Deep in the forest, the mist had thickened into smoke and shrouded everything for a hundred meters, swelling outward like a tide.
From a treetop, Shin Okamura scanned the distance. The fog out there was far denser than the morning haze and sharply edged against the air around it. You could tell at a glance that something was wrong.
"It's the Hiding in Mist Technique. Sensei Mari is fighting someone."
"What a heavy fog."
Ona stood on a branch nearby, face dark as still water. He prided himself on the Silent Killing he had perfected since the academy, yet even he could never lay down a veil this vast and this dense.
The enemy was strong.
"Mari-sensei is in danger. We have to help."
Karin Kozan tossed her pack down and drew a kunai from her pouch. "Ona, among the three of us you know the Hiding in Mist best. What's its weakness?"
"Weakness?" Ona thought for a breath, then answered with certainty.
"Wind Release. Or an even larger Hiding in Mist. I get it now. This fog probably isn't only the enemy's work. Sensei must be feeding it too."
That made sense. Karin's tense shoulders loosened a little.
The Hiding in Mist Technique masks vision and, because the fog is saturated with chakra, it lets the user feel out targets inside. With me hidden and you exposed, Silent Killing hits its cruel peak.
To break it, the simplest counter is Wind Release to blow the fog away. If you cannot do that, lay your own mist. If I can't see you and you can't see me, we at least stand level.
"That explains how the field got this big," Ona said with a relieved exhale.
While the three of them squinted into the gray and guessed, Konome Taketori had already opened her Byakugan. For her, the fog might as well not exist. In her crystalline vision three bright chakra signatures blazed like beacons.
One was a jōnin-level presence, one a genin level. And that shape on his back
The Decapitating Carving Knife.
Konome understood instantly whom they faced. Momochi Zabuza, the Demon of the Hidden Mist. Which meant the other signature beside him had to be Haku.
Why was Mari fighting them?
Mari's state was bad. Her breathing was ragged. She was hurt.
Against that man, of course she was. A mere tokubetsu jōnin could only survive this long because she too was a product of Kirigakure. She knew the Hiding in Mist and the rhythms of Silent Killing and had been playing hide-and-seek with Body Flickers through the fog.
It would not last. Once her chakra ran low and she could no longer sustain the mist, she would die.
Should Konome help?
If she stepped in rashly, she risked exposing both of her bloodlines. Shikotsumyaku. Byakugan. Her whole body was a trove that could not bear attention.
What to do?
Konome hesitated.
"Konome."
Karin hurried to her side.
"Mari-sensei is in trouble. We have to go. Hide here and don't move. Wait for us to come back."
"Okay."
"This kunai is for self-defense. If we don't return, go on without us."
Shin pressed a warm-handled kunai into Konome's palm. The three of them sat her down, pointed out a route, and barely checked whether she had memorized it before leaving her food and water and sprinting toward the mist.
A wind curled the fog. Their silhouettes vanished as the sea of gray surged back, and Konome sat alone beneath the trees, motionless, listening.
Mari Kuriu. Karin Kozan. Shin Okamura. Ona.
They were going to die.
Konome watched the mist and the raging brightness of Zabuza's chakra within, watched Mari's waning light and wounded body. Her judgment was cold and clinical.
The safest, wisest choice would be to walk away. She had escaped Kirigakure already. More than half the road to the Land of Fire had been walked thanks to these people. Head west and she would reach Peichuan Port. From there a ship to the Land of Fire.
Open sky, wide sea.
Konome curled her fingers around the kunai still holding Shin's warmth and made a silent decision.
…
Inside the fog there was no sight at all.
Clink.
Mari raised her left arm to protect her bleeding waist and lifted her right to cover her face. Her kunai rang against a shuriken and knocked it aside.
The Decapitating Carving Knife came next.
With a low rush the broad edge swept through, clearing a tunnel of vacuum in the fog. Mari braced with her kunai, but the monstrous force behind the blade sent both weapon and woman flying. She struck a trunk and bounced to the ground.
She had been sustaining the mist too long. Her chakra was nearly dry. Her right arm felt dead. Iron filled the back of her throat. The wind across her skin felt like cold from the core as blood leaked into her abdomen.
Hands shaking, she pushed herself up and stared at the silhouette advancing through the thinning fog. Despair flickered across her blue eyes.
The veil was thinning. Without its cover, she had no chance against Momochi Zabuza.
The silent figure paced forward with the weight of a guillotine. The slab-like blade rose and fell toward her head.
Mari flinched and shut her eyes.
Zabuza changed his cut in the air, twisting to bring the broad back of the blade up behind him instead.
Tink, tink, tink.
A cascade of senbon rang from the steel and scattered into the grass.
Zabuza looked up.
A roaring fireball hurtled toward him.
Boom.
Orange anger blossomed and swallowed him, then smashed into a tree and baked its trunk black. Shin did not wait to admire the hit. He and Karin sprinted straight for Mari.
On their line a familiar shape congealed on the flank. The Zabuza who had melted beneath the Fireball reappeared, swinging the massive blade in a diagonal cut that would bisect both Shin and Karin on their way to Mari.
Shin did not flinch. Neither did Karin.
A huge scythe crashed between the two and the falling blade, catching the mortal stroke.
"You're late."
Shin hauled Mari upright as Karin pressed a green glow into the gash across Mari's belly.
Mari coughed. "Why are you"
"Save it. Move."
Ona flashed through seals. His chakra surged.
Water Release: Hiding in Mist.
The fog billowed once more, thick as wool.
Team Seven and the demon began their deadly game of hide-and-seek.
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