In the ninja world, every hidden village routinely dispatches covert operatives into rival territories to gather strategic intelligence.
This practice is so widely understood across the Five Great Nations that it is essentially an open secret a rule that everyone follows but no one officially acknowledges.
Even Konohagakure, with its reputation for relative stability and moral restraint, is no exception to this silent war of shadows.
Consequently, every major village captures foreign spies every few months.
The common procedure is predictable:
First, extract any valuable intelligence from the infiltrator, whether through interrogation, mind-reading techniques like the Yamanaka Clan's Mind Probe, or genjutsu-based pressure.
After extracting information, the captured operative becomes a bargaining chip—used to negotiate with the enemy village for concessions.
These negotiations often involve ransoms, prisoner exchanges, or political leverage.
Thus, when Danzo Shimura finished extracting information from Wang Tu and the other three, he immediately arranged for emissaries to contact Iwagakure.
His message was simple: Konoha wished to exchange spies recently captured within the Land of Earth's borders.
Naturally, the number of exchanged hostages had to be equal.
This was the unspoken ninja-world doctrine balance prevents escalation.
After several back-and-forth messenger hawks and secret letters, both sides reached agreement.
Three days later, a Root squad escorting Wang Tu and the other two departed from Konoha.
Because the Land of Fire does not share a direct border with the Land of Earth and the Land of Grass lies between them both villages agreed to conduct the exchange within Kusagakure territory.
Neutral ground.
A seemingly fair location.
The daimyo of the Land of Grass, however, was deeply troubled.
He wondered why two superpowers felt the need to conduct their dangerous hostage trades on his soil.
And with elite shinobi involved people capable of leveling forests the Land of Grass had no authority to object. Weak nations lacked diplomatic power; small countries possessed no dignity.
Such imbalances existed in every era.
Soon enough, Iwa's envoys met Konoha's Root unit in a secluded clearing within Grass Country.
After verifying the authenticity of the prisoners, the exchange proceeded.
Wang Tu, her eyes glazed and unfocused clearly still under a lingering Root-applied genjutsu was shoved forward by one of Danzo's men.
"Release," commanded an Iwa-nin.
A Tōnin injected his own chakra into her tenketsu, dispelling the illusion.
But the moment Wang Tu regained awareness, her expression twisted with terror.
"It's a trap! Get away from me!!" she screamed.
A gust of wind blew, lifting the corner of her overshirt.
Only then did Iwa's shinobi see them Rows of sealed explosive tags plastered beneath her clothing, a tactic reminiscent of Danzo's ruthless "Human Bomb" orders he once used during the Third Shinobi War.
The tags had already activated.
Detonation was imminent.
"Damn it!"
"These Konoha dogs so they never planned a fair trade!"
"Fall back!! Retreat!!"
The Iwa captain realized it was too late to extract Wang Tu safely.
His only order was retreat.
A moment later
BOOM!!
Wang Tu disappeared in a sea of fire and earth-shattering pressure.
"Tsk. Just a little off," a Root member muttered.
"In that case, we finish the rest ourselves."
"Lord Danzo's orders: leave no survivors."
"Kill them all!"
Root operatives surged forward like starving wolves, blades gleaming, faces emotionless behind their masks.
Iwa-nin responded instantly, unleashing earth jutsu and counterattacks.
---
Wang Tu felt her consciousness ripped away the world spinning
and when her senses returned, she was lying on a soft patch of soil in a different clearing.
Ahead of her, a lone figure sat cross-legged, back facing her, calmly watching the distant clash through gaps in the grass. The posture, the aura indifferent yet focused was unmistakable.
A breeze drifted past.
Wang Tu shivered cold, weightless.
She looked down and blanched.
Her clothes were gone.
Her body was fully exposed to the open air.
Instinct screamed for her to cry out, but before she could, the man spoke.
"Don't panic," he said lightly. "Your brother Kuishan requested that I rescue you."
His tone remained level, as if the battle in the distance meant nothing to him.
"In the instant before the explosive tags ignited, I stripped the tagged clothing off you and jumped through space using my time-space technique."
"That's why you're… without clothes. But relax I'm not looking back."
