The silence of the moss covered ruins was a lie.
Hirokage knew it. He felt it in the prickle on his neck, in the way the ancient stone seemed to hold its breath. He was a shadow among shadows, pressed against a crumbling archway, his dark robes making him one with the perpetual twilight of the Ashen Forest.
A hand signal from the darkness ahead. Daichi. All clear.
They moved as one unit, a four limbed creature of disciplined silence. Hirokage, Daichi, Katsuro, and Ayame. Squad Seven. The best of their generation, or so Sensei Kage claimed. Right now, Hirokage felt like a child playing at being a ghost.
"Another dead end," Katsuro's whisper was a faint rustle of air beside him. The hot headed brawler of their group was vibrating with pent up energy. "This is the third site this week. What are we even looking for?"
"Something the elders don't want found," Ayame murmured back, her sharp eyes scanning the runes carved above a collapsed doorway. She traced a symbol, a spiral with a line through it. "This is a warding mark. Old. Meant to bind something in, or… keep something out."
"Or keep us out," Daichi's voice, colder and flatter than the surrounding stone, came from ahead. He emerged from a doorway, his expression unreadable. "The trail ends here. The site's been scrubbed. Professionally."
A familiar frustration curdled in Hirokage's gut. This was their mission, again and again. Not a glorious battle against the Crimson Ash or a daring theft from the Iron Vein. This was a ghost hunt.
Members of the Shadow Fang Sect were disappearing. Not frontline fighters, but the support staff, the lower ranked scouts, the cooks, the healers. The ones who kept the heart of the sect beating. The official bulletins called it "wasteland attrition" or "defection." But the whispers in the dormitories at night told a different story.
And Squad Seven, for reasons never explained, was tasked with investigating the sites where they were last seen. They always found nothing. Just like this.
"This is pointless," Katsuro grumbled, kicking a loose stone. It skittered across the flagstones, the sound absurdly loud in the silence. "They're probably just deserters. Who wouldn't want to leave this dump?"
"The sect is our home," Hirokage said, the words automatic, a mantra he'd repeated since he was the orphan they took in. "Our family. We protect it. Even from unseen threats." He believed it. He had to. It was the nindo he'd built his life on: strength to protect the family you have.
Ayame shot him a look, her sarcasm a thin veil for her own unease. "Right. Because nothing says 'family' like sending your best kids to poke around creepy ruins looking for clues about the help that quit. Very noble."
"Enough," Daichi cut in. His gaze was fixed on the forest path leading back to the sect. "We report. That is the mission."
The return to the Shadow Fang stronghold was a descent into the earth. The entrance was hidden behind a waterfall of black sludge that poured from a rusted pipe in the canyon wall. Inside, the air was cool and smelled of damp rock, forge smoke, and simmering resentment.
They found Sensei Kage in the strategy grotto, a cavern lit by flickering green luminescent fungi. He was studying a map carved into the stone table, his face, as always, an impassive mask.
"Report," he said without looking up.
"Site Gamma Seven is clear, Sensei," Hirokage said, stepping forward. "No signs of struggle. No remains. It was… sanitized."
"As expected," Sensei Kage replied, his finger tracing a route on the map. "The wasteland claims the weak. It is the way of things."
Something in his dismissive tone rankled Hirokage. "Sensei… with respect, these weren't weak. Kenji the cook was a former scout. Ami the healer could neutralize a nerve toxin in under ten seconds. Their disappearances don't make sense."
Finally, Sensei looked up. His eyes, dark and depthless, fixed on Hirokage. There was no warmth in them, only assessment. "You question the sect's conclusions, Hirokage?"
The question hung in the air, heavy and dangerous. Behind him, he felt Katsuro tense. Ayame held her breath.
Hirokage met his gaze. "I question anything that threatens our family, Sensei."
A long, silent moment passed. Then, Sensei Kage gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod. "A commendable sentiment. Your dedication is noted. You are dismissed. Rest. You have a new assignment tomorrow. A real one."
