The morning sun cast long, clean shadows across the streets of Konoha, a welcome warmth that promised a day of peace after the tense week. The cool air carried the scent of baking bread and sweet bean paste from the vendor stalls lining the main thoroughfare. For Hinata, it was a exactly what she wanted. Taller than most men in the village, she moved through the morning crowd with ease. People stepped aside for her, their gazes a mixture of awe, respect, and clear caution. Beside her, trotting to keep pace with her long, languid strides, was Hanabi.
"…and then our sensei had the audacity to hand me a hoe," Hanabi was saying, her voice a sharp counterpoint to the city's low hum, laced with the indignant fury for being forced into farming labor. "A hoe! He said it was a lesson in humility."
Hinata listened, a soft chuckle rumbling in her chest. She found her sister's fiery pride amusing. Her talent felt wasted on D-rank missions, and her Hyuuga pride made her disdain the simple chores. The potato harvest of the previous day had clearly been the final line.
"They made us sort them by size, Nee-sama," Hanabi continued, her fists clenched at her sides. "As if a Hyuuga's time is best spent determining which is marginally more rotund than its neighbor. It was a complete waste of my…"
"HINATA-CHAN!"
The bright and cheerful voice easily cut through the morning chatter. Hinata stopped, a genuine smile blooming on her face before she even turned. Hanabi's rant died in her throat, replaced by a suspicious scowl.
Naruto Uzumaki skidded to a halt before them, a whirlwind of orange and black that seemed to vibrate with sheer energy. He beamed, his grin wide, and a faint blush dusted his cheeks as his gaze landed on Hinata. He had to crane his neck, but the old, debilitating fluster was gone. In its place was a comfortable and confident warmth, not the brain-fried panic.
"Morning, Hinata-chan! And you must be her little sister Hanabi-chan?" he said, his voice bright.
"Good morning, Naruto-kun," Hinata replied, her own voice the familiar, perfect harmony of her own alto and Venom's deep baritone. Inside her mind, she felt her partner give a low, contented purr of approval.
Naruto's grin widened, and he turned his attention to her sister. "Your big sister here is a real-deal hero, you know! Me and her, we've been on the most dangerous missions! Fought S-rank monsters, took down whole armies, saved a Kazekage! She's the toughest person I know, believe it!"
Hinata watched as Hanabi's gaze swept over Naruto, a cute, calculating look in her pale eyes. It was the look of a hawk assessing a strange new creature that had wandered into its territory. She was cataloging him, judging him, weighing his worthiness to stand beside her magnificent older sister. Finally, Hanabi sniffed, wrapping her arms around her chest. "Of course she is. She's a Hyuuga."
"Yeah, she is!" Naruto agreed instantly, completely missing the intended dismissal.
Hinata's smile softened. "Did you need something, Naruto-kun?"
He snapped back to her, his gaze traveling up her powerful frame to meet her luminous cerulean eyes. "Oh! Right! Granny Tsunade is calling for us. Both of us. Said to get to the tower right away, that it's super important."
As they spoke, Hinata's enhanced senses painted a rich picture of the world around them. She could feel the subtle shift in the crowd, the way people tried to appear nonchalant while sneaking glances at them. She could hear the whispers, fragments carried on the breeze. "…that's them…", "…the Uzumaki boy and the Hyuuga girl…"
The news was spreading. Of course it was. It didn't matter. The whispers were just echoes, the background noise confirming a new, fundamental truth of the world. He was hers.
"I understand," Hinata said, her voice calm and steady. She turned to her sister. "Hanabi, I must go. Enjoy the sweets for me."
She and Naruto turned, moving as one toward the distant Hokage tower, leaving a very suspicious, and now very much alone Hyuuga heiress pouting in their wake.
The short walk to the Hokage's tower was a comfortable one. The bustling energy of the morning crowd provided a lively backdrop, and for the first time, Naruto didn't seem to be vibrating with the need to fill every silence. He walked beside her, and the space between them felt charged but easy.
"Oi, Hinata! Naruto!"
The familiar, boisterous bark cut through the air, and they both stopped. Loping towards them with a grin splitting his face was Kiba Inuzuka, Akamaru trotting faithfully at his side. The great white dog was immense now, easily large enough for Kiba to ride, his fur thick and his posture powerful. Trailing a few paces behind them, a silent, dark pillar of a man, was Shino Aburame, his face obscured by the high collar and hood of his grey-green jacket.
"Kiba! Shino! Good to see ya!" Naruto's grin widened to match Kiba's.
"You too, man!" Kiba clapped Naruto on the shoulder, his eyes doing a quick, appraising scan. "Damn, you actually got taller. Finally."
Naruto puffed out his chest. "Of course I did! And look at Akamaru! He's huge!" He playfully dodged a friendly nip from the dog before his gaze landed on their quiet teammate. "And Shino! It's really you!"
A flicker of what might have been appreciation crossed the sliver of Shino's visible face. "Hn. It is logical to assume I would be. I have not left the village."
"So, what gives?" Kiba asked, folding his arms. "You've been back for weeks and we haven't heard a peep. Too good for your old teammates now that you've been training with a Sannin?"
"No way!" Naruto protested, waving his hands defensively. "It's been crazy! Missions, reports, more missions! Granny Tsunade doesn't let up, believe it!"
Kiba grunted in agreement. "Tell me about it. We've been run ragged, too. You guys summoned to the tower?"
"Yep," Naruto confirmed, popping the 'p'. "Looks like we're on the same mission!"
Their conversation was cut short by another voice, this one high and cheerful. "Hinata-sama!"
Turning, they saw a trio of kunoichi approaching. Karin Uzumaki was in the lead, a brilliant smile on her face, her red hair a vibrant splash of color. Behind her walked Sakura, her expression calm and professional, and Ino, who was walking with a confidence. Her lavender, midriff-baring top and matching short skirt were offset by fishnet armor on her thighs and elbows, a look that was both fashionable and functional.
"Hey, forehead!" Ino called out, her smile bright and practiced as she waved. "And Naruto! Welcome back. You actually got taller."
"Of course I did!" Naruto puffed out his chest. "Good to see you guys! Sakura-chan! Ino! Karin!"
"Good morning," Hinata added, her voice a calm with resonant harmony as she gave them all a nod.
The three kunoichi returned the greeting, but there was an awkward, charged energy about them. Sakura's professional mask seemed a bit strained, and Ino's usual teasing demeanor was replaced by a look of intense, flustered curiosity. Karin, for her part, was blushing slightly, her eyes darting between Naruto and Hinata. Hinata didn't need to be a genius to deduce the source of their behavior. It seemed the rumors of her and Naruto were beginning to circulate. Good. The fewer males attemted to court her, the better.
The area in front of the tower became a small hub of chatter. Kiba and Shino stood off to one side, murmuring about patrol routes. Naruto had drifted back to Hinata's side, his shoulder brushing against her arm. "This has gotta be a big one if they're calling in all of us," he mused, his eyes fixed on the tower's entrance. "Maybe an A-rank! Or even an S!"
"Alright, what are we waiting for?!" Naruto suddenly shouted, breaking the spell. "Let's go see what the old lady wants! I'm all fired up!"
With that, the newly assembled group of Konoha's finest turned and entered the cool, imposing shadow of the Hokage's tower.
The Hokage's office was crowded. Standing near the back, Hinata's towering height gave her a clear, unobstructed view of the entire room. Before Tsunade's imposing desk stood a formidable assembly of Konoha's strength. The Jounin commanders, Kakashi, Yamato, and a grimly focused Anko, stood shoulder-to-shoulder. To their left were Team Guy, Neji, his expression sharp, Tenten, looking tense and ready, and Rock Lee, vibrating with barely contained energy. Her own teammates, Kiba and Shino, stood near her, Akamaru a silent at Kiba's side. And finally, there was Naruto's group. Karin, Sakura and Ino stood together, their usual rivalry replaced by a shared seriousness. It was an immense gathering for a single briefing. This was serious.
Tsunade slammed her palm down on her desk. With a low hum, intricate sealing arrays flared to life across the doors and windows, encasing them in a bubble of absolute privacy. "The briefing has commenced," she declared, her voice cutting through the tense silence. Shizune unrolled a massive map of the elemental nations across the desk, its sheer size forcing everyone to press closer to see.
"Sasori's interrogation has borne fruit," Tsunade began, her finger tapping a location deep within the Land of Fire, near the border of the Land of Water. The map showed a small, unnamed lake. "We have confirmed the Akatsuki's next primary target was the Three-Tailed Beast. And our newest intelligence places its last known location right here." She let that sink in for a moment. "Fortunately for us, this objective intersects with another." Her gaze shifted to Anko. "Anko. Your report."
Anko stepped forward, her usual manic energy replaced by a cold focus. "Our own assets, corroborated by the information we… extracted… from Orochimaru's other captured subordinates, indicate one of his primary forward operating bases is located in the immediate vicinity of that lake."
So the prisoners from the previous missions are finally started talking, Hinata thought, her mind processing the new variable.
