Water roared.
Steam filled the bathroom. From the oval showerhead, hot water beat down and washed the clotted crimson from the girl's hair until it shone silver-gray.
Bare feet pressed the white tiles. Water slid over her ankles.
Not far away, a woman's body was growing cold beneath the sink, hands still cupping her rounded belly. The blood beneath her had dried. Brown eyes stared into the hard light, empty and unfocused.
Konome angled the spray over her face, neck, and waist. Filth and fatigue bled away. She stepped into the tub and lay back, heat soaking through her muscles. Her pale hair drifted like waterweed and waved with the current. Bliss stole over her.
This had been her favorite ritual in her past life.
After dragging herself home from work, a long, hot bath and a dreamless sleep had been the happiest part of her day.
Warm water rinsed the mind clean. Her body loosened and softened. Konome's thoughts unspooled and sank into the dark.
At the same time, on the eastern outskirts of Kirigakure.
The Taketori clan, whose Shikotsumyaku had once shaken the shinobi world, were gone. Their compound was a field of wreckage.
Houses lay in heaps. The ancestral tablets were scattered and trampled into the dust. Two dozen ANBU spread out and searched inch by inch.
In the dead center of the grounds,
an ANBU in a gray-black cloak and standard armor stood with arms folded. He faced a subordinate in a Great Tengu mask who bowed low.
The commander wore no mask. Blue eyes, brown hair, a broad, strong nose, and a face cut hard by duty. He was the ANBU captain, codename Fierce Fang.
"How long will this take. Where is Ao."
The Great Tengu dropped to one knee. "Lord Ao was summoned by Lord Elder. He cannot get away."
"Any lead on what the Fourth wants."
Fierce Fang regarded the kneeling mask. His sea-blue eyes pressed like weight.
He was confidant to the Fourth Mizukage, ANBU commander of the village, and the foremost leader of the civilian faction that had crushed bloodline clans. He knew exactly where his power came from, and he cared most about whether he could complete the task the Mizukage had set.
"We are still searching. Orochimaru led Taketori survivors out from the east and looped around toward the west. The target may already be in his hands, and…"
"And what."
"There is intelligence that the missing-nin who once tried to assassinate the Mizukage, Zabuza Momochi, has returned to the Land of Water. Purpose unknown. His trail appears to overlap with Orochimaru's."
Orochimaru. Zabuza.
Fierce Fang narrowed his eyes and his face darkened.
Neither man was easy prey. If they worked together… The Mizukage's order had been plain. Whatever it cost, they must secure the treasure said to descend from the era of the Sage of Six Paths. Even if Orochimaru and Zabuza joined hands, they were to take it.
"Form up."
Shapes flickered.
Every ANBU scattered through the ruins snapped to their places with drilled precision.
Fierce Fang swept the ranks. "Tengu, leave one of your companies to hold the village. When Ao returns, send him here to sweep again. Everyone else, with me."
"Yes."
The Great Tengu bowed. A chorus of voices answered.
When Fierce Fang led the main force away, the Great Tengu slowly raised his head to watch their backs vanish. Behind the mask, his eyes glimmered a faint blue.
…
A short time later, in a hidden chamber underground.
Knock, knock. Knock.
Returning from the Taketori grounds, the Great Tengu rapped twice short, once long, as agreed.
"Enter."
An old voice, rough but resonant, rolled from within. Years lay heavy in the sound.
The mask came off. Takuto Toike stepped quickly inside.
The room was dim. A massive table sat at the center with a few candles guttering on its top, firelight making three silhouettes breathe and waver.
On the left, a middle-aged man with a single visible eye and long gray-blue hair wore earrings hung with two sealing tags.
Beside him, a striking woman with green eyes and long red-brown curls crossed over one another. Hair veiled her right eye. Pink lips, a blue strapless dress banded at the waist with white, and a figure that curved like a blade.
Across from them sat an old man in monk's robes, hand resting on a staff topped with a serpent's head.
"Lord Elder, I passed the word as ordered. Fierce Fang now believes Orochimaru and Zabuza are working together and is leading most of ANBU in pursuit. Only one company under me remains in the village."
"Well done, Takuto."
"Lord Elder, the Fourth… is it true…"
"That is not your question to ask."
"My apologies."
Takuto bowed his head.
The man before him was a fossil from the time of the First Mizukage. Though only an elder in name, he could pull the strings of almost anything in the village. In some hearts, his weight was greater than the Mizukage's.
"Go. The village is weak. Keep it safe and do not let outsiders slip a knife between our ribs."
"Yes."
The Elder's clouded eyes watched Takuto set the mask back on and step out. The old face held an unreadable look.
When they were alone, Ao could not hold his tongue. "Lord Elder, what exactly is the mastermind controlling the Mizukage searching for."
"I do not know the precise form."
The Elder shook his head. He let his lids droop and sank into memory. "I only ever heard the First Mizukage mention it. The Taketori line runs deep, perhaps a thousand years and more. There may be something among them older even than the Sage of Six Paths, an heirloom passed down from before his time."
"The… Sage of Six Paths."
Ao's surprise sharpened his voice thin.
That was a figure out of antiquity, a god in legend.
And the Taketori might hold something older still.
"Whatever the treasure is, it is none of ours. Elder, when do we move."
Mei Terumi cut in, unable to sit on her impatience.
She was not yet the cool, assured woman of the later years. A touch of youth softened her beauty, like a peach on the edge of ripeness.
During the Third Shinobi World War,
Ao had used the Byakugan to glimpse a knot of strange Yin Release chakra in the Fourth Mizukage's brain. He had reported to the Elder. But the Mizukage was the Three-Tails' jinchuriki and a force in his own right. His decrees against bloodline clans had won him a following among civilian shinobi who hated those with kekkei genkai.
No one knew the true strength of the hand behind him.
They had not dared act rashly.
Now Mei's two bloodlines were awakening one after the other, and her power was surging. The Taketori's furious counterattack had gutted the ANBU under the Mizukage's banner. By chance or by fate, Orochimaru and Zabuza had slipped into the Land of Water and churned the pot. Fierce Fang, the Mizukage's hound with Kage-class strength, and many of his jōnin confidants had been lured out of the village.
The Fourth's hand was empty.
The hour had come.
They had waited three long years for this gap to open. Watching the Elder sit with his eyes half-closed as if he might doze at any moment made Mei's breath quicken. She could not help but press.
"Give the order, Elder."
"Our enemy can bend a jinchuriki with genjutsu. Without calm, you are only a blade in his hand. Mei, you are the strongest among us. If you cannot stay composed, we will lose this war before we draw the first seal."
The Elder's dim gaze rested on Mei as he spoke.
There was not a speck of rebuke in his tone. No trace of rank or hauteur. Only the patient, earnest cadence of an elder teaching the young.
Mei's cheeks warmed. She dipped her head and let the lesson wash her pulse back to stillness.
Ao watched her settle and felt a small awe uncurl in his chest.
No wonder they called him Elder.