The dismissal was clear. They bowed and filed out.
In the cramped barracks they shared, Katsuro immediately launched into a relieved rant. "A real assignment! Finally! Maybe we get to crack some Crimson Ash skulls!"
"Did that feel off to you?" Ayame asked, ignoring him and staring at Hirokage. She was unwinding the wire from her hair, her movements tense. "He didn't care. At all."
"He trusts us to handle it," Hirokage said, though the words felt hollow even to him. He began unbuckling his armor, his fingers pausing on the leather straps. His eyes fell on the only thing he owned from his past life, a small, worn wooden token carved with a balanced scale. His father's. A symbol of the justice they'd died for.
"He trusts us to stop asking questions," Ayame corrected softly.
Daichi, who had been silently cleaning his kunai, spoke without looking up. "The sect's stability is our priority. Questions that undermine that stability are a threat. Remember your nindo."
Strength to protect the family. The words echoed in Hirokage's mind. But what was he protecting? And from whom?
Later that night, the sect slept. Or pretended to. Hirokage lay awake, the sense of wrongness a cold stone in his chest. He slipped from his bunk. He needed air. Or answers.
He moved through the silent tunnels, past the murmuring forge and the empty mess hall. He found himself drawn toward the archives, a section off limits to all but the elders. Maybe there was something there. A record. A report. Something.
As he neared the heavy iron door, he heard voices. Hushed. Urgent. He melted into a deep shadow, his breathing shallow.
"…the site was compromised. The Seven were poking around." It was Sensei Kage's voice.
Another voice, older, rasping, Elder Sato. "And?"
"They found nothing. The cleanup was thorough. But the boy, Hirokage… he is suspicious."
"A risk. His sentimentality is a flaw. But his potential is too great to waste. The next harvest is scheduled for tomorrow night. The conduit must be fed. The strength of the Fang cannot waver."
Harvest? Fed? Conduit? The words made no sense, but they dripped with a terrible implication.
"The targets?" Sensei Kage asked, his voice devoid of emotion.
"The new arrivals from the western branch. Weak bloodlines. No significant connections. Their sacrifice will empower the chosen. It is the highest honor."
Hirokage's blood turned to ice in his veins. He stopped breathing. The world tilted. This wasn't a ghost hunt. It was a slaughterhouse. The sect wasn't losing members. It was culling them.
The family was eating its own.
The balanced scale on the token in his pocket felt like a lead weight. The justice he believed in, the nindo he lived by, it was all a lie, painted over a foundation of blood and sacrifice.
The voices faded as the elders moved away. Hirokage remained in the darkness, trembling, his world shattered. He thought of Kenji the cook, who always saved him an extra portion. Of Ami the healer, who'd sat with him through a fever when he first arrived.
Sacrifice.
A cold, hard resolve crystallized within him, shattering the fear. He would not let it happen. Not again.
He knew what he had to do. It was no longer about finding the missing.
It was about stopping the harvest.
The cold that seeped into Hirokage wasn't from the damp tunnel air. It was from a place deep inside, a void where his faith had been moments before. The echoes of the elders' words, harvest, fed, sacrifice, reverberated in his skull, each one a hammer blow to the foundation of his life.
He didn't remember moving. One moment he was a statue in the shadows, the next he was flying through the labyrinthine tunnels on silent feet, a ghost driven by a terrible, burning purpose. The familiar path to the barracks felt alien, a road in a nightmare. He shoved the heavy hide curtain aside, his breathing ragged.
Katsuro was snoring softly. Ayame was curled on her side, her back to the room. Daichi's bunk was empty, his bedding perfectly taut. Of course.
"Get up," Hirokage's voice was a raw scrape, nothing like his own.
Katsuro snorted, rolling over. "Wha…? Hiro? Sun's not even up…"
Ayame was instantly awake, her eyes sharp in the gloom. She took one look at his face and sat up. "What happened?"
