Watching the two of them, Hikaru found himself genuinely intrigued.
He was a little disappointed that Hidan looked even younger than him… but the silver-haired brat wasn't the only one here. There was also a "teacher" figure—someone who might be far more useful as a stepping stone.
That fit Hikaru's expectations nicely.
The only real question now was: how far could this old man actually go for him?
Hikaru's reason for coming here was simple—he wanted to capture Hidan.
Even if capturing the real Hidan at this stage wasn't realistic, he could still take a substitute.
Then he would exploit that "immortality" ability and force the man to put on the Shinigami mask, using a reverse operation on the Reaper Death Seal to break the restriction on Minato Namikaze's soul.
If Minato's soul were released, he might not be able to return to his body completely—
But Hikaru wasn't empty-handed.
He still possessed the blueprint for Chiyo's Reanimation Technique, the "One's Own Life Reincarnation" jutsu.
He hadn't tested it. He hadn't dared to use it.
But as long as the technique was in his hands, it could be fully developed later—by him, or by someone he forced to do it.
And if necessary… he could simply go back to Sunagakure again.
After all, blackmail works once, it works a thousand times—especially when Hikaru still held Sunagakure's most fatal scandal by the throat.
Even if he used pure daylight tactics, Chiyo would still have no choice but to cooperate.
Unless she was confident she could kill him outright.
Hikaru stared at the two figures in front of him and slowly rolled his neck.
He needed to test their capabilities—especially the old man's.
"Word is your cult can make you immortal," Hikaru said calmly. "Then show me whether you actually have that kind of ability."
"Ridiculous," the middle-aged man sneered, remembering Hikaru's earlier words. His gaze turned vicious. "You don't even know—"
"What I don't know?"**
In an instant, Hikaru's voice sounded behind him.
The man's scalp went cold.
What speed is this?!
How did he get behind me?!
What just happened?!
He didn't understand a thing—
And then agony erupted through his left arm.
A ninja blade glowing with a deep, icy-blue sheen flashed.
His arm was cut clean through.
A frightening aura spread along the wound. The man couldn't endure it—he screamed.
"Only this much?" Hikaru's voice drifted into his ear again.
The man didn't even have time to speak.
A brutal pain detonated in his abdomen.
His vision lurched—his entire body flew backward, slamming into a tree with a heavy crash.
Blood poured onto the ground.
The scene was so violent it made the air feel colder.
Beside him, the silver-haired child—Hidan—stood frozen, eyes wide.
He was still a kid—about Shisui's age.
He had never seen anything like this.
His entire body trembled, and he failed to show even the basic composure expected of a shinobi.
Hikaru was mildly disappointed—
But he didn't bother focusing on the child.
His sensory field had never left the man.
He's bleeding heavily… but it isn't damaging his bodily function. And…
Hikaru's eyes flicked.
The severed arm on the ground was moving.
Slowly—almost grotesquely—it began crawling toward its owner.
That alone confirmed it: the old man had undergone some kind of modification.
Not perfect. Not complete.
Life force is still leaking. The rate is small, but it's there…
Still—this will do.
Hikaru had learned enough.
Even if this man was far from "true immortality," his abnormal survivability already had value.
A blur.
Hikaru shifted.
In the place where he had been standing, Hidan thrust a kunai into empty air.
"So you've got some guts," Hikaru said.
Hidan's hand was shaking, but Hikaru's soft voice came from behind him—close enough to make his spine lock.
Hidan grit his teeth, eyes turning wild, and stabbed backward—
Only for his wrist to be caught mid-swing.
"Commendable courage," Hikaru said evenly. "But stupid execution. Still… for you, that's probably enough."
His left hand snapped down like a hammer.
A strike to the side of the neck.
Hidan's eyes rolled back—and he collapsed unconscious.
Hikaru tossed the boy onto the ground like discarded baggage, then walked toward the man leaning against the tree.
On the way, he kicked the crawling arm aside.
"Interesting ability," Hikaru said softly, crouching. "So some of the rumors are true."
"You… that speed…" the man rasped, trembling from pain. "Are you the Fourth Hokage?"
"No," Hikaru replied, shaking his head. "I'm not the Hokage."
