The Border Festival!!

Convinced she must still prove herself even after learning the job is tamer than she feared, Mirai perches in a tree keeping watch over Kakashi and Guy at dinner, enduring cold and hunger for their sake. She puzzles over why Kakashi seems oblivious to Guy pilfering his food, doubting his famous reputation, right up until he materializes beside her. Kakashi tells her she is carrying too much weight on her shoulders, noting that her father Asuma was much the same before learning to ease off. When he adds that the Seventh Hokage voiced the same worry, and that this is why she drew the posting, Mirai takes heart, reading it as proof the Seventh still trusts her.

She resolves to savor what little of the trip is left, only for Kakashi to reveal her miscount: the assignment runs twenty days, not two. Beyond the vacation atmosphere, their genuine task is to survey the boundary dividing the Land of Fire from the Land of Hot Water. After a day of that work they halt for the night in a town straddling the border, where they notice residents in cat or dog masks and squabbles over the two animals everywhere. Kakashi and Guy identify the scene as the Quarrel Festival.

According to local lore, a cat deity and a dog deity each aided in uncovering one of the town's hot springs, and the community remains split over which spring came first. That old rift now fuels a yearly contest between cat partisans and dog partisans. Wandering the streets, the trio come across Tamaki and Kiba bickering over which spring to try first. Kakashi throws his support behind Kiba's dog spring while Guy backs Tamaki's cat spring purely to spite him, leaving Mirai as the deciding vote. She tries to endorse both, but before she is cornered into a real answer, a disturbance at the town's center pulls everyone's attention away.

Mirai keeps a diligent watch over Kakashi and Guy despite her discomfort. Kakashi reassures her that the Seventh Hokage still has faith in her and reveals the mission actually spans twenty days. The team reaches a border town celebrating the Quarrel Festival, rooted in a dispute over which hot spring was found first. Kakashi and Guy take opposing sides between Kiba and Tamaki, and a commotion downtown interrupts Mirai's tie-breaking dilemma.

This Konoha Shinden: Steam Ninja Scrolls chapter was collected in Volume 1 and distributed through Jump Plus. Its Japanese release is dated December 10, 2022.