*NNT -- 13:45 -- Land of Waters -- The Village Hidden By The Mist**
The fog that shrouded Kirigakure wasn't just weather—it was a living cancer, creeping into lungs and souls alike. Its tendrils probed every crevice of the village like ghostly fingers, leaving everything slick with a film of putrid moisture. Namika could taste the rot on her tongue as she inhaled, a fetid cocktail of decay and despair that clung to her throat long after she'd tried to swallow it away.
Blood pooled beneath her knees, soaking through the fabric of her pants. Still warm. She didn't flinch anymore—that part of her had died months ago. Instead, she pressed her trembling fingers deeper into the shattered skull before her, fragments of bone scraping against her skin as she probed the ruined brain matter within.
"Deeper," Suikei barked, hovering over her like a vulture. His breath reeked of sake and something worse—pleasure. "Find the memory center. Extract everything before it rots."
The corpse beneath her hands had once been a child—perhaps twelve, though malnutrition made age difficult to determine. The jaw hung at an unnatural angle, connected by just a few stringy tendons on the left side. One eye socket gaped empty; the other held only a gelatinous remnant that leaked yellowish fluid down the sunken cheek. The ribcage had been cracked open, splintered bones jutting outward like the twisted fingers of a hand reaching from the grave.
*This could be me*, Namika thought, her heart hammering against her chest. *This will be me one day.*
Water oozed from her pores unbidden, a manifestation of her bloodline that she couldn't control under stress. It slithered across the corpse's skin, recoiling as if even it found the desecrated flesh repulsive.
"I can't..." she whispered, barely audible.
Suikei's hand connected with her face, the sound of impact cracking through the damp air like lightning. "Dissect the lesson," he snarled, scar tissue pulling his mouth into a permanent sneer. But behind the performance of cruelty, something flickered in his eyes—a ghost of the man he might have been, had the Bloody Mist not hollowed him out and filled the cavity with nightmares.
Namika's blade slid between rotting muscle fibers, parting flesh that yielded too easily. The stench hit her like a physical blow—death and bowels and the sickly-sweet perfume of advanced decay. Bile surged up her throat, burning like acid, but she choked it back. Vomiting meant failure. Failure meant joining the corpse at her feet.
*Breathe through your mouth. Don't think. Don't feel. Just move.*
"Good," Suikei rasped, voice like gravel ground against bone. "One more. Learn to bleed without bleeding."
Her second strike was cleaner. The skull peeled open like overripe fruit, revealing the glistening treasure within. Memory extraction was a lost art, they said—a technique that died with the Second Mizukage. But here in the shadows of Kirigakure, forbidden jutsu festered like mold, passed down in whispers and practiced on the dead and dying.
With each slice, Namika felt herself fragment further, pieces of her soul crumbling away like wet sand. Soon there would be nothing left but the hollow shell, a perfect vessel for Kirigakure's poison.
*Is this what you wanted, Mother? Is this why you sacrificed everything to get me into the program?*
**NNT -- 16:22 -- Medical Wing, Western Barracks -- Land of Ghosts**
Tsurushi's hands wouldn't stop shaking. Blood—too much blood—soaked through the filthy rags he pressed against Kazuo's mangled thigh. The tourniquet was failing, dark arterial spray pulsing between his fingers with each fading heartbeat.
"Hold on, you stupid bastard," he hissed, though hope had abandoned this place long before the walls began to crumble. "I didn't drag you three miles through that swamp just to watch you die on this fucking table."
Kazuo's eyes rolled back, whites showing like a terrified horse. His screams had faded to whimpers—worse, somehow. The sound of a man who knew death was inevitable but couldn't stop begging it to wait.
The distant thunder of explosions rattled dust from the ceiling. From the corridor came the shuffle-thump of fresh casualties being dragged in—more broken bodies for the meat grinder of Kirigakure's endless war.
Tsurushi squeezed his eyes shut, but couldn't block the memories of the ambush. Sand Village puppeteers emerging from the mist like ghosts, their wooden creations clicking and chattering with inhuman glee. Jouji had been the first to fall, his arms wrenched from their sockets before a barrage of poisoned senbon turned his face into a grotesque pincushion. Mako died next, sealed alive inside a black scroll, her muffled screams becoming more mechanical as the fuinjutsu crushed her body into a two-dimensional smear.
"Medic!" Tsurushi roared, knowing none would come. Three years of war had bled their ranks dry. The best healers were reserved for the elites, the bloodline bearers, the Mizukage's favored weapons.
