When Anko's body pitched forward and vanished into the sea, the Leaf shinobi chasing her actually felt relief.
Because she was Orochimaru's disciple.
The moment Orochimaru was declared a traitor, Mitarashi Anko became a priority target for ANBU.
No one expected to dig up much from her—but if they could find even a thread, even a trace that pointed to where Orochimaru fled…
it would be worth it.
When they first located Anko, she'd been slumped outside Orochimaru's laboratory, her eyes empty, her body spasming.
The ANBU assumed she'd been abandoned.
They took her to the hospital for basic treatment, then fanned out to search elsewhere.
No one expected her to wake—
and erupt with strength that far exceeded a chūnin's level.
She knocked out two chūnin guards in an instant, slipped out of the village in the gap before anyone noticed, and bolted straight for Wave.
Because manpower was tight, the Leaf only sent a pursuit force of one Special Jōnin, three ANBU, and five chūnin.
Under the half-awakened power of the Heaven Curse Mark, not only did they fail to stop her—
she even injured several of them during the chase.
Anko herself was wounded too, but the sheer fact remained:
she was twelve.
She wasn't famous as a prodigy like Kakashi.
And yet ten shinobi couldn't take her down in a coordinated pursuit.
It was humiliating.
But now she'd run for so long that her stamina finally collapsed.
All they had to do was haul her from the sea, patch up their injuries, and return with the mission completed—not too disgracefully.
That's what they thought.
Then the moonlight dimmed.
A thin fog rose over the sea.
"Mist? Is it even the season for ocean fog?" one of the chūnin asked, unfamiliar with coastal weather.
"No," the Special Jōnin snapped, instantly on edge. "That's not natural."
"…That's Hidden Mist Jutsu."
"It's Kirigakure!"
His voice sharpened into alarm.
"Damn it—why are Mist shinobi here?! Don't tell me Orochimaru is working with Kirigakure…?! That's impossible!"
"Shh," a young voice whispered.
And in the next breath, a blade swung soundlessly through the fog—aimed for the Special Jōnin's waist.
The shinobi barely reacted in time, flashing away at the last instant to avoid being cut in half.
But blood streamed down the edge of the attacker's blade.
Momochi Zabuza nodded in satisfaction.
"One… no—half," he muttered. "If he runs that far, the shark will probably eat him."
"But the biggest prey is yours."
"All the smaller fish…"
"I'll take every last one."
The fog thickened.
Zabuza vanished into it.
And then the killing began—silent strikes against a pursuit force whose formation had scattered from the chase.
On the other side, Hoshigaki Kisame rode the towering wave in, watching the Special Jōnin appear in a flash only to be smashed head-on by the tide.
Kisame clicked his tongue.
"Tch. Someone beat me to it."
"Now I can't keep the credit all for myself… annoying."
Coughing through the pain of a fresh wound at his waist, the Special Jōnin gritted his teeth and clutched his kunai.
"You… Kirigakure… already planning to break the agreement…?"
"Hey, hey," Kisame chuckled. "The ceasefire with the Leaf is Fourth-sama's strategy."
"Small fry like us don't have the authority—or the guts—to break it."
His grin widened, hungry and violent.
He leapt down from the wave, swung his blade, and slammed the kunai aside with brute force—driving the Special Jōnin to one knee.
Then he opened his sharklike mouth, laughing low.
"But to make sure you Leaf people don't interfere with our mission to take Wave…"
"Letting you float as corpses for a while…"
"…doesn't count as cheating, does it?"
The Special Jōnin felt his heart sink.
Mist had come prepared.
Even if they hadn't colluded with Orochimaru—
even if they hadn't guided him—
they absolutely had extended him an olive branch after his defection.
Someone had to live.
Someone had to bring that information back—
"In a face-to-face fight with me and you still let your mind wander?"
Kisame's voice sounded old—matching his monstrous face.
"And here I was thinking you'd be more respectful."
A wave of weakness crashed through the Special Jōnin's limbs.
His eyes widened.
Only then did he realize his chakra had been siphoned through the contact point—blade to kunai.
Kisame had drained a chunk of it already.
"Your chakra tastes pretty good," Kisame said cheerfully.
"So I'll be gentle."