"Is Orochimaru there?" Sakura asked.
"Unlikely," Anko answered without looking at her. She pointed to a location on the opposite side of the map, a bridge deep within the Land of Grass. "Before targeting the Three-Tails, Sasori's mission was to rendezvous with his personal spy inside Orochimaru's organization. Right here. On the Tenchi Bridge. The meeting was scheduled for this week."
"So we split up?" Naruto asked, his mind already jumping to the tactical conclusion. "One team for the bridge, one for the lake?"
"Negative," Anko said flatly. She finally turned, her dark eyes sweeping over the assembled genin. "The spy Sasori was meant to meet… was Kabuto Yakushi."
The silence in the room deepened with the weight of the new information.
It was Yamato who spoke, his voice calm and even. "We know for a fact that Chuunin Uzumaki and Jounin Hyuuga terminated Kabuto during their mission with Jiraiya-sama. Has Orochimaru used his Reanimation Jutsu to bring him back?" He paused. "Is he using it extensively?"
"If he had," Tsunade answered, her voice grim, "we'd know. Intel from multiple captured assets suggests Orochimaru did not, or perhaps could not, revive Kabuto."
Could not? Hinata's mind flashed back to the battle, to the feeling of her hand phasing through Kabuto's chest, the Klyntar biomass and her chakra working in tandem to crush his heart. Did my attack do something to him that even Orochimaru couldn't reverse?
"Focus," Anko commanded, drawing their attention back to the map. "Sasori was aware his agent was dead. He anticipated an ambush at the bridge. His objective was to confront Orochimaru with his teammate and… persuade him to rejoin the Akatsuki. This was their plan after securing the Kazekage. Now that Sasori and his partner are officially confirmed dead, we can assume that specific meeting is off the table. However," she let the word hang in the air, "after losing so many operatives, we believe the Akatsuki will now almost certainly try to recruit Orochimaru, whether he wants to rejoin or not. He's become as high a priority for them as he is for us."
A brief, heavy silence followed.
"The base near the lake," Neji said, his voice cutting through the quiet. "What was its purpose?"
"Previous facilities we've encountered were command centers or laboratories," Anko replied. "This one… this one is a prison. According to our sources, it's where Orochimaru kept his most dangerous and unstable subjects. Wanted criminals he experimented on and then locked away when they became too volatile to control."
"With all due respect, Hokage-sama," Kiba said, his hand resting on Akamaru's head, "if we're talking about a 'cleanup' of a prison full of monsters, this isn't nearly enough people."
"Orochimaru is not a fool," Tsunade countered, her gaze firm. "After the intelligence leak from Tayuya, the destruction of his base in the Land of the Sea, and the loss of his research facility in the Land of Rice Fields, he would have to assume this base is also compromised. It is most likely abandoned."
Anko continued, her voice sharp and devoid of emotion. "We think the base has been abandoned. After Kakashi's report on the Akatsuki spy, and the subsequent debriefings, we had no time to send a team for proper reconnaissance. This mission is the recon." Her finger jabbed a patch of dense forest on the map, a green stain east of the lake and uncomfortably close to the Land of Water's border. "The prison is somewhere in there."
Every eye in the room followed her finger, the unspoken danger of the location hanging heavy in the air.
"That brings us to the mission parameters," Tsunade said, taking command once more. "Your first objective is reconnaissance. Find out what, if anything, is left. Assess the threat. If you make contact and the enemy is manageable, you are cleared to engage. Neutralize them by any means necessary."
Her gaze swept across the room, ensuring everyone understood the gravity of that order. "Your second objective concerns the Three-Tails. Confirm its presence in the lake and, if possible, secure it. Under no circumstances is it to fall into the hands of the Akatsuki or any other hostile force."
She reached under her desk and heaved a colossal scroll onto its surface, the heavy wood and parchment landing with a solid THUD. With a grunt of effort, she unrolled a section, revealing intricate, layered arrays of black and red ink that pulsed with a faint, contained power.
"Naruto," Tsunade said, her eyes locking onto him. "You recognize this?"
Naruto leaned forward, his brow furrowed in concentration. "It's a Four-Corner Sealing Barrier… but there are modifications I've never seen before. It's… more powerful."
"Correct," Tsunade confirmed with a nod. "Jiraiya helped me with the additions. Shizune will be joining you. She, along with Sakura, Ino, and Karin, possess the chakra control necessary to operate the four points of the seal. This array is designed to suppress the beast and force it into a temporary stasis in its own pocket dimension. Or something to that effect. Jiraiya's notes were… vague."
Caging a beast, Hinata thought, her own mind and Venom's working in perfect synchrony.
"Your job, Naruto," Tsunade continued, "with your sealing knowledge, you will provide your own expertise during the mission."
"Hai, Hokage-sama," Naruto said, his voice firm with understanding.
Tsunade rolled the heavy scroll back up, the sound of the wood knocking against the desk echoing in the silent room. "Recon the base, neutralize any local threats, and secure the Three-Tails." She folded her hands on the desk, her expression unreadable.
"Any questions?"
It was Sakura who broke the silence, her voice small but determined. "Hokage-sama… is there any chance… that Sasuke-kun will be there?"
Tsunade's expression softened for a fraction of a second before hardening back into the unreadable mask of a leader. "According to our intel, no. But Orochimaru is unpredictable. If you encounter him, your orders are to act according to the situation. Sasuke Uchiha is a missing-nin. Capturing him is a priority… if possible."
The implication hung in the air, heavy and cold. If possible.
If the Akatsuki are trying to force Orochimaru to rejoin them, Hinata thought, her mind a silent, whirring engine of logic, then Itachi and Orochimaru would be on the same side. The very man Sasuke has dedicated his life to killing would be his own master's ally. Would Sasuke rebel? Or would he see it as an opportunity, a path to get closer to his target? And does he even have the power to make that choice?
Another voice, surprisingly practical, cut through her thoughts. It was Tenten. "The base is near the border of the Land of Water. Will we have to worry about patrols from Kiri?"
Tsunade's gaze flicked to Anko.
"No," Anko said, her tone clipped and certain. "The Hidden Mist just finished a bloody civil war. Intel confirms they're still consolidating power. Their border patrols are lax at best, non-existent at worst. They won't be a factor."
A brief, final pause settled over the room.
"Good," Tsunade declared, her voice ringing with finality. "Then the real planning begins."
The formal briefing was over, the real work had begun. The map became the center of their world as the assembled shinobi huddled around it. Formations were debated, contingency plans were drawn up for every conceivable scenario. Kakashi and Yamato traced tactical routes. Neji and Hinata discussed sensory deployment, mapping out overlapping fields of vision. Kiba and Shino argued the merits of different tracking formations. Naruto, surprisingly, offered insights on large-scale diversionary tactics using his clones. Sakura, Ino, Karin, and Shizune focused on the sealing team, planning their defensive positions and chakra synchronization.
After an hour of intense planning, a final plan was forged. They would depart in the evening, travel through the night, make a brief, secured camp at the halfway point, and arrive at the target location just before dawn.
Tsunade nodded in grim satisfaction. "For now, this mission is designated A-Rank."
The meeting was adjourned. The room emptied, each shinobi moving with a new, shared purpose.
As the sun set, the large squad of shinobi departed from Konoha. They moved quickly, splitting into smaller groups that followed Hinata, who scouted the path ahead. They traveled for several hours until it was completely dark, at which point Yamato called a halt. The team made camp in a defensible clearing, setting up bedrolls and a central fire with practiced speed.
The camp was large, a necessity for their numbers, but they were still deep in friendly territory. Hinata's team and Neji's took the first watch. She sat on a high branch overlooking the perimeter, her armor on but her helmet off. She could feel Venom stirring from boredom in the back of her mind. Kiba was in a nearby tree, with the huge form of Akamaru resting at its base. Shino sat on a lower branch, a constant stream of his kikaichu bugs flying out into the forest and returning to him in a steady, rotating patrol. On the far side of the camp, Neji, Lee, and Tenten held their own watch.
With her enhanced hearing, she easily picked up the conversation from the campfire.
"I'm just saying," Anko complained to Yamato, "you can build a house out of thin air, but you have us sleeping under the stars. It's inefficient."
"This is a temporary camp, Anko-senpai," Yamato replied calmly. "A large construction would be a waste of chakra."
Hinata's Byakugan was active, its faint light unseen from the ground. She saw Naruto by the fire, eating a large cup of instant ramen. Anko, Sakura, Yamato, and Shizune were there with him. Kakashi sat a short distance away, reading his new book. Further back, Ino and Karin were organizing their equipment.
After a moment of silence, Naruto looked up from his meal. "Hey, Captain Yamato, I never thought about it before, but are you and Granny Tsunade related?"
The question caught Hinata's attention. She had noticed it herself. Yamato's chakra felt surprisingly similar to the Hokage's, and his Wood Style was a known Kekkei Genkai of the First Hokage.