A boy staggered into the room—couldn't be more than fourteen, wearing a uniform three sizes too large. Blood streaked his ashen face, eyes wide with shock.
"Help me," Tsurushi demanded.
The boy approached, movements jerky like a poorly manipulated puppet. "I—I'm not a medic. They just told me to... to bring the dead to the pit."
Kazuo's hand shot out, fingers curling around the boy's wrist with surprising strength. "Not dead," he gurgled, blood foaming at his lips. "Not... yet..."
The boy recoiled, but Tsurushi grabbed his shoulder. "Hold this," he ordered, placing the boy's hands on the blood-soaked compress. "Press hard. Don't stop."
More casualties poured in from the corridor, a procession of the damned. Torn uniforms, hollow eyes, limbs at impossible angles. The weight of three wasted years pressed down on Tsurushi's shoulders, crushing the breath from his lungs. Of his original ANBU cell, he alone remained, the sole survivor of a mission that should have ended months ago.
*We're all just walking corpses*, he thought. *Some of us just haven't stopped moving yet.*
**NNT -- 17:10 -- Land Of Waters -Kirigakure, Mizukage's Office**
Yagura's fist crashed against the war map, sending miniature figurines scattering across the parchment. His seemingly youthful face contorted with rage, pink eyes burning with an unnatural light that made the assembled jōnin shrink back.
"The enemies are exhausted," he growled, voice thick with malice far beyond his apparent years. "Their borders stretched thin, their villages unguarded. We've been quiet long enough." A twisted smile spread across his scarred face. "Let the world feel the terror of the Mist again!"
No one dared speak. Not when the Fourth Mizukage's pupils dilated like that—black holes consuming the pink irises, windows to a void that hungered for destruction.
Gouya, the chief strategist, finally broke the silence. "No mercy," he whispered, the words hanging in the damp air like a curse. His eyes—cold and dead as river stones—swept across the room. "Strike first, strike deep."
In the shadows behind the war council, hidden figures exchanged glances. The Mizukage's behavior had grown increasingly erratic, his thirst for blood insatiable. Whispers of genjutsu and outside influence floated through the village like the perpetual mist, too insubstantial to grasp but impossible to ignore.
"We'll begin with a cleansing," Yagura continued, tracing a bloody fingerprint across the map. "The genin ranks harbor too many... hesitations. Those who cannot embrace our methods have no place in Kirigakure's future."
Gouya nodded, jotting notes in a small black book. "The conscription camp is overfull. We can send the newest batch to test the Leaf's western outpost. Two objectives accomplished at once."
"Weak flesh to absorb their first volleys," Yagura agreed, giggling like a child. "And those who survive might prove worthy of the headband." He cocked his head, eyes unfocused. "Do I hear objections?"
The room remained silent as a tomb.
*Cowards*, thought Mei Terumī, watching from her position against the wall. *We're all fucking cowards.*
But she kept her mouth shut. Her time would come, but not today. Not while Yagura still controlled the loyalists and the bloodline purges remained fresh in everyone's memory. She needed allies, leverage, the perfect moment to strike.
For now, she would wait and watch as Kirigakure devoured itself from within.
**NNT -- 09:30 -- Kirigakure -- Eastern Courtyard, Conscription Training Ground**
Rain pelted the assembled conscripts, dozens of grey-clad youngsters barely past academy age. They stood in rigid formation, shivering not just from cold but from bone-deep terror. Most had been dragged from civilian sectors, given kunai and explosive tags with minimal training, then deemed ready for "practical experience."
Cannon fodder, in other words.
Squad Leader Tetsuo paced before them, sandals squelching in the mud. "Your orders are simple," he barked. "Storm the Leaf outpost beyond the northern marsh. Neutralize all resistance." His eyes, hard as flint, swept over the formation. "Failure is not an option."
Sogen, a lanky boy with calloused fingers from years playing his mother's wooden flute, stared at the training ground. Three days ago, he'd been helping his grandfather mend fishing nets. Now a wooden identification plaque hung from his neck, his name burned into it with charcoal—easier to identify bodies that way.
"This is suicide," he whispered to the girl beside him.
She didn't respond. Her eyes were fixed on the mud, shoulders hunched as if trying to collapse into herself.
Tetsuo continued, "You'll move out at dawn. Anyone who returns without confirmation of mission success will face... consequences."
The word hung in the air like a blade.
Sogen felt something crack inside him—not fear, but a sudden, blinding rage. He stepped forward, breaking formation.
