They moved through Ogawa's fortress like a pair of ghosts, silent, fast, and sharp enough to cut the air. The corridors twisted in hard angles, torchlight trembling along damp stone. Somewhere deeper in the stronghold, alarms rang and died and rang again
Moro kept his katana low at his side, eyes scanning every doorway and shadowed arch. Isuna moved ahead of him by half a step, listening more than looking, her tomahawks hanging ready at her hips. The fortress smelled of oil, iron, and gunk.
Moro spoke without turning his head. "Listen. Back in that cell, about sparing the guard, I find your mercy admirable."
Isuna glanced over her shoulder, eyebrow raised. "But?"
"But now I'm in charge," he said flatly. "And we aren't taking prisoners. Especially not the Kurokage."
Isuna snorted softly, spinning one tomahawk once around her finger before catching it by the handle. "I can understand. But if they're defeated, beaten and no longer a threat, we spare them. Deal?"
Moro's mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "Fine. But don't expect that to happen. When I strike, it usually means the end for most."
Isuna leaned closer as they walked, voice teasing. "Then try not to strike too hard, pretty boy."
Moro smirked at her playfully. "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah."
They reached a giant door at the end of the corridor, iron banded, scarred with old dents, bolts thick as a man's wrist. The air around it felt colder, heavier, as if whatever waited beyond had been breathing in the dark for a long time.
Isuna tightened her grip. "Whoever's behind this door, we better be ready."
"I always am," Moro replied.
They counted together under their breath. "One… two… three…"
They shoved.
The door groaned open, metal scraping against stone, and a cavernous chamber swallowed them whole. It was enormous and dark, the kind of room built for cruelty. No windows. No torches. Only emptiness and the faint hum of hidden machinery. Their footsteps vanished into the black.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then a speaker crackled overhead.
"WOOOOW! I am impressed," Ogawa boomed, his voice too cheerful for a man who kept prisoners underground. "You two brats actually made it out. Isuna, you found a new boyfriend already? And it's this psycho, no less."
Isuna's jaw tightened. "Ogawa! Show yourself, coward!"
"No thanks," Ogawa replied, amused. "I just had a big meal. Feeling tired. I'd like to watch a show before I rest."
Lights snapped on in harsh strips along the ceiling, revealing two figures standing ahead. Kurokage shinobi, masked and still, bodies wrapped in black cloth that drank the light. Their weapons were already in their hands.
"No worries, though," Ogawa continued. "I told them to keep you alive. But this time they'll make sure you're unable to move."
Isuna shifted her stance, shoulders loosening like a predator preparing to spring.
"Oh, and Moro," Ogawa added, voice dipping lower, almost intimate. "We have much to discuss."
Moro stood cold, eyes fixed on the darkness behind the lights as if he could see through walls.
"The strong, silent type, huh?" Ogawa chuckled. "No worries. I have ways of making people talk."
Isuna moved first.
She rushed the nearest shinobi with explosive speed, tomahawks flashing in twin arcs. The Kurokage met her with daggers and clean footwork, steel snapping against steel. Isuna's strength was shocking. Each clash rattled through the chamber. But the shinobi matched her, reading her angles, cutting off her momentum, forcing her to work for every inch.
Across the room, Moro's fight was different.
Cold. Precise. Effortless.
His katana rang against the Kurokage blade, and Moro's body flowed like water around every attack. The shinobi tried to overwhelm him with speed and tricky angles, but Moro's counters were clean, punishing, inevitable. The Kurokage held his own through discipline alone, yet each exchange pushed him back step by step.
A whisper of air.
A shadow above.
Another shinobi dropped from the ceiling, blade angled for Moro's spine.
Moro didn't turn. His hand snapped up and caught the assassin by the ankle mid fall. With a single vicious motion, he slammed him downward.
The shinobi's face met the stone floor with a sickening crack. Blood burst out as his nose shattered on impact. Moro yanked him up and slammed him again, harder, leaving a faint dent in the concrete. The body went limp.
Isuna's fight shifted into something beautiful and brutal.
She stopped meeting force with force and began to dance. She dodged slashes by inches, twisted under blades, flipped backward over a sweeping kick and landed light as a cat. The Kurokage grew frantic, swinging wider, faster, sloppier.
Isuna slipped behind him and drove both hands into his chest.
He slammed into the wall with a heavy thud, stunned, weapon dropping from his grip.
Isuna's eyes narrowed. She gripped one tomahawk, voice cutting through the chamber.
"Hanatai Kai!"
The tomahawk left her hand in a spinning blur and sank deep into the shinobi's shoulder, pinning him to the wall. He screamed, blood soaking through black cloth.
Isuna stepped in close, towering over him, chest rising with controlled fury. Then she threw her head back and released a wolf like howl, primal, sharp, echoing through stone.
Moro finished his last opponent with no hesitation.
He closed distance in a single step and drove his katana clean through the shinobi's neck. For a heartbeat the assassin stood frozen, eyes wide. Moro tore the blade free in a brutal sideways rip, spraying the wall with a dark arc of crimson. The body dropped and twitched once before going still.
Silence filled the chamber, thick and stunned.
Isuna wiped blood from her cheek with the back of her wrist and planted her boot on the wounded shinobi's chest to keep him down.
Moro looked at her "What was that were you saying about being merciful."
Isuna starred at him rolling her eyes "Shut up you."
She looked toward the ceiling speakers, voice sharp with contempt. "Ogawa, that's all you got? Aren't there supposed to be, like, thirty of these guys? They're useless when the numbers aren't on their side."
Ogawa's laughter rolled through the chamber.
"Ohhhh… Isuna," he purred. "Be careful what you wish for."
A heavy clang echoed from above.
Then another.
Two figures dropped from the shadows and landed without a sound, one male, one female. They straightened slowly, movements precise and economical, as if their bodies had been trained to erase wasted motion.
Their armor was darker than the others, etched with faint draconic patterns that caught the light when they shifted. Their masks were sleeker. Their presence changed the air.
Isuna's expression tightened, the first real shock Moro had seen on her face.
"…No way," she breathed.
Ogawa's voice returned, rich with satisfaction. "The Twin Dragons," he announced. "Shinobi trained beyond the Kurokage standard. Killers without equals. The kind of warriors money usually can't buy."
He laughed, loud and delighted.
"But you see what money can get you."
The female stepped forward first, blade sliding free with a whisper. The male mirrored her movement in perfect synchronization, steel flashing as one. Neither spoke. Neither postured. They simply settled into their stances, calm, lethal, absolute.
Moro raised his katana.
Isuna tightened her grip on her tomahawks.
Ogawa's laughter faded into the walls, leaving only his final words hanging in the dark.
"Now… entertain me."