"Daichi," Hirokage said, the name an accusation. "Where is he?"
"Watch duty? Meditation? Who cares?" Katsuro grumbled, rubbing his face. "What's got your straps in a twist?"
Hirokage ignored him, his gaze locked on Ayame. "The missing scouts. Kenji. Ami. It wasn't the wasteland. It wasn't another sect." He forced the words out, each one tasting of bile. "It's us. The elders. They're sacrificing them. For power. They call it a 'harvest'."
The silence that followed was absolute. Katsuro's sleepy confusion evaporated, replaced by stunned disbelief. "You've cracked. You've finally cracked from all that justice talk. That's insane."
But Ayame didn't call him insane. Her face went pale. She looked from Hirokage's shattered expression to the empty, perfect bunk belonging to their ever disciplined, ever obedient squadmate. "Daichi reports directly to Sensei Kage," she whispered, the pieces clicking into a horrifying picture. "He's always first to declare a site 'clear'…"
"He's probably part of it," Hirokage confirmed, the final piece of his family fracturing. "They're doing it again. Tomorrow night. New arrivals from the west."
Katsuro stood up, his big hands clenching into fists. "No. No way. Prove it."
"I heard them! Elder Sato and Sensei Kage! They said the 'conduit must be fed'!" Hirokage's whisper was desperate, furious.
"So we go to the elders!" Katsuro insisted, his loyalty to the sect a stubborn wall. "We tell them what you heard! It's got to be a mistake, or a test, or..."
"And if it's not?" Ayame interrupted, her voice cold with a logic that chilled Hirokage to the bone. "If we're wrong, we look like paranoid children. If we're right… we just sign our own death warrants and tip them off. They'll vanish the evidence, and we'll be the next names on the 'missing' list."
The three of them stood in the dark, the truth a poisonous fog between them. Their family was a snake eating its own tail, and they were in its belly.
"Then we find the proof ourselves," Hirokage said, the decision settling into a cold knot in his stomach. "Before tomorrow night. We find where they're keeping them. The 'conduit'. Then we… we…" He faltered. What then? Expose the entire leadership? It was a suicide mission.
"Then we figure it out," Ayame finished for him, her jaw set. She reached for her gear. "But we do it now."
Katsuro looked between them, a war raging on his face. Loyalty versus truth. Finally, with a savage curse, he grabbed his vest. "This is treason."
"No," Hirokage said, his voice finding a sliver of steel. "This is our nindo. Protecting the family. Even from itself."
They moved like strangers through their own home, every shadow holding a new threat. They avoided the main tunnels, using the old, disused passages only the junior members used for drills. Hirokage led them toward the deepest, oldest part of the stronghold, a sector carved into the bedrock that was always off limits. The air grew colder, smelling of stale water and something else, a faint, coppery tang that made the hair on Hirokage's arms stand up.
"The Black Vaults," Ayame breathed, her voice hushed. "They say the sect's founding relics are stored here. Heavily warded."
"Warded to keep people out," Katsuro muttered, "or to keep something in?"
They found it at the end of a narrow, descending corridor. A massive door of blackened iron, devoid of any handle or keyhole. The same spiral with a line symbol Ayame had seen in the ruins was etched into its center, pulsing with a faint, malevolent purple light.
And standing guard before it, a solitary, still figure.
Daichi.
He didn't look surprised. His cold eyes tracked their approach, reflecting the eerie light of the ward. In his hand, he held not a practice kunai, but a live blade, its edge glinting.
"You shouldn't be here," he said, his voice flat, final. "Return to your barracks."
"Daichi…" Hirokage took a step forward, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. "What is this place? What are you doing?"
"My duty. As should you." Daichi's gaze flicked to each of them. "The strength of the Fang requires sacrifice. It is a necessary truth. One you are too soft to understand."
The admission, so calm, so matter of fact, was worse than any denial. Katsuro made a sound of pure anguish. "They're our people, Dai! Our family!"
