"I think it would be rather hypocritical of him to complain of me having unidentified magic."

"Point! And it'll feel like a particularly vibrant plant, not another person, so it shouldn't set off any alarm bells."

Nodnod.

"So tomorrow, you go in with the tracker-seed in your pocket, I keep watch from just out of sight of the castle and with my wood-sense, you stare at the artifact and make vague pronouncements, and hopefully don't alarm the local lord? Anything I'm missing?"

"I'm gonna actually genuinely try to figure stuff out about the artefact so something interesting might come up but yeah pretty much."

"How good are you at chakra-sensing? I'm fairly average, my wood-sense is much better... I don't think you could get much off the jewel with the wood-sense alone, is the problem."

"I'm not sure how to measure it?"

"Hmm. Let's see if you can tell which direction I'm in with your eyes closed? At different distances and when I'm suppressing or flaring my chakra. I can leave a wood clone with you to identify properly where I am."

"Okay!"

Tetsuma makes a wood clone, then asks Dayo to close his eyes and then suppresses their chakra and sneaks around quietly to a bit behind him. If Dayo can't find them, they'll try normal chakra, then flaring.

"Can you tell where they are?" the clone asks.

"Yeah," he points, "but only barely, and I don't think I could identify them."

"Hmm. That's about what I'd get, though I'd have a shot at identifying a familiar signature."

They can test a couple of other distances next, in irregular increments - how far Tetsuma can accurately throw a knife, understandable shouting distance (which isn't that far, given the landscape), the edge of Tetsuma's range, the edge of Tetsuma's plant-sense, the edge of where Tetsuma can use wood manipulation (quite far), out of the forest entirely. (Tetsuma's using these distances as threat-gauges.)

It'll turn out Dayo's slightly below average in chakra sensing.

That's sensing Tetsuma at normal levels out to shouting distance, flaring mildly to the edge of Tetsuma's plant-sense range. (Tetsuma isn't entirely comfortable flaring massively, lest someone unintended sense them.)

"So you'll have a bit of warning on all but the most ridiculously long distance attacks, if you get ambushed."

He nods. "And I'll have you as my backup."

"Yup! With any luck this'll all be unnecessary, though if needed we'll do fine."

"Hopefully."

"Want to run through potential scenarios? To plan better. I'd at least like to look at a map of the castle again, in case I can't get in through the ground..."

"Yeah, absolutely."

"Well, what if he catches you in a lie? And you can't convince him otherwise. Like if he's been spying on us somehow, or if he has lie-detecting magic."

"I make a habit of not actually lying much. I'm generally good at misdirecting with the truth. If he's been spying on us somehow I think it's safe to say we're doomed, he'll have time to develop measures against us we cannot plan for; otherwise, I wouldn't break character and would make something up to cover for the lie."

"Yeah, there's a lot we just can't plan for. If he becomes aggressive, and I'm unable to travel quickly through the ground and have to fight my way to you? What should I do in that scenario, are you confident in your ability to hold him off - especially if he gets backup from guards?"

"I think I'm most confident in my ability to run, actually—I'm very good with genjutsu, and my shapeshifting is barely detectable. If I'm cornered I can probably hold my own for long enough, but my first idea would be running."

"And I should be able to track you - especially if you keep hold of the transmission seed - let's look at the layout of the castle and think about routes..."

"The completely spatially weird layout, yes," he says wryly.