Yamato gave a friendly chuckle. "No, we're not related. My situation is a little unusual." He leaned forward, letting his eyes go wide as he stared blankly ahead, his voice dropping. "It's a secret."
Naruto flinched and immediately went back to eating his ramen.
After a few minutes of quiet, Anko spoke again, her voice directed at Naruto. "By the way. Thanks for the book."
Yamato gave a slow nod from his side of the fire. "The writing was surprisingly good."
"Heh heh, thanks!" Naruto said, scratching the back of his head.
Anko's tone turned sly. "You depicted the characters really well. Especially that one based on me. The super-cool, super-deadly snake mistress."
Naruto flushed slightly but puffed out his chest. "Well, yeah! I had to make you guys awesome!"
"You also wrote the characters based on me, Anko-sensei, and Hinata," Sakura added, her voice laced with a note of dry suspicion as she picked at her bento, "wearing some very… impractical outfits." She paused, taking a bite. "Somehow, it worked for the story."
Anko and Shizune shared a chuckle. "I liked it," Anko said with a shrug. "Gives the fans something to admire."
The light conversation faded, and Naruto grew more serious. "Hey, something I've been meaning to ask. When we were discussing the mission, I heard you guys destroyed another one of Orochimaru's bases. In the Land of the Sea. What was that all about?"
Anko's expression hardened. "That was one of his old experimentation facilities. Me, Ino, Shino, and another jounin took that one. Some rogue scientist who used to work for Orochimaru had taken it over. He was transmutating people into sea monsters." She took a swig from a water canteen. "He used a mutated girl to attack shipping boats, promising he'd turn her back. When we got to him, the nutjob had turned himself into something even nastier. We neutralized him."
"The girl was a victim, too," a new voice said. Ino and Karin had finished their chores and were approaching the fire, bento boxes in hand. "She had nowhere else to go, so she came back with us to Konoha." They sat down near Sakura.
"Is she okay?" Naruto asked, his brow furrowed with concern.
Sakura nodded. "Mostly. Thanks to Tsunade-sama, we were able to revert a lot of the mutations. She takes life-saving missions now. On the rivers and out at sea. She is sweet girl."
Naruto shook his head, a grim look on his face. "Man, that Orochimaru asshole really knows how to attract other crazy assholes."
"Hn. You have no idea," Anko grunted in agreement.
The camp fell into a comfortable quiet after that, the only sounds the crackle of the fire and the low murmur of conversation. After a few more hours, Hinata's and Neji's teams were relieved by the next shift. They rested, and hours before dawn, the camp was silently packed up. The large squad of shinobi melted back into the trees, continuing their journey east.
The air grew thick and heavy, clinging to their skin. The rising sun struggled to pierce the dense canopy, casting the forest floor in a hazy, green-tinged twilight. They were close. The entire squad was on high alert, their formation spread wide to maximize their sensory coverage. Hinata moved at the center in her midnight armor, her helmet is on. Beside her, Kakashi's single eye was sharp and focused. Kiba and Akamaru moved low to the ground, sniffing the humid air, while Shino's kikaichu formed a near-invisible perimeter around their core group.
Suddenly, a cluster of signatures bloomed on Hinata's mental map, appearing like angry red blots several kilometers ahead.
"Contact," her voice, filtered and calm, came through their earpieces. "Four individuals. Bearing zero-two-five. Range, three kilometers and closing."
The response was immediate and seamless.
"Confirming," Naruto's voice crackled. "I feel them. They're strong."
"I have them as well," Karin added. "Their chakra is… spiky. Unpleasant."
"Visual confirmed," Neji's voice was a sharp, clinical report. "Byakugan active. Four targets, as reported."
"Got their scent," Kiba growled. "Stinks of rot. Something's not right with them."
Hinata's own senses dove deeper, processing the information. Four of them. Chakra levels are Jounin-class, but their movements are erratic. No cohesion. They're just… wandering. Her vision zoomed in, piercing the distance. They were ragged, their clothes torn, their weapons a motley collection of chipped swords and rusted axes. But it was their bodies that were wrong. One man's arms were stretched to an unnatural length, his knuckles dragging on the damp earth. Another had patches of insect-like chitin growing over his skin. A third's jaw hung slack, unhinging far too wide as he mumbled to himself.
And on each of them, a familiar, sickening mark.
Cursed seals, she thought, as Venom offered its own analysis. …Flawed specimens. The curse marks are unstable. Their biological architecture is chaotic. They are… an offense.
"They are not normal shinobi," Hinata reported, her voice a flat monotone. "All four bear curse marks. More stable than the ones in the Land of Rice Fields, but still parasitic. They have significant physical mutations. Consider them unpredictable and highly dangerous."
The squad's posture shifted. They melted into the trees, their advance now silent, closing the distance to their targets. The four mutants were oblivious, standing in a small, damp clearing, arguing in low, guttural tones. Hinata's audio sensors picked up their words easily.
"—told you this was a waste of time," one of them rasped, the one with the chitinous plates. "She's not coming."
"Shut up!" another hissed, his elongated arms twitching. "She said to patrol this sector. If she finds out we slacked off…"
"She's busy!" the third argued. "That crazy bitch probably forgot we even exist! We should just go. Take this power and be kings somewhere. We could be the most dangerous bandits in the whole damn country!"
They didn't notice the shadows shifting around them. They didn't see the silent figures taking up positions, nor did they feel the dozen pairs of cold eyes marking them for death, and one for capture.
An unspoken command passed through the Konoha shinobi. A shared moment of lethal understanding.
Hinata struck first. She slammed her palm onto the damp earth. "Raiton: Jibashiri! (Lightning Release: Earth Flash!)"
A web of brilliant blue lightning erupted from her hand, tearing through the ground. It forked and branched into a deadly serpent of electricity that slammed into all four mutants simultaneously, their bodies seizing in a violent, paralyzing jolt.
In that frozen instant, Naruto acted. Three near-invisible blasts of compressed air shot from his position. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. The heads of the first three mutants exploded in a synchronized, silent burst of red mist.
Before the fourth could even begin to fall, Neji was on him, his fingers striking a precise point on the man's neck, shutting down his chakra completely. At the same moment, thick, powerful vines erupted from the ground, wrapping around the paralyzed mutant, securing him in a living cage.
Anko and Kakashi were on the captured mutant before the vines had even fully tightened. The smell of ozone from Hinata's jutsu mingled with the coppery tang of blood in the humid air.
"That was… anticlimactic," Ino's voice crackled through their earpieces. "For supposedly dangerous enemies."
"All sensors, sweep the perimeter," Yamato commanded immediately. "Confirm we're clear."
A moment of silence, then Hinata's filtered voice answered. "Negative contact. Perimeter is clear for five kilometers in all directions. No other patrols." She paused. "That is… strange."
The captured mutant was a grotesque sight up close. His body was a lumpy, asymmetrical mass of muscle, one arm twice the size of the other. Patches of grey scales covered his neck and one side of his face, and his left eye was noticeably larger than his right, twitching in its socket. Anko knelt down and jabbed the man's thigh with the tip of her kunai. He jerked awake with a strangled scream, his mismatched eyes widening in terror as he took in the circle of armored, masked, and terrifyingly calm shinobi surrounding him.
"Talk," Anko said, her voice flat.
He didn't need any more encouragement. He started babbling immediately, his voice a panicked and hoarse whisper.
The story that tumbled out of him was a pathetic one. He and his crew were remnants of a street gang from a nearby town, their numbers decimated by a Konoha patrol a long time ago. Desperate and broken, they'd heard whispers of a place that offered power, a place that could make them strong enough to take revenge. They had followed the rumors, only to be deceived, captured, and thrown into cells. He couldn't say how long they'd been prisoners, only that the days had blurred into a haze of pain, strange injections, and agonizing transformations.
Two days ago, the cell doors had swung open. They were free. But as the prisoners made a mad dash for the exits, their warden had appeared. A woman, he called her a "crazy bitch," with terrifying powers. She and a handful of her officers had slaughtered those who tried to flee, a brutal execution that had broken the will of the survivors. The rest were forced to build a fortified camp on the lakeshore and ordered to guard the surrounding area. He and his group were just one of many patrol squads. He confirmed their numbers were in the hundreds.
Kakashi and Anko pressed him for details about the warden, her appearance, her abilities. The mutant's mismatched eyes darted around wildly, a fresh wave of terror washing over him at the memory.
"Her hair…" he stammered, shivering despite the humid air. "It was some weird color. Kinda… purple." He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "She didn't fight like us. She… she made things. From nothing." He took a ragged breath. "One of the prisoners, tried to run. She just… pointed." He shuddered violently. "And he was inside a glass. She can make it grow from the ground, too. Spikes." He shook his head, a broken whimper escaping his lips. "We never heard a name. We just called her the Warden."
When they were certain they had extracted every last piece of useful information, Kakashi drew a kunai. The man's eyes widened for a final, pleading moment before the blade slid silently across his throat. It was over in a second.
