Midnight :
Near Kusagakure Village :
The journey to the Kusagakure border was a blur of silent movement. By the time the moon reached its zenith, they were perched on the jagged cliffs overlooking the Hidden Grass.
( A Hidden Village without much power , if it wasn't a buffer zone between Iwa and Konoha , it would have already ceased to exist )
The village looked peaceful from above, a sea of swaying greenery, but Karin's words echoed in Hattori's mind.
( The hospital isn't for healing; it's for harvesting.)
"Spread out," Hattori signaled. "Disable the sensors at the west pipe. We enter through the filth. Remember: if they wear the Grass headband and they stand between you and that basement... they don't get to see the sunrise."
With a flick of his wrist, Hattori led the plunge into the dark.
The descent into the Kusagakure perimeter was not a charge, but a slow, deliberate slide into the abyss. The air was thick with the scent of damp vegetation and stagnant water.
Hattori led the way, his movements soundless. He reached the West drainage pipe—a rusted, iron maw vomiting black sludge into the ravine.
Two Kusa guards stood atop the concrete lip, their posture lazy, lulled into a false sense of security by the midnight rain.
They never even felt the steel.
Hattori and Genji rose from the shadows behind them like phantoms. In one synchronized motion, they clamped hands over the guards' mouths and drove tanto blades upward through the base of the skull.
Not a gasp escaped. Not a foot scuffled. The bodies were caught before they could hit the ground and tucked into the dark recesses of the pipe.
"Split," Hattori signaled with a sharp chop of his hand.
The squad moved into the North Tower's basement. The interior was a stark, chilling contrast to the natural beauty of the Land of Grass.
The walls were weeping with moisture, and the air carried the sharp, sterile sting of cheap disinfectant mixed with the copper tang of blood.
They encountered a patrol of four Chunin in the main corridor. The Kusa shinobi were talking in low whispers about their recent "harvest."
Hattori didn't use Ninjutsu; the glow of chakra would be too visible. Instead, he reached into his pouch and launched four specialized needles—senbon coated in a fast-acting paralytic.
As the needles found their marks in the guards' necks, the Senju squad blurred forward. Before the Kusa ninjas' knees could even buckle, Hattori's men were there, easing them to the floor and finishing them with surgical precision.
Hattori stood atop the damp stone of the North Tower's roof, his cloak billowing in the cold night wind. He looked down at the unconscious body of the Kusa medic he had just discarded. A look of profound disdain crossed his face.
(...As expected of minor villages,")
Hattori thought, his eyes scanning the quiet streets below.
(Hardly any Jonin willing to keep a proper night watch. They grow complacent in their petty cruelty )
To the world, a "Jonin" was a title of prestige, a noble rank among the shinobi. But Hattori knew the reality of the power scale. In these minor villages, the title of ' JONIN' was often handed out to anyone who survived long enough.
Even the 'Kage' of a place like Kusa would likely only rank as an average, mid-tier Jonin back in Konoha. To an elite Senju commander who had survived the Great Shinobi Wars, the security of this village was nothing more than a paper door.
( well The big villages will also assasinate any promising Shinobi in the Minor villages )
He signaled to his men. They had moved through the facility like scythes through wheat.
Hattori sensed a shift in the air. Two signatures had appeared at the edge of the North Tower's perimeter—stronger than the others, moving with the practiced confidence of those who owned this wretched place.
( Kusa's elite ?? two Jonin who had likely overseen the "harvesting" projects. )
Hattori signaled his squad to continue the evacuation of the prisoners. "Go," he whispered. "I will handle the cleanup."
The two Kusa Jonin were standing near the entrance of the drainage pipe, looking at the two dead guards with more annoyance than alarm.
"Useless," the taller one spat, adjusting his flak jacket. "If the 'bloodbank' escaped because these two were sleeping, the Captain will have our—"
He never finished the sentence.
Hattori didn't descend from the sky or burst from the shadows. He simply appeared between them, as if the darkness itself had solidified into a human shape.
