The smell of iron sand friction mixed with blood, diffusing a faint rustiness through the humid forest air. Broken tree trunks leaned askew in the scarred mud, testament to just how intense the previous battle had been.
Beneath a relatively intact tree, Katō Dan's guard squad was bedraggledly recovering.
About two minutes ago, the two iron sand clones attacking them had suddenly collapsed without warning. After much vigilance and probing with no response, they finally relaxed and regrouped.
But though all dozen-plus were wounded, they still warily scanned their surroundings, guarding against possible next attacks.
Compared to outsiders, they naturally understood more about the Spirit Transformation Technique.
Though the separated spirit could theoretically act indefinitely, in practice, if separated from the body too long or too far, the connection between soul and body thinned, making return difficult.
This was why Katō Dan used Spirit Transformation based on battlefield developments, rather than safely cast from the rear.
Likewise, when the soul was detached, the user's body couldn't endure intense stimulation; rash moving also carried considerable risk.
And this was this squad's reason for existing.
Protect Katō Dan's physical body at all costs.
Currently, in the squad's center, a man named Sakura Tomotarō and the squad's medical ninja Chiba Aya were receiving the same treatment as Katō Dan's body.
As the squad's pure taijutsu specialist, he now paralyzed there like an invalid. His arm temporarily splinted with wooden boards, most of his face wrapped in bandages, only one eye visible—quite bedraggled.
Chiba Aya's fingertips glowed faint green, slowly treating his large bruises and lacerations before wrapping fresh bandages.
"Ha... ha... what the hell, even clones were this troublesome..."
Sakura gasped heavily, tilting his head to examine his arm with his remaining good eye, unable to stop cursing. "God damn it..."
After the Akimichi jōnin stayed behind to buy time and the two kenjutsu specialists fell first, as the squad's sole remaining taijutsu specialist, he naturally assumed frontline duties against those two iron sand clones.
But no one expected those clones' strength to be nothing like normal clones—they could even reconstitute after being shattered.
Sakura's left eye had been injured by flying iron sand then; both arms and right leg were broken. His career as a ninja was likely over.
Seeing Chiba Aya pause and look at him, Sakura reassured the somewhat bewildered girl: "Not you, keep going. Your medical skills are the best I've seen."
"It's okay, we all understand."
Miwa Sanenari, attempting to crack the two storage scrolls, offered comfort: "Once we're back, we'll see about healing your limbs. Lady Tsunade's medical ninjutsu is quite remarkable."
"Nothing to complain about. Compared to Maruyama and Megatō, I'm lucky."
Sakura's gaze swept across the battlefield's carnage, muttering: "If those two clones hadn't suddenly collapsed and disintegrated, I might not have made it back alive."
Maruyama and Megatō were the two kenjutsu specialists previously crushed to paste by Hii Kōri, not even leaving corpses.
Mentioning this, the squad's atmosphere sank.
"Gah... taijutsu can be fully inherited by clones, and with that recombination ability, it's really tricky. But that guy's Wind Release was absurd..."
Shimura Masumi, leaning against a tree trunk, rolled his eyes with a look of utter despair: "Nearly thirty years training Wind Release, and I was completely suppressed by a clone—couldn't do a thing. I'm so desperate."
Sakura glanced at him, couldn't resist complaining: "Oh come on, that Crimson of Agony guy is a Suna expert. It's a no-brainer that his Wind Release is better than yours. Besides, you were just suppressed—I got beaten from start to finish like a living sandbag."
Shimura Masumi merely touched the wound on his shoulder from wind blades and said nothing more.
Chiba Aya packed up her medical kit and stood, her gaze unconsciously drifting toward Katō Dan's physical body.
"Katō-senpai probably succeeded, right..."
She bit her lip and murmured, her eyes full of worry.
Everyone in the squad knew Chiba Aya had desperately trained in medical ninjutsu out of admiration for Katō Dan, and applied to transfer to this dangerous front-line squad.
"Ah... probably. Though Dan's soul should have returned, maybe he plans to control the Crimson of Agony and bring him back for interrogation."
Shimura Masumi laughed it off, offering this speculation.
After all, this collective infiltration mission was basically a complete failure. Capturing a powerful Suna combatant would somewhat make up for the losses. Given Katō Dan's character, it wouldn't be surprising.
Not expecting surrender, but Konoha had reliable procedures for intelligence extraction.
Just then, the sensor ninja on alert suddenly whispered: "Someone's coming—very unfamiliar chakra... but very faint."
Hearing this, the entire squad tensed.
"D-don't worry, it's me..."
From the dim forest came a voice full of dissonant pauses. Then a figure stumbled over thick tree roots and came into view.
A youth of about seventeen or eighteen, with red-and-white hair. He stiffly raised an arm, shaking the pitch-black mask—the one the 'Crimson of Agony' had worn earlier.
His chest and arms were covered in scrapes, as if scratched by trees on the way here.
"Katō-dono?"
Someone unconsciously spoke.
"I—controlled him, used up most of my chakra... but his... soul resisted fiercely, need to seal him first..."
The 'possessed' youth nodded, haltingly explained, then collapsed on the spot, looking quite exhausted.
Though everyone was surprised the Crimson of Agony was this young, the situation obviously didn't allow discussion.
After the sensor ninja confirmed this person's chakra was nearly depleted, several squad members helped him toward flatter ground, preparing to assist Katō Dan with sealing.
