Gatō, a short, portly man whose body was fighting a losing battle against the confines of his silk suit, watched the miserable village he had under his boot from the window. His empire, built on debt and control of the sea, had a single weak point: a bridge. The foolish dream of an old idealist named Tazuna.
"Are you sure he'll only hire some brats?" he asked without turning.
Standing in the center of the room, Gōzu and Meizu, the Demon Brothers, exchanged a look. They were thugs, not spies, but Gatō's pay was too good to admit ignorance.
"Our informants at the port are clear, Boss Gatō," said Gōzu, the bulkier of the two. "An old builder can't afford more. I doubt he even has enough funds for a chūnin."
Gatō turned slowly, a contemptuous smile on his lips.
"An old bridge builder dares to defy me. Pathetic. I want you to intercept him on the road from Konoha. Bring me his head as proof. I want it to be a clear message to anyone who thinks hope is a good investment in my country."
"Consider it done, boss," Meizu replied with brutal confidence. "Two renegade chūnin against some kids... it's an easy job. We'll be back with your trophy before dinner."
"You'd better be," Gatō said, making a dismissive gesture for them to leave. "Now get out. The smell of cheap muscle is ruining the aroma of my brandy."
As the two thugs left, Gatō poured himself a drink. He sat in his sea-dragon leather armchair, an extravagance that had cost him a fortune, and smiled to himself. Ninjas... they're just tools, he thought. You buy the right one for the right job. And for an old, rusty nail like Tazuna, two second-rate hammers are more than enough. Cheap and efficient. He felt completely in control, the king of his small, profitable swamp.
A couple of hours later, as Gatō reviewed his shipping route reports, a silent servant entered the room. He said nothing. He simply left a tray with a cup of steaming tea and a small sweet on the desk and retreated with a bow. Gatō ignored him, irritated by the interruption. He hadn't asked for tea.
But as his gaze fell upon the tray, he noticed something. Peeking out from under the lacquer coaster was a tiny corner of rice paper. The signal.
His heart skipped a beat in anticipation. He waited, listening to the servant's footsteps fade down the hall. When he was sure he was alone, he took the note with surprisingly nimble fingers. It was from his most expensive and reliable informant in the Land of Fire, a man whose information had never failed. He unfolded the paper. The calligraphy was quick, almost a scrawl, but legible.
"Tazuna's escort has departed. Eight shinobi. Two jōnin, including Kakashi of the Sharingan."
The silence in the luxurious office suddenly turned cold and heavy. The glass of brandy in his other hand slipped from his fingers. It shattered on the wooden floor with a loud crack, the amber liquid spreading across a rug woven with gold thread.
Gatō didn't hear it. He stared at the note, his small eyes wide, fixed on the words. He reread the sentence, over and over, as the color drained from his face.
Eight shinobi.
The number was illogical. A waste of resources.
Two jōnin.
Cold sweat began to form on his forehead, sticking his sparse hair to his scalp.
Kakashi of the Sharingan.
The name.
That name wasn't just any shinobi's. It was a legend. A ghost from the bingo books, a nightmare whispered in mercenary taverns. The Copy Ninja. The man who, according to rumors, had memorized over a thousand jutsu.
"No..." he whispered, his voice a choked squawk. "No, no, no, it's a lie. It's a trap."
He leaped to his feet, the sea-dragon leather chair toppling backward with a dull thud. He began to pace the room like a caged animal, the note crumpled in his fist. His mind, normally an instrument of cold calculation, was a chaos of panic and paranoia.
A bluff? Does Konoha know about me? Are they trying to intimidate me, to make me spend my fortune on defenses I don't need?
Or is it real?
The question chilled him to the bone. If it was real, it meant he had made a catastrophic miscalculation. It meant Tazuna's bridge wasn't just an idealistic project. It was a strategic asset for Konoha. He wasn't fighting an old builder. He was fighting one of the Five Great Shinobi Nations.
And to think he had been about to send two second-rate thugs against an army led by a legend.
Rage, born from pure, absolute terror, consumed him.
"GŌZU! MEIZU!" he roared, his voice a high-pitched shriek that made the windowpanes vibrate.
The door burst open and the two Demon Brothers ran in, their faces a mixture of confusion and alarm.