"They are fuel," Daichi corrected, his tone chillingly devoid of emotion. "Their sacrifice empowers the chosen. It empowers us. Turn around. Forget this. It is the only way you survive tonight."
Hirokage stared at his friend, his brother, and saw only a stranger reciting a monstrous catechism. The justice he believed in curdled into a white hot rage. "Move aside, Daichi."
"I cannot."
The silence stretched, taut and deadly. The faint, coppery smell was stronger here. It was coming from under the door.
Then, from behind the immense iron slab, a sound echoed. Faint, muffled.
A whimper.
It was a child's voice, choked with terror.
That was all it took. The last thread of Hirokage's restraint snapped. With a raw cry, he lunged.
Daichi moved to intercept, his blade a silver arc in the gloom. But Katsuro was faster. He barreled into Daichi, not with technique, but with pure, grief stricken fury, tackling him against the cavern wall. "RUN, HIRO!"
The ward on the door flared as Hirokage threw himself against it. It resisted, a solid wall of invisible energy, throwing him back. Ayame was there, her fingers flying, placing small, complex paper tags at the door's edges. "It's a bloodlock! It needs a key… or a overload!"
"Do it!" Hirokage yelled, drawing his kunai. He turned to see Katsuro and Daichi locked in a brutal, silent struggle. It was brother against brother, a nightmare made real.
Ayame slapped a final tag on the center symbol and shoved Hirokage back. "Down!"
The tags detonated with a concussive THUMP that was all force, no fire. The purple light of the ward shattered like glass. The iron door groaned, buckled, and swung inward on screaming hinges.
The smell that washed out was a physical blow, the thick, cloying stench of old blood, fear, and ozone.
Hirokage stumbled into the chamber, Ayame at his heels.
It was not a vault for relics.
It was a charnel pit.
The room was circular, the walls lined with ancient, rusted grates. In the center, a massive, dark stone altar sat, stained black and etched with channels that led to a deep, hollow well in the floor. The channels were wet, glistening.
And in the corner, huddled together, were a dozen people. They wore the simple robes of new initiates, their faces pale with terror. They were chained to the wall. The western arrivals. The harvest.
But Hirokage's eyes were dragged to the far wall. Mounted there, held by crumbling iron brackets, was a weapon.
It was long, cruel, and jagged, more like a shard of obsidian than a forged blade. Its surface seemed to absorb the light, a deeper darkness in the dark room. Rust that looked like old blood streaked its length. And along its hilt, wrapped in what looked like petrified flesh, a single, lidless eye was set into the crossguard. It was closed.
But as Hirokage stared, horrified, the eye twitched.
And began to open.
A voice, dry as dust and ancient beyond comprehension, slithered directly into his mind, bypassing his ears.
…at last… a worthy vessel…
The voice was not a sound. It was a pressure, a vacuum in his mind that pulled at his very soul.
'…at last… a worthy vessel…'
Hirokage recoiled, tearing his gaze away from the blasphemous weapon. The eye on the hilt was fully open now, a pool of liquid darkness that seemed to stare into him, through him.
"By the fallen gods…" Ayame breathed, her hand clamped over her mouth, her eyes wide with a horror that surpassed even the grim scene of the chained initiates.
The sound of combat behind them ceased. Daichi shoved a stunned Katsuro aside, his cold composure finally cracked. He wasn't looking at the prisoners; he was staring at the blade with a mixture of terror and fanatical awe.
"The Devouring Sword," he whispered. "You have defiled the sanctum. You have looked upon the source of the Fang's strength. There is no forgiveness for this."
"This is your strength?" Hirokage's voice shook, his gesture taking in the terrified initiates, the blood channels, the unspeakable weapon. "This… thing?"
