Onoki stood before the graves of his teacher, the air around his small frame heavy with a chilling stillness.
Beside him, Kitsuchi had lost his usual easygoing expression, his face now the hard mask of a commander, his jaw set. His eyes scanned the disturbed earth, searching for any detail the perpetrator might have left behind. For anyone, this would be an unforgivable violation. For the Tsuchikage, it was an act of war.
"The soil is fresh," Kitsuchi said, his voice a low growl. "This was done no more than an hour ago. They can't have gotten far."
For a master of Earth Release, reading the soil was as simple as breathing.
Onoki's voice was dangerously quiet. "Lock down the village. I want every road, every trail, every crack in the rock sealed. If you find anyone who doesn't belong, kill them."
His gaze remained fixed on the desecrated tombs. "This is a direct challenge to Iwagakure. It is a challenge to me." He clenched his fists, the leather of his gloves creaking. "I don't care who they are or why they did this. I will make them pay."
--**--**
But the one responsible for the outrage was already halfway to the Land of Lightning.
Flying at a speed augmented by ki, Naruto left the rocky terrain of the Land of Earth far behind. Below him, the jagged peaks gave way to the cloud-shrouded mountains of his destination.
'Kumogakure's barrier is simpler than Iwa's,' he noted, peering down at the faint, translucent shimmer that enveloped the hidden village. Every great village had one, a massive ninjutsu formula for detection and defense. Konoha's was a dizzying maze of seals, while Suna's was barely more than a tripwire. This one was formidable, but straightforward.
Normally, entry required passing through the main gate and signing a registration scroll. But Naruto wasn't planning a normal visit.
He knew Kumogakure by reputation. It was arguably the most powerful of the five great villages at the moment. Before the Bloody Mist era had torn it apart, Kirigakure might have stood as a rival, but now Kiri was in a state not much better than Suna. The Kumo-nin valued combat prowess and discipline, and their Raikage were legends of close-quarters combat. They were also fiercely united, a village with almost no internal strife or high-profile defections, unlike Konoha, where S-rank missing-nin seemed to be a yearly crop.
Naruto descended as he neared the village proper, landing softly on a damp trail. The village was built among peaks that pierced the clouds, and the valley was a natural lightning field. Flying high was an open invitation to be struck down.
Just as Iwagakure was protected by its fortress of mountains, Kumogakure was shielded by the very sky. It explained why both villages had rarely faced a direct assault during the great wars, their terrain made invasion nearly impossible. Of course, that same terrain made them resource-poor compared to the fertile lands of Konoha or the lush islands of Kiri. Still, they were far better off than the sand-swept poverty of Suna.
--**--**
He made his way toward the village cemetery on foot.
At the Memorial Stones, the sky was a bruised purple, threatening a downpour that had already begun as a fine, misty drizzle. The world was hazy and grey.
Yugito, her long blonde hair bound in a thick braid that reached her waist, approached a particular stone and gently set a bouquet of flowers at its base. She stood for a long moment, her eyes on the name carved there, lost in silence.
She was about to turn away when a faint sound drifted from deeper within the cemetery, a song, barely a whisper on the wind. It was elusive, but her sharpened senses caught the thread of it. Singing in a graveyard was unsettling. This was consecrated ground, but it was also a place of the dead.
"Who's there?" she called out, her voice sharp. "Show yourself!"
She was Yugito Nii, jinchuriki of the Two-Tails. She did not frighten easily. The beast sealed within her, Matatabi. This was her village, her territory. There was nothing here to fear.
She strode forward, striding in the direction of the singing.
The deeper she went, the colder the air became. A thick, grey mist rose from the ground, chilling her to the bone. She could see her breath ghosting in the air, impossible in the height of summer. It felt as if she were the only living person left in the entire cemetery. Ahead, the rows of memorial stones looked like teeth in the growing mist, a silent maw waiting to swallow whatever strayed too close.
Just as she hesitated, the song grew clearer, the words becoming distinct.
"...no spice makes the meat go bland, gotta have it close at hand, yo-ho, dum-dee-dan..."
"...Ooh, tiptoe by the garden, by the garden of a willow tree, and tiptoe through the tulips with me, knee-deep in flowers we'll stray..."
The tune was simple, almost childish, and so utterly out of place among the gravestones that it was more bizarre than frightening.
Yugito picked up her pace, closing the distance in a few long strides. Soon, she could make out a figure in the dim light. They were dressed in a black robe, their back to her, diligently digging at a grave with a shovel.
Her eyes widened in disbelief when she recognized the monument. 'That's... the Third Raikage's grave!'
She stared in disbelief. 'A grave robber!'
The audacity of it was staggering. Someone had snuck into Kumogakure to rob a grave, the grave of a Raikage, no less. 'You're not leaving here in one piece.'
Her nails elongated, hardening into razor-sharp claws. With her footsteps silenced by chakra, she crept closer to the black-robed figure.
The man continued his strange song. "We'll keep the showers away, and if I kiss you in the garden, in the moonlight, will you pardon me? And tiptoe through the tulips with me..."
When she was less than ten meters away, the figure suddenly stopped singing. They turned, and in that exact moment, a brilliant fork of lightning split the sky, illuminating the cemetery in a flash of white. Yugito saw his face clearly, or rather, the swirling orange mask that covered it.
"Well, now," a muffled, strangely cheerful voice said. "Look what we have here. A naughty kitty."
A voice screamed in her mind. It was Matatabi, her usually calm tone ripped away by sheer panic. 'Yugito, get away from him! Now!'
Yugito could feel the Biju's chakra flaring within her, Matatabi's own fear a violent, explosive inferno. The Two-Tails was bristling like a cornered animal. She sensed a danger so strong that it was terrifying. Even the Eight-Tails at his most feral had never provoked a reaction like this.
'He's just one man,' she thought, steeling herself.
'Run!' Matatabi roared again, her voice frantic. 'He is not just a man! Get away!'
"Since you're already here..." the masked man's voice sounded again, but this time, the hair on Yugito's arms stood on end. The voice had come from right behind her.
She reacted on pure instinct. A tail of blue flame erupted from her back as the Biju's power began to envelop her. But it was too late. The distance was too close, her transformation too slow.
A sharp, heavy blow struck the side of her neck. Her vision exploded into blackness, and she collapsed, the rising blue flames extinguishing in an instant.
"...you might as well stay a while," the masked man's voice concluded, as if there had been no interruption at all.
He knelt beside her unconscious form. A different voice, deep and powerful, echoed not in the air, but within the sealing space inside Yugito's mind.
"Matatabi. It's been a long time."
The great, two-tailed cat of blue fire, poised to seize control of its host's body, froze. She knew that voice.
"...Kurama?"
===============
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