A brief silence settled over the clearing, broken only by the drip of moisture from the leaves. The squad gathered around the captive's corpse.
"That warden he mentioned…" Naruto said, his voice tight. "Crystal powers. Sounds a lot like the one who took Sasuke."
"Two days ago," Shizune added, her expression grim. "The timing is too convenient. It's possible they knew we were coming and this is an elaborate trap."
Karin gestured with a thumb at the dead mutants, her voice edged with deep concern. "Wait, he said… several hundred? Are we really going to fight an army of… that?"
Hinata remained silent, her helmeted gaze sweeping the treeline. She was a pillar of calm amidst their rising tension. She took a half-step closer to Naruto, a small, instinctive shift that he noticed, his own posture relaxing slightly in her proximity.
A thrilling prospect, Venom's voice purred in the back of her mind, eagerly anticipating the battle. We are ready.
"The number's probably bullshit," Anko grunted, kicking at a loose clump of moss. "If there were hundreds of them, this whole forest would be crawling with patrols. We've seen one. One. It means they're disorganized, most of them have already deserted, or their numbers are way lower than that idiot thought."
A final pause, and then Kakashi's voice cut through the speculation, calm and decisive. "Speculation is useless without more data. We proceed as planned. We still don't know what we're truly facing."
With the decision made, the squad moved out again. The sun began its slow climb, and the gloom of the forest floor brightened into a green. They pushed on, their senses on a high alert. An hour later, their sensors lit up again. Five signatures, moving in a loose formation. They looked more human than the last group, but the familiar sickening taint of the curse marks was there.
The engagement was a quick and violent. A flash of lightning, a gale of wind, and a swarm of insects. Four of the five went down without a sound. The fifth roared, his body beginning to contort as the curse mark flared across his skin, but before the transformation could complete, a flash of silver and lightning bisected his neck. Tenten stood over the body, her Kiba blades humming softly in the quiet aftermath.
Another hour of travel brought them to the edge of the forest, and they finally saw their destination. The lake itself was beautiful, a vast surface of dark water shrouded in a low-hanging mist.
But what they saw on its shores and in its shallows was not.
The forest gave way abruptly opening onto a wide, stony shore that sloped down to the edge of a vast lake. They were on an elevated bluff, a natural cliff that offered a view of the entire area. The air was cool and heavy with moisture, a low mist clinging to the surface of the water like a shroud.
Almost immediately, a presence made itself known. It wasn't a sound or a sight, but a pressure, a vast, ancient, and deeply wrong weight that seemed to emanate from the depths of the lake itself.
Hinata's Byakugan flared to life, her helmet's visor glowing with a cerulean light. Her vision plunged into the dark water, past shoals of fish and sunken logs, down into the crushing blackness of the lakebed. And there it was. A colossal shape, a living mountain of flesh and shell that took up a significant portion of the lake's floor. The sheer volume of its chakra was staggering, a dormant, blue-white volcano of power that dwarfed anything she had ever witnessed. She had seen the power of the Nine-Tails and the One-Tail, but those had been mere flickers, fractions of the whole. This was the beast itself, in its entirety.
Magnificent, Venom's voice was a low hum of pure awe in her mind. The concentration of energy… It is sufficient to power a small star for millennia. A truly glorious prize.
"Confirmed," Hinata's voice came through the comms. "The Three-Tails is at the bottom of the lake. It is dormant."
"I feel it," Naruto confirmed, his own voice tight with a mixture of awe and unease.
"The sheer scale of it…" Karin whispered, a shudder running through her. "And there are nine of them…"
"Sasori's information was accurate," Kakashi concluded grimly. "Objective two is confirmed."
But the dormant leviathan below was not their immediate concern. Hinata's gaze, followed by Neji's, swept to the far eastern shore.
"Contact," Neji reported. "Eastern shore. Multiple chakra signatures. High activity."
Hinata's own senses painted a far more detailed, and far more disturbing, picture. She could see them as blights upon the world, each one radiating a corrupted spiritual echo that seemed to poison the very air around them. "Approximately fifty hostiles," she added, her tone flat.
The Konoha shinobi spread out along the cliff's edge. What they saw below was not a base. It wasn't even a proper camp. It was a wound on the landscape, a haphazard collection of filth and violence. The trees around their position had been crudely hacked down, creating a wide, muddy clearing. Within it, the mutants shambled and postured. Some were still mostly humanoid, while others bore grotesque deformities, limbs that bent at unnatural angles, faces stretched into permanent snarls, skin covered in patches of chitinous armor. Many had crude prostheses bolted to their bodies, sharpened pieces of scrap metal serving as makeshift claws or blades.
There was no discipline, no cohesion. No tents or structures of any kind. Crude barriers made from sharpened logs and tangled branches formed a flimsy perimeter. A few sentries stood listlessly on high branches, while others simply wandered the camp's edge. Near the back of the clearing, a wide, shallow ditch had been dug, and it was filled with the pale, contorted bodies of their own dead.
Hinata's senses, along with Naruto's, Neji's, Kiba's, and Karin's, picked up the scattered patrols on the northern and southern shores. They weren't patrolling so much as loitering, small, isolated squads that moved without purpose, their body language screaming of low morale and the temptation to desert.
And in the center of this chaotic squalor stood its orchestrator.
A woman with a high, purple ponytail, dressed in matching purple clothes, was shouting orders, her voice a sharp, angry crackle that carried faintly across the water. As they watched, two of the mutants began to brawl. The woman turned, and simply pointed. Crystalline structures erupted from the ground, sharp and glittering, instantly encasing both brawlers in a tomb of translucent purple crystal.
"That's her," Naruto's voice was a low growl over the comms. "That's the one who took Sasuke."
Hinata watched, her Byakugan analyzing the aftermath. Inside the crystal, the mutants' chakra remained, but their life signs, their spiritual echoes, were slowly, inexorably being snuffed out.
"Is that a Kekkei Genkai?" Sakura asked, her voice tight with focus.
Hinata's mind, fused with Venom, processed the phenomenon. "It is not a combination of elemental natures," she reported, her voice clear and precise for the whole team to hear. "She is manipulating the molecular structure of the earth itself. She's rearranging the silicate minerals in the ground and air and forcing them into a crystalline lattice."
"So, it's a highly specialized form of Earth Style," Yamato concluded.
"Lightning is strong against Earth," Sakura mused. "But can we counter something like that directly?"
"Her ability cannot crystallize pure chakra," Hinata added, providing the crucial piece of tactical information. "The mutants she encased… their chakra are intact."
Then they saw him. Standing near the crystal-using kunoichi, looking small and terrified, was a young boy with long, pale blonde hair.
"Is that… a child?" Ino's voice was a shocked whisper.
"What's a kid doing with these ghouls?" Naruto demanded, his own voice laced with protective anger.
"A hostage, perhaps," Neji suggested, his tone grim. The pieces were falling into place, each one more disturbing than the last.
"Hostage?" Anko scoffed, her voice a low rasp over the comms. "Of who? These things?" She was quiet for a moment. "Well, the base wasn't abandoned. That's a surprise. And there aren't hundreds of them. Barely fifty. This camp looks like it was thrown together in the last couple of days, which lines up with what our dead friend told us." She paused again, and everyone on the comms could almost hear the gears turning in her mind. "So the real question is, why now? We've had Orochimaru's people in custody for weeks. They could have mobilized earlier. This feels… reactive."
"Could our mission have been compromised?" Hinata's calm, filtered voice cut in. "Perhaps our arrival in the region triggered this activity."
A tense silence followed as the weight of that possibility settled over the squad.
"So what are we gonna do?" Naruto finally demanded, his voice breaking the silence.
"We adapt," Kakashi's voice was the calm center of the storm. "The mission parameters have changed. That crystal user is a high-ranking officer. She has answers. She is now a priority capture target. Second, we secure the boy. But our immediate objective is that camp. Those mutants are a disaster waiting to happen. She's barely keeping them in line. If they scatter into the Land of Fire, we'll be hunting them for months. We deal with this now."
A new plan was forged in seconds. They would split into two large squads. One, led by Kakashi, would circle the lake to the south. The other, led by Anko, would take the north. They would move silently, eliminating the wandering patrols on their way to the main camp. Then, on a synchronized signal, they would launch a pincer attack, encircling the enemy and cutting off any escape. The crystal user was to be neutralized first.
Kakashi, Hinata, Kiba, Shino, Yamato, Naruto, and Sakura moved south. Anko, Shizune, Neji, Lee, Tenten, Ino, and Karin took the north. They were aware that the mutants' abilities were random, and early detection was a distinct possibility.
With curt nods, the two squads melted back into the trees, becoming ghosts in the humid forest.
The two squads moved through the forest, their footfalls silent on the damp earth. They systematically dismantled the wandering patrols with a brutal efficiency that left no trace. The mutants' disorganization was staggering. There was no rotation, no checking in, no discipline of any kind. They were simply collections of armed things.