His gaze pinned the man in place.
"Your name. Tell me."
The man coughed hard, his throat wet. After a moment, he forced out the words.
"Tsutaya… Hiroshi."
"Tsutaya," Hikaru repeated. Then his voice remained gentle as ever. "You're coming with us."
He rose to his feet, looking down at him.
"You and your disciple."
"Don't waste your effort," Tsutaya snarled, raising his head with hate. "I know what you're trying to do. You won't succeed!"
"You don't know what I'm trying to do," Hikaru said flatly. "And you definitely don't know what I want."
He let out a quiet, contemptuous laugh.
"Here's a piece of advice: don't use your mind to measure my intentions. Understand?"
Inside Kirigakure, Pakura felt the kunai buried into her back.
Her expression turned strangely complicated.
Even though she had known the ending in advance, the moment it truly happened, the pain still cut through her.
It felt less like a weapon piercing reinforced fabric—
And more like a blade plunging into her heart.
"Why…" she murmured, turning back with sadness and disbelief on her face.
Her expression didn't make the Kiri shinobi suspicious at all.
He shoved her forward and jumped back.
"Because we're killing you—so you can feel what we've felt!"
A mechanism snapped.
Dozens of kunai rained down from above, stabbing toward Pakura in a blanket of metal.
No one could survive that kind of coverage.
"You killed so many of us. You think you came here to negotiate?" the man spat, voice manic. "No—you're just a pathetic sacrifice!"
"Your fate was decided a long time ago!"
Pakura closed her eyes.
And at the instant the kunai were about to strike—
A massive surge of chakra erupted from her body.
Four orange, irregular fire orbs formed behind her.
They expanded instantly, becoming a blazing shield.
The falling kunai struck the fire barrier and erupted into white steam as if their metal was being boiled from the inside.
Pakura vanished.
A blur.
She reappeared beside the Kiri shinobi.
No hesitation.
Her hand clamped around his throat.
Her eyes were no longer human—cold, violent, almost demonic.
"You…" the man choked, shocked that she resisted, but still defiant. "That's Scorch Release Pakura for you. Sharp as ever!"
"Why are you doing this?" Pakura asked, voice like frozen steel. "What did your words just mean?"
"It's simple."
He tried to break free. He couldn't. He stopped struggling and leaned into his arrogance.
"You're already dead. What do you think your mission was?"
"It wasn't negotiation."
"You came here to die."
"Our village and your Kazekage already agreed."
"Your life—and your corpse for research—as a gesture of sincerity."
"In return, we stop our retaliation against Sunagakure. So your Kazekage can focus on Iwagakure."
"You don't have a choice."
"If you resist, we reject cooperation."
"Then how much will your village lose? Have you thought about that?"
"And you think I came alone?"
Pakura listened without speaking.
There was no need.
She had already heard the truth she came for.
She exhaled slowly, staring at him, her grip tightening as the man's breathing became harder and harder.
"I know exactly what kind of damage my resistance could cause Sunagakure," she said calmly. "And I know you aren't alone."
Her chakra thickened. Her killing intent deepened until it felt like a physical weight.
"But tell me something."
"Why are you so sure I should keep serving a Kazekage who betrayed me—who never trusted me—who didn't even give me the courtesy of knowing I was being sent to die?"
The Kiri shinobi's eyes widened.
In her words, it wasn't merely betrayal of the Kazekage—
It was betrayal of the village's authority itself.
Pakura… was she truly turning her back on her home?
In that moment, the man noticed figures moving through the mist.
Several ANBU in Sunagakure gear approached.
They looked battered—
But each of them was dragging a corpse.
Kirigakure ANBU corpses.
One after another.
The sight crushed the man's heart with despair.
Who are they?
They're not Suna ANBU…
Then what are they? And how did they kill Kiri ANBU without making a sound?
No one answered.
Pakura didn't give him time to ask.
Her chakra condensed.
Scorch Release surged into his body.
"AAAGH!"
His internal moisture evaporated in an instant.
In a few breaths, he became a dried-out corpse, like something that had been hanging in wind for years.
Even Kakashi felt a chill.
