Swish! Swish! Swish!
Night fell as fine rain pattered against rooftops. Droplets traced arcs through the air before shattering into sprays, and the lights of Konoha shimmered like a mirage through the mist.
Shadows darted across the rooftops like owls in flight. Each wore a light gray tactical vest, a short blade or straight sword strapped to their back.
Many still carried the scent of blood. Beneath their white masks, their eyes were cold and solemn; villagers who caught sight of them instinctively stepped aside in fear.
They crossed the busy, brightly lit streets and reached the outskirts of the village, where few dared to tread.
There, before a building marked with the single character "Anbu", they halted, the headquarters of Konoha's Black Ops.
Almost every operative had been urgently summoned from home. Though crowded, the group was utterly silent and disciplined, the heavy mood as somber as a funeral.
Among them stood Hatake Kakashi.
A bandage wrapped his forehead, and his brow furrowed in confusion. His single visible eye, dull and expressionless as always, was filled with doubt.
'Those explosive tags… who put them there? Was it Lord Third?'
Kakashi hadn't seen the strange black cat that had passed by earlier. He had only seen Orochimaru burst out from underground, then be thrown through the air when the explosive tags beneath him detonated.
Kakashi had been close enough to be caught in the blast himself, though far less severely than Orochimaru, who had lost an entire arm despite using ninjutsu to mitigate the explosion.
Yet, as far as Kakashi remembered, the Third Hokage hadn't prepared anything like that…
Creak.
The front doors of the Anbu headquarters opened with a harsh sound that shattered the silence.
Kakashi shook off his doubts, donned his mask, and looked up. Two figures emerged.
The first wore the red-and-white Hokage robes and hat: Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage himself.
Behind him walked an elderly man dressed in a black kimono, his right arm and eye wrapped in bandages. His narrow eyes and the scar along his chin gave him a perpetually grim look.
He was Shimura Danzō, founder and leader of Root, the man who controlled Konoha's "darkness" and wielded power second only to the Hokage.
"This emergency summons," Hiruzen began, his voice calm and direct, "is to capture Orochimaru, who escaped during the recent operation."
"According to reports, Orochimaru has been gravely wounded. Given his injuries, escaping the Land of Fire won't be easy."
"The knowledge, intelligence, and techniques he possesses are invaluable to Konoha. I hope you can bring him back alive if possible."
"If he defects beyond our borders, the consequences will be catastrophic for the village. Therefore-"
He paused briefly before continuing.
"-we must race against time to intercept him before he crosses the frontier. Search with everything you have!"
When he finished, Hiruzen lifted his head, eyes cold.
"Disperse."
Swish! Swish!
The Anbu operatives vanished into the night, shadows sent to hunt down the wounded serpent, on land, in air, and underwater.
When they were gone, Hiruzen turned toward the building, but as he passed Danzō, a mocking voice reached his ears.
"You truly do dote on your precious disciple."
Hiruzen stopped. The brim of his hat cast his face in shadow, making his expression unreadable.
"A man like you… actually 'slipped up,'" Danzō continued. "I hear you rescued a child from the Hyūga clan during the operation?"
They had known each other for decades. Hiruzen could easily hear the subtext and sighed inwardly, weary.
"That child is merely unfortunate," Hiruzen said quietly. "He's from the Hyūga branch family."
The implication was clear: Give it up.
Even if Orochimaru had conducted experiments on the boy, a branch family member marked with the Caged Bird Seal was of no use to anyone.
Otherwise, given the will of fire Hyūga Arata had shown, Hiruzen might have already taken him in, even if the boy was talentless.
Even a civilian could become a teacher at the academy.
But a Hyūga branch member could only ever serve the main family, bound by that cursed seal.
At any time, the main family could activate the secret technique and destroy the branch member's brain with ease.
By comparison, Danzō's "Binding Tongue Curse Seal" seemed almost merciful; it merely paralyzed the victim, silencing them completely.
"..."
Danzō closed his eyes, facing the night. His tone cooled into its usual calm indifference.
"Regardless, I'll do everything I can to assist."
"For Konoha, I will spare no effort."
"…Then I must apologize," Hiruzen replied flatly, glancing at him. "For troubling you."
Without another word, he walked inside.
Though Danzō's jabs were barbed, and though he had likely profited from dealings with Orochimaru in secret, Hiruzen knew one thing:
Now that Orochimaru had turned traitor, Danzō would devote himself wholly to eliminating the threat, for Konoha's sake.
Perhaps the explosion that had crippled Orochimaru was Danzō's hidden contingency all along.
That was why Hiruzen tolerated his "little games." After all, he believed Danzō's actions, however cruel, were ultimately for the village's good.
As Arata himself had once said, for Konoha to grow tall like a great tree, it indeed needed unseen roots buried deep in the darkness.
But roots must stay in the dark.
After Hiruzen left, Danzō opened his eyes.
Caw
A crow descended from the night and landed on his shoulder, dropping a small scroll into his palm.
He unrolled it. Lines of encoded text filled the paper, Root's cipher.
It contained reports from the cleanup of Orochimaru's base. Unfortunately, most of the equipment and experimental data had been obliterated in the blast.
The explosive tags had been laid along an entire underground pipeline, reducing the entire facility to ruin.
Those machines had cost Danzō a fortune, procured through secret channels, even Root didn't possess such things.
