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"Captain—he's almost caught up!"
On the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Rivers, a group of shinobi in Konoha ANBU gear fled at full speed toward the Hidden Leaf.
They looked utterly miserable. Nearly everyone carried wounds—some shallow, some deep. If not for their masks, you'd probably see the fear on their faces.
They were in trouble.
Because someone was hunting them.
A man who controlled puppets… a "thing" that looked like a monster, seemingly impervious to blades and steel, was chasing them down like prey.
It was hard to imagine—an entire squad of ANBU being pursued by a single person.
Harder still when you realized these weren't only ANBU.
There were ROOT operatives mixed in as well.
Captain Namuki's face darkened when he heard the report.
He was the captain of the Third Division. Half a month ago, he'd received an order: lead a team to the border between the Land of Rivers and the Land of Wind to rendezvous with ROOT and cover their return.
ANBU and ROOT were separate worlds—clearly divided, never overlapping without reason. ROOT's existence was among Konoha's deepest secrets.
But Namuki, for certain "special reasons," knew more about ROOT than most ANBU ever would.
So he hadn't hesitated.
He took the Third, Fifth, and Seventh squads—operatives who happened to be free—and moved out immediately.
They waited for days.
And then ROOT finally arrived.
Along with them came Sunagakure's pursuit unit.
After a brutal fight—at the cost of more than six ANBU, and with only five ROOT survivors remaining out of eight—they managed to tear their way out.
They thought they'd escaped.
They were wrong.
Because not long after, something even more terrifying locked onto them.
That thing wore tattered black clothes. A ragged strip of black cloth hung over a numb, cold face like a broken mask. Its body was hunched—so bent it looked like it crawled rather than walked.
A crippled-looking wretch.
And yet that "wretch" had made both ANBU and ROOT pay in blood.
No one recognized him. They'd never seen him before.
But his strength was beyond anything they'd anticipated.
That puppet technique—so precise it felt unreal—wasn't something they'd ever imagined encountering. This level… could it be comparable to Sunagakure's Elder Chiyo?
No one could answer.
All they could do was run.
They'd even tried asking why he attacked.
Not because they were brave—more because, like Hikaru, they preferred fewer problems over more.
But reality forced them to swallow their pride.
"I'm just curious," the man had said, voice hoarse and icy, eyes empty as dead wells, "what a group of rats being chased by Sunagakure's special pursuit unit managed to steal…"
"What could possibly make them that angry?"
That voice—cold, flat, unfeeling—made him sound like something that crawled out of hell.
Namuki understood something then:
This devil wasn't letting them go.
He had two options.
Fight—and be wiped out.
Namuki didn't doubt that for a second. That monster was Kage-level.
Or run—and send people to die one after another to slow it down.
Drag out seconds. Minutes. Anything.
Because anyone left behind would not return.
Namuki's chest burned with rage and humiliation.
If they were in good condition, maybe they could've tested this monster. Maybe even killed him.
But now?
They looked like they had numbers, but after the clash with Suna's pursuers, they were already half-dead. How could they possibly fight a devil like this?
"So fast…" Namuki gritted his teeth, voice low. "Looks like Bai Ying and the others are already gone."
He forced himself upright, eyes hard.
"Speed up. Ahead is Shouqi City. There's an ANBU garrison there. If we reach it—"
He didn't finish.
A kunai whistled in from the trees.
In the sunlight it glinted with a faint green sheen—poison.
Namuki reacted on instinct, shoving an ANBU operative beside him hard.
The operative stumbled away, barely dodging the lethal strike.
But the kunai was too fast.
And Namuki's body… was too worn down.
In normal condition, he would've avoided it cleanly.
Now, even pulling his arm back was a fraction too slow.
Slice.
Metal cut flesh.
The kunai raked across Namuki's arm, and blood spilled out in a vivid red.
Then, in mere seconds, the color changed.
The wound began to rot.
The edge of the cut darkened, threads of black creeping outward.
Poison was humanity's nightmare.
Even shinobi weren't exceptions.
"Hngh!"
Namuki forced chakra into the wound, trying to suppress the toxin. The effect was limited—he couldn't stop the bleeding—but if he didn't resist at all…
He'd die faster.
"Don't waste your strength."
That hoarse, frozen voice drifted around them from the woods, as if it came from everywhere at once.
"You can slow it with chakra, sure. But once your chakra runs dry, it'll ride your blood straight to the heart."
"And I added something… interesting."
"Your flesh will rot."
"Your blood won't clot."
"You'll die ugly."
"Who are you?!" Namuki ignored the taunt, dropped into a crouch, and wrapped his arm tightly with a hemostatic bandage.
The ANBU around him formed a protective formation instantly.
The ROOT operatives didn't move in.
They stayed back—searching for the enemy's position, preparing to break through at any second.
Namuki didn't spare them a thought.
Right now, his entire focus was on the thing that spoke like a devil.
"What do you want?" he demanded, standing again, eyes locked forward. "We're already inside the Land of Fire. You're still going to act this openly?"
"The Land of Fire?" The voice returned, almost amused. "So what?"
This time, the man's figure emerged from the forest.
Slowly.
A hunched silhouette, wrapped in black rags, with something wrong about the way he moved—like a puppet imitating a human.
"You dared enter the Land of Wind."
"You dared enter the Land of Rivers."
"So why wouldn't I enter the Land of Fire?"
"Are you trying to become Konoha's enemy?" Namuki snapped.
The devil shook his head, as if disappointed.
"Ignorant."
"You don't represent Konoha."
"And you think…" the man's head tilted slightly, voice thinning into something cruel, "you'll even live long enough to inform Konoha?"
His interest seemed to fade after that. He glanced over the ANBU, then rasped out a laugh.
"So you're not even all from the same unit."
"Whatever. I'll kill you all… and leave one alive."
"Then—"
His left arm lifted.
And suddenly—
"Hiruko: Hidden Arm Senbon!"
A storm of senbon erupted.
Just like the poisoned kunai, every needle carried toxin.
Dense. Fast. Wide.
The senbon scattered outward, covering every possible path the ANBU could move through.
Namuki formed seals instantly—
But the poison inside him disrupted his chakra flow. He couldn't gather it cleanly.
The others weren't poisoned, but they were exhausted and wounded, and the senbon were too fast.
They were about to be turned into pincushions.
And then—
A surge of chakra flared from nearby.
A massive earthen wall burst up from the ground, rising between them and the poisoned storm—
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