The door doesn't open.
It forgets how to be closed.
One moment there's warped wood and a damp seam of light at the frame; the next there's a gap wide enough for darkness to breathe through. No creak. No hinge complaint. Just a quiet change in reality, as if the hut has decided it doesn't get to refuse anymore.
A figure slides in.
No mask. No insignia. No village headband.
That absence is deliberate—like erasing your name before you commit the act.
The air around him feels… flattened. Not killing intent like Zabuza, not the soft pressure of Naruto's gravity. This is something trained: the presence of a person who has learned to take up as little space as possible until the moment they take everything.
Root.
He doesn't look at Zabuza first.
He looks at me.
His gaze goes straight to my splinted wrist, to the bandage, to the place under skin where Danzo's containment ring sits around the tether like a fence around an ocean.
"Asset retrieval," he says.
His voice is quiet. Not gentle. Not cruel. Bureaucratic.
Zabuza's grin shows teeth. "Konoha sent a dog."
The Root operative's eyes don't move. "Step away from the asset."
Haku shifts between us without a sound, like a curtain sliding into place. Without his mask, his expression is calm—but the calm has tightened. His kindness isn't gone.
It's just… sheathed.
"This child is injured," Haku says softly. "You won't take him."
The Root operative finally turns his head slightly toward Haku, as if acknowledging a piece on the board that speaks.
"You are not authorized to possess him," Root replies.
Zabuza laughs under his breath. "Possess. That's a nice word for kidnapping."
Root doesn't react.
He moves.
Not toward Zabuza. Not toward Haku.
Toward me.
My body tries to recoil. My spine scrapes damp wood. My legs don't find traction. My right hand twitches against the splint and fails to curl. The tendons in my wrist ache with a deep wrongness, as if they're already half-gone.
Haku's hand flashes.
Senbon.
They don't fly like thrown needles; they fly like *decisions.* Clean, straight lines aimed at joints and nerves.
Root's sleeve flutters.
The senbon strike cloth and… don't pierce.
A faint shimmer—chakra? A thin barrier seal woven into fabric? The needles clatter to the floor like insect legs.
Haku's eyes narrow. The first real emotion on his face: annoyance.
Root's hand lifts a strip of paper from his sleeve. He flicks it.
A sealing tag slaps onto the floor between us with a soft *tap*.
Ink lines flare.
The tatami pattern beneath it darkens, and for an instant the air feels heavier—like the room's corners have been pulled inward.
A barrier.
Not big. Not dramatic.
Just enough to limit movement. Just enough to make escape a math problem.
Zabuza's sword rasp is loud in the small hut. He drags it closer, one-handed, injured body protesting. "You brought paper to a sword fight?"
Root doesn't look at him. "You are not the mission."
Zabuza's grin widens. "Then you shouldn't have walked into my room."
He lunges—too fast for someone with bandages.
The sword's arc is brutal, a crescent of steel aiming to take Root's head off as if it's a nuisance.
Root pivots aside with minimal motion.
Not dodging like a dancer.
Dodging like an accountant stepping away from spilled ink.
The blade smashes into the hut's wooden beam instead, biting deep. Splinters jump. The lantern swings, throwing shadows like startled birds.
Haku moves at the same time, trying to capitalize. Senbon flash again, this time aimed at Root's exposed wrist and neck.
Root's hand snaps up.
A second tag flicks out.
It sticks to Haku's sleeve mid-motion and flares—chakra seal lines blooming like frost.
Haku's arm jerks.
Not paralyzed—*redirected.*
His senbon throw goes wide, needles embedding in the wall near my head with soft *tunks.*
Haku's calm cracks for half a heartbeat. "A binding seal…"
Root steps through the space Haku unintentionally opened.
Right toward me.
My heart slams.
The tether under my wrist pulses hard, as if it senses contact coming—not just physical contact, but someone tugging at a chain tied to Naruto's orbit.
Warm density tightens around my ribs.
Cold depth shifts beneath it, amused.
**Little…**
The intent brushes my mind like a lazy smile behind bars.
Root reaches for my collar.
And something in me—some last animal refusal—thrashes.
I can't punch. I can't run. I can't speak.
But my mind can still do one thing: reach toward Naruto.
The moment I think his name fully, pain stabs behind my eyes like a hook. My ribs clamp down. My lungs seize.
Blood warms my nostril.
But I push anyway, like pressing a bruise until it screams.
Naruto.
Naruto.
Naruto—
The pressure surges.
Not just inside me—around me. The air thickens, meaning condensing like a storm front.