( an opening ....what stupidity )
The Kusa Jonin were fast—by minor village standards. The taller one reached for his tantō, his fingers brushing the hilt, while the other began a single-handed seal for a Grass-Style binding technique.
But against a Senju veteran who had traded blows with the Uchiha and the Raikage's elite, they were moving in slow motion.
Hattori's left hand shot out, catching the first Jonin's wrist. With a sickening crunch, he crushed the radius and ulna, redirecting the man's own tantō toward his partner. In the same fluid motion, Hattori's right hand, coated in a razor-thin layer of wind-natured chakra, struck the second Jonin across the throat.
The strike was so precise it didn't just crush the windpipe; it severed the carotid arteries internally. The man slumped, clutching his neck, unable to even gurgle a warning.
The first Jonin, his arm shattered and his partner dying, tried to scream.
Hattori didn't let him. He stepped into the man's guard, Hattori's hands covering his mouth with such force that the Kusa Jonin felt his Jaw breaking .
Hattori looked at the 'Trash' his face inches away. The Kusa ninja looked into Hattori's eyes and saw not a man, but an abyss of cold, ancient fury.
"You call them 'resources'?" Hattori's voice was a graveyard whisper.
He drove a kunai upward, through the bottom of the man's jaw and straight into the brain stem. The Kusa Jonin's body went rigid, his eyes bulging for a fraction of a second before the light vanished from them forever.
Hattori held the man up for a moment, refusing to let the "noble" of this minor village fall into the mud. He leaned in, his voice cold and final.
"In a real village, you wouldn't even be fit to guard a gate."
He let the body drop. It was a clean, silent execution. No flashy ninjutsu, no wasted movement—just the terrifying efficiency of a hunter who had turned assassination into an art form.
Hattori flicked the blood from his blade with a sharp motion, his expression unchanged. To him, this wasn't a battle;
it was pest control.
Hattori turned his back on the corpses and melted into the night, following the trail of his squad toward the border.
Soon Hattori and his squad reached their destination in a Shinobi way , without any Mouth-escape Jutsu .
They reached the heavy, iron-reinforced door Karin had described as the "Shed." One of the Jonin, a specialist in sealing, placed his hand on the lock. With a faint hiss of chakra, the mechanism clicked open.
The sight inside made even the battle-hardened Senju veterans recoil.
It was a long, narrow room filled with iron cages. Inside were "the minorities"—remnants of broken clans with rare bloodlines or unique ocular traits. They were emaciated, their eyes hollowed out by despair.
Some were missing limbs; others had patches of skin harvested for experimentation.
Hattori's eyes burned. He signaled his men to begin the silent release. Using liquid wire cutters, they snapped the locks.
"Go to the West pipe," Hattori whispered to a young boy from a forgotten clan whose eyes had been sewn shut. "shinobi's are waiting in the shadows. Move or die."
The prisoners, fueled by a sudden, desperate hope, began to melt into the shadows, guided by one of Hattori's Jonin toward the exit.
( Once we rescue the Uzumaki , they will be useful ....and if they survive ....then they will be useful too )
The North Tower Basement: The Final Room
Hattori moved toward the furthest cell, the one Karin had described with the most terror. This was where the "Prime Resource" was kept.
He pushed open the final door.
In the center of the room, suspended by chains that pulled her arms taut, was a woman with hair the color of dying embers. Her head hung low, her tattered clothes barely clinging to a body that was covered in a horrifying tapestry of bite marks—hundreds of them, layered over old scars until the skin was nothing but a map of human cruelty.
A Kusa medical-nin was standing over her, holding a tray of surgical tools, preparing to take a "sample" while she was still semi-conscious.
Hattori didn't just kill him.
He appeared behind the medic, his hand wrapping around the man's throat like a vice. He squeezed just enough to prevent a scream, then leaned in close to his ear.
"The Uzumaki are not yours to harvest," Hattori breathed, his voice a cold promise of death.
With a sickening crack, he snapped the man's neck and let the body drop like trash.
