"Sigh!"
A sigh, heavy with the weight of consequence and the immediacy of the present, escaped Renjiro's lips. Nostalgia was a luxury shinobi couldn't afford mid-operation.
Renjiro moved to the centre of the dimly lit sensory room. He didn't head for the door to join the others. Instead, he lowered himself smoothly into a lotus position on the cool floor. Closing his eyes, he centred his breathing. But this wasn't passive meditation. This was preparation for a different kind of action.
He reached inwards, and then he released it again.
"FWOOM!"
It was his chakra field. It was more of a blazing signal fire this time, like a declaration of presence as loud as a physical alarm bell to anyone sensitive enough to perceive it.
'The seals I gave them are prototypes,' Renjiro thought, his mental voice calm amidst the internal storm he was generating.
'Good concealment, but untested under intense scrutiny. Better to hoard all the attention and draw every perceptive eye towards me.'
His expansive chakra field, radiating like a lighthouse beam, would act as a smokescreen. Any flicker of unusual chakra elsewhere – Katsu's poison mist, Yuji's lightning-fast strikes, Minako's explosive potential – would be drowned out, lost in the overwhelming glare of his own power.
It was a shield woven from audacity. Simultaneously, this deliberate beacon was the signal. The sudden, overwhelming surge from the sensory hub – a place that should be detecting threats, not emitting them – was the unmistakable sign to Katsu, Yuji, and Minako:
'The eyes are blind. The path is clear. Move now.'
=====
The pre-dawn quiet of Miyahira's central hospital was profound, almost sacred. Hallways usually bustling with the low murmur of healers and the soft moans of the injured were unnervingly still.
Senior Medical-nin Asuka Hikari paused just inside the main entrance, her hand still on the heavy wooden door. She'd been called in early to assist with a difficult healing scheduled at first light.
But this… this wasn't right.
"Hello?" she called out, her voice echoing slightly in the cavernous reception area.
"Ito-san? Sato-sama?"
A prickle of unease, honed by years in a hidden village constantly on alert, ran down her spine. The air tasted… stale. Not just unused, but empty.
She moved cautiously down the main corridor, her medical sandals making soft shush-shush sounds on the polished linoleum. Her chakra field, trained for healing diagnostics, extended cautiously outwards. She felt… nothing.
No familiar signatures of colleagues. Just a strange, muffled quality to the ambient energy. Then, she turned a corner towards a section of the hospital.
The sight stopped her cold. Two Kumo Jonin security guards lay slumped against the wall near the doors. Not dead, she realised instantly with a medic's eye – their chests rose and fell shallowly – but deeply unconscious, faces pale, lips slightly tinged blue.
And the air… it shimmered faintly. Not with heat, but with a subtle, almost invisible haze. It clung low to the ground, swirling lazily like morning fog trapped indoors. It smelled faintly metallic, like old copper and wet stone.
"Poison!" she gasped, instinctively clapping a hand over her nose and mouth, flooding her system with cleansing chakra.
But it was already too late. A wave of dizziness washed over her, not the heavy fatigue of sleep, but a sharp, localised burning sensation deep in her lungs. It felt like inhaling ground glass.
She staggered, coughing violently.
"Hack! Hack!"
Each spasm sent fresh agony through her chest. Her vision blurred at the edges.
From the swirling haze near the doors, a figure materialised. Not a blur, but a deliberate parting of the mist. Katsu. His expression was calm, analytical, devoid of the anger he'd earlier shown Renjiro, replaced by the cold focus of a surgeon excising a tumour. He held his hands loosely at his sides, palms slightly upturned. Tendrils of the shimmering, metallic mist coiled around his fingers like living smoke.
"Pulmonary necrotoxin," Katsu stated, his voice clinical, almost bored, as he watched Asuka struggle. "Inert until inhaled. Bonds selectively with chakra pathways in the alveoli. The more you try to purge it with chakra, the faster it works. Quite efficient."
He took a step forward, the mist swirling around his ankles. "Silent. Leaves minimal trace. Ideal for neutralising medical personnel who might complicate an occupation."