Root's fingers freeze a centimeter from my collar.
His eyes sharpen, just slightly, as if he felt something he didn't expect.
The tether flares beneath my skin—warm and heavy—
and the cold depth underneath *rises,* closer than it has any right to be.
For a blink, the world behind my eyes flashes red: bars, chains, and a gaze opening like a door.
Amusement.
Interest.
A presence peering through the leash like it's found a crack in the wall.
Root's pupils narrow.
He doesn't step back.
He adjusts.
Like a man who just discovered the machine bites and immediately decides where to place his hands so it bites someone else.
"Conduit response confirmed," he says softly, to no one.
Haku lunges to intercept.
Root twists and slaps another tag onto the floor.
Ink flares, and the space between Haku and Root seems to *stick.* Like walking through wet glue.
Haku's foot skids. His balance falters for half a heartbeat.
Zabuza roars and yanks his sword free from the beam with a splintering tear, swinging again with murder in his shoulders.
Root doesn't dodge this one.
He meets it.
Not with a blade.
With his palm.
A tag—already stuck to his glove—flashes, and the sword's edge stops as if it hit invisible stone. The impact shudders through the hut. The lantern swings wildly.
Zabuza's eyes widen a fraction. "What—?"
"Sealing friction," Root says, almost bored.
Then he flicks his other hand.
A thin wire snaps out, loops around Zabuza's sword wrist, and yanks—hard. Zabuza's injured body stumbles forward despite himself.
Haku recovers and darts in, trying to cut the wire with senbon.
Root's head turns toward Haku for the first time with something like irritation.
"You are interfering," he says.
Haku's voice stays controlled. "So are you."
Root's reply is immediate. "By order."
He pulls.
Not on the wire.
On me.
His hand clamps my collar and hauls me up with brutal efficiency. My stump screams. My splinted wrist bangs the wall and pain detonates bright, making my vision stutter.
Blood seeps through bandage again, warm and sticky.
I make a choked sound.
My tongue seal bites, punishing noise.
Root drags me toward the door.
Haku moves, fast enough that air should hiss behind him.
Root throws a tag without looking.
The tag hits my chest.
Ink bites cold through cloth.
My ribs tighten—not Naruto-pressure, not fate. A *seal* tightening like a hand around my lungs.
My breath cuts off instantly.
Not choking—*locking.*
A restraint seal that knows exactly how much air to allow so you stay conscious but helpless.
My eyes water. My legs go weak.
Root doesn't slow. He uses my body's collapse as convenience, half-carrying, half-dragging me like a sack.
Haku reaches for me and stops short—because the moment his fingers hover near my wrist again, the tether flares, and the cold depth beneath it stirs like a giant turning in sleep.
Haku's face tightens, a flicker of real discomfort. He knows what he's tugging when he touches me.
Zabuza, snarling, launches himself between Haku and Root with the sword raised. "Take your hands off him!"
Root doesn't answer.
He flicks the wire again.
It snaps around Zabuza's ankle.
Zabuza's footing is compromised—injured, wet floor, unstable hut.
He slips.
Not much. Just enough.
And in a sword fight, "just enough" is death.
Root steps past Zabuza's blade, too close, and slaps a tag onto Zabuza's chest.
Ink flares.
Zabuza's body locks mid-motion like a puppet whose strings have been cut. His sword drops with a heavy thud that shakes the floor.
Haku's eyes widen. "Zabuza!"
Zabuza's teeth bare, furious—still conscious, still trying to move, but his limbs don't obey.
Root drags me through the door.
Cold air hits my face like a slap. Fog wraps around us instantly, damp and clinging, swallowing the hut behind as if it never existed.
Haku steps to the threshold.
He doesn't follow. Not yet.
He stares at me—at my pinned sleeve, at my bleeding wrist, at my slack body—and something in his expression flickers like apology finally losing to necessity.
Then he moves.
Not at Root.
At the seal tag on Zabuza.
His senbon flash, striking precise points along Zabuza's neck and shoulder.
Zabuza's paralysis shudders, loosens.
Not broken.
But enough for Zabuza to jerk one arm and grab his sword handle again.
Haku doesn't want me dead, I realize with sick clarity.
But he also doesn't want Zabuza caught.
And Root just made sure he has to choose.
Root pulls me away from the hut, deeper into fog.
The restraint seal on my chest limits my breathing to shallow sips. My ribs ache. The tether pulses erratically now, reacting to distance from Naruto, to stress, to being tugged by seals that don't understand what they've latched onto.
Warm density presses around my lungs.
Cold depth beneath it stirs, amused and awake.
