Reiji didn't react outwardly to the man's words. His face stayed still,his gaze steady despite the cords biting into his wrists and ankles and the ache still pulsing through his jaw. Bound, restrained, hauled around like cargo—none of it showed on him. Only inside did something tighten, hot and ugly.
"You want to use me as an bargaining chip to curry favor with the Raikage?"
The question came out even, almost calm. He wasn't protesting. He was buying time. Pulling for information while he still could.
Inoto didn't hesitate. "Of course. You're more useful alive than dead after all."
"You—"
The younger one hit him before he could finish. The punch snapped across his jaw hard enough to jolt his skull sideways. Pain flared hot and immediate through the side of his face, and the taste of blood flooded his mouth as his teeth clicked together.
"Will you shut up?" the younger one said, sounding more irritated than angry.
Reiji turned his head back slowly and spat blood onto the dirt. His eyes locked onto the man face and held there, memorizing.
"Let's go," the older man said, already moving. "Kensu, you carry the boy. I'll take the girl."
Reiji's focus shifted.
The older Kumo shinobi bent and grabbed Kushina. She struggled as soon as he lifted her, twisting on instinct, striking weakly at his back with bound hands. It changed nothing. He drove a punch into her liver. Reiji saw the exact moment the strength left her—her body folding, breath breaking out of her in a dry, painful gasp, her face tightening in shock before the resistance drained away. A second later she hung over his shoulder, limp except for the raw, helpless despair still written across her face.
"Ah? Why do I have to carry him? The Leaf guy can carry him," Kensu said, eyeing Inoto with open suspicion. "We never know what he's up to."
Inoto only raised an eyebrow.
The older man sighed and smacked Kensu across the back of the head.
"Hey!"
"Idiot. We're deep in enemy territory. This man is our guide. He knows which direction and which paths are optimal. Our role now is to follow him. This is not the time to doubt him."
Kensu glared at him, then glanced at Inoto, who had crossed his arms and was watching with visible impatience.
"Calmed down, boy?" Inoto asked.
Kensu scowled but obeyed. He hauled Reiji up with no care for balance or comfort and threw him over his shoulder, Reiji's bound legs hanging forward while his upper body dropped behind. The position forced his neck at an awkward angle and shifted his weight badly across the man's back. It made breathing slightly harder and left him with only broken glimpses of the ground and the tree line ahead.
Annoying.
But not impossible.
"Wait," Inoto said.
Both men stopped. Reiji stilled immediately.
Inoto's gaze moved from one Kumo shinobi to the other before settling on Reiji again, sharper now, more attentive than before.
"Daizen, you carry him."
Kensu's head snapped toward him. "Who are you to tell—"
"Stop, Kensu."
Daizen's tone cracked across the space hard enough that Kensu shut his mouth instantly.
Daizen shifted slightly, still carrying Kushina, and turned toward Inoto. "Why?"
"This boy may still only be an Academy student for now, but don't underestimate him. If the situation favors him, he's more than capable of giving a genin—or even a chūnin—a hard time.
"Really?" Daizen looked at Reiji where he hung across Kensu's shoulder, silent and watching. "I guess he lives up to his legacy then."
Kensu's face tightened. "Are you insinuating that I can't take care of this brat?"
Inoto finally turned his head slightly, his expression flattening.
"Are all Kumo shinobi like this," he said dryly, "or is he just an outlier? Why bring someone like him on this mission?"
Daizen exhaled, dragging a hand across his face.
"He's a knucklehead," he admitted.
"Hey—!"
"But," he continued without pause, "he's a sensor. We need that."
Inoto nodded once.
"Then make sure he acts like it. This is the last time."
Daizen's posture straightened slightly.
"I understand. That was my fault. It won't happen again."
Then he turned.
"Kensu."
The name alone was enough.
"Do you understand? Give me the boy."
Kensu hesitated for a fraction of a second—just long enough for the tension to show—before he clicked his tongue and shifted, passing Reiji over with clear reluctance.
Daizen took Reiji and adjusted him higher and tighter across his shoulder , one hand settling exactly where it gave him the most control over the boy's balance.
Good.
Kushina, now slumped over Kensu's shoulder instead, barely moved. Her breathing was shallow, her earlier resistance gone.
They were finally ready.