"The strong endure! The weak become fuel!" Daichi spat, the sect's dogma a desperate shield against the monstrous reality. "It is the way of the wasteland! The Crimson Ash immolate their own to empower their Jigoku no Honō, The Iron Vein break their bodies on the forge to harden their Tetsu no Kokoro, We of the Shadow Fang are smarter! We are precise! We offer the weak to the blade, and it grants our chosen the Kage no Chikara, It is efficiency! It is survival!"
Each term was a hammer blow, revealing a world far more brutal and complex than the simple "us vs. them" he'd been taught.
"You call this power?" Katsuro snarled, getting to his feet, his knuckles bleeding. He gestured to the blade. "It's a parasite! It's a demon!"
"It is a tool!" Daichi shot back, his eyes wild. "And tools require a price! The Silent Rain Sect drowns their failures in sacred pools to fuel their water illusions! Do you think the other sects fear us for our stealth? They fear the Power of shadows we wield! They fear what we are willing to do to keep it!"
The truth was a vast, dark ocean, and Hirokage was drowning in it. The entire ninja world was built on this a grotesque economy of pain and power.
The door to the chamber suddenly blew inward, splintering off its hinges.
Sensei Kage stood in the doorway, flanked by two elite guards whose shadows seemed to writhe and twist independently of the torchlight. His face was a mask of cold, utter fury.
"You foolish children," he said, his voice low and deadly. "You have seen what must not be seen."
"Sensei… they were going to kill them…" Hirokage pleaded.
"Sacrifice them," Sensei Kage corrected, stepping into the room. The air grew colder. "To ensure our future. The Black Sun stirs. When it awakens, only the strongest sects will survive. This…" He gestured to the sword. "…is our answer. Your sentimentalism is a luxury the wasteland cannot afford."
He looked at Daichi. "Secure the initiates. The harvest will proceed. Now."
Daichi, shamed and furious, moved toward the prisoners.
"No!" Hirokage and Katsuro moved as one to block him.
Sensei Kage sighed. "Then you will join them. Your strength will make a fine offering. A final lesson in loyalty."
The two elite guards blurred into motion. They didn't run, they flowed, their bodies dissolving into streaks of living shadow.
Katsuro met one with a roar, his fist wrapped in an explosive tag. The blast lit up the chamber, and the shadowy form solidified for a moment, deflecting the blow.
The other guard flowed toward Hirokage. A tendril of shadow lashed out, a wave of pure cold that slammed into his chest. He felt the warmth leech from his body, his muscles locking up as he was thrown back.
He landed hard at the base of the altar, skidding through the wet, sticky channels. The coppery stench of blood filled his nostrils.
He was at the foot of the Devouring Sword.
The eye swiveled to look down at him.
You see their power? the voice hissed in his mind. A pale imitation. They offer me scraps and beg for drops. YOU… you could take it. You could DEVOUR it all.
"Hirokage, no!" Ayame screamed.
Sensei Kage was walking toward him, drawing a wakizashi whose blade was blacker than midnight. "The sword speaks lies. It offers power but demands the soul. You are not strong enough to wield it. You are only strong enough to feed it."
Daichi had unchained one of the initiates, a young boy, and was dragging him toward the altar. The boy sobbed, terrified.
Katsuro was on the ground, a guard's shadowy foot on his chest.
This was it. The justice of the strong. The family he'd sworn to protect.
His nindo lay in ashes. His friends were defeated. All that was left was the choice between a meaningless death or an unthinkable damnation.
A vast, cold emptiness opened within Hirokage. The ideals were a childish dream. The teachings were a monstrous lie. There was only the wasteland. And the law of the wasteland was simple.
He looked up at Sensei Kage. He looked at the crying child. He looked into the abyss of the Sword's eye. The voice was the only thing that made sense in the madness.
His decision crystallized, not in a shout, but in a low, raw whisper that cut through the chaos of the room. It was a challenge. A pact. A surrender.
"Come then," he breathed, his voice trembling not with fear, but with a terrifying resolve. His blood slicked hand closed around the petrified flesh of the Devouring Sword's hilt.
"Either devour me… or let me devour everything."