As they circled the vast lake, they kept the enemy camp in sight, using the high ground and the dense foliage for cover. Hinata and Neji, their eyes glowing with the faint, pearlescent light of their dōjutsu, provided a constant stream of intelligence. But then, they saw something they hadn't anticipated.
The purple-haired woman in the center of the camp finally stopped shouting. She turned, her movements sharp and deliberate, and walked towards the scared-looking boy. She grabbed his hand, her grip looking anything but gentle, and began walking towards the stony shore where a single, small boat was moored. Wordlessly, she pushed the boy into the vessel and then shoved it out into the water. With a final, powerful push, she leaped aboard, took up a single paddle, and began to row slowly, methodically, towards the center of the lake.
The strange, silent procession was broadcast to the entire Konoha force.
"What the hell is she doing?" Naruto's voice was a harsh whisper over the comms.
"Whatever it is, I don't like it," Kiba growled back. "Don't forget what's sleeping at the bottom of this lake."
A primitive sacrificial ritual, Venom speculated in Hinata's mind. She intends to offer the child as tribute to the beast below. Fascinatingly barbaric.
"Are they… going to sacrifice him?" Sakura's voice was a shocked gasp, and Hinata could feel Venom vibrate with a low hum of approval at her correct guess.
"Stay on mission," Kakashi's voice cut through their speculation, a calm, grounding force. "Double time. We neutralize the camp, then we have her surrounded. Go."
Hinata's group accelerated. As they closed in on the camp's crude perimeter, they began to pick off the sentries. A near-invisible blast of compressed air from Naruto's position sent a mutant slumping from his branch, a tiny, neat hole in his forehead. On the ground, Kiba and Akamaru became a whirlwind of fang and claw, dragging a wandering guard into the undergrowth while a cloud of Shino's kikaichu silently enveloped another. From the shadows, Yamato gestured, and a sharpened branch of wood erupted from a tree trunk, impaling a sentry through the chest. Hinata, perched high above, flicked her fingers, sending a series of tiny, super-compressed fire pellets that struck two more guards in the head, causing their skulls to silently explode.
It was almost too easy.
Then, one of the mutants, a grotesque, short-stacked thing with a hunched back and bulging eyes, paused. Its two grotesquely elongated arms, with knuckles that scraped the leaf litter, suddenly went still. It sniffed the air, its head twitching, and its bulging eyes swiveled, somehow sensing the unseen death around it. With a squawk of pure terror, it turned and began to run back towards the camp, scuttling on all fours like a panicked chimpanzee, its speed shockingly fast.
"Enemies!" its squawky, high-pitched voice screeched, echoing through the trees. "Enemies are here! We're being attacked! WAKE UP, YOU IDIOTS!"
A collective tension shot through the Konoha squad. They broke cover, accelerating into a full-speed.
"Stop that bastard!" Sakura's voice hissed over the comms, annoyed and tense.
They burst through the final line of trees just in time to see the short mutant reach the edge of the camp, still screeching his warning. "They're in the trees! They're killing us! TO ARMS!"
To their utter astonishment, the alarm had the exact opposite effect. The mutants in the camp, who had been lounging, bickering, or simply staring into space, turned to look at the frantic creature with expressions of bored annoyance. A few of them chuckled.
"Shut your hole, you little freak!" one of them yelled.
"Always screaming about something," another grumbled, not even bothering to stand up.
The short mutant's squawks grew more desperate and annoying. Finally, a massive, bull-necked mutant lumbered over to him, his face filled with irritation. "I said," he growled, "shut. UP."
He swung a massive, club-like fist. There was a sickening crunch as it connected with the smaller mutant's head, sending the creature flying through the air in a limp, silent arc. It landed with a wet thud in the ditch filled with the dead.
The Konoha shinobi, hidden at the edge of the treeline, could only stare, a collective, silent sweatdrop of disbelief at the sheer, suicidal incompetence they were witnessing.
The edge of the forest became a silent stage. Hidden within the dense foliage, Hinata tensed, her body a coiled with readiness. She could feel the ripple of activity as Naruto, with a soft poof, created hundreds of shadow clones that fanned out, creating a semi-circle around their half of the camp. She felt the slow, steady thrum of her teammates channeling their chakra, a low hum of power building in the humid air. Her Byakugan was active, its vision painting a detailed schematic of the enemy. She marked the most dangerous targets first: the ones who looked almost perfectly human, their curse marks dormant, their discipline a fraction higher than the others. Then came the grotesquely mutated, their bodies twisted into weapons of flesh and bone. Finally, she noted the ones with crude cybernetics, rusted metal plates bolted to their skin, sharpened pipes replacing lost limbs. They were a pathetic, chaotic army.
Even as her team prepared for the slaughter, her enhanced hearing picked up the mutants' conversation.
"—finally free, and for what?" one of them grumbled, kicking at the dirt. "To stand around in a swamp waiting for that crazy bitch to tell us what to do next."
"Quiet, you fool," another hissed. "She'll hear you."
"She's out on the lake," the first one shot back. "What's she gonna do? We should just take her. There are many of us. We could surround her, overwhelm her. Then we'd be in charge."
A low murmur of agreement rippled through the nearby mutants. They were broken, but not entirely witless.
Suddenly, Hinata felt a new presence. On the far side of the clearing, Anko's team had arrived, melting into the shadows. Everything was set. A flicker of chakra, a silent signal, passed between Kakashi and Anko.
Naruto's clones moved as one.
A collective inhale, and then a roar. "Fūton: Daitoppa! (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!)" A colossal, hemispherical wall of wind erupted from the forest, a howling gale that ripped through the camp, kicking up dirt and debris and sending the unprepared mutants stumbling.
Before they could recover, the sky ignited. Hinata unleashed a torrent of white-hot fireballs. "Hōsenka: Kikan Sōsha (Phoenix Fire: Machine Gun Sweep)" Her attack was instantly joined by Kakashi's Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu! (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!) and a swarm of Anko's Katon: Ryūka no Jutsu! (Fire Release: Dragon Fire Technique!). The three fire attacks merged with Naruto's gale, transforming into a swirling, self-sustaining firestorm of white, orange, and purple flame that rained down upon the camp.
FWOOOOOOM!
The sound was a deafening roar. Mutants caught in the open were instantly incinerated, their screams cut short as they were turned to blackened, smoking husks. But some were more resilient. One coated himself in a thick, mucous-like layer of water that sizzled and steamed. Others roared as their curse marks flared to life, growing thick, chitinous shells over their bodies that cracked and glowed under the intense heat. A few of the more agile ones leaped high into the air, trying to escape the inferno, while others desperately tried to burrow into the soft, muddy ground.
The firestorm was just the start.
Hinata shot forward in a blur. She appeared before the massive, bull-necked mutant who had killed the small sentry. He was still reeling from the heat, his eyes wide with shock. He didn't even have time to raise a hand before her armored fist connected with his face.
BOOOOM!
There was no gore. The kinetic force of the blow was so immense that the mutant's head simply ceased to exist, dissolved into a pink mist. His colossal body stood for a second before collapsing like a felled tree. Hinata didn't stop. She began to spin, a grinding, electric shriek filling the air. "Hakkeshō: Raikō Kaiten! (Eight Trigrams Palms: Lightning Drill Revolving Heaven!)" Her spinning form became a vortex of grinding lightning that tore through the center of the camp. She then released the energy in a single, omnidirectional blast. "Raiton: Hakai Shōgekiha! (Lightning Release: Destructive Shockwave!)"
CRACK-BOOOOM!
A wave of kinetic force and electricity erupted from her, blasting mutants off their feet and sending agonizing jolts of lightning through the ground, cooking the ones who had tried to burrow.
That was the signal. The rest of the Konoha shinobi descended upon the chaos.
Naruto, his real body now in the fray, swung his oversized kanabo in an arc, its iron studs pulping a mutant's torso. CRUNCH! His clones swarmed the survivors, their wind-infused kunai slicing through mutated flesh. Lee was a green hurricane, his fists and feet a blur of devastating blows that shattered bone and chitin. THWACK! THWACK! THUMP! Yamatos great wooden spikes erupting from the ground to impale their foes, while walls of earth rose to block any escape.
The others were just as lethal. Kakashi moved fast, his Raikiri a precise, chirping blade of death that pierced hearts and severed spines. Anko was a whirlwind of snakes and blades. Sakura, her fists glowing with green chakra, turned the ground into a crater with every punch, sending mutants flying. Neji and Tenten worked in perfect sync, Neji disabling targets with precise Jūken strikes while Tenten's Lightning Fang blades carved through them. Kiba and Akamaru were a feral storm of fang and claw, tearing through the enemy's disorganized ranks. Ino, Karin, and Shizune provided support, their senbon and tactical jutsus creating openings and disabling key targets from a distance.
A few of the more competent mutants rallied, their curse marks flaring to their second stage. One grew four arms, his speed increasing exponentially, managing to stall Lee for a precious few seconds before a shadow clone's Rasengan obliterated his back. Another spat a torrent of acid, which was instantly countered by one of Yamato's wooden shields. Their individual power was formidable, but they were a chaotic mob, and Konoha's disciplined, combined attacks dismantled them piece by piece.