He kicked the Special Jōnin away, then flashed his sword in rapid succession—
blossoms of blood burst from shoulder, elbow, knee.
In an instant, the man lost the ability to move.
…
"Mm. I was a little worried Zabuza and Kisame wouldn't be able to handle that Special Jōnin…"
Far away, on Wave's shore, Kaguya Ren watched the battle with idle calm while checking Anko's injuries—Mangetsu having dragged her from the sea.
"Looks like I worried too much."
"Fourth-sama…" Mangetsu looked awkwardly at the figure who had appeared out of nowhere and stopped him when he tried to join the fight. "Were you… following us this whole time?"
"A clone," Ren said lightly. "I replied to Orochimaru—left a door open for future cooperation. I had to be prepared for the possibility that he'd suddenly decide to come personally."
"I worked hard to wrest favorable terms from Konoha—things they don't fully understand yet."
"I'm not letting a sudden incident force me to spit those terms back out."
Ren paused, then looked down at Anko—her wounds already stabilized enough that she would recover with rest.
Then he glanced at Mangetsu, genuinely surprised.
"That said… I didn't expect you to know the Hōzuki clan's water-based healing technique."
Ren's eyes narrowed in thought.
"Mangetsu, have you ever considered joining the medical division I'm about to establish in Kirigakure?"
"With your talent, you'd be department head in a few years."
"No." Mangetsu lifted his chin, proud. "I learned it to show people my talent."
"What I want is to become the core of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen."
"I want to be the sharpest blade in your hand, Fourth-sama."
"The core, huh…" Ren sized up Mangetsu—about the same age as Shisui—and nodded. "Not impossible."
"Someone who can fight and keep teammates alive is well-suited to be the offensive-defensive core of that formation."
"…You're recognizing my dream because of the healing?" Mangetsu's face instantly fell.
"Use your head," Ren snapped, flicking Mangetsu on the forehead. "If you don't have someone who can sustain the team, do you have the right to challenge a tailed beast—or a jinchūriki?"
"If you have to limp away half-dead just to beat a single beast…"
"Then what right do you have to step onto the future battlefields of nation-collapse with me?"
"Konoha's only truly praiseworthy innovation under the Third was its emphasis on medical ninja."
"They cut non-combat attrition to a quarter of ours."
"Did none of your elders who fought the last war ever tell you how badly we bled for that deficit?"
Mangetsu fell silent.
He realized—slowly—that the water-healing technique he'd learned as a flex… had actually given him a tactical role no one else could replace.
There were countless candidates screaming to be "the attacking core."
But defense?
Most teams didn't even have such a concept.
If he mastered water healing while sharpening his sword…
then no matter who claimed "attack," they would still have to bow to the one who kept them standing.
At that point, it would be only natural for the Seven Ninja Swordsmen to revolve around his tactics.
"…Understood, Fourth-sama."
"Good." Ren looked pleased. Then he pointed toward the fog-covered sea. "Now go handle the rest of those Leaf shinobi."
"Let them bleed. Let them suffer. Just don't let them die—or end up crippled."
"Otherwise we can't keep using the excuse we prepared to placate Konoha."
Mangetsu's face turned black.
With Zabuza and Kisame, "not killing" already counted as restraint.
If the Leaf resisted even slightly, the wounds would be ugly.
And now he had to ensure none of them died—and none were permanently maimed?
"Move." Ren waved him off. "If you can do it, I'll give you a curse mark better than the one on this girl when we get back."
Mangetsu vanished, grumbling.
Ren tore open Anko's upper garment, gaze landing on the black curse mark that had already spread across most of her upper body.
With a sigh, he pressed a hand to her throat and began sealing the Heaven Curse Mark before it burned her life away.
"Honestly… Orochimaru never changes."
"He only knows how to push everything toward the top end."
"Never thinks about mass production. Never thinks about accessibility."
"With a success rate under ten percent, how are you ever going to earn enough money to keep your research in a healthy cycle?"
"But fine."
"Stay high-end."
"Then all I have to do is invest a little… and I'll gain the perfectly legitimate right to 'popularize' your high-end products."
"And I'll make ten times—one hundred times—what I spent, and use it to develop Kirigakure."
Ren's lips curled faintly.
"Wonder if you'll end up so broke one day that you start fighting Kakuzu for jobs."
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