Hattori stepped toward the woman. He cut the chains with a single strike of his blade, catching her before she could collapse into the filth. Her eyes flickered open—dull, red, and filled with a lifetime of pain.
"Karin..." she wheezed, her voice a ghost.
"She is safe," Hattori said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle as he wrapped her in his dark cloak. "She is with the Senju now. And for what they did to you... this village will pay in ash."
Hattori and his squad gets ready for the departure
As they retreated back through the drainage pipe, Genji lingered for a moment. He placed a series of "Special Grade" Explosion tags on the support pillars of the North Tower.
There was no explosion yet. The Squad left a Shadow Clone that will make the explosions go , especially when the Kusa finds about the North Tower and missing resources .
There was only the sound of the rain and the silent disappearance of the ghosts of the Whirlpool into the night.
But as Hattori looked back at the Kusa skyline from the safety of the forest, he didn't feel the satisfaction of a mission accomplished. He felt the weight of a debt.
( A Shinobi prioritises his Mission first .....and the rest later )
By the time the moon began to dip toward the horizon, the squad had returned to the inn.
The "minority" prisoners had been scattered into the woods with enough supplies to reach the borders and also towards some safe-houses of the past Senju Clan .
But the primary objective—Karin's mother—was carried into the main suite in Hattori's own arms.
Tsunade was already standing, her face pale with anticipation. When she saw the woman wrapped in Hattori's cloak, her medical instincts took over, but her heart broke. She had seen war, but she had rarely seen a human being used so thoroughly as a tool.
The heavy scent of iron hung in the air, thick and suffocating. For Tsunade, it was a physical weight. Her hands trembled, not from fatigue, but from the deep-seated trauma that had haunted her for years.
The sight of the Uzumaki woman's mangled body, covered in a tapestry of bite marks and fresh wounds, sent a cold shiver through her soul.
Her breath hitched as a drop of blood hit the floor. Her vision blurred, the room momentarily replaced by the memories of Nawaki and Dan. But she gritted her teeth, biting her lip until she tasted her own blood to ground herself.
( Not today )
she cursed internally, forcing her chakra to flare.
( I will not let another one die )
Suppressing her obvious discomfort, her body shaking with a violent tremor she couldn't quite hide, Tsunade dived into action.
( Nawaki , Dan and Grandma ... I will not disappoint you today )
She was the greatest medical ninja the world had ever known, and she fought her own phobia with the same ferocity she used against enemies on the battlefield.
For three hours, the room was a blur of high-level Medical Ninjutsu. The emerald glow of the Mystical Palm Technique illuminated the dark suite, reflecting off the sweat pouring down Shizune's face as she assisted .
Near the bedside, Shizune worked with frantic precision, her eyes darting between the monitors and the woman's pale face. But her primary focus kept returning to the woman standing beside her.
She saw the way Tsunade's hands were shaking, the way her teeth were clamped so tightly together her jaw muscles were bulging, and the sweat dripping from her nose into the sterile field.
Shizune thought, her heart swelling with a mixture of worry and awe
( Sensei ...are you finally ?? )
She had spent years watching Tsunade gamble and drink to forget the sight of blood. To see her now, immersed in it, her hands glowing with the most brilliant emerald chakra Shizune had ever seen, felt like watching a miracle.
( Tsunade Sensei wasn't just healing the Uzumaki woman ,....she is stitching her own shattered psyche and soul back together with every layer of tissue she repaired )
The atmosphere in the room was suffocating, a heavy mixture of ozone from concentrated chakra and the thick, copper scent of blood.
Every sound was magnified in the silence of the pre-dawn hours—the rhythmic hiss of healing jutsu, the clatter of surgical tools, and the ragged, uneven breathing of a legendary woman fighting her own mind.
Hattori stood by the window, his back to the room, acting as a silent sentinel. He didn't need to look; the sharp smell of blood and the soft, strained grunts of Tsunade told him the story of the struggle behind him.