Hinata and Naruto found themselves fighting back-to-back. A mutant with hardened skin charged her, Naruto's wind bullet sheared off its leg, and Hinata's lightning-wreathed claws took its head. Three more lunged at Naruto, Hinata's fire pellets created a wall of flame, and Naruto's kanabo swept through the smoke, breaking all three in a single, brutal swing.
The tide of battle turned into a rout. The mutants, their numbers dwindling rapidly, began to panic. They dropped their weapons and ran, a terrified, stampeding herd. Some were cut down by the relentless advance of the Konoha shinobi. Others were trampled to death by their own fleeing comrades. They were being systematically, brutally, and efficiently herded towards the dark waters of the lake.
The remnants of the mutant army, numbering no more than twenty, were now pressed into a single, terrified pile on the stony shore. Desperation had turned them on each other. Weaker mutants were shoved forward to act as living shields against the storm of kunai and paper bombs. They were trapped, a chaotic knot of despair with nowhere left to run.
Kakashi gave a silent, unspoken order that rippled through the Konoha forces. The close-quarters assault ceased. In its place, the shinobi fanned out, forming a wide, merciless semi-circle around the huddled mutants. The bombardment began. Shuriken, wind scythes, fire pellets, and poisoned senbon rained down on the pile from all sides, a methodical, systematic eradication.
When one mutant, roaring in defiance, broke from the pile and charged, a green blur intercepted him. Lee's foot connected with the mutant's chest with a sickening CRACK, sending him flying back into the writhing mass of his comrades. Another tried to burrow, only for Neji to appear and disable him with a single, precise Jūken strike to the spine. They were being dismantled.
Hinata watched it all with a cold, detached calm. She saw Naruto's clones, hundreds of them, standing on the surface of the lake, their hands forming seals as they began to draw water up around them, preparing a final, crushing wave. A perfect encirclement.
Just as the final, mercy-killing volley was about to be unleashed, it happened.
A column of raw, violent purple chakra erupted from the center of the lake, shooting into the sky like a geyser. A shockwave of pure energy washed over the shore, palpable and immense, halting every shinobi in their tracks.
"What the hell was that?!" Ino's voice shouted over, a note of genuine shock in her tone.
"An enormous chakra release!" Karin answered, her voice strained. "It's coming from the middle of the lake!"
"The monster?" Kiba growled. "Did it wake up?"
Hinata's vision snapped to the source. Her Byakugan, augmented by Venom's processing power, zoomed in, piercing the mist. The sight was bizarre. The crystal-using kunoichi was standing on the water's surface, her expression one of pure shock. But it wasn't her. It was the child. The small boy was floating just above the boat, screaming, his body wreathed in that violent purple aura as it uncontrollably vented into the sky. No child should have that much power. Her mind, moving at an impossible speed, scanned his system. There was something foreign inside him, forcing his chakra network into a catastrophic overload. The crystal user had done something to him.
Her other senses picked up the aftermath. The spiritual echo of the boy's overloaded chakra was radiating outwards in waves, not just through the air, but plunging deep into the water, striking the dormant beast below like a tuning fork. She could see it, a slow, resonant thrum beginning to build within the Three-Tails' colossal chakra signature.
The child is a key, Venom's voice was a low hiss in her mind. His chakra frequency is a resonant catalyst. He is not a hostage. He is the trigger. The sacrifice.
The entire analysis took less than a second.
"The chakra is from the boy!" Hinata's voice cut through, sharp and urgent. "He's being used to wake the beast!"
The revelation sent a fresh jolt of alarm through the Konoha shinobi. This was bad. This was very, very bad.
"Naruto, disengage your clones!" Kakashi's command was immediate and absolute. "Whatever on the lake is happening, stop them! Main squad, finish the mutants! Now!"
Naruto's clones on the lake's surface acknowledged, turning from their water jutsu to face the new threat.
But it was too late.
The geyser of purple chakra from the boy abruptly ceased. A low, grinding rumble shook the very earth beneath their feet. The water of the lake began to churn violently. Then, with a groan that sounded like a mountain breaking apart, the Three-Tailed Beast rose.
The sheer displacement of water was a cataclysm in itself. A massive wave, dozens of feet high, surged outwards, crashing onto the shore. It washed over the pathetic pile of mutants, sweeping many of them away into the churning depths. Naruto's clones dug their heels in, their chakra anchoring them to the water's surface as the wave passed. The very air grew heavy, thick with the monster's oppressive presence.
Hinata's eyes were locked on the scene. She saw the crystal user, now leaping across the water's surface, firing shards of purple crystal at the newly awakened beast. What is she thinking? Is she trying to control it? Provoke it?
The mountain of flesh and shell did not appreciate the annoyance. Hinata saw it, a terrifyingly familiar sight. A massive, swirling ball of impossibly dense chakra began to form at the monster's mouth, a titanic, spinning ball of water-aspected chakra. It has an uncanny resemblance of Naruto's Rasengan. And it was pointed directly at them.
INCOMING! Venom's voice was a primal roar in her head. HIGH-DENSITY ENERGY DISCHARGE! WIDE-AREA SATURATION! EVADE! NOW!
"INCOMING ATTACK!" Hinata screamed over the comms, her voice losing its filtered calm for the first time. "IT'S GOING TO WIPE US OUT!"
The shinobi, shocked but disciplined, broke formation, their instincts screaming at them to fall back. But there was no time.
FWOOOOOOSH!
The Three-Tails unleashed its attack. A beam of pure, pressurized water, as wide as a building, shot from its mouth. It slammed into the forest to the north of their position with the force of a meteor, and the sound of a thousand trees exploding simultaneously echoed across the lake. Hinata saw the crystal user leaping desperately to evade as the monster began to sweep the beam across the water, tracking her. The beam of absolute destruction, a giant, sweeping razor mowing down everything in its path, was now swinging towards them.
There was no running. There was only one way to go.
"UP!" Kakashi roared.
Every shinobi on the shore launched themselves into the air with every ounce of chakra they could muster. For a split second, they were airborne, a scattered group of desperate figures against the grey sky. The beam passed directly beneath them. It vaporized Naruto's clones, scoured the pile of mutants from existence, and carved a massive, steaming trench through the forest where they had been standing just seconds before.
The sheer force of the beam's passage created a violent, howling updraft that slammed into them mid-air, sending them tumbling out of control. Hinata reacted instantly. Sleek, leathery wings of black biomass erupted from her back, catching the wind. Small, venom-shaped maws opened on her shoulders and calves, spitting controlled jets of white-hot fire that acted as thrusters, instantly stabilizing her flight. Nearby, Naruto was doing the same, controlled blasts of wind from his hands and feet arresting his own wild spin.
The beam passed. They landed, some gracefully, some stumbling, on the edge of the newly carved wasteland. The patch of forest they had occupied was simply… gone.
Hinata landed lightly, her armored boots making almost no sound on the churned-up earth. Her gaze swept across the carnage. The clearing was a ruin, littered with the shattered remains of trees and the scattered, broken bodies of the mutants. The Three-Tails' attack had been absolute. A few of the mutants still twitched, their ruined forms little more than collections of mangled limbs and torsos. The immediate threat from the camp was over.
"LOOK!" Naruto's voice roared, pointing out over the lake.
The destruction of the forest had given them a clear, unobstructed view. For the first time, they saw the Three-Tails in its full, horrifying glory. It was a living island of mottled green shell and grey, wrinkled flesh, its three armored tails swaying slowly in the churning water.
"It's… it's huge," Tenten breathed, her voice filled with a terrified awe.
Through her Byakugan, Hinata saw it as a mountain of raw, untamed chakra, a roiling, self-contained storm of energy so bright it was almost painful to look at. It made the flickering, desperate chakra signature of the crystal user, who was now leaping between hastily-grown crystal platforms on the water's surface, seem like a tiny firefly buzzing around a bonfire. The woman was relentless, sending spears and pillars of purple crystal lancing into the beast's thick hide, where they shattered with little effect.
The beast finally had enough.
With a low, guttural roar that vibrated in their bones, it raised its two massive, clawed forelimbs and its three tails high into the air. Hinata saw the frequency of its chakra spike, a new, massive build-up of energy.
"It's preparing another attack!" Neji's voice was a sharp crack of warning over the comms, a fraction of a second before Hinata could say the same.
There was no time to react. The Three-Tails slammed all five appendages down onto the surface of the lake.
BOOOOOOM!
The impact was cataclysmic. The ground beneath their feet quivered violently, and a shockwave of displaced air blasted through them. The hit sent a wave surging outwards, a moving wall of dark water that blotted out the sun, casting the entire wasteland into a terrifying shadow. It was a mountain of water, impossibly high, and it was closing on them fast. There was no outrunning it. No jumping over it.
Hinata's mind, a fused with human instinct and Klyntar logic, went into overdrive. Too wide. Too high. Cannot evade. Must mitigate.