**Little… pulled.**
My vision tunnels.
Root's hand is iron on my collar.
He moves with speed that doesn't look fast because it's too smooth. We weave between damp trees and black water channels. The smell of salt grows stronger. The ground underfoot becomes softer, wetter, like it wants to swallow my sandals.
Then—behind us—ice cracks.
A sharp sound.
Haku's kekkei genkai.
The air temperature drops a fraction. Mist crystals glitter faintly in lantern-less dark.
Root doesn't look back.
He increases pace.
A senbon whistles past my ear and disappears into fog.
Another strikes Root's shoulder.
It doesn't pierce deep—hits a reinforced section, maybe—but Root's posture changes by a millimeter. Acknowledgment.
He flicks a tag back over his shoulder without aiming.
The tag flares mid-air and bursts into a thin curtain of chakra distortion—like heat haze but colder. The next senbon that enters it wobbles, veers, and misses.
Root doesn't fight Haku.
He delays him.
Like a man who doesn't care if the dog barks as long as he gets the package to the cart.
The tether pulses again.
Warm.
Heavy.
Then cold depth rises—
and with it, a sensation I haven't felt this clearly before: the *story* resisting.
Not because I'm near Naruto.
Because I'm being removed from where the plot expects me to be—close enough to suffer, close enough to serve as collateral.
Reality doesn't care about me.
But it cares about the shape of Naruto's path.
And my tether is now a wire plugged into that shape.
Root's restraint seal on my chest suddenly heats.
My ribs tighten. My breath stutters.
Pain flashes behind my eyes like a white line.
Root's head turns slightly, as if he noticed the resistance not as pain but as data.
"Canon inertia," he murmurs.
The phrase is nonsense in this world.
And yet he says it like he recognizes the phenomenon without needing my forbidden vocabulary.
My blood turns to ice.
Root knows more than he should.
Or Danzo does.
Root stops abruptly.
We're at the edge of a narrow dock—rotted boards over black water. A small boat waits below, tied to a post, bobbing gently.
Escape route.
Preplanned.
Root isn't improvising. He came here knowing exactly where to go.
He hauls me onto the dock. The boards creak under our weight.
I try to plant my feet.
My legs don't cooperate. Shallow breath. Blood loss. Poison residue. Splinted wrist that won't grip.
I'm a bundle of failures tied together with seals.
Root crouches and presses two fingers against the sealing ring under my wrist bandage.
The moment he touches it, the tether flares—warm density slamming my ribs—
and cold depth rises beneath it, closer, more awake.
The red world flashes behind my eyes: bars, chains, a gaze opening like doors.
Root's fingers pause.
Not from fear.
From calibration.
He withdraws, then reaches into his sleeve and produces a new tag—thicker, more ink, more script. A suppression seal.
He moves to slap it onto my wrist.
The tether surges in anticipation, as if the thing behind Naruto's seal leans forward, amused by the idea of someone trying to tape shut a crack in a cage.
My vision swims.
I taste blood.
Then—behind us—ice sings.
A sound like glass forming too fast.
Haku's voice floats through mist, gentle and terrible.
"Please stop."
Root doesn't look back.
He presses the suppression seal toward my wrist.
I can't breathe. The restraint seal clamps.
My tongue seal coils.
My ribs tighten under fate's weight and Danzo's ink and Root's hand.
Everything in me wants to scream Naruto's name again, to spike the tether, to summon that crushing pressure as a weapon.
But I understand now what that really does.
It doesn't hurt Root.
It wakes what's behind Naruto.
And the last time it looked back, the room felt smaller than a coffin.
Root's tag is inches from my skin.
Haku's footsteps are silent on the dock behind us.
Zabuza's killing intent is somewhere in the mist like a distant shark circling, injured but furious.
Three forces converging over one useless extra.
Root finally speaks again, voice flat, close to my ear.
"Danzo-sama requests immediate extraction."
He pauses a fraction, as if savoring the next line.
"And he wants to know," Root whispers, "why the Nine-Tails looked back through you."
My blood turns to ice.
Because that means Danzo knows.
Not guesses.
Knows.
The suppression seal touches my wrist.
Ink bites cold—
—and the tether screams.
Warm density clamps my ribs until my vision whites out.
Cold depth surges beneath it like a tide breaking a wall.
And in that white-out, a laugh blooms inside my skull—low, ancient, delighted—
as if something inside Naruto has finally found the thread leading to me and decided to pull it from the other side.
Then the dock vanishes under my feet, and I fall—either into black water or into darkness—without knowing which one is worse.