Daizen gave the order, and then all three moved at once. Chakra surged into their feet, and the ground dropped away as they launched into the trees. The world shifted into a blur of trunks, branches, leaves, and open air. Wind hit Reiji's face in repeated bursts as Daizen moved in a clean rhythm—landing, compressing, pushing off again. Every impact drove through the branch beneath them and rebounded upward into the next jump. The man's balance never broke. Even with Reiji's weight on him, he wasted almost nothing.
While it was happening, Reiji had only one thought.
I must act.
Now that he knew what they wanted from him, he knew he had no choice. If he wanted to live, he had to escape. Being taken to the Raikage as a bargaining chip to curry favor with the Mizukage was a death sentence for him.
Reiji had never thought he lived in safety, not really. He had known danger before. He had bled in training, been beaten down, pushed until he vomited, gone through fights and confrontations that hurt and humiliated. But there had always been something beneath all of it. Structure. A limit. Some unseen net. He had fought boys his age. He had trained against his father. He had gotten into situations that were dangerous, yes, but never like this.
This had none of that.
One enemy was a traitor, almost certainly old enough to have seen the First War, skilled enough to replace an Academy teacher without being detected and powerful enough to use a possession jutsu from long range. Reiji doubted many shinobi could do that at all. The other two were Kumo shinobi operating deep in hostile territory, which meant neither of them was weak. The younger one might have been a chūnin at minimum.
The one carrying him—
Reiji narrowed his eyes slightly and kept watching the man's movement from his upside-down, shifting angle.
He is surely a jōnin as well, Reiji thought calmly.
Two jōnin and one possible chūnin at the lowest estimate.
And they were the people he had to escape from. The people he would have to kill or deceive long enough to survive. If he failed, he would die. And every second they carried him further from the village, that chance worsened.
Still, he didn't panic.
If anything, the opposite happened.
Everything slowed. The man carrying him. The branch underfoot just before each push. The cut of the wind across his face. Daizen's breathing. Even his own heartbeat, which settled lower and steadier inside his chest. His jaw still hurt. The cords still bit into his wrists and ankles. His body still remembered the punch. But all of that seemed to slide backward, manageable now, contained.
I trained all my life for this moment.
How many days? How many months? How many years had his father shaped him for something like this? Reiji didn't even remember when it had begun. Somewhere around the time he learned to walk, probably. Since then there had only ever been more—more drills, more pain, more study, more repetition until movement became instinct and endurance became expectation.
All of that preparation—
For this.
I will kill them.
He didn't think it to encourage himself. He thought it the way he might note a fact.
He didn't know how yet. He didn't know if he would escape. But he would kill them. At least some of them. And if he had to die, then they would go with him.
Kill or be killed.
Slowly, Reiji began to build the plan.
Inoto was the most dangerous in terms of knowledge. He knew, broadly, what Reiji could do. By taking Fūma-sensei's place, he had seen him train, seen how he reacted, seen his personality, and seen enough of his kekkei genkai to understand the threat. That was why Reiji's hands had been tied with the backs pressed together instead of palm to palm. He was deliberately blocking his Hyōton Hosho. It was also why he had passed him to the jōnin instead of leaving him with Kensu.
But that was also his mistake.
He should have taped my mouth too, like tomato head.
They had silenced her. Maybe partly because she was panicking. Maybe partly for peace of mind. Whatever the reason, she couldn't speak.
Reiji still could.
That meant something.
Inoto had wanted the conversation. Maybe for information. Maybe for his own conscience. Maybe because he wanted to hear fear or pleading. It didn't matter. What mattered was what it revealed.
Inoto didn't know everything.
It seems his only contact with me was in the Academy. He didn't spy on me outside of that perimeter—or at least not in the Uchiha district, maybe because he was afraid of being seen.
Reiji flexed his fingers lightly behind his back, not enough to draw notice, just enough to test the tension in the cords again.
Being passed to the jōnin and not the chūnin was maybe the best thing that could have happened to him.
He knew his own capabilities. He knew that fighting a jōnin fairly was ludicrous.
But if he could take one by surprise—
Then he could kill him.
And if he killed him, there would be one less problem.
There would still be two people left after that, both more powerful than him and fully capable of tearing him apart. He knew that too.
Despite himself, Reiji smiled.
How exciting.
Betting everything on one moment. Testing himself against impossible odds without knowing whether he would walk away alive—
Reiji had never felt more alive than he did right then.
And if he wanted to begin, he would have to try something he had never done before.
Even if he doubted that there would be a problem.
