Fog stitched the forest into a gray curtain as three figures ghosted from trunk to trunk. The lead man raised a fist—halt.
On a high bough, shallow ninja-boot scuffs chewed bark in a straight line toward the coast road.
"He isn't even hiding his trail," the pony-tailed tracker said, eyes flat. "He thinks we're beneath him."
Blue hair speared the mist like a pennant. Onihei clicked his tongue. "We'll see what he thinks when he's missing a head."
Another man stroked a missing notch along a wide cleaver and smiled like a butcher. "My Executioner's Blade still owes a bite. I'll feed it properly."
A patterned mask spilled from the canopy—Kirigakure ANBU. He landed without a whisper, held out a sealed scroll. "Orders."
The ponytail snapped it open.
"Hiramekarei Onihei, Nuibari Shishidō, Kabutowari Asakawa Ryō—continue pursuit."
"Fuguki Suikazan, Biwa Jūzō, Kurosuki Raiga—return to the village."
"We're on him now," Jūzō growled. "Recall us now?"
"Orders," ANBU repeated, the syllables edged. "The village has other priorities."
A beat of hot silence; discipline won. Three vanished into the fog with ANBU. Three turned their faces to the sea.
—
The market-town lay within sight of Kirigakure's cliffs—a lace of roofs hunched against salt wind. Fish bones hung like charms; broth simmered thin as rainwater. People moved with the careful quiet of the poor; hope had been sanded smooth from their eyes.
Sogetsu walked the main lane with an umbrella he did not open. They don't even see me, he noted. In a place like this, the Hypnotist's blind-spot veil is wasted effort.
He stopped beneath a cracked signboard: a pharmacy with worm-blackened beams and a bell that coughed instead of chiming. Inside, jars slept on sagging shelves; ropey mold stitched the corners where sea wind couldn't reach. Behind the counter, a young woman measured powder into paper boats, movements gentle and exact.
Coffee-brown bob. Round glasses. A small, patient smile that looked taut rather than learned.
He watched, cheek in palm, until she tied off a packet and turned.
Her breath caught. Her hands trembled just enough to make the paper whisper. She took in the cloak, the glasses glint, the calm.
"W-who are you? If it's money, I—please—"
Sogetsu's smile held a thread of play. "I don't want money. I want you, Nono Yakushi."
The name snapped across her face like a thrown thread. Pupils pin-pricked; two lives collided behind her eyes—orphanage matron and ROOT asset.
Can't die here. Children in Konoha flashed up like lanterns in a storm. Can't die here.
Her sleeve twitched; a shuriken sang—
—and stopped in the seam of his cloak as if the air had turned to resin.
The world cooled to the color of his gaze. Three tomoe rotated in still water. The breath left her.
"S-Sharingan…"
"You're requisitioned, Nono Yakushi." His tone was velvet over iron. "We can do this with noise or with quiet. I prefer quiet."
Something taut behind her eyes eased—not a compulsion, a signal: listen; do not bolt. She drew in a thin breath and nodded once, sharp as a cut.
"Lock the front," he said mildly. "Then sit."
She crossed the floor, slid the bar, returned, and folded to her knees behind the counter. He took the shop's creak and stink of herbs into himself, and with it the map of her fear—children, paper-thin finances, a village that watched for difference and punished it.
"You knew me," she said, forcing steadiness. "But you didn't introduce yourself."
"Owl," he said. "For what comes next, that's enough."
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