"I won't," he said, voice cracking but resolute. "I won't kill children for scraps of land." His hand clutched the wooden tag on his chest. "None of us should."
Time seemed to freeze. The other conscripts held their breath. Tetsuo turned slowly, eyes narrowing like a predator scenting blood.
"What was that?" he asked softly—the most dangerous tone of all.
Sogen swallowed, but stood his ground. "This isn't our war. We didn't ask for this. I won't—"
The movement was too fast to follow. Tetsuo's hand blurred, and suddenly Sogen was on his knees, blood spraying from his opened throat. He clutched at the wound, eyes wide with shock, fingers slipping in his own warmth as it poured between them.
"Anyone else feel like sharing their thoughts?" Tetsuo asked pleasantly, flicking blood from his kunai.
Sogen collapsed face-first into the mud, body twitching as life drained from him. No one moved to help. No one dared.
But something rippled through the ranks—a subtle shift, a current of defiance beneath the terror. Some clenched their fists, eyes hardening. Others wept silently, tears mixing with rain as they dripped into the bloody sludge.
"Obey or die!" Tetsuo barked, returning to the front of the formation. "Those are your only options."
*Are they?* thought the girl who had stood beside Sogen. *Are they really?*
The seed was planted, taking root in fertile soil watered with blood and tears. Kirigakure's next generation balanced on the razor's edge of revolt, unaware that they were the key to the village's salvation—or its final damnation.
**NNT -- 22:17 -- Lower District, Namika's Quarters**
Namika sat cross-legged on her threadbare futon, staring at hands that wouldn't come clean no matter how many times she scrubbed them. The skin was raw and cracked, yet she still smelled death in every pore.
A single candle cast grotesque shadows across the bare walls of her quarters. Its flame danced like the lives she'd taken—fragile, easily extinguished with a single breath. In its guttering light, she performed the nightly ritual: cleaning her weapons, though they'd been spotless for hours.
*"Learn to bleed without bleeding."* Suikei's words echoed in her mind, a mantra that had guided her through three years of the Bloody Mist's elite program. She'd learned to kill without flinching, to torture without vomiting, to extract information from screaming subjects without letting her face betray a hint of compassion.
Yet she bled inside, hemorrhaging pieces of her soul with each mission. How much remained? How much could she lose before becoming like Suikei—a hollow shell performing cruelty by rote, dead eyes occasionally flickering with the ghost of regret?
A knock at the door jolted her from dark reverie. She moved silently, kunai already in hand, chakra pooling in her fingertips.
"Namika," came Suikei's voice, softer than she'd ever heard it. "Open up."
She cracked the door, weapon concealed but ready. Suikei stood alone in the corridor, shoulders hunched, face drawn with exhaustion.
"The Mizukage has summoned you," he said, eyes darting to either side as if expecting eavesdroppers. "Something... urgent."
"Now?" She glanced at the darkness outside her small window.
"Now." Suikei hesitated, then added, "Be careful what you say. He's... not himself lately."
They walked through fog-laden streets in silence, the occasional muffled sob or scream from surrounding buildings the only soundtrack of Kirigakure at night. The village had always been brutal, but something had shifted in recent months. Fear hung heavier than the mist, seeping into every interaction, turning neighbors against each other as suspicion festered like an open wound.
"Why me?" Namika finally asked as they approached the central tower.
Suikei shook his head. "You're one of the few left who can complete the tasks he's been assigning." A muscle in his jaw twitched. "The others either broke or died trying."
*Not reassuring*, she thought.
The Mizukage's office reeked of iron and rot, a stomach-churning cocktail that made Namika's nostrils flare. Yagura sat hunched on his ornate chair, fingers drumming against the armrest in an erratic pattern. His pink eyes gleamed with feverish intensity in the dim light.
"Shinobi," he began, voice oscillating between childlike and ancient. "I have a mission for you."
Namika bowed low, pulse hammering in her throat. "I am at your service, Mizukage-sama."
"There is a traitor among us," Yagura hissed, leaning forward. Spittle flew from his lips as he spoke, flecking the desk before him. "A former ally who now conspires with the enemy. Someone plotting my downfall, whispering rebellion into receptive ears."
*Half the village, then*, Namika thought, but kept her face carefully blank.
"I want you to find them and eliminate them," Yagura continued. His fingers ceased their drumming, curling instead into a white-knuckled fist. "Quietly. Efficiently. Make an example that others will remember."
Namika's throat constricted. "Do we know who it is?"
Yagura's lips curled into a sinister smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Hehe," he giggled, the sound raising hackles on the back of her neck. "Take the scroll."
