What does it feel like to be shot in the head by a sniper? At this moment, Hinami knew a thing or two about it.
The sharp, cold iron piercing her brow bone brought a bizarre, searing heat. Her brain secreted a massive amount of adrenaline to suppress the perception of pain, and memories of her past and present lives flickered by like a revolving lantern—noisy, complex, and overwhelming—leaving her spirit in a trance.
But soon, as the adrenaline ebbed, a violent pain surged through every inch of her tissue. A burning, twisting agony radiated from the center of her brows, as if a red-hot iron were rampaging through her body. The damage to her skull was particularly intense and persistent, feeling like it was being roasted over an open fire.
Is this how it ends? Is my thirty-plus years of life over just like that?
The searing pain and the impact on her brain left Hinami's consciousness wavering. Streaming blood dyed her vision crimson.
I don't want to die. I refuse to die!
A powerful sense of unwilling defiance seemed to fully awaken Hinami's survival instinct. Her ash-grey eyes suddenly flickered with a faint light, and the veins around her eye sockets bulged, like tree roots burrowing into flesh to drink deep of its nutrients.
The world before her suddenly became clear and transparent.
Countless memories and thoughts merged into a single intent. Her will to live grew like wild, iron thorns; her brain was activated by the intense pain, and amidst a deafening roar, a switch within her body seemed to flip open. Boundless strength surged from every corner of her being. Bone and muscle seemed to awaken with their own consciousness, fully revitalized.
Cr-crack...
A strange grinding sound echoed from within her skull, like boots treading on frozen snow or a terrifying beast chewing its prey with jagged teeth.
Before him were the girl's eerie, grey-white eyes; in his ears was the sound of bones shifting. The Anbu, whose legs were useless, instantly realized something was wrong. He tensed his muscles, shoving the kunai deeper into the brow of the strange girl before him.
But... it wouldn't go in.
As the enemy's eyes widened in shock, Hinami—her face covered in blood and a kunai protruding from her forehead—curled her lips. Her smile was distorted and terrifying.
Chakra flooded into her brow bone.
CRUNCH!!!
The kunai let out a shriek of overstressed steel. The hardened metal twisted and deformed. Then, under the horrified gaze of the Mist Anbu, the standard-issue steel kunai was snapped clean in half by Hinami's brow bone alone.
Clang.
The broken blade hit the ground with a crisp metallic ring.
"Mon... Monster..."
The Anbu pushed against the ground with his hands, retreating in terror. But with his legs ruined, he couldn't open any distance. He could only watch in fear as the monster in a girl's skin stood up straight.
Under the moonlight.
The girl raised her right hand in front of her face, her ash-grey pupils turning colder and more predatory behind her fingers. Pale white bone erupted from the tips of her fingers, narrowing and thinning into long, sharp edges. The thin layers looked like the sharpest scalpels in the world; a mere glance felt like it could pierce the eye.
The bone blades fully formed, transforming the girl's delicate, fair hand into a beast's claw.
The claws tore through the air. The Anbu instinctively threw his head back to dodge.
The grey eyes locked on, completely reading his movements. Without a moment's hesitation, the claws adjusted mid-air, sweeping horizontally in a calculated prediction that intercepted the moving head with precision.
Amidst a scream, the mask bearing the Mist symbol shattered. The handsome face of the unknown young man beneath it split apart as he collapsed powerlessly. A mixture of red and white stained the soil, adding yet another layer to the bloody mud of this place...
The night deepened. The clouds dispersed.
A heavy wash of moonlight bathed the ground, draping the fallen youth in a silver shroud.
"Huff... huff..."
Retracting the bone claws. Hinami, having survived the ordeal, collapsed onto the ground, panting. Her heart hammered against her chest like a frantic deer.
She pinched the bent fragment of the blade embedded in her brow and carefully pulled it out. Curiously, no blood followed. Chakra surged to her forehead, burning away like gasoline in a high-speed car's tank. Osteoblasts divided and multiplied at a frantic pace, repairing and filling the gap in her brow bone. The damaged skin crawled together; flesh, muscle, and blood vessels fused automatically, letting off a faint wisp of steam.
In the blink of an eye, the "vertical eye" in her forehead vanished without a trace, as if the horrific injury had been nothing more than a nightmare.
Hinami wasn't surprised by the abnormality of her body.
Shikotsumyaku. The bloodline limit of the Kaguya clan.
The ability to freely manipulate all the bones in one's body for defense or attack. Anything related to "bone"—osteoblasts, osteoclasts, calcium density—could be controlled without limit, allowing for the generation, decomposition, or hardening of bone. Since bones piercing through tendons and skin would normally cause trauma, the Shikotsumyaku also granted a rapid self-healing factor.
However, that was only a surface-level description. As a true Kaguya, Hinami understood her family's bloodline more intimately.
In her memory, the Kaguya clan called the ability to manipulate bone "Full Awakening," or "Stage Two." Healing injuries and simple manipulation of the flesh and body was "Stage One," or "Partial Awakening."
The Kaguya clan had been able to dominate through taijutsu alone because of this. They didn't rely on the rare Stage Two awakening that appeared once in decades, but on the Stage One state possessed by most adult clansmen.
The so-called Partial Awakening Shikotsumyaku: Bones as hard as steel, overdeveloped tendons, and the ability to unleash monstrous strength far beyond human limits regardless of self-damage. A powerful regenerative factor that allowed for quick recovery from non-fatal wounds. Automatic wound closure to prevent blood loss, providing maximum endurance in long battles. And finally, the infinite secretion of adrenaline that made one grow more excited as the fight went on—a combat instinct so strong one could continue fighting through muscle memory even after losing consciousness.
Every partially awakened Kaguya was a literal berserker, a blood-soaked demon who feared neither pain nor death.
It was exactly why this battlefield was so gruesome. Under the vast moonlight, most of the Kaguya corpses were so mangled they were unrecognizable. This wasn't due to someone's cruelty, but because the Kaguya were simply too skilled at fighting and too difficult to kill. Some fanatical Kaguya even viewed an intact corpse as a symbol of shame and weakness.
No wonder I didn't die.
Hinami's finger gently traced the smooth skin of her forehead. Looking down at the massive bloodstains on her chest, she finally understood how the original owner could survive a pierced heart