"Was it you, Orochimaru? Would you rather destroy it all than leave anything for me?"
Danzō's eyes darkened, but he soon rejected that thought.
Orochimaru had lost an arm in the blast. Even with his modified body, recovering from that while his chakra was nearly depleted made it unlikely he had orchestrated the explosion himself.
And Hiruzen, guilt-ridden and sentimental as he was, would never go that far.
In fact, Danzō mused bitterly, Hiruzen might even suspect him of setting those tags.
"Then… who?"
Danzō's brow furrowed deeply. It felt as though an invisible hand was manipulating events from the shadows.
He thought briefly of the one survivor, the Hyūga boy, but dismissed it immediately.
Such meticulous, ruthless precision, trapping both Orochimaru and Hiruzen, was far beyond what a fifteen-year-old could manage.
Especially a timid, parentless child from the Hyūga branch family.
"Damn it… who is it?!"
Danzō crushed the scroll in his fist. He loathed the feeling of an unknown threat lurking unseen.
Whoever it was, they were far more dangerous than Orochimaru, and he, the so-called Darkness of the Shinobi World, could not allow such an existence to persist.
Better to kill by mistake than let them slip away.
His eyes narrowed. He pulled another scroll from his robes, quickly inscribed coded orders, and let the crow carry it off into the night.
'Just a useless Hyūga branch member… even if he dies by "accident," no one will care.'
Meanwhile, deep within a forest hundreds of kilometers from Konoha, inside the Land of Fire,
Crack.
A branch snapped underfoot. Birds hiding from the rain fluttered skyward as a lone figure staggered from the shadows.
"Hah… hah…"
Orochimaru leaned against a tree, coughing blood that tasted of iron.
His left arm was gone below the elbow, torn flesh and bone exposed. Half his robe was soaked red.
This was the worst injury he'd suffered since modifying his body.
He had long anticipated this day and left contingencies within the Land of Fire, one of them being the Iburi clan, a group with a rare Smoke Transformation kekkei genkai.
They could turn their bodies into smoke and possess others, but a gust of wind could disperse them completely.
With Orochimaru's help, the clan had stabilized their powers and extended their short lives. Their blood also possessed strong regenerative properties, his "blood supply."
If he hadn't been so gravely wounded by the final explosion, he could've made it there alive, even with his injuries.
"Damn it! Damn it! It's that brat's fault!" Orochimaru hissed, seething with hatred.
He clutched the scroll against his chest; thankfully, the ancient record it held was intact.
As long as he could unlock its seals, he could uncover more secrets of the Ōtsutsuki clan.
He also carried a fragment of Ōtsutsuki flesh. If he could perfect the Edo Tensei…
His only option now was to summon Manda and use Reverse Summoning to escape.
But knowing that serpent, he'd probably devour Orochimaru on sight after seeing him this weak.
And the White Snake Sage of Ryūchi Cave, and her followers, the three snake sisters, were not exactly benevolent, either.
"Cough!"
Orochimaru spat blood again. His vision blurred, his senses faltered, and the forest twisted around him like a nightmare.
He could feel death closing in. His fingers dug into the tree trunk so hard that green moss turned to pulp in his grip.
'I still have to kill that brat… still have to uncover every secret of the world!'
'I couldn't die, not here, not yet!'
As he prepared to summon Manda,
Bang!
A puff of white smoke exploded around him, and Orochimaru vanished.
Moments later, a tall man with white hair to his waist appeared: Jiraiya.
"Reverse summoning?" he muttered, frowning. "Orochimaru, what are you…"
At the same moment, inside a massive cavern carved from natural rock, stalactites hung from the ceiling, green-blue flames flickered in wall sconces, and serpentine carvings covered the stone floor.
"This is…"
Orochimaru opened his eyes, dazed. "Ryūchi Cave?"
He hadn't even summoned Manda, so how had he ended up here?
"Orochimaru."
An ancient, ethereal voice echoed through the cavern. Orochimaru looked up.
Coiled upon a throne of stone was an enormous white-scaled serpent, the White Snake Sage, the founder of Ryūchi Cave, said to have lived for over a thousand years.
Normally, she appeared as an old woman in white robes. But this was her true form, and the serene aura he'd seen before was gone, replaced by a suffocating, predatory stench.
"Impossible…"
The White Snake Sage's amber eyes locked on him, her expression shifting with disbelief.
"Your fate… has been rewritten?"
At the same time, in Konoha, within a shabby house at the edge of the Hyūga compound.
"Meow."
A soft cat's cry mixed with the chirping of crickets.
Hyūga Arata slowly opened his eyes.
"At last… I'm free."
He sat up, glancing at the calm night beyond the window. His hand brushed the bandages on his neck, and a faint smile curved his lips.
Such a fatal wound, yet after only one day, he had recovered most of the way.
This healing speed couldn't match the First Hokage's cells, but it was enough to erase the usual fragility of a shinobi.
And that was only one of the benefits this body had given him.
He looked toward the glowing panel that appeared before him:
[Name]: Hyūga Arata
[Age]: 15
[Bloodline]: Hyūga Clan → Ōtsutsuki Clan (5%)
[Chakra Capacity]: D-Rank → S-Rank
[Chakra Nature]: Wind → Wind, Fire, Water, Earth, Lightning, Yin, Yang
[Ninjutsu]: …