***
The run through the trees settled into a brutal, repetitive rhythm.
Daizen's feet struck each branch with controlled force, the wood bending under his weight before snapping back as he pushed off again. Leaves tore loose overhead and spun in the wake of his movement, the air rushing past sharp and cold against Reiji's face. Blood at the corner of his mouth had already begun to dry, pulled tight by the wind. Bound across the man's shoulder, his body jolted with every landing, each impact driving into his ribs, his spine, forcing his breath into short, uneven bursts.
He ignored it.
Cold mist began to gather where his hands were bound.
At first it was faint—thin strands slipping from the back of his hands, barely visible in the rushing air. Then the temperature dropped sharply around them. Frost formed, spreading across his skin, then into the rope fibers themselves. The cords stiffened as ice crept through them, reducing their flexibility.
Reiji rotated his wrists slightly, not enough to break free, just enough to force the ice deeper into the fibers and change the tension.
Now—
Daizen reacted instantly.
The movement cut through the rhythm like a blade. His footing changed mid-leap, chakra flaring under his sandals as he redirected toward a nearby trunk. The impact came hard—Reiji felt it through his entire body as his back slammed into the tree, bark cracking under the force.
Air left his lungs.
Before he could recover, Daizen's forearm drove across his throat, pinning him flat against the trunk. The pressure lifted him just enough that his feet lost contact with the branch below, his weight hanging partially from the choke. Breathing turned shallow immediately, each inhale restricted, controlled by the man's grip.
Reiji didn't struggle.
His hands—
The rope was already stiffening under the ice.
Not fully frozen.
Not yet.
A few meters away, Kensu dropped to a lower branch, posture shifting, while Inoto stayed further back, watching. Reiji didn't look at them directly, but he tracked their positions through peripheral movement.
Close enough to intervene.
Too far to stop the first move.
"Be careful, boy," Daizen said, voice steady, forearm pressing slightly harder into his throat. Reiji felt the shift in pressure, the intent behind it—not killing, just control. "You may be valuable, but I can still take your limbs off one by one if I want. We only need you alive. What shape you're in doesn't matter."
His gaze dropped briefly to Reiji's hands.
Then to Inoto.
"What's going on? He can use his kekkei genkai without hand signs?"
"It seems—" Inoto began.
Reiji didn't wait for the rest.
The ice cracked.
Not loudly—just enough.
He forced his wrists apart.
That was all Daizen needed to see.
The reaction was immediate.
"Wait—be—"
Too late.
The kunai flashed forward.
Steel punched through both of his hands at once.
The impact was brutal.
The blade tore straight through flesh and muscle before slamming deep into the massive trunk behind him with a violent crack of splintering wood. His arms were yanked upward instantly from the force, both hands pinned above his head against the bark.
Pain exploded through him.
For a fraction of a second his vision almost went white from the shock traveling through his wrists and forearms. Blood immediately spilled down his fingers and along the metal blade embedded through his palms, dripping against the bark below.
Cold mist still leaked from the backs of his hands.
The temperature around the kunai began to plummet rapidly as frost spread outward from the wound. Ice crept across the steel, crawled inside Reiji's flesh along the embedded blade, spread over his blood-covered fingers, and continued directly into the tree itself.
The bark froze solid around the blade.
Daizen noticed immediately.
His eyes flicked upward toward the growing frost spreading across the trunk, then back toward Reiji's face.
" …You little monster," Daizen muttered, eyes flicking once to the wound, once to the frost. "You're destroying your hands just to free yourself."
Reiji looked at him.
Close.
Too close.
He could feel the man's breath. See the slight tension in his jaw. The exact distance between them.
Reiji smiled.
Then he exhaled.
Hyōton: Hyōsoku
The breath burst out in a dense stream of freezing mist directly into Daizen's face at point-blank range. Reiji saw the jōnin react instantly—the shift of his shoulders, the tightening in his muscles as he tried to jerk backward—but there was no distance left to create. The cold struck him before the movement could complete.
Ice spread instantly.
Across his face. Over his eyes. Around his jaw.
Sealing everything.
In a single instant, Daizen's head vanished beneath a thick layer of frost.
"Daizen!"
Kensu's voice cut through the moment.
Movement—fast, descending from the side.
Reiji didn't look.
He felt Daizen's grip weaken.
That was enough.
He drove his head forward with desperate force, tearing both hands free in the same brutal motion. But the sensation barely registered beneath the adrenaline flooding his body.