"Boss? What's wrong?"
Gatō lunged at them, shoving the crumpled note in their faces.
"READ THIS, YOU USELESS PAIR!"
Gōzu took the paper, his eyes scanning the words. His confident expression vanished, replaced by a waxy pallor that mirrored Gatō's own panic.
"Kakashi... of the Sharingan," he mumbled, his voice barely audible.
"DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?" Gatō screamed, his face contorted with fear. "IT MEANS YOUR PATHETIC AMBUSH PLAN IS SUICIDE! IT MEANS YOU PROBABLY WON'T EVEN SEE HIM BEFORE YOU'RE DEAD! IT MEANS YOU'VE JUST DELIVERED MY NAME DIRECTLY INTO THE HANDS OF A KONOHA EXECUTIONER!"
"But, boss, the pay..." Meizu tried to say, his thug's mind still processing the information in terms of risk and reward.
"FORGET THE PAY! FORGET THE PLAN!" Gatō shoved them aside and returned to his desk. He poured another drink with trembling hands. "You two... you aren't enough. You'd be slaughtered. And what's worse, you'd talk before you died."
He opened a secret compartment in his desk, one that required a combination and his thumbprint. From within, he took out a black scroll, rolled and sealed with red wax. He spread it across the desk. It was a list. A list of names and prices. Names that were rarely spoken aloud.
"I need something more," he muttered, his eyes scanning the list. "I need insurance. I need to hire a real demon to hunt a ghost."
His trembling finger traced down the list of elite rogue ninja. It passed over names from Iwa, from Kumo... and then it stopped.
A grim, desperate smile formed on his lips.
"This is going to cost me a kingdom..." he whispered. "But the silence of my enemies is priceless."
He turned to the two Demon Brothers, who were watching him with a new mixture of fear and respect.
"Get out of here. Wait for my orders. The hunt has just become much more interesting."
****
Hundreds of miles away, in a dead forest on the border of the Land of Fire, the full moon bathed the land in a pale, ghostly light. There was no sound. It was a place where life itself seemed to hold its breath.
In the center of a clearing, Torune was kneeling. The mission was complete. The seed of paranoia had been planted. The tyrant would react as expected. Escalation was inevitable.
He performed an almost imperceptible hand seal. A pulse of his own chakra, encoded with the unique signature of Root, was sent through the invisible network connecting him to his master. The message was an emotionless report: Mission complete. Information delivered and accepted by the target. Reaction is as projected. Escalation is imminent. Awaiting final orders.
The response was not long in coming. It wasn't a voice, nor a sound. It was another pulse of chakra, one he felt vibrate in the curse mark on his tongue. The order was cold, absolute, and contained a single word of intent: Terminate.
There was no hesitation. He moved with a ritualistic grace. He methodically removed his white porcelain mask, the one that had served as his face for years, and placed it carefully on a flat rock, like an offering at a nameless grave. His real face, young and devoid of any emotion, was exposed to the moonlight.
He unsheathed his tantō. The short blade gleamed, a fragment of moonlight made steel. The blade did not tremble in his hand.
With a precise, fluid motion trained to perfection, he drove it into his abdomen, twisting it with a firmness that defied the pain he should have felt. His body convulsed for an instant, an animal reflex his Root-forged will instantly crushed. He remained upright, kneeling.
As life drained from him, his other hand moved with deliberate slowness to a pouch on his belt. He pulled out a small paper talisman, covered in complex black ink seals. With the last of his strength, he placed it over the bleeding wound.
The instant his heart beat for the last time, the seals on the talisman glowed with a pale, sickly light.
There were no flames. There was no smoke. There was a silent disintegration.
A cold fire, colorless and heatless, began to consume his body from within. His flesh, his bones, his uniform—everything turned to a fine black ash. Even the porcelain mask on the rock crumbled, becoming dust. The ash rose in a small spiral, caught by a breeze that seemed to spring from nowhere.
The wind blew through the clearing, carrying away the last vestiges of Torune. It left no bloodstain on the ground. It left no scrap of cloth. It left not a single trace that he had ever existed.
The erasure was absolute.
There was no body. No blood. No grave. In the great, silent book of Konoha, the page of a shinobi had just been torn out and burned, as if it had never been written.