He gestured to a sealed document on his desk. Namika approached cautiously, breaking the wax seal with steady fingers that belied her inner turmoil.
The name blazed from the parchment like a brand: *Tsurushi.*
Her stomach dropped. Tsurushi—one of the last decent people in this godforsaken hellhole. A man who'd saved her life during the Border Conflict, who'd smuggled medicine to civilian sectors when the Mizukage diverted supplies to the front lines. A man who still remembered how to smile, how to show kindness in a village that punished both.
"Is there evidence?" she asked, voice carefully neutral.
Yagura's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You question your Mizukage?"
"Never," she replied smoothly. "I only seek to understand the full scope of his treachery... to better extract confession before execution."
The lie tasted bitter on her tongue.
Yagura settled back, momentarily appeased. "He conspires with Konoha," he said dismissively. "Plans to assassinate council members. Seeks to undermine our glorious war efforts." He waved a hand. "The details are irrelevant. He is guilty because I say he is guilty."
Namika bowed again, mind racing. "When shall I carry out this mission?"
"Immediately." Yagura's eyes unfocused slightly, as if listening to a voice only he could hear. "He was last seen at the Western Barracks. Bring me his head before dawn."
She backed from the room, scroll clutched in white-knuckled fingers. Suikei waited in the corridor, face carefully blank.
"Well?" he asked as they descended the spiral staircase.
"Tsurushi," she whispered. "He wants Tsurushi dead by morning."
Something flashed in Suikei's eyes—fear or anger, she couldn't tell. "Then you have no choice," he said flatly.
*Don't I?* she thought. *Don't we always have a choice?*
But choices in Kirigakure carried terrible consequences, and Namika wasn't sure she was brave enough to face them. Not yet.
**NNT -- 01:37 -- West Frontier, Ironwood Barracks -- Land of Ghosts**
The Western Barracks stank of gangrene and despair. Namika slipped through shadows, avoiding the hollow-eyed medics who shuffled between pallets of moaning wounded. She tracked Tsurushi to a back room where he worked alone, stitching a gaping abdominal wound on an unconscious patient.
She watched him from the doorway, noting the care in his movements despite his obvious exhaustion. His hands, steady where hers trembled, closed torn flesh with precise sutures. Here was a man fighting to save lives while the rest of the village conspired to end them.
*Could such a man really be a traitor?*
"Tsurushi," she said softly, stepping into the dim light.
He looked up, surprise flashing across his haggard face before recognition smoothed his features. "Namika," he acknowledged with a tired nod. "What brings the Mizukage's favorite shadow to this house of dying men?"
The bitterness in his voice was new—or perhaps she was only now allowing herself to hear it.
"I need to speak with you," she said, closing the door behind her. "Privately."
He tied off the suture, covering his patient with a stained blanket before wiping bloody hands on an equally soiled cloth. "Of course," he said, gesturing to the corner furthest from the unconscious soldier. "Though I warn you, privacy is in short supply here."
She followed him, fighting the crushing weight that threatened to paralyze her limbs. Her mission tasted like ash in her mouth.
"There are rumors of a traitor," she began, voice barely above a whisper. "Your name has come up."
Tsurushi sighed heavily, rubbing his temples with fingers that left smears of blood on his skin. "I am no traitor, Namika," he said, eyes locking with hers. "I only seek to end this madness."
She studied him, searching for deceit but finding only bone-deep weariness and quiet resolve. "What madness?"
"All of it." He gestured vaguely toward the window, where distant explosions illuminated the perpetual fog. "The war. The purges. The Bloody Mist tactics. We're destroying ourselves from within while our enemies simply wait for us to finish the job."
Dangerous words. Fatal words.
"And how exactly do you plan to end it?" she pressed, hand inching toward the kunai concealed at her hip.
Tsurushi smiled sadly, as if already seeing the blade that would end his life. "By telling the truth," he said simply. "About Yagura. About what's really controlling him."
Her breath caught. "What do you mean?"
"You've seen it," he said, leaning closer. "The changes in him. The inconsistencies. The madness that comes and goes like the tide." His voice dropped lower still. "He's being manipulated, Namika. Controlled by something—or someone—outside the village."
The accusation was so outlandish it had to be either the desperate fabrication of a condemned man... or a truth too terrible to contemplate.
"Who?" she demanded.
"I don't know yet. But I'm close." His eyes burned with feverish intensity. "There's a network of us gathering evidence. Another week, maybe two, and we'll have proof to present to the council."