This woman was dangerous—far more dangerous than most people realized.
But he said nothing.
She needed an outlet.
Let her have it.
After a full minute, Kakashi finally asked quietly, "Confirmed?"
"Yes." Pakura nodded and tossed the corpse aside. "You handled it cleanly. I thought there'd be more noise."
"We had scouts," Kakashi replied, glancing at his teammates. "They got careless."
His voice turned firm.
"Now we move."
Pakura paused, then said softly, "And… thank you."
"No need to thank us," Kakashi said. "Thank our captain. Without him, no one would've known your mission was that dark."
Back in Konoha, inside the Third ANBU Division branch office, Hikaru looked at Kakashi and Pakura and nodded lightly.
He truly hadn't expected Kakashi to return this quickly.
Hikaru had brought Tsutaya Hiroshi and Hidan back to Konoha less than two days ago—
And Kakashi was already here.
Hikaru's operation had been efficient: arrive, confirm, capture, return—clean and fast.
Tsutaya and the child had no ability to resist him.
Neither did the four Kumogakure ANBU.
So those two were now in Konoha, alive—because they still had value.
The Kumogakure ANBU were less fortunate.
Useful people were assets.
Useless people were liabilities.
Hikaru had promised to "let them go," yes—
But he had never promised to let them live.
And to preserve his own "boundaries," he didn't personally carry out their executions.
He left it to the four Senju operatives.
They killed the four men—
And brought back their heads as well.
ANBU minds were worth picking. Sometimes even the dead had information.
"Report," Hikaru said, stretching lazily, smiling. "You came back fast. I assume nothing went wrong?"
"Yes, Captain," Kakashi replied. "We got lucky. They were careless."
"They sent ANBU to intercept us, but they didn't have a sensory type."
"And like you instructed, I brought Aburame and Inuzuka ninja with us."
"We found the ambush quickly and eliminated all of them."
Hikaru chuckled.
He hadn't expected those casual instructions to pay off so cleanly.
Then his expression sharpened slightly.
"And how did you handle the bodies?" Hikaru asked. "Including the substitute corpse I prepared."
Kakashi understood instantly.
"You're worried I decapitated them."
He sighed faintly.
"I considered it. But I know it would create major trouble."
"So I didn't."
"And I staged the scene."
Hikaru's eyelid twitched. "Staged it how?"
"Originally we planned to make it look like Suna ANBU attacked."
"But after we saw the situation… a better story was this:"
"Pakura snapped, killed everyone—including ANBU—then used her Scorch Release to kill herself."
Hikaru paused, then rubbed his temple.
It was melodramatic.
Ridiculously so.
But he had to admit it was plausible in a twisted shinobi-world way.
A tragic loyalist. A self-immolation to protect bloodline secrets. A corpse that can't be recovered.
"Fine," Hikaru said. "It's a decent improvisation. Better than the garbage story I wrote."
"Thank you, Captain," Kakashi replied calmly.
He handed over a sealed scroll.
"I completed the mission report on the boat back. It's ready."
Hikaru took it—and felt something like relief.
He hated writing reports. He'd written enough of them in his previous life, and he'd written them again in this one.
He was a captain now.
He didn't want to do that work anymore.
And Kakashi—predictably—understood him perfectly.
"I'll take my leave," Kakashi said with a small smile.
He left the office, leaving only Hikaru and Pakura.
Silence settled.
Hikaru watched her quietly.
He couldn't help feeling a strange sense of satisfaction—
A person who was supposed to die had survived, standing right in front of him.
A visible crack in a future that was "meant" to happen.
That feeling…
It was like breaking fate itself.
Pakura stared back at him.
She knew him, of course—he was the one who captured her.
But then she had known nothing about him.
Only that his speed was absurd, and that he'd done something terrible inside Sunagakure.
And because of that act, her hidden mission had been dragged into the light.
Now she had witnessed her own "death."
Witnessed betrayal.
And witnessed something else: Kakashi's respect for Hikaru was not performative—it was absolute.
That wasn't normal.
Facing the one who saved her and forced her away from Sunagakure, she felt both curiosity… and resignation.