His forehead slammed directly into the frozen mass.
The impact cracked it instantly.
Then shattered it.
Ice exploded outward in a violent spray alongside fragments of bone and flesh. Blood splattered across the trunk, across Reiji's face, across the branches beneath them as the frozen remains burst apart from the sheer force of the blow.
When the fragments finally cleared, there was nothing left above Daizen's neck.
Headless.
The body remained upright for a fraction of a second, then began to sag.
Kensu was already there.
"You little bastard!"
Kensu moved—and this time Reiji didn't see it coming. What reached him first was the sound: a sharp, violent crackle cutting through the air, followed immediately by the acrid smell of something burning. Ozone. Lightning chakra. His body reacted before his mind fully caught up. He dropped hard, folding at the knees despite the restriction at his ankles, letting his weight collapse downward and to the side.
A split second later, something tore through the space where his head had been. The lightning-coated kunai punched straight through Daizen's torso to reach him, ripping through flesh and cloth in a single, brutal line. Heat brushed past Reiji's face, close enough to sting his skin and curl the ends of his hair.
His eyes snapped up. The blade was still there—buried through Daizen's body, lightning screaming along its length.
Holy shit.
He couldn't help it—a short, breathless laugh slipped out.
Kensu tried to pull back.
Reiji moved first.
His now free hand snapped forward instead, the back of it still leaking cold mist. He drove it against the edge of the wound where Kensu's blade had pierced through the body.
Ice surged.
Fast. Violent.
It spread across the steel, along the arm, into the surrounding flesh, locking everything together in a jagged mass of frost.
Kensu pulled.
Nothing moved.
Reiji felt the resistance through the structure—the way the ice held, the way the weight anchored it in place.
That was enough.
His hand dropped straight to Daizen's pouch, is numb fingers gripping it.
With his hands slick with blood and his balance thrown off by his bound legs, Reiji didn't try to reset his stance properly. There wasn't time for that. The branch beneath him felt unstable under the shifting weight, bark rough against his soles as he adjusted is chakra just enough to not slip first.
He leaned back into the trunk for support, grounding himself through his shoulders and spine, then snapped both legs forward at once.
His heels slammed into Daizen's headless body.
Hard.
The corpse lurched sideways, dragging Kensu with it, his arm still embedded, still frozen in place. The sudden shift broke his balance instantly. His footing slipped, bark cracking under his sandals as his center of gravity tilted off the branch.
He fell.
Reiji watched.
And heard it.
A faint hiss.
He didn't need to look long to confirm.
The tag on Daizen body was already burning.
Kensu saw it too.
"You little—"
The explosion cut him off.
Fire and force tore through the space below, the blast shattering branches and sending a wave of heat upward. The shock hit the trunk behind Reiji, vibrating through it, through his back, through his still-bleeding hands.
He stayed low.
Breathing steady.
One jōnin dead.
One—
Probably.
And Inoto—
Still there.
Reiji's blade bit through the last fibers at his ankles just as the tension gave way.
He didn't rise.
Didn't even have the time to.
Inoto was already there.
Too fast.
Reiji barely had time to register the blur of movement before instinct took over. He crossed both arms in front of his torso defensively just as the kick came.
It didn't matter.
The strike slipped through his guard with terrifying precision and slammed directly into his ribs.
Pain exploded through him.
Reiji swore he heard something crack inside his chest as the force folded his body around the blow. Air vanished violently from his lungs and the impact launched him sideways through the air, branches blurring past his vision while his arms went numb for a split second from the shock.
But even while airborne—
Inoto was already moving again.
Reiji saw him flash through the branches beneath him, a kunai now gripped tightly in his hand as he closed the distance once more without hesitation.
At the same time, Reiji's eyes caught movement farther away through the canopy.
Kushina.
She was still tied nearby, desperately trying to free herself from the bindings while staring toward the fight with wide terrified eyes.
Good.
Reiji's hand moved before the thought even fully formed.
Still spinning through the air from the kick, he ripped a kunai free and threw it immediately. An explosive tag fluttered behind the blade as it cut through the darkness.
The kunai flew through the air—
—not toward Inoto.
Toward Kushina.
For the first time, Inoto's expression broke. His eyes widened in surprise. Below, Kushina's face changed too—panic giving way to something sharper, rawer.
Betrayal.
Sorry, tomato head.