"NARUTO! WIND!" she screamed, her voice a pure command.
He understood instantly. His eyes flashed the color of a setting sun, the orange pigment spreading around them. He slammed his palms together. "Fūton: Renkūdan! (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet!)" Instead of a single bullet, he unleashed a massive, sustained, wide-angle cone of howling wind that slammed into the face of the approaching tsunami, tearing at its crest, slowing it for a precious, vital second.
"HINATA! YAMATO! NOW!" Kakashi roared.
As the wind died, Hinata and Kakashi slammed their palms onto the ground in unison. "Doton: Doryūheki! (Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!)" A jagged, semi-enclosed dome of raw earth heaved upwards, a desperate, raw shield against the inevitable. In the second that bought them, Yamato was ready, his hands pressed together. "Mokuton: Mokujōheki! (Wood Release: Wood Locking Wall!)"
Sounds of groaning timber erupted around them as a perfect, interlocking dome of thick, powerful wood grew from the ground, sealing them in just as the world outside was consumed by a thunderous roar.
They were plunged into a stifling darkness. The sound was deafening, the thunderous roar of a dying lake crashing against their wooden shell. The dome groaned and shuddered under the immense pressure, and streams of cold water shot through the cracks in the wood, drenching them. The only light was the faint, steady cerulean glow of Hinata's and Neji's pale eyes. The only sound, after the roar subsided, was the ragged sound of their own breathing.
"What… the hell… just happened?" Anko's voice was a ragged gasp in the dark.
"The child," Hinata explained, her voice echoing slightly in the enclosed space. "His chakra was forced into an overload state. The frequency resonated with the Three-Tails' own chakra and triggered a forced awakening."
"But that's impossible," Shizune countered, her voice sharp with a medic's logic. "No child, no matter how gifted, could produce that much raw chakra." She paused. "Did you see anything else, Hinata?"
"There was something foreign inside his body," Hinata confirmed. "A foreign agent forcing his system into overdrive."
"A drug," Sakura, Shizune, and Karin concluded in near-unison. A potent, unstable chakra accelerant. It would be burning him out from the inside.
A low, animalistic growl rumbled in the darkness. It was Naruto.
"So why would she attack it?" Lee asked, his voice filled with confusion. "If she woke it up, why is she fighting it?"
It was Shino who answered, his voice a calm whisper in the dark. "The logic is sound, if cruel. She did not intend to control the beast. She intended to direct its rage. She was using it to attack us."
"When this water clears," Naruto's voice was a dangerous promise, "we're going to have a little talk with her. Whether she wants to or not."
The groaning of the wood finally ceased, replaced by the sound of dripping water and a heavy silence. After a long moment, Hinata's filtered voice came through. "Clear." Neji's confirmation followed a second later.
With a final, weary groan, Yamato's wooden dome dismantled itself, the thick timbers receding back into the earth. They were met with a scene of devastation. The forest was gone, replaced by a swampy wasteland of churned mud and stagnant pools. The wave had been so powerful it had churned up the lakebed, and dozens of pale-bellied fish flopped and gasped on the muddy ground, their scales glinting in the morning light. The splintered skeletons of trees were scattered like matchsticks. The bodies of the mutants were even more dispersed, little more than broken shapes half-buried in the muck.
The Konoha shinobi stood for a moment, taking deep, ragged breaths, the stench of lake mud and death filling their lungs. Then, as one, they broke into a run, their boots splashing through the shallow water as they reached the new, mangled shoreline.
The Three-Tails was gone.
"Hinata, where are they?" Naruto demanded, his eyes scanning the placid, mist-covered water.
Hinata's gaze plunged into the depths. "The beast is submerging. It's returning to the lakebed." She swept her vision across the surface, a frown creasing her brow beneath the helmet. "The woman and the boy… they're gone."
Neji, Karin, and Naruto, his sage-mode senses still active, began their own frantic scans. Nothing.
"I can't see them," Neji reported, his voice tight with frustration.
"Me neither," Karin added, shaking her head. "The Tailed Beast's chakra release was… overwhelming. It's saturated the entire area, washed out every other signature. I'm blind for now."
Hinata's own senses were fighting against the same wall of residual energy. She pushed her perception deeper, trying to catch the faintest spiritual echo, a lingering thread of intent, but it was like trying to hear a whisper in a hurricane. Large, shimmering clouds of the beast's chakra still floated in the air like an invisible fog.
The redhead is correct, Venom confirmed in her mind. The ambient energy contamination is too high. It will require time to settle before we can acquire a clean trace.
"I have nothing either," Hinata reported to the team. "The residual energy is too dense." She found herself wondering, with a cold knot of dread, how the Akatsuki could ever hope to control such a cataclysmic force. And this was just one piece of an even greater monster.
After a final, thorough sweep confirmed they were alone and the immediate threat had passed, the squad gathered.
"None of this makes any sense," Anko finally grunted, breaking the silence. Everyone turned to look at her. "This 'camp' was just a holding pen for a bunch of disposable freaks. There should have been a proper command structure, more officers, something. But it was just her. And she was barely keeping them in line." She gestured wildly at the wasteland. "Where are Orochimaru's other agents?"
Yamato added his own calm analysis. "It seems the child was her primary asset. The mutants were a distraction, a disposable shield." He pointed a thumb at the carnage around them. "And judging by the results, her plan to get rid of them was a resounding success."
"It was still too damn risky," Anko shot back. "She was one woman against fifty unstable monsters. There were a hundred ways that could have gone wrong for her. She should have had a support team, at the very least."
A heavy silence fell as they all processed the tactical nightmare. The enemy's strategy was illogical, reckless, and suicidal.
Then, Naruto spoke, his voice surprisingly clear. "Maybe… maybe Orochimaru's just running low on people he can trust."
Everyone blinked, staring at him. The idea was so simple, so completely devoid of high-level strategy, that it was almost absurd.
"That's… impossible," Sakura said, a note of uncertainty in her voice. "A Sannin like Orochimaru, he wouldn't make such a reckless decision… right?"
The silence that followed her question was an uncomfortable answer in itself.
"We can debate their strategy later," Kakashi's voice cut in, bringing them back to the present. "We still have a mission. Shizune, is the sealing scroll intact?"
Shizune, clutching the massive scroll on her back, gave a nod. "Yes, Kakashi-senpai."
"Good," he said. "Our next objective is to locate that base. And I think we've just found our guide."
He pointed. Everyone's gaze followed his finger. They looked towards the grotesque ditch, now a stagnant, muddy pond filled with floating bodies. Climbing slowly, painfully, out of the muck, was the short-stacked, long-limbed mutant who had tried to raise the alarm.
He scrambled onto solid ground, his bulging eyes wide with terror, and tried to make a break for the trees. He didn't get two steps before thick, powerful vines erupted from the ground, wrapping around his limbs and hoisting him into the air.
The squad closed in, forming a tight, menacing circle around the terrified, dripping creature. Anko stepped forward, cracking her knuckles, a cruel smile spreading across her face.
"Well, well," she said, her voice a low and dangerous. "Looks like we have a few questions for you."
Anko's interrogation was short, brutal, and fruitless. The short-stacked mutant's mind was a shattered mess. His speech was a series of guttural clicks and terrified, rambling sentences, his disfigured jaw making his words almost impossible to decipher. Frustrated, Anko stood back and gave Ino a curt nod.
Ino knelt, her expression focused, and placed her palm on the creature's sweaty, pulsating forehead. A moment of stillness, and then she was in. What they got was a collage of fragmented horrors. The backstory was the same as the others: a broken man who sought power and found only a cage. The images of Orochimaru were old and blurry, a ghost from a past so distant it was almost a dream. Other personnel, figures in white coats and grim-faced guards, were little more than vague, threatening shapes. But the image of the purple-haired woman was sharp, clear, a recent and terrifying imprint on his broken psyche. It was as if she was the only one he'd seen for a very long time. From the jumble of his memories and a primal understanding of the forest's layout, Ino and Anko managed to piece together a rough map pointing to the location of the prison.
When they were finished, the mutant was left shivering and sobbing. Anko gave him a quick, painless end, and with their new objective in hand, the large squad of shinobi moved out.
They traveled east, leaving the swampy wasteland behind and re-entering the dense, humid forest. The path of the Three-Tails' fury was a stark, brutal scar carved deep into the landscape, a wide, steaming trench of obliterated trees and churned earth that stretched for miles. As they moved, their sensors worked in together. Karin felt the lingering psychic static of the mutants' passage. Kiba and Akamaru easily picked up the stale scent of fear and sweat, a clear trail that had been preserved in the damp air. And Hinata, her senses attuned to a deeper level, could see the faint, corrupted spiritual echoes they had left behind. They moved cautiously, expecting traps, but there were none. The enemy hadn't even bothered with the most basic precautions. After another hour of swift, silent travel, they arrived.
