The tunnel smelled like wet rust and old copper pennies. The air was thick, suffocating, as if the earth above us was pressing down a little too hard.
Water dripped from the ceiling with a relentless plip-plip-plip, landing in unseen puddles that echoed like a clock ticking in a tomb.
Squish. Crunch.
We walked carefully, avoiding the remaining mole crickets that hadn't burrowed back into the walls. Sasame led the way, her lantern casting long, jumping shadows against the dirt ceiling.
"Hold up," she whispered, raising a hand.
Ahead, the tunnel narrowed into a service junction. A tangle of pipes, rusted and leaking yellow steam, crisscrossed the path like a nest of vipers.
Two figures were working there.
One was a woman in a stained gray jumpsuit, her face smeared with grease. She was holding a wrench the size of her forearm. Kera. A Mole Cricket Fūma. She looked tired, her shoulders slumped under the weight of the tool.
The other figure was... stretching.
Literally.
His arm was elongated, snaking twenty feet into a narrow crawlspace between two high-pressure valves. It bent at impossible angles, joints popping and dislocating with a wet click-click-click sound.
It sounded like a raw chicken being pulled apart at the joints—a wet, cartilaginous tearing that made my own elbows ache in sympathy.
"Almost... got it," a muffled voice echoed from the pipe.
The arm retracted, shrinking back to normal length like a rubber band snapping back. The man wiped sweat from his forehead. He wore glasses and a Sound ninja headband. His skin looked loose and doughy for a second, rippling like a deflated balloon before tightening back against the muscle.
"Misumi," I breathed, recognizing him instantly.
Misumi Tsurugi. The guy from Kabuto's team in the Prelims. The one who could turn his body into a contortionist's nightmare.
He didn't look like a spy now. He looked like a plumber.
"That should hold the pressure for another shift," Misumi muttered, adjusting his glasses. "But the seals are degrading. Kera, tell Shiin we need more solvent."
"We don't have solvent," Kera sighed, tightening a bolt. "We have prayer and duct tape."
The steam hissed angrily, smelling of sulfur and wet dog, curling around her boots like a living thing.
I watched them from the shadows.
It was jarring. Back in the exams, he was a threat. Here? He was infrastructure. Orochimaru didn't just use bodies for experiments; he used them for maintenance. Why build a crane when you have a guy who can dislocate his spine to reach the top shelf?
"Let's move," Sasame whispered. "Before they spot us."
We crept past them while they argued about the structural integrity of a flange.
The tunnel eventually opened up into a finished room. The dirt floor turned into cold limestone. The air grew colder, sterile.
We stepped into what looked like a throne room, or maybe a waiting room for hell.
The silence was absolute, heavy and pressurized, as if the stone walls were holding their breath.
I stopped.
"Gross," Naruto muttered, covering his nose.
In the center of the room, next to a large stone chair, was a stain. It was a drying puddle of greyish-brown slurry that smelled faintly of boiled chard and saliva. A mop and bucket leaned against the wall nearby, abandoned in a hurry. A single fly buzzed around the mess, its erratic flight path the only movement in the stagnant air.
And way off in the corner, gleaming under the dim light... a spoon.
It looked out of place. Lonely.
I shrugged it off. Don't think about the spoon. Focus on the mission.
"I'm securing the exit," I whispered.
I pulled a few paper tags from my pouch. I stuck them around the archway we had just come through—simple alarm seals, nothing explosive. Just enough to let me know if the plumber decided to follow us.
"Whoa! Treasure!"
I spun around.
Naruto was kneeling in front of a heavy iron chest in the corner. His eyes were sparkling.
"It's gotta be gold!" he cheered, throwing the lid open.
Creak.
He stared inside. His face fell.
"It's... paper?"
He pulled out a handful of scrolls. They weren't jutsu scrolls. They weren't secret techniques. They were ledgers.
Shipping Manifest: Month 4.
Subject Acquisition Log.
Rice Yield Analysis (Failed).
"Boring!" Naruto groaned, tossing them back in. "This guy is a Sannin and he hoards homework?"
While Naruto mourned the lack of loot, I scanned the room. My eyes landed on a glass jar sitting on a stone pedestal near the throne.
Inside, floating in amber preservative fluid... was a hand. Tiny bubbles clung to the pale fingernails, magnifying them into swollen, distorted shapes suspended in the yellow liquid.
It was severed at the wrist. The skin was pale, necrotic, purple around the edges.
But on the ring finger, still shining perfectly, was a ring. It was silver, with a single kanji etched into a red gemstone: Kū (Void).
'Orochimaru's hand,' I realized, feeling a chill run up my spine.
I glanced at Naruto. He was still digging through the chest. Sasame was watching the door.
Quickly, quietly, I unsealed the jar. The smell of formaldehyde hit me. I reached in—gross, cold, slimy—and slid the ring off the dead finger. The skin felt rubbery and cold, yielding slightly under my grip with a wet squelch that sent a shudder violently up my arm.
I wiped it on my vest and slipped it deep into my pouch, into the hidden pocket where I kept my poetry book.
If anyone asks, I never saw it.
I looked at the desk next to the pedestal. It was cluttered with papers. One blueprint caught my eye.
Synthetic Human: Iteration 6.
"Log"
I frowned. I picked up the attached scroll.
Notes on Mitochondrial rejection. Lack of Will. Wood Release compatibility: Negative.
"Log?" I whispered. "Is he trying to clone... lumber?"
I shook my head. Weirdo.
"Hey, check this out," Naruto called from the hallway.
We followed him to a heavy steel door at the end of the corridor. It was open just a crack.
We pushed inside.
The room was empty. But it felt... occupied.
It smelled intensely of sterile white flowers—camellias—and rotting meat.
The scent was thick and cloying, coating the back of my tongue like a layer of grease that I couldn't swallow away.
There was a hospital bed in the center, the sheets rumpled and stained with blood. Next to it stood an IV drip stand with five empty bags of high-grade painkillers. The labels were marked with red skulls.
A drop of clear liquid hung from the end of the IV needle, trembling but refusing to fall, catching the dim light like a tear.
Whatever was in here, I thought, was in a lot of pain.
"Look at the wall," Sasame whispered, pointing.
Embedded in the concrete wall, near the head of the bed, was a single object.
It was a bone spur. White, sharp, and curved. It was driven three inches deep into the solid stone.
Hairline fractures radiated out from the impact point, looking like a spiderweb trapped in the gray concrete.
I walked over and touched it. It was cold. Harder than steel.
"He coughed," I analyzed, looking at the blood splatter pattern around it. "He coughed so hard he shot a bone out of his body."
I looked at Naruto. He looked back, his face serious.
Someone incredibly strong—and incredibly sick—had been here just minutes ago.
And now they were gone.
"Let's move," I said, my voice tight. "We missed the bus. And I don't want to meet the passenger."
I stepped back, my boot skidding on a smear of dried blood that crunched like sugar under my heel.