The Land of Fire's northern border was a place most shinobi avoided.
Not because of enemies.
Because of what wasn't there.
No patrols. No missions. No outposts.
Just forests thick with silence and rivers that curved like serpents between cliffs.
A perfect place to disappear.
Which was exactly why Arashi came.
He moved through the mist like a memory, not rushing. Every step calculated, every breath shallow. His target wouldn't run. If anything, the man was expecting death.
And Arashi wasn't sure he wouldn't deliver it.
The message had come through a secure channel used only once before—during the war, when Root needed something buried so deep even ANBU weren't allowed near it.
One line, scratched into an old wooden practice sword:
"Tenka. Alive. Border."
No return address.
No signature.
Just fear, written in careful desperation.
Tenka had been a Root sensor-nin. Classified S-rank in observation, suppression, and tracking. He vanished five years ago after reporting "conscious chakra graft failures" in a project file.
Officially? He died during an escort mission gone wrong.
Unofficially? He was silenced.
Or should've been.
Arashi finally found the shelter after three hours of steady travel. It was a ruined storehouse nestled beneath a cliffside waterfall, overgrown with vines and moss.
Inside, it was dark, damp, and quiet.
And not empty.
A shadow shifted in the corner. Thin. Hunched. Cloaked in rags.
"Hatake," the man said hoarsely.
Arashi didn't respond right away. He studied him—clouded eyes, pale skin, hands scarred not from combat, but from repeated sealing exposure.
"Tenka?" he asked finally.
The figure nodded.
"I thought Root would kill you."
"They tried," Tenka rasped. "But someone forgot to check the scroll before lighting it."
Arashi stepped closer. "I need to know everything."
Tenka chuckled weakly. "That's what they all say."
"I'm not here to bury you."
"You might wish you had, after I tell you."
Arashi waited.
Tenka coughed—a deep, wet sound—and drew a trembling hand across the dirt floor. He began to trace a seal. Slowly. Deliberately.
It wasn't a weapon seal.
It was a map.
"I worked in Lab Nine," he whispered. "They called it Tenshi Archive—Heaven's Storage. Sounded like a library. It wasn't."
Arashi knelt, watching the lines form.
"They took chakra samples from clan children. Not just Uchiha or Hyuga. Kaguya, Uzumaki... even Senju relics. Blood, tissue, chakra. Then they tried to fuse them."
"Hybridization?" Arashi asked.
Tenka nodded. "But not for power. For control. One child, multiple bloodline traits—each one engineered with seals. Built not to use their gifts... but to be shut down if they misbehaved."
Arashi felt a chill that had nothing to do with the mist.
"Why children?"
"Adult minds resist seal imprints. Children don't. Especially orphans."
Tenka paused. "Or ones with... missing records."
Arashi's eyes narrowed. "How far did they get?"
"They succeeded." Tenka's voice dropped. "Once."
He drew a final circle in the dirt.
"They called her Prototype-0. Half-Hyuga. Half-Uzumaki. No surname. No chakra signature. She didn't speak. Didn't cry. Just stared."
"What happened to her?"
Tenka looked up, and for the first time, Arashi saw genuine fear in his eyes.
"She disappeared."
Arashi absorbed the weight of that single truth. Root had created a child—no, a weapon—and then lost her.
Or hidden her.
Either outcome was worse than failure.
"Where is Lab Nine?" he asked.
Tenka shook his head. "It doesn't exist anymore. Burned. Purged. Danzo made sure."
"Not completely. You survived."
"And so did the files."
Arashi blinked. "What?"
Tenka tapped his chest. "Not on scrolls. Inside."
Of course.
A human seal-vault.
Tenka hadn't just run with the truth—he was the truth.
Before Arashi could speak again, he felt it.
A ripple in the mist.
Too sharp. Too sudden.
They'd been followed.
Tenka's eyes widened. "They found me."
Arashi moved on instinct, drawing his blade and pivoting as the wall behind them exploded in a silent burst of chakra. A figure emerged, cloaked in grey-black armor, face masked with a blank porcelain expression.
Root hunter-nin.
The elite—sent only when silence must be absolute.
Tenka tried to scramble away, but his legs gave out.
"Stay behind me!" Arashi shouted.
But it was already too late.
The hunter's arm flicked forward, a thin black thread launching across the room and piercing Tenka's chest.
The old sensor gasped—then fell.
Dead before he hit the ground.
No flare.
No blood.
Just... gone.
Arashi's eyes burned.
Not just with fury.
With focus.
"You shouldn't have done that," he said coldly.
The hunter charged.
Their clash was fast, violent, and close. The hunter wielded twin blades—chakra-forged, reinforced for killing jinchūriki-level targets.
But Arashi wasn't just fast.
He was precise.
He let the first two strikes glance off his guard, took a step inside the hunter's rhythm, and smashed an elbow into the assassin's throat.
The mask cracked.
Arashi followed with a downward slash—not to kill, but to sever the chakra core embedded in the hunter's armor.
Sparks flew.
The assassin collapsed—alive, barely breathing.
Arashi stood over him, panting.
"You won't die here," he said.
"Why?" the hunter wheezed.
"Because someone needs to see what Root turned you into."
Arashi knelt and placed a binding seal on the man's chest. Immobilizing. Suppressing. But stable.
Then he turned back to Tenka's body.
Still.
Eyes open.
Fearful.
Arashi closed them gently.
"You lasted longer than you should've," he whispered. "Long enough."
He lifted the body, wrapped it in a preservation seal, and vanished into the mist.
—
Three hours later, Arashi stood at the edge of the old Uchiha watchtower—the one that hadn't been used in five years.
Fugaku met him in silence.
Arashi dropped the scroll at his feet.
"Your first proof," he said. "Lab Nine was real."
Fugaku read it carefully.
Then looked at Arashi. "You have a body?"
"Yes. It's encoded."
"Root will come for it."
"Let them."
A pause.
Then Fugaku asked, "You think they'll kill again?"
"No," Arashi said. "I think they'll activate again."
Fugaku's eyes narrowed. "The prototype?"
Arashi didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
—
That night, Arashi didn't train in his mental realm.
He didn't summon a fighter.
He summoned Tenka.
What he remembered of him. His voice. His presence.
Then he replayed the last words Tenka ever said.
"The worst thing Root ever did wasn't kill children.
It was convince us we were saving them."
Arashi sat alone in the mist.
And for once, he didn't feel like a shinobi.
He felt like a man with blood on his hands—
—but finally a reason to keep walking forward.
To be continued.