A few minutes earlier, on the outskirts of Konoha, a dark alley lay silent.
"Target confirmed. Uzumaki clan, Nine-Tails Jinchūriki candidate. That Uchiha girl is just extra baggage." The man with a jagged lightning tattoo across his face, codename Raiga, spoke in a low, gravelly tone, his voice quivering with bloodthirsty excitement.
"Stay sharp. Avoid the ANBU's eyes. If we pull this off, the Raikage's reward will let us live in luxury for the rest of our lives."
"Mmmph…!"
Agonizing pain and suffocating fear clutched Uzumaki Kushina's throat. She bit down hard on her lip, forcing the sound back into her chest.
The sting of the ambush on her neck still pulsed, her vision swam. Cold branches lashed against her face without mercy.
Beside her, her friend Mikoto had also been bound, her face pale as paper, eyes shut tight in unconsciousness.
Kushina's heart plummeted into an icy abyss.
It wasn't her own capture that terrified her most. It was the despair gnawing at her mind.
Ryo, are you still angry with me?
That whole storming off in anger routine earlier tonight had been her and Mikoto's carefully planned trap, first stir his guilt with a show of unreasonable temper, then storm out, giving him the chance to chase after her and make peace.
A perfect script.
But none of their calculations had accounted for Kumo spies striking at this very moment.
Her fiery red hair stood out too much. As she struggled, she stealthily tore off strands and let them fall, marking the ground like drops of burning blood. She had done this all along the path, hoping desperately for even the faintest chance.
But her heart's hollow throb only filled with icy despair.
Ryo, did you see it? Will you follow my trail? Or was that cold "I don't care" really the truth? Will you even care if I live or die?
That thought, bitter and self-mocking, drowned in despair, and tears finally broke free, only to be ripped away by the rushing wind.
"Move faster. We have to reach the Forest of Death before Konoha locks the village down," hissed a voice from deeper in the alley.
Three shadows slipped like phantoms through the night.
One, built like a tower, codename Iron Pillar, carried a writhing sack over his shoulder. A strand of vivid red hair jutted stubbornly from the sack's mouth.
Another, lean and wiry, codename Lightning Flash, cradled the unconscious black-haired girl. Moonlight glanced across Mikoto's pale, delicate face, lifeless and unmoving.
Raiga led at the front, eyes sharp and predatory.
"Boss, something's wrong." Iron Pillar froze mid-step, his voice urgent. "Konoha's patrol network, it felt like something smashed it. So many signatures vanished at once. Even the village barrier is shaking like it's about to collapse."
"Don't care," Raiga barked, though a flicker of exultation flashed in his eyes. "Heaven helps us. Whatever that disturbance is, it's the perfect cover. Focus your chakra where it matters, getting to the Forest of Death."
His cruel gaze locked on the sack over Iron Pillar's shoulder, killing intent radiating.
"That cunning red-haired brat. She's been leaving hair strands as markers all along. Iron Pillar, shut her up. For good. Knock her out cold."
"Yes." Iron Pillar's growl rumbled as he raised his chakra-hardened hand, blade-like, and swung for Kushina's fragile neck within the sack, a blow that could shatter bone.
At the edge of the Forest of Death, moonlight strained through dense branches, casting twisted, ghastly shadows across the ground.
The air reeked of damp earth and the looming stench of death.
"Iron Pillar, stop."
Raiga's voice tore through the night, not in warning, but in terror.
Because in that instant, a suffocating wave of killing intent crashed down upon them. It was absolute, honed, and colder than glacial ice, clamping down on their hearts and souls like an iron vice.
It wasn't chakra. It was a curse from the depths of the underworld.
Iron Pillar's devastating strike froze midair. Not by choice, his body, his hand, his very soul had been locked in place, paralyzed by that murderous will. Even his pores screamed in agony.
And in that frozen heartbeat,
Crack. Thud.
The sack's crude strap snapped under Kushina's struggling weight, sending it crashing heavily to the ground.
Dust swirled as fiery red hair spilled free, bursting from the sack like flames.
Kushina's face flushed crimson from suffocation, wrists raw and bleeding from the ropes. Her blue eyes glared through dizziness and terror, fixed stubbornly on survival.
Her head spun, ears rang, but she had heard Raiga's panicked scream, and she had felt that soul-freezing intent.
It's him. It has to be him.
No time to think further.
A blade of darkness cleaved the night.
It wasn't light. It was the absence of it, absolute and oppressive.
Not flying toward them, but as if it had always been there.
So fast the very sound of air tearing couldn't keep up.
Iron Pillar's neck, flesh and bone, might as well have been paper.
Slice. Crash.
A whisper of steel, a spray of blood.
A crimson geyser erupted from his severed neck, soaking tree bark, earth, and Kushina's terrified face.
