trees undetectably, but that'll require a bit of practice."

"Do you expect us to get different answers?"

"Well, different subsets of information - more on his history as curious tourists, more on his behavior around the common folk and how he runs things as potential hires, for instance - and the information will be filtered and biased differently."