Snow thickened into a curtain. The wind got teeth.
By the Mizukage's order, Suikazan Fuguki (Samehada on his back), Biwa Jūzō, and Kurosuki Raiga had pushed out with three ANBU cells and a half-dozen sensors to run down Uchiha Sogetsu. The tracks had been clear—too clear—until the storm dropped a white sheet over everything. They split to grid the hills.
"Hate snow," Fuguki growled, stomach complaining as loud as the gale. He had a bear's build and a bear's opinions. "Should've waited in the village and let him come to us."
A scout popped back through the drift. "No trace within the sector, Fuguki-sama."
"In a blizzard?" Fuguki snorted. "No kidding." He squinted across to a smear of smoke and rooftops. "We're checking that place. I'm cold and hungry."
"Sir, the Mizukage ordered—"
"—me to find the Uchiha. Trying. Not finding. So I'll warm up while you keep looking." The smile he showed had edges. The scouts decided they loved the blizzard after all and dispersed gratefully into it.
The village materialized by degrees: grey wood, grey faces. Fuguki's presence crashed into the square like a thrown boulder.
"Anyone home?" His voice shook snow from roofs.
Doors stuttered open; elders blinked into a monster's silhouette—massive frame, bandage-wrapped blade, the trigram of Kirigakure carved on iron.
"Ninja… sir," one old woman said, cane trembling. "How can we… serve you?"
Fuguki studied her. Experienced shinobi noticed the small things: how eyes slid, how knuckles clenched, how people breathed when the wolf walked by.
She looked away too quickly. Sweat on the brow. Shoulders curled to make the target smaller. Hiding something. Or someone.
He stepped in, the air between them shrinking until the old woman had to crane her head to keep him in view.
"Look at me," he said, gentle as gravel. "Why do you drop your eyes? What, precisely, are you afraid of?"
Her knees failed. "Mercy, ninja lord—mercy!" Her forehead hit snow. "I'm old. It's my first time seeing a warrior of your… greatness."
Fuguki laughed, the sound booming off broken eaves.
The old women around her relaxed—just a little.
He grabbed a fistful of her hair and levered her face up until their eyes were level. The smile stayed; something colder arrived behind it.
"Do I look like a fool?"
He dragged her across the square, Samehada's weight thumping against his spine. When two elders reached out, pleading—
"Noisy."
Samehada's spines whispered out.
One backhand. Red on white.
The square went silent in an instant so deep it felt like a hole.
"Better," Fuguki said, and hauled the old woman into the nearest shack, boards skittering under his boots. The door bucked shut.
No one in the lane moved. No one breathed wrong. Inside, the questioning began—Fuguki's favorite discipline. He didn't need many minutes. People always thought secrets wanted saving. It was fear that wanted saving. Secrets merely wanted to be told to make the fear stop.
Outside, wind chewed the village and the village chewed on its terror. Somewhere up in the pines, a man in a black cloak left clear tracks where he wished wolves to follow.
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