The entire squad stood in a wide semi-circle, looking down into a great, funnel-shaped pit in the earth. At its bottom was the maw of what looked like an old mine, its entrance now completely submerged in stagnant, murky water.
"Are we supposed to dive in there?" Karin asked, her voice is filled with worry.
Kakashi didn't answer. His gaze flicked to Hinata and Neji. They nodded, activating their dōjutsu. Hinata could feel Naruto standing just beside her, his anticipation a palpable warmth at her side. Her vision plunged into the flooded depths, tracing the lines of the structure below.
"It's vast," Neji reported, his voice tight. "Tunnels, corridors, chambers… the scale of a small town."
"But it's all gone," Hinata added, her own voice filtered and calm. "The entire structure is flooded and has suffered a catastrophic collapse. The base is destroyed."
"Ino," Naruto said, turning to her. "Did that guy's memories have anything about other ways in?"
"Negative," Ino replied, shaking her head. "As far as he and the other prisoners knew, this was the only way in or out."
"A base this big has to have more than one entrance," Naruto mused, more to himself than anyone else. Hinata saw Karin and Ino glance at him, a new, strange look in their eyes, a flicker of something she hadn't seen before. A faint blush. She blinked, momentarily surprised by the observation.
"Naruto's right," Yamato agreed. "A facility of this scale would have multiple ventilation shafts and emergency exits. We need to confirm they're all sealed."
The large squad split into two teams, one led by Hinata, the other by Neji. They fanned out, moving through the forest in a wide, sweeping pattern, their glowing eyes tracing the ghostly outlines of the collapsed tunnels beneath the earth. It didn't take long. They found them, one by one. A caved-in ventilation shaft hidden beneath a thicket of ferns. A collapsed service entrance at the base of a small cliff. A secondary exit that now opened into a solid wall of rock. In total, they found half a dozen other entrances, all scattered throughout the surrounding forest. And all of them, according to their calculations, had been systematically and deliberately demolished a couple of days ago.
The last of the collapsed entrances was at the far eastern edge of the forest, a jagged scar of caved-in earth and shattered rock. As Yamato and Anko made their final confirmation that it was sealed, Hinata went still.
It was a stain on the world, a lingering, discordant hum that only her deepest senses could perceive. The curse marks on the mutants were crude siphons, violently tearing ambient energy from the world and shoving it into their chakra systems. It was a inefficient process, a stark contrast to Naruto's elegant, harmonious gathering of natural energy. Where his felt like a river flowing into a lake, this felt like a dam bursting. It twisted their bodies, and it left a corrupted, foul-tasting spiritual echo in its wake. And she could sense a massive trail of it, leading away from their position.
Inside her, Venom stirred, like a catching a distant scent of spoiled meat.
Hinata's helmeted head slowly turned, her gaze fixed on the dense, eastern woods.
"Hinata-chan?" Naruto's voice was a low murmur beside her. "You find something?"
The quiet question drew the immediate attention of the rest of their squad. Anko and Yamato turned, their expressions focused.
"A trail," Hinata said, her voice filtered and calm. "Spiritual echoes. A large group passed this way recently." She raised a gauntleted hand, pointing east. "Trails are heading in that direction."
"Can you track them?" Anko demanded, her hand already moving towards the pouch on her thigh.
Hinata pushed her senses, trying to follow the faint, corrupted threads, but the world was still awash with a far greater power. "Negative," she reported, a note of frustration in her voice. "The residual chakra from the Three-Tails is still too dense, even at this distance. It's scrambling everything. It's like trying to find a footprint in a mudslide."
"She's right," Yamato said, kneeling at the edge of the collapsed entrance. He pointed to the ground. "There are tracks here. Faint. Someone tried to cover them up." He looked up, his gaze following the line of her pointing finger. "They lead east. Directly towards the Land of Water."
"So, we're going after them?" Naruto asked.
A short time later, the two squads regrouped, a grim council held in the humid twilight of the forest. Hinata's findings were discussed, the implications weighed with a cold, shinobi logic. The conclusion was unavoidable. The second group of mutants was already too far gone, deep into the sovereign territory of another nation. A pursuit would be a weeks-long hunt, a wild goose chase with no guarantee of success. They theorized another high-ranking officer, perhaps one of the Warden's own subordinates, must have led the exodus. Considering the situation and condition of crystal user that lead her group of prisoners, they conclude that another group of mutants may have rebelled, or even killed other officer and scattered away.
Their orders were clear. The local threat was contained. It was time to switch to their primary, and far more dangerous, objective.
They returned to the lake. The place where the mutants' camp had stood was now a death swamp. The bodies, left in the sun and churned by the massive wave, were already beginning to bloat and decay. The air was thick with the stench of stagnant water and death, a cloud of buzzing flies hanging over the entire area. They stood on the shore of the dark lake, their first objective complete, and their true, far more dangerous task about to begin.
The break was short, a necessary pause to regroup before the final, most dangerous phase of their mission. While the rest of the squad checked their gear and took on water, the sealing team, Sakura, Ino, Karin, and Shizune, gathered near Naruto, who had the massive scroll unrolled on the muddy ground, checking intricate arrays of the seal.
"Ugh, I can't take this smell," Ino complained, pinching her nose. "It's getting worse." She looked out at the dark, placid water with a deep sense of unease. "Are we really sure we can do this without it waking up? That thing looked like it could swallow the whole village."
"The beast has returned to a dormant state," Hinata said, her resonant voice cutting through the tension. She stood near them. "I've scanned the lakebed. Its chakra is stable."
Naruto, who was tracing the lines of the seal with his finger, nodded without looking up. "And the seal is designed to be gradual. It's not a brute-force attack. It's supposed to be… gentle." He looked up at the four kunoichi, his expression serious. "Granny Tsunade showed you how to do it, right? We'll form a square in the center of the lake. You'll slowly lower the seal from above. It'll wrap around the Three-Tails' form and then… pop. It gets forced back into its own dimension."
Hinata watched him, a familiar warmth spreading through her chest. She enjoyed Naruto's goofy, boundless energy, but she loved this. The focused, competent leader, breaking down a complex strategy with an easy confidence. Inside her, Venom gave a appreciative purr.
"I believe in you and Hinata-sama," Karin said, her voice firm, a determined look on her face.
Hinata did a quick scan of the rest of the team. Lee was already doing one-handed push-ups, muttering about staying limber for the "flames of youth." An annoyed Tenten, clearly suffering from the stench, was telling him not to waste his energy. Neji stood apart, his Byakugan active watching and scanning the surroundings. Nearby, Kiba was scratching Akamaru behind the ears.
"This is as easy as a walk on the beach," she heard him mutter to Shino. "I was hoping for a real challenge."
Their quiet preparations were interrupted as Kakashi, Yamato, and Anko approached, their expressions all business.
"Alright, here's the final formation," Kakashi began, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Shizune, Ino, Sakura, Karin, you are the sealing team. You'll take the center of the lake and initiate the jutsu. Naruto, you'll take the northern point, closer to the central group. You'll provide cover and your expertise on the seal itself. Hinata," he looked to her, his single eye conveying a world of trust, "you'll support them from the southern point. You're their primary defensive line." He paused, his gaze sweeping over the rest of the assembled shinobi. "Yamato and I will take the remaining personnel and form two patrol squads. We'll circle the perimeter. I hope nothing extreme happens."
With that, the break was over. The squad moved as one, their purpose renewed.
The scene shifted. The dark water of the lake lapped silently at their feet as they stood on its surface. Naruto knelt, the giant scroll unfurled before him. "Ready?"
Shizune, Karin, Sakura, and Ino nodded, their expressions a mixture of concentration and nervous tension.
"Go," he commanded.
The four kunoichi moved to their positions, one at each corner of the heavy parchment. Each placed a single hand on the scroll, formed a one-handed seal with their free hand, and began to channel their chakra.
Instantly, the intricate arrays of ink on the scroll blazed to life with a blue-white light. Four circular seals, each the size of a dinner plate, lifted from the parchment, hovering just above each of the kunoichis' hands.
"Confirmed," Naruto said, his voice sharp. "Start moving back. Slowly."
The four women began to walk backwards across the water, moving away from the central scroll. As they did, glowing tethers of sealed chakra extended from the hovering discs on their hands, connecting back to the main scroll. The tethers pulled, and the rest of the massive seal began to lift from the parchment, unfolding in the air like a great, glowing net of light, forming a vast, shimmering circle that hovered a dozen feet above the water.
With the jutsu active, Naruto quickly formed a seal, and with a puff of smoke, the now-empty scroll vanished, stored away.
He gave Hinata a final, determined nod. She returned it, and they moved, their feet skipping silently across the water as they took up their positions, Naruto to the north, she to the south. The four kunoichi were now a wide square on the lake, the colossal, glowing seal hanging in the air between them.
Naruto's voice crackled over their comms, calm and clear. "Alright, girls. On my mark. Start lowering the seal." He took a breath, his gaze sweeping the misty horizon. Then, he broadcast to the entire squad.
"Sealing has begun."