Anko didn't knock. She didn't announce herself. She treated the door like a structural weakness.
She channeled chakra into her heel, coiled her muscles like a viper, and unleashed a kick that carried the kinetic energy of a crashing train. The air in the hallway compressed ahead of the kick, blowing the dust off the doorframe a split second before impact.
KRA-KOOM.
The traditional wooden door, the delicate paper shoji screen behind it, and a good portion of the drywall disintegrated. Wood splinters flew into the room like shrapnel.
"Wake up, smoke-stack!" Anko screamed, diving through the debris cloud.
Inside, the air was thick, smelling of cloying white makeup powder and expensive sake—a sweet, floral mask over the factory's rot. It tasted sweet on the tongue, like spun sugar, instantly triggering a gag reflex against the metallic taste of the factory air.
Asuma, sitting at the low table with the cup halfway to his lips, flinched. The sudden violence shattered the hypnotic atmosphere Kotohime had woven. His eyes cleared, the glaze of the sedative vaporizing under the spike of adrenaline. His heart hammered against his ribs—thump-thump-thump—syncing violently with the pile drivers outside.
"Trap," Asuma grunted.
He didn't drop the cup; he crushed it. Crunch.
With a roar, he kicked the lacquer table. It flew upward, smashing into the sake bottle mid-air, spraying alcohol like rain. The droplets sizzled as they hit the hot bulb of the paper lantern, filling the room with the sharp, stinging scent of vaporized rice wine.
"Rude!" Kotohime shrieked.
She wasn't the seductress anymore. She stood up, her beautiful kimono rippling as her hair—long, black, and prehensile—exploded outward. It lashed out like a nest of angry vipers, wrapping around Asuma's wrists and ankles, pinning him to the tatami mats. The strands tightened with the sound of a tightening rope—creeeak—rubbing burns onto his wrists instantly.
"I have my orders!" Kotohime laughed, a high, brittle sound that teetered on the edge of hysteria. Her eyes were wide, rolling in her head, pupils dilated by fear and conditioning. "If I kill you, they let my sister go! If I die, they let my sister go! It's a win-win!"
She threw her arms out, hands splayed wide.
"BURN IT DOWN!" she screamed.
Anko saw the flash before she felt the heat. Paper bombs. Dozens of them, plastered to the ceiling beams, hidden behind the painted landscapes. The red kanji on the tags began to glow, emitting a high-pitched whine that drilled into the ear canal.
"Oh, you crazy bitch," Anko hissed.
The ceiling detonated.
BOOM.
The illusion of the geisha house vanished. The roof collapsed—tons of concrete, steel piping, and burning drywall raining down on them.
"Asuma!" Anko yelled, throwing herself forward.
Asuma ripped his hands free from the hair binding, his chakra flaring.
"Wind Style: Verdant Mountain Gale!"
"Fire Style: Dragon Flame!"
Anko spat fire. Asuma punched wind.
The two techniques merged into a spiraling vortex of superheated air, blasting upward to catch the falling debris. It incinerated the wood and deflected the heavy concrete slabs, creating a momentary dome of safety in the center of the chaos. The heat sucked the moisture right out of their eyes, turning the air into a dry, scorching oven.
But the shockwave threw them back.
Kotohime didn't dodge. She stood in the center of her collapsing world, laughing, until a chunk of reinforced concrete from the floor above struck her temple.
THWACK.
The laughter cut off instantly. She crumbled to the floor, her hair going limp, buried under the rubble of the room she had tried to make her coffin.
The vibration hit the factory floor before the sound did.
Shikamaru felt it in his shadow first—a sudden, violent tremor that distorted the black line holding Hanzaki. A loose rivet fell from the catwalk above—ping—bouncing off the metal floor with a cheerful sound that felt wildly out of place.
RUMBLE.
Then came the boom, echoing through the ventilation shafts like thunder in a canyon. Dust rained down from the catwalks, coating Shikamaru's sweaty face in a layer of gray grit. He blinked rapidly, his eyelashes clumping together with wet cement dust.
"What..." Hanzaki strained against the shadow bind, his head snapping toward the administration wing. "That came from the West Wing."
His mask of stoic leadership cracked. His eyes widened.
"Kotohime!" Hanzaki shouted, the name ripping out of his throat with genuine panic.
He cares, Shikamaru analyzed, fighting to keep his hand seals steady as Hanzaki's struggle intensified. They aren't just soldiers. They're a family.
"Chōji! Ino!" Shikamaru barked, his teeth gritted against the strain. "Go check it out! I can hold him, but not if he goes berserk!"
The shadow beneath his feet quivered like a plucked guitar string, transmitting the raw kinetic force of Hanzaki's muscles directly into Shikamaru's nervous system.
"Right!" Chōji yelled. He released his partial expansion, his arm returning to normal size with a pop, and sprinted toward the cloud of smoke billowing from the hallway.
Ino was right behind him. "Don't die, Shikamaru!"
Shikamaru tightened his grip on the shadow. "Just go!"
Chōji and Ino disappeared into the haze.
A minute passed. The factory hummed, indifferent to the violence. Hanzaki breathed heavily, his gaze fixed on the smoke, waiting for a body count.
Then, silhouettes emerged.
Asuma walked out first. His flak jacket was scorched, and he had a cut on his cheek that wept blood into his beard, but he was walking. He carried Kotohime over his shoulder like a sack of grain.
Anko followed, dusting drywall off her trench coat. She looked furious, her hair wilder than usual, smelling of burnt powder and storms. Small flakes of drywall drifted off her shoulders like dandruff, settling into the mesh of her shirt.
"We're good!" Ino called out, waving her hand to clear the dust. "They're alive! The crazy lady is out cold, though!"
Asuma walked up to the edge of the factory floor. He gently set Kotohime down on a stack of pallets. She was breathing, a large bruise blooming on her forehead, but alive.
Hanzaki stopped struggling. He slumped, the fight draining out of him as he saw his clanmate safe.
"She tried to drop a building on us," Asuma said, lighting a fresh cigarette with shaking hands. He took a deep drag, the smoke mixing with the industrial smog. The lighter clicked—snick—the small yellow flame trembling slightly in the draft from the ventilation fans. "Feisty."
Anko leaned against a pillar, picking a splinter out of her mesh shirt. "She's lucky I didn't feed her to the snakes. Next time, I pick the drinking spot."
Shikamaru exhaled, letting the Shadow Possession Jutsu dissipate. The black tendrils snapped back to his feet. He slumped, wiping sweat and soot from his forehead.
"Good grief," Shikamaru muttered, watching the adults pretend they hadn't almost died. The silence that followed was heavy, filled only by the distant clank-clank of a conveyor belt that hadn't stopped moving for anyone. "What a drag."