He knew the price his niece was paying to perform this surgery. Every time she gasped, or the sound of a heartbeat monitor spiked,
Hattori tightened his grip on the windowsill until the wood began to splinter beneath his calloused fingers. His presence was a steady anchor in the storm of her trauma.
(I thought she would always remain broken,)
Hattori mused, his eyes fixed on the dark treeline outside.
(There was no change since the Second World War.... almost twenty years of wandering, of running away. But to think.... Tsunade has grown. She has become much stronger than she realizes.)
He realized then that it wasn't just the medical expertise that had returned , it was the "Will of Fire" of The Real Konoha Village that had been smothered under layers of grief.
Seeing her kin—the living legacy of her grandmother Mito—treated like an animal had finally forced Tsunade to shove her fear into a dark corner of her heart.
As the first light of dawn crept over the horizon, painting the sky in bruised purples and golds, a small voice broke the silence.
=============================
Morning :
"Mama?"
Karin had stirred. She was propped up on her pillows, her eyes wide and trembling as she looked at the bed next to her.
There, scrubbed clean of the Kusa filth and wrapped in fresh, white linens, lay her mother. The woman's breathing was shallow but steady for the first time in years.
Tsunade stepped back, wiping sweat from her brow. She looked at Hattori and gave a weary, triumphant nod.
Hattori walked over to Karin's bedside. The girl looked at him—not with the terror she had shown last night, but with a dawning, overwhelming realization.
"You... you really went back for her," Karin whispered, her voice cracking.
Hattori placed a heavy, calloused hand on the girl's head, avoiding the bandages.
"The Senju do not leave their kin in the hands of scavengers,"
he said, his voice low and firm. "From this day on, you are no longer 'resources.' You are Uzumaki. And that name means something again."
Karin burst into silent, racking sobs, reaching out to grab Hattori's sleeve as if afraid he would vanish. In that moment, the "Winter Blade" didn't pull away. He stood there, let the child cry, and looked toward the direction of Konoha .
================
The Next Day :
The morning air was crisp as the group gathered in the small courtyard of the inn. The tension of the night's raid had settled into a heavy, calculated silence.
Hattori looked at Tsunade, then at the two frail Uzumaki survivors.
"The moment we step through the Konoha gates, they become political pawns," he said, his voice low.
"The Council will want to study their healing factor. Danzo will want to 'secure' them for the foundation. And Hiruzen... Hiruzen will let it happen for the sake of 'balance'."
( even if Danzo is missing ....I don't want to take chances ...especially with them ) Hattori
Tsunade, still pale from her ordeal but with a newfound fire in her eyes, nodded. "They aren't ready for that. They aren't pieces on a Shogi board. They are people who have been broken. They need time to remember what it's like to breathe without fear."
"Then we don't go to the village," Hattori decided. "Not yet."
It was agreed:
Hattori would use his connections to secure a hidden estate—a safe house located within the Fire Country's dense forests, far enough from the village to avoid casual surveillance, but close enough for Hattori to protect.
Tsunade would continue her intensive medical treatments . She could use the time to experiment with Uzumaki vitality to see if she could fully restore the mother's depleted life force.
Karin would live in a place where no one bit her. Shizune would act as an older sister figure, teaching her basic shinobi skills—not for Kusa's missions, but for her own defense.
Hattori would spend this year quietly "clearing the path" in Konoha. He would use his influence to ensure that when they finally did enter the village, their status as Senju kin was legally untouchable.
The 3 days Later :
Hattori stood at the edge of the clearing as the carriage was prepared. He looked at Shizune, who was helping a bandaged Karin into the transport.
(One year,)
he thought
. (In one year, Naruto will be eleven. He will be graduating in another year. If I bring them in then... if I bring a healed, strong Uzumaki girl to meet that lonely boy... the Third's grip on Naruto's heart will waver or even vanish in a single afternoon.)
Hattori wasn't just hiding them , he was maturing a "political bomb" that would explode the status quo of the Konoha Village. By the time Karin walked through those gates, she wouldn't be a victim. She would be a proud Uzumaki, ready to claim her brother or maybe somethingelse .