Gen Uchiha's voice was calm, almost clinical.
It matched his earlier conduct: on the night he first tracked the Root squad, he could've rescued her immediately.
But that same night he overheard Root's plan Danzo had intended a massacre from the start.
Gen waited, calculated, and intervened only in the fraction-of-a-second window where the Soul-Soul Fruit-derived spatial manipulation allowed him to save her without altering the chain of events too early.
Curious about the true objective behind Danzo's operation, Gen did not immediately rescue Wang Tu that night.
Instead, he marked her body with a Flying Thunder God formula—his own variant derived from combining space-time manipulation with the Soul-Soul Fruit's spiritual marking technique.
That precaution proved vital.
Had he not left the mark beforehand, Wang Tu would have been obliterated the moment Root detonated the explosive tags wrapped around her clothing.
After hearing Gen's explanation, Wang Tu finally exhaled shakily.
Her heartbeat gradually steadied, though her voice trembled.
"Then… my brother… Kuishan… he… is he… all right?" she stammered.
Wang Tu had always struggled slightly with stuttering, and now under shock, humiliation, and emotional overload her speech grew even more fragmented.
The more anxious she became, the less her tongue cooperated.
"Your brother is unharmed," Gen replied calmly, his tone steady and certain.
He shrugged off his coat and tossed it to her without turning around.
"We're roughly the same height. Put it on for now."
"T-thank you… thank you…" Wang Tu whispered, cheeks flushed as she clutched the masculine coat to her chest.
She hurried to slip it on.
Although their heights were similar, she was still a girl one with curves far more noticeable than she realized.
Some parts of the coat pinched uncomfortably, and the fabric strained in places, but it was better than being exposed to the wind.
Gen, still watching the distant battle, exhaled sharply.
He truly hadn't expected Danzo to pull this level of treachery during a hostage exchange even by Root standards, this was excessive.
Dark.
Utterly ruthless.
Did Danzo not fear that future hostage negotiations would fall apart?
Or perhaps, in Danzo's eyes, a captured spy was nothing more than a disposable pawn.
If they were caught, they were already failures abandoning them was simply efficient resource management.
That old war hawk was utterly inhuman.
By now, the battle had entered its final phase.
Iwagakure had come expecting a standard, treaty-based hostage trade.
They brought only a minimal escort just enough to verify and receive prisoners.
Their numbers were far smaller than the Root task force, and Root operatives, trained for kill-operations during the Third Shinobi War, had overwhelming numerical and tactical advantage.
So within minutes, Iwa's formation broke.
One by one, they fell beneath Root blades and wind-enhanced kunai.
When the last Iwa ninja collapsed, the Root members prepared to withdraw.
But then
A single operative froze, staring at the scorched patch where Wang Tu had "died."
"Captain," the man murmured. "Even if her clothes were covered in explosive tags, it shouldn't have incinerated every trace. There's no tissue. No bone fragments. Nothing."
Another Root ninja stiffened.
"You're saying… she might still be alive?"
The air shifted.
Root operatives immediately scanned the clearing.silent, disciplined, each moving with ANBU precision.
Danzo's men rarely overlooked details.
---
"Tch."
Hidden in the shadows, Gen's brows knitted.
So they noticed.
If this information reached Danzo, Root would certainly launch an investigation.
Even though Gen's movements were concealed through both Flying Thunder God and his spiritual masking technique, Root was relentless and Danzo was paranoid enough to chase any thread.
Gen disliked leaving loose ends.
A tail, even a faint one, was unacceptable.
Which meant there was only one path forward.
His eyes cooled.an icy serenity settling over him.
He stepped out from behind the grass blades, walking into the moonlit clearing as calmly as if he were strolling through a training field.
"Why must you be so suspicious?" he said lightly, voice carrying through the silent night.
"Don't you know… excessive suspicion is often the quickest way to die?"
---
If you'd like, I can also:
Continue with Gen eliminating Root or confronting them strategically
Tie this directly into Danzo's future moves
Expand Wang Tu's emotional reactions or abilities
Add Kuishan's perspective
Build toward Gen's next evolution stage or experiments
Just tell me what you want next!
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