His massive head rolled to the ground, eyes wide in frozen fear.
The headless corpse lingered upright for a few seconds, still poised to strike, before toppling like a felled tower. Blood and dirt splattered in a grotesque spray.
"Iron Pillar!" Lightning Flash's scream tore from his throat, a sound of sheer animal horror.
The scene, Iron Pillar's head rolling, the blood still spraying, that suffocating killing aura, shattered his reason.
"Suiton, Mizu Shuriken (Water Release: Water Shuriken!)"
Survival instinct drained every drop of chakra from his body. With a desperate roar, he hurled Mikoto's limp form toward the shadows, the source of that terror.
A distraction, a shield, he didn't know, didn't care.
At the same instant, his own body twisted into a high-pressure stream of water, a distorted blur tearing into the distance.
All that remained was vapor and despair.
Clack.
A single, soft sound rang in that blood-soaked silence.
The shadow ahead, Ryo, shifted his stance by half a step. His left hand flashed, nothing but a blur, and caught Mikoto midair.
With effortless precision, he cradled her unconscious form against him, steady and gentle. He didn't even glance at her pale face.
His eyes, dark red as if dripping blood, pierced through Lightning Flash's watery clone. The gaze cut through to the true body fleeing in desperation.
No anger. No mockery.
Only judgment.
The Kusanagi Sword moved.
A razor-thin slash of sword aura screamed across the distance.
Lightning Flash felt only an icy chill pierce his chest. His Raiton armor shredded like wet paper.
The world dimmed. He glanced down, his heart pierced clean through. A hole the size of a fist gaped in his chest, moonlight shining through.
No pain, only the hollow collapse of life draining away.
His body tumbled forward, crashing heavily into the dirt, a spreading pool of blood marking his end.
Silence.
Two elite Kumo chūnin, erased within seconds.
The stench of blood thickened, choking the air.
On the clearing's edge, Raiga stood alone.
He had seen it all.
Iron Pillar's headless fall. Lightning Flash's heart pierced in flight.
Terror's claws crushed his chest, but despair burned away the last of his restraint.
"No retreat, he's blocked every path."
The figure before him, holding a girl in his arms, was death incarnate.
"AAAAAHHHH. Glory to the Raikage."
Raiga's roar cracked like thunder, hands trembling as he poured every shred of chakra into them.
Lightning gathered, blue-white arcs shrieking as they compressed into a blinding sphere. His face twisted into a demon's mask.
"Raiton, Gian (Lightning Release: False Darkness), die."
BOOM.
A massive thunder lance tore through the clearing, scorching the night, splitting earth and air alike.
It shot straight for Ryo, who still held Mikoto in his arms.
The attack carried all of Raiga's strength, burning life itself, its destructive power surpassed even most jōnin techniques.
The clearing left no room to dodge.
The world blazed in blinding blue.
But just before the thunder spear struck,
Ryo raised his free hand. Calm. Steady. Palm open.
Zzzzzzzzzz.
The cataclysmic spear crashed into his palm.
The roar of lightning strangled into a tortured hiss, as though countless serpents were being crushed by an invisible hand.
The blinding beam dimmed, twisted, collapsed, devoured by a void.
In seconds, the devastating A-rank jutsu disintegrated into nothing but sparks.
Raiga convulsed, blood spewing from his lips. The backlash of his own technique ripped through his organs like a runaway train.
He stared in disbelief as Ryo stepped forward. Step by step, across the blood and broken corpses of his comrades. Calm. Unhurried.
Every step slammed like a hammer on Raiga's heart.
Ryo stopped three paces away.
The wind stilled.
"M, monster…" Raiga gasped, blood trailing from his mouth. His eyes cracked with terror, his voice nothing but a rasp, "You're, a monster…"
"Monster?" Ryo's gaze fell upon him, calm as frozen water. "Perhaps."
And then he moved.
Faster than thought. Faster than sound.
"But you touched what you shouldn't have."
The Kusanagi Sword whispered free.
Black arcs slashed through moonlight.
Raiga never even saw the strike. Only the world spinning.
Slice. Slice. Slice. Slice.
Both arms fell from his body. Both legs severed at the knees.
Four smooth cuts, clean as mirrors.
Blood fountained from the stumps, spraying across the ground in wild arcs.
The meat puppet collapsed, writhing in grotesque spasms.
His eyes bulged, throat bubbling with meaningless gurgles, terror frozen into his final expression.
Ryo flicked his wrist.
The Kusanagi Sword slid back into its sheath, spotless, untouched by blood.
The forest fell into silence once more.
Only the whisper of the wind through the branches remained, and the corpses at Ryo's feet.
A headless giant. A body with a hole through its chest. And a limbless husk, twitching in the dirt.
(To be continued.)