"Suzuhara Aisora?" Menma rubbed his chin.
Uchiha Hikari nodded. "According to the intel Gari gathered, this wandering ninja joined the Stone a year ago. She's skilled in medical ninjutsu—not flashy, but a rare talent among rogues. The timeline aligns perfectly with what you described."
"Then let's have Gari bring her back." Menma rose from his lounge chair, preparing to personally head to the Land of Earth. He gestured toward the back of his right hand. "I'll leave the communications to you."
"Understood," Hikari replied, watching as Menma vanished from the courtyard with a sharp whoosh.
The Land of Earth.
Within the Hidden Stone Village, the controlled Gari made his way to the Mission Hub and accepted an assignment to leave the village.
Ever since the Third Shinobi World War—where ten thousand Stone shinobi clashed with the Third Raikage—the village's vitality had been severely drained. To preserve his remaining forces, Onoki frequently outsourced high-difficulty missions to the Akatsuki.
However, this was only a partial solution. As the primary military force of the Land of Earth, Iwagakure continued to keep a low profile, steadily rebuilding its ranks and honing the quality of its ninja. Recruiting wandering ninjas and hiring the Akatsuki were simply tactics to minimize casualties among their homegrown talent, allowing the new generation time to grow.
Gari walked with heavy, rhythmic strides, leaving the mountain-ringed village behind. The world outside wasn't much different from the village—a landscape dominated by the oppressive weight of barren earth. Unlike the shifting sands of the Land of Wind, the Land of Earth felt like a wilderness that had been over-exploited and left hollow.
As Gari traveled southeast, the scenery began to shift; trees grew more frequent, and the air took on a fresh scent of damp soil and pine. Sunlight filtered through the dense canopy, casting dappled shadows across the forest floor.
Gari's eyes remained hollow. He moved strictly according to Hikari's mental directives, devoid of personal will. Even if he were to wake up now, he would remember none of this, assuming he had simply taken a very long nap.
Suddenly, a grotesque figure flickered into existence at Gari's side, launching a sudden strike!
Gari's combat instincts took over, forcing his body to flicker away.
BOOM!
A section of the forest where Gari had stood was pulverized. Out of the rising dust, a bizarre beast emerged.
"What is that?" Gari—or rather, Hikari through his eyes—frowned at the sight of the creature.
It possessed the massive, ferocious head of a hound with bared fangs and a single horn, emitting a low, guttural growl. On its back sat a pair of enormous white wings that kicked up gusts of wind with every flap. Its tail was perhaps the strangest part: a pair of twin-headed snakes intertwined, their scales shimmering as they hissed menacingly.
The creature was a monstrous chimera of various species, radiating a sickening aura of blood and decay. The dog head barked with a deafening roar, the sound waves causing the surrounding leaves to shiver.
Shoo—!
While Gari was focused on the beast, several white bandages shot out from the shadows of the forest, lashing toward him like whips.
"Explosion Style: Landmine Fist!" Gari roared, slamming his fist into the incoming bandages. His chakra erupted instantly, sending out a circular shockwave of destruction.
The frontal bandages were incinerated by the blast, but more shot out from other directions. They slithered through the air like serpents, weaving around the explosion to continue their pursuit.
"What?!" Gari had no time to react before the bandages pierced through his limbs and torso with surgical precision.
Puchi!
His shoulders and thighs were impaled by cloth as rigid as iron. The scent of blood filled the air. Gari let out a muffled groan and dropped to one knee, crimson staining his shredded uniform.
He looked toward the source of the attack. From the shadow of a massive tree, a "youth" clad in a white, restrictive robe stepped forward. Bandages wrapped his entire body. A high collar obscured the lower half of his face, leaving only a pair of crimson eyes and a red mark on his forehead visible. His long white hair, tied back, swayed slightly.
"Who are you?" Gari's body asked, his instincts still fighting for survival.
The mysterious ninja let out a cold snort, seemingly impatient with Gari's resistance. He raised a hand to finish him.
Gari forced his body to lunge, tearing free from the bandages and closing the distance. His right fist whistled through the air.
"Explosion Style: Landmine Fist!"
The strike connected squarely with the mysterious ninja's palm. At the moment of impact, Gari's Explosion Style triggered, a massive blast intended to swallow the youth whole.
But to Gari's horror, the explosion was sucked directly into the stranger's palm.
"What?!" Even in his puppet-like state, Gari's face contorted in shock.
"Dark Style: Inhaling Hole," the youth said, his voice low and boyish.
The entirety of the explosion was absorbed. Only then did Gari notice two strange, overlapping diamond patterns on the stranger's palm, glowing with a sinister red light.
In the next instant, the bandages surrounding the youth shot out, cocooning Gari until he resembled a white mummy. As the binding tightened, Hikari's remote control grew sluggish and eventually severed entirely.
"Heh... the first prey," the ninja chuckled from beneath his collar, looking at the unconscious Gari.
Whir—
The grotesque chimera landed beside him, crouching low. The white-haired youth leapt onto its back, carrying the bound Gari, and vanished into the depths of the forest.
A short while later, Menma—wearing his white three-eyed fox mask—arrived at the scene. He found only scattered bloodstains and chaotic remnants of chakra.
'Hikari, is this the place?' The mark on the back of his hand glowed faintly as he communicated with her back in the Land of Stars.
'Yes. The attacker was a white-haired youth. He had a... very strange summoning beast,' Hikari relayed the details of the ambush.
A white-haired youth in a restrictive robe, red eyes, bandage-based attacks, the ability to absorb ninjutsu with Dark Style, and a chimera beast.
"So, Hiruko has made his move," Menma muttered, a playful and knowing smile spreading under his mask. "Perfect. I was wondering where to find that fellow."
He tilted his head back, the fox mask catching the light.
"Kagura Shingan—Open!"