Asuka tried to form a hand sign, but her chakra sputtered and flared erratically, feeding the toxin searing through her lungs. She collapsed to her knees, wheezing, tears streaming from her eyes as she fought for air that wouldn't come. She saw other shapes in the mist further down the hall – healers slumped over desks, another guard face down near the supply closet. All still breathing, but utterly incapacitated.
Katsu stopped before her. He wasn't a frontline terror like the Swordsmen. His power was precise, insidious, and rooted in deep understanding. A master of biochemical ninjutsu and infiltration toxins, his value lay in dismantling support structures, in ensuring resistance couldn't be patched up.
Seeing the Konoha monster, Renjiro, had shaken him, but here, in his element, neutralising the village's ability to heal its wounds, he was coldly competent. He raised a hand, not to strike, but to release another, denser coil of the metallic mist directly towards Asuka's straining face.
"Critical support division crippled," he murmured, more to himself than to the dying medic.
He watched, impassive, as Asuka's struggles weakened, her eyes glazing over, her body slumping the final distance to the floor beside the guards. The mist began to slowly dissipate, leaving only the chilling silence and the faint, desperate beep of the lone life-support monitor echoing in the sterile halls. Katsu stepped over her, moving silently towards the hospital's communication centre. One threat neutralised. The occupation could proceed.
=====
Honda Minako moved through the sprawling logistics depot like a ghost, the concealment seal Renjiro had given her clinging to her chakra signature like a second skin.
The sheer scale of the beacon he'd unleashed from the watchtower was staggering; it felt like standing next to a roaring bonfire while trying to hide a candle flame. It made her own movements feel unnervingly exposed, yet paradoxically invisible.
The depot was a maze of towering warehouses and open storage yards, bathed in the light of dawn. She passed rows of sealed crates marked with Kumo's lightning bolt insignia – weapons, armour, among other things. Further in, covered tarpaulins protected stacks of grain sacks and barrels of preserved fish. The air smelled of tarpaulin, damp earth, and the faint, sweet-sour tang of pickled vegetables from a nearby storehouse.
She encountered minimal resistance. A pair of patrolling Jonin lay unconscious near a forklift, victims of precise nerve strikes – Yuji's work, she guessed, his speed amplified by the distraction Renjiro provided. Near the armoury, three more Kumo shinobi were slumped in a grotesque parody of sleep, thin trails of metallic vapour – Katsu's signature toxin – just visible near their mouths before dispersing. Efficiency. Brutal, clinical efficiency.
Her target wasn't weapons or armour. It was sustenance. Morale. The ability to endure a war. She found it in Warehouse Seven: the central food reserve. Massive sacks of rice, barley, and millet formed towering dunes under the high ceiling. Racks held countless barrels of dried fish, salted meats, pickled vegetables, and precious oils. This was the lifeblood of Miyahira, and by extension, a critical supply node for Kumo's forces.
Minako stopped in the centre of the cavernous space, the scale of the hoard momentarily daunting. Then, a fierce grin split her face. This was her element. Brash, destructive, undeniable impact. She unstrapped the massive scroll-like hilt of Shibuki from her back.
"Snap-hiss"
The Bandit Sword. Unfurling it with a practised ease, she revealed the gleaming, porous blade within. It hummed faintly, eager.
She didn't just channel chakra into it; she poured chakra through it, activating the intricate fuinjutsu matrices woven into the blade's structure. The porous surface began to glow a dangerous, pulsating red. "VZZZZZT!" The hum intensified, rising in pitch. Minako took a deep breath, not of fear, but of anticipation. She raised Shibuki high above her head, the blade now radiating heat like a forge. She wasn't aiming for the walls. She was aiming for the heart of the stockpile.
Then, with a grunt of effort, she brought Shibuki down in a devastating arc, not towards the floor, but plunging the superheated, chakra-saturated blade point-first into the heart of a mountainous stack of rice sacks.
"KRA-KOOOOOOM!!!!"
The explosion wasn't just loud; it was apocalyptic within the confined space. Shibuki's unique property – absorbing chakra to fuel a volatile, liquid explosive release – combined devastatingly with Minako's potent fuinjutsu-enhanced output. A blinding white fireball erupted from the impact point, instantly vaporising tons of grain.