"You keep staring at me," Hikaru said at last, a faint smile appearing. "That's not really appropriate."
Pakura exhaled. "It's not exactly a normal situation."
"True." Hikaru's smile stayed warm. "The world is full of things worth mocking."
He walked closer, his tone casual.
"Every village is the same. Everyone's competing over who can be less rotten."
"What happened in Suna isn't unique."
"In Konoha, things like this happen too."
Pakura raised an eyebrow. "You're really telling me that? Not afraid I'll spread it?"
"And then what?" Hikaru shrugged. "If you talk, you die."
"And honestly, it might even help the Fourth Hokage a bit."
Pakura blinked.
That last line felt… deliberate.
Konoha wasn't as stable as she'd assumed.
And his "sunny" smile, for all its warmth, carried a kind of cold that seeped into bone.
She sighed. "So you've decided I'm yours."
"Yes," Hikaru said plainly. "I have."
He stopped at her side and patted her shoulder.
"You've witnessed your destruction. You've witnessed betrayal."
"So… do you want to witness something more interesting—under a different identity?"
"Like what?" Pakura asked, head tilting slightly.
The pressure of standing near him was undeniable.
But her curiosity outweighed her caution.
Hikaru walked to the window.
In the distance, the Hokage Rock stood silent under the sky.
He spoke softly, almost like he was talking to himself.
"Like watching me become Hokage—step by step."
Pakura's gaze tightened.
He continued, still smiling.
"I didn't save you for your bloodline."
"The people who research bloodlines in Konoha aren't on my side."
"When I captured you, I only meant to extract intelligence."
"But after I decoded something from Chiyo's files… I realized you resemble someone."
"Who?" Pakura asked.
"You've heard of him," Hikaru said. "Kakashi's father."
"The man Chiyo hated for a lifetime."
"Konoha's White Fang—Hatake Sakumo."
His voice lowered.
"His death was a tragedy."
"And it taught me something about this village."
"Sometimes you're nothing more than a piece on the board."
"Even if you're righteous. Even if you have principles."
"If you fail your 'mission'—if you aren't a perfect tool—then you must die."
He paused and turned back toward her.
"So when I learned what was going to happen to you… I thought—"
"I couldn't save Sakumo."
"I never even met him."
"But if someone so similar appeared in front of me…"
"If I saved her, and had her witness history with me…"
"Had her help me push over an old era…"
"Wouldn't that be… fascinating?"
Pakura's mind echoed on his words.
Push over an old era.
His ambition was enormous.
His target wasn't just a rank—
It was the seat itself.
For reasons she couldn't fully explain, her chest stirred with a strange kind of fire.
If that "old era" included people like Rasa…
Then—
Pakura inhaled deeply and nodded once, slowly.
"I understand," she said quietly.
"Nightingale-sama."
Deep beneath Konoha, inside a Root chamber, Danzō stared down at the shinobi kneeling below.
"Confirmed?" his voice was ice.
"Yes, Lord Danzō," a Root operative answered quickly. "Kakashi's team has returned. Pakura came back with them."
Ever since Root had lost certain critical materials, they had been searching in secret.
They had also placed eyes on Konoha's entrances and exits.
This surveillance was unknown to Minato—
And even Hiruzen didn't know.
But it had its advantages.
They gained access to movement reports even ANBU didn't want recorded.
Like this one.
"Good," Danzō said, standing. A sharp light flickered in his eyes.
"Hiruzen and that brat Minato are in a meeting. Murashima Takumi is with them too."
"For once, ANBU is thin."
He turned to the two shinobi behind him.
"Ryoma. Orochimaru."
"Bring a squad to the Third Division."
"Take Pakura."
"If they refuse—"
"Apologies, Lord Danzō," Orochimaru interrupted softly, lifting his head. His golden snake eyes gleamed with eerie calm.
"I still have experiments to tend to."
"This kind of errand is… a waste of my time."
Danzō's brow tightened.
He was displeased—but he still nodded.
"Fine."
Then his gaze shifted to the other.
"Ryoma. You go alone."
"You know what to do."
"Yes, Lord Danzō."
Aburame Ryoma knelt on one knee.
"I will bring that woman back."
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