Namika's heart pounded in her ears. If he was right, everything—the war, the purges, the spiral of violence—was orchestrated by an outside force. But if he was wrong...
"Then help me," she said, gripping his arm. "Please don't blame me then."
Understanding dawned in his eyes. A gentle smile—so out of place in this village of perpetual cruelty—curved his lips. "The spark of revolution lit," he murmured, acceptance smoothing the lines of exhaustion from his face. "Causes a flame so mighty the oceans can't quench—"
Her kunai slipped between his ribs with practiced precision, finding his heart with a mercy he likely didn't expect from a Bloody Mist assassin. She caught him as he fell, lowering his body gently to the floor. Blood bubbled from his lips, but the light in his eyes was already fading.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, though she knew he couldn't hear.
For a long moment she knelt beside his body, her hands pressed against the wound as if she could somehow push life back into him. But the blood stopped flowing, his chest grew still, and Namika found herself alone with yet another death on her conscience.
*The spark of revolution lit.*
His final words echoed in her mind as she wiped her blade clean. What revolution? Against whom? And how many others shared his suspicions about the Mizukage?
She had to know. Had to understand what Tsurushi died for—whether he was a traitor or a martyr.
The truth, she decided, was worth pursuing. Even in Kirigakure, where truth was the most dangerous contraband of all.
**NNT -- 04:56 -- Kirigakure --Central Tower, Mizukage's Office **
"It is done," Namika reported, kneeling before Yagura's desk with her head bowed. Blood—Tsurushi's blood—still clung to the creases of her fingernails despite her efforts to scrub it away.
Yagura's face lit with savage glee, pink eyes gleaming in the predawn darkness. "Excellent," he purred, voice sliding between registers in that disconcerting way she'd noticed more frequently. "You have done well, Namika. Proven yourself loyal beyond question."
Pride mingled with disgust in her chest—pride at the praise, disgust that she still craved it despite knowing the rot at its core.
"He confessed nothing," she said carefully. "Died protesting his innocence."
"They always do," Yagura replied dismissively. He rose from his chair, moving to the window that overlooked the sleeping village. "The truly guilty never admit their crimes. They believe their own lies."
Something about his posture raised hackles on the back of her neck—the unnatural stillness, the slight tilt of his head as if listening to an inaudible whisper. Namika found herself studying him with new eyes, remembering Tsurushi's words.
*He's being manipulated. Controlled.*
Was it possible? The Fourth Mizukage—the jinchūriki of the Three-Tails, one of the most powerful shinobi alive—someone's puppet?
"You're dismissed," Yagura said abruptly, still facing the window. "Rest. Tomorrow brings new tasks."
Namika bowed and backed from the room, mind racing. If Tsurushi was right—if Yagura was being controlled—then killing the Mizukage wouldn't solve anything. They needed to find the puppet master.
*The spark of revolution lit.*
As she left the Central Tower, dawn broke over Kirigakure, painting the ever-present mist with bloody light. The streets remained empty, villagers wisely staying indoors until necessity drove them out. Fear ruled here—fear of the Mizukage, fear of neighbors who might report disloyal words, fear of the squads that came in the night for those who spoke against the regime.
Namika moved through the fog like a ghost, one of many haunting this village of the damned. But within her chest, something new stirred—a tiny flicker of defiance, of determination to uncover the truth.
*Causes a flame so mighty the oceans can't quench.*
Perhaps Tsurushi's death wasn't meaningless after all. Perhaps, in his final moments, he'd passed the torch to someone who could finish what he'd started.
The bloody mist swirled around her, but for the first time in years, Namika saw a path through it—narrow and dangerous, but leading somewhere other than deeper into darkness.
She would find Tsurushi's network. She would discover who—or what—controlled Yagura. And then, perhaps, she would finally understand what it meant to bleed without bleeding.
Until then, she would play her part. The loyal assassin. The perfect weapon. The Mizukage's shadow.
But shadows held secrets—and hers might just save Kirigakure from itself.
**NNT -- ??:?? -- Depths Unknown, Location Unknown-- Darkness**
In chambers forgotten by all even the oldest records only know it's name, location lost through History. Red eyes opened in the darkness, spinning lazily as it saw upon the puppet show above.
A chuckle echoed through the damp stone corridors, the sound of a man who found the world's suffering endlessly amusing.
The shadows seemed to deepen around him, hungry for the chaos to come.
"After all," he continued, forming a seal with wrinkled scarred hands, "the revolution has only just begun."