The final stretch to Konoha was a funeral procession. Hana, pale and feverish, floated in a limbo of pain, held between Daiki, his arm in a crude sling, and Kenji, who limped but refused to show weakness. Each step echoed with Saito's absent silence. The unspoken but searing question hung between them: Where is our sensei?
The guards at the main gate saw them arrive, and panic erupted. Within minutes, they were engulfed in a tide of medic-ninja in white and grim-faced chūnin. The separation was swift and efficient. Kenji lost sight of Hana and Daiki as he was ushered into a sterile examination room. The questions began almost immediately, as his wounds were cleaned and sutured with the cold precision of medical chakra.
"Nature of the threat?"
"Number of enemies?"
"Symbols on their headbands?"
"Last known location of Jōnin Saito?"
Kenji answered with clinical precision that astonished the interrogators. He omitted, of course, the Sharingan and the graphic detail of how he killed the tracker. His story was that of a frightened but observant genin who had managed to escape through sheer luck and tenacity. Daiki's version, which they obtained separately, coincided on the crucial points.
The truth saved them from greater suspicion. But then came the blow.
A man from the Intelligence Department, his face stony, entered the room where Kenji and Daiki (now reunited, both bandaged and pale) awaited news of Hana.
"One of your enemies has been found," the man said, his voice devoid of emotion. "Dead. Wounds consistent with your testimony. We confirm they are rogue ninja from Takigakure, mercenaries." He paused, his eyes scrutinizing them. "As for Jōnin Saito... we have recovered his body."
Daiki gasped. "Is he... is he okay? Hurt?"
The Intelligence man didn't answer directly. "Your mission was a trap. A Level B scenario disguised as a Level C. Saito-sensei did his duty by giving you a chance to retreat." Another pause, longer this time. "You must identify him for the records. It's... necessary."
They were led down a cold corridor to a room that smelled of disinfectant and something else, something cloying and awful. A tarp covered a gurney. The man approached and, with a swift movement, pulled back the cloth.
Daiki let out a strangled sound and stumbled backward, hitting the wall. Kenji froze, his muscles taut as wires.
It wasn't a body. Not completely. It was half a figure. Saito's upper half lay there, from the waist up. And it was... desiccated. The skin, normally sallow, was wrinkled, dry as ancient parchment, clinging to the bone with an unnatural tension. It was a grayish, earthy color. The eyes were closed, but the sockets seemed sunken into the skull. The lower part of the torso simply… ended in a jagged, charred edge, as if it had been disintegrated or consumed.
It wasn't a sword cut. It wasn't the damage from a conventional explosive. It looked as if something had sucked the life, the moisture, the very essence of its cells, from the waist down.
"W-what… what did they do to him?" Daiki stammered, on the verge of tears or vomiting.
"Unknown technique," the Intelligence man said, covering the body again with an almost reverential gesture. "It doesn't match any record of ninjutsu, kinjutsu, or kekkei genkai from Takigakure. We're investigating."
Kenji couldn't tear his eyes away from the tarp. His mind, the mind of an anime fanatic, frantically searched his files. Desiccation. Partial mummification. Life absorption. Who? How?
Kakuzu stole hearts and used threads, but he didn't dry out bodies like that. Orochimaru had soul and body absorption techniques, but they were different, more… visceral. Pain had the Preta Path, which absorbed chakra and techniques, but it didn't leave that physical mummy-like trace. This was different. Horrifyingly different.
"They weren't just chūnin," Kenji murmured, more to himself. The evidence was there, under that tarp. Something, or someone, with a twisted, alien power, had been there. A third group? A mercenary with a unique ability hired by Takigakure? Or something worse?
The Intelligence officer nodded, noticing his reaction. "Exactly. The threat assessment has been reclassified to A-rank, with unknown elements of potential S-level. You three were inexplicably lucky to escape."
Luck. The word tasted like ashes to him. It hadn't been luck. It had been Saito's sacrifice and his own desperate brutality.
Back in the waiting room, with Daiki still trembling beside him, Kenji felt the ground beneath his feet crumble. Saito, a cold but capable Jōnin, reduced to a grotesque mummy by a technique he didn't even remember. Takigakure acting with unusual ferocity and resources. The unknown boy in Akatsuki.
The pieces didn't fit. Not in the puzzle he remembered. This wasn't a minor deviation from "canon." This was a different map. A map with dark territories, new monsters, and unfamiliar rules.
The world of Naruto he "knew" was just one version, one possibility among countless others. And he, Kenji the intruder, had landed in one of the most dangerous.
The warning was clear: his prior knowledge was an increasingly dull weapon. He could rely on the fundamentals, the nature of chakra, the names of the great players… but his moves, his allies, his tools, were now uncertain variables.
He looked at Daiki, who had finally collapsed in a chair, his head in his hands. He looked toward the door behind which Hana was fighting for her life. These two, his accidental companions, were the only "real" and predictable things he had in this new and sinister scenario.
The fear he felt then wasn't for his immediate safety. It was deeper. It was the fear of a navigator who discovers his compass points to a north that no longer exists.
He had come to Konoha thinking he was a spy in a familiar game. Now he knew the truth: he was a blind explorer in a jungle teeming with predators whose sounds he'd never heard. And the first beast, the one that had killed Saito, was out there in the darkness, with a hunger he couldn't even begin to comprehend.