Chiba Aya was among them.
"Akimichi-senpai... how is he?"
After some hesitation, she found this topic to address 'Katō-senpai.'
"...Akimichi... fell in battle..."
Hearing this, Chiba Aya froze.
She distinctly remembered Katō Dan always called Akimichi Takashi by his given name, 'Takashi.'
Just as she was about to speak, she suddenly lost control of her body like a marionette.
Moments later.
"I've been benefited from this thing from start to finish..."
Hii Kōri extracted the keepsake pendant from the wound on his arm. While manipulating moisture to wash away blood, he draws chakra to restore, thus sighing.
Imperceptible to sensing, with almost no upper limit on energy storage such properties were far too convenient. The only flaw was impossibility to replicate.
But now, no one could respond.
Katō Dan's guard squad had all had their spines and brains invaded by Spirit Thread Nerves, transformed into his marionettes. Aside from their eyeballs, nothing could move.
Hii Kōri shrugged, one by one sealing their ability to refine chakra, while draining residual chakra into the pendant. As insurance, he severed their tendons.
Thoroughly ensuring their helplessness, Hii Kōri put the pendant back on. Then he approached Katō Dan's body, did likewise, took out the soul sealed in a sphere from his shadow, and stuffed it back into the body.
"Hello, Katō-kun? Can you see? Can you hear? Still awake?"
Casually pushing Katō Dan over and using his back as a cushion, Hii Kōri lightly patted his cheek. Getting no response, he grabbed that silver-gray hair and slammed his face into the ground several times, stopping only when he heard Katō Dan instinctively inhale.
"Now, I'll ask again. Will you hand over Spirit Transformation?"
"...Dream on..."
Two teeth knocked out, nose bleeding, Katō Dan's speech was slightly slurred but that didn't prevent maintaining this die-hard attitude.
"Fine."
Hii Kōri clicked his tongue, sighing dully. He tapped the ground with his heel; his shadow spread like a living thing, swallowing him, Katō Dan, and those 'standing' Konoha ninjas.
"Let me declare in advance—before extracting every bit of Spirit Transformation information from deep in your mind, I'll do anything except let you die."
This world was pitch-black in all directions, with no light source, yet everyone's figures were clear discernible. Hii Kōri lounged in a mass of shadow, his tone so bland one wondered if he even had emotions. If Nagato and the others were present, they'd recognize this as Hii Kōri's solitary working state.
As if consciousness is intimately connected, the shadow mass beneath him smoothly raised him, then surged beside Katō Dan, forming an appropriately sized table, before hanging Katō Dan from Spirit Thread Nerves.
"Simple torture is a kind of torture to me—mechanical labor. So I plan to use your body for something to pass the time. You don't mind."
Hii Kōri retrieved a large assortment of tools from the recovered storage scrolls, neatly arranged them on the table, and spoke slowly, word by word.
Hard to say if he genuinely thought this or merely applied mental pressure—but either way, Hii Kōri apparently wasn't really seeking Katō Dan's opinion.
Katō Dan's only response was silence.
"Good. Since you don't want to talk, don't."
Surging shadows like tentacles squeeze into Katō Dan's mouth, then solidified into immovable masses, preventing sound and vomiting from the impending agony.
In this pitch-black world, time itself seemed infinitely stretched.
The guard squad members, likewise suspended, remained controlled by Spirit Thread Nerves.
They could see, could hear, yet couldn't even blink—forced to watch Katō Dan repeatedly tortured with various tools, gradually transformed beyond recognition.
"Well? Anything to say now?"
Time unknown, Hii Kōri pinched his nose bridge and calmly asked Katō Dan—his limbs replaced with weapons, abdominal cavity stuffed with mechanisms, the whole person like a puppet.
"Hand over Spirit Transformation, and I'll let you die quickly, and spare your squad some suffering. That girl seems to admire you, doesn't she? Not good to drag her into suffering, is it?"
"...Aya... is also... Konoha's ninja..."
His lower face skin peeled, throat torn open, entire jaw and most of neck replaced with beast-maw construction, Katō Dan could no longer speak normally. But the vocal cords buried in his neck faithfully repeat his meaning.
"Hmm, good. I'll note that down—as a remark under 'The awakening of sacrifice deserves respect, but don't make sacrifice decisions for others' in my parenting manual."
Casually flicking several chakra threads, Hii Kōri unhooked the 'living puppet Katō Dan' from the rack and leisurely maneuvered him toward the suspended guard squad.
"Don't blame me—your captain 'did' this."
The infiltration mission had failed; the ongoing fighting couldn't stop.
Even worried about Katō Dan's squad, missing for three days, Tsunade—who had specially come to this front to counter Chiyo's poison—couldn't neglect her duties to search for them.
But encounters always come unexpectedly.
En route to another battlefield hit by Suna's new toxin, Tsunade suddenly smelled rich blood ahead.
Cautiously approaching, what met Tsunade's eyes was a scene seemingly deliberately crafted to depict the definition of 'cruelty.'
Crushed, snapped, torn, severed... flesh pieces Scattered randomly. And at the center of this hell, surrounded by several heads Tsunade found quite familiar, was—abdomen ripped open, various parts and cables, limbs seeming forcibly torn off, eye sockets only hollow, jaw torn away...
"...Dan?"
Katō Dan.
***
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