The tag ignited.The explosion tore through the branch beneath her in a burst of heat, pressure, and splintered wood. Bark, debris, and shards of burning tag paper blasted outward, the structure giving way under the force.
Using that distraction, Reiji slipped away and forced distance between them.
He didn't run blindly. He moved one branch at a time, feet landing low and careful across bark and splintered wood, adjusting for weakened footing and the lingering shake of the canopy from the blast. Every push sent pain through his torn hands and up his forearms. He ignored it and kept moving, body compressed and controlled, using trunks and dense foliage to break sightlines.
The forest around him was still disturbed. Leaves drifted in slow spirals. Bits of bark and ash clung to the air. The smell of smoke mixed with blood and burnt wood lingered between the trees.
He knew what he had done.
The thought came cleanly, without excuse. Using Kushina as the center of that distraction had been cruel. He had no ill feeling toward her. If anything, he wanted her to survive this ordeal.
But he had already made his choice.
He would bet everything on killing them.
Because he couldn't escape alone.
Even exhausted, Inoto was still operating at the rank—or at least the capability—of a jōnin. The prolonged possession jutsu had drained him badly. Reiji had seen it clearly: heavier steps, uneven breath, more tension in the shoulders, subtle corrections in balance that hadn't existed before. But that only meant his reserves were running low. It did not mean he had ceased being dangerous. He was still faster than Reiji. Still cleaner. Still efficient enough that, if Reiji fled alone, he would be found, caught, and killed sooner or later.
But that wasn't the only reason.
He couldn't return alone.
At first the thought came in the ugliest possible form. Everyone knew he had broken the Hokage's son's arms. Everyone knew he had been dragged before the Hokage and nearly thrown out of the Academy. And now a teacher was dead. Returning alone after that—without Kushina—felt impossible.
No…
That wasn't the true reason.
If Reiji explained the situation, they would believe him eventually. Inoto disappearing would raise questions on its own. The truth would resolve itself with time.
But what after?
He pressed himself behind the trunk of a tree and watched through a gap in the leaves. His breathing had steadied, but his body still carried the fight. His hands throbbed with each heartbeat. His shoulders remained tight. The muscles in his legs still remembered the strain of awkward landings and bound kicks.
If he returned without Kushina, the higher-ups would surely accept the truth.
But what about the rest of the village?
Wouldn't it simply become one more reason for suspicion and shame? Another story told in lower voices. Another stain tied not only to him but to his father. Would he shame Soichiro again? Would he drag him even lower than he already had?
There were only two solutions.
He killed every enemy and came back with Kushina.
Or—
He killed everyone, even himself if he had to do it.
Reiji didn't know with certainty what their objective was in taking Kushina, but he could guess. His father had never hidden the filthiest parts of shinobi history from him. Villages had kidnapped people with rare constitutions and rare bloodlines countless times, then used them as breeding stock to strengthen their future forces.
Women especially.
Taken not simply as prisoners, but as breeding mares forced to produce shinobi for a village's military power until their bodies gave out or their usefulness ended.
Knowing what fate awaited her if he died, Reiji could not let her be taken away into that.
Killing her would be mercy.
Well… at least if there is nothing left…
From behind the tree, he saw them again.
Inoto looked worse for wear now, carrying an unconscious Kushina over one shoulder. The signs of chakra exhaustion were even clearer at this distance. His steps landed heavier. His shoulders stayed slightly tightened, and there were tiny corrections in his footing where earlier there had been none. Burn marks now covered parts of his clothing and exposed skin—scorched fabric, darkened patches, and reddened flesh where the heat had bitten through.
Still, he remained armed. Dangerous. More than capable of killing Reiji the moment he found a clean opening.
Kushina, though—
Reiji studied her carefully.
Mostly unharmed.
Scratches. Dirt. Some soot. No obvious deep wounds.
Despite himself, he exhaled in relief.
He had gambled correctly.
Inoto had not risked her.
Of course he hadn't. She was his ticket to any future in Kumo. Both of his Kumo accomplices were dead. He could not return there empty-handed. And he could not go back to Konoha either, not when his betrayal would be uncovered sooner or later.
That made Kushina his only future.
Which meant she was, for the moment, safe.
Still, behind the trunk, blood drying stiff across his fingers and bark pressing into his shoulder blade, Reiji kept thinking.
Still… now what?
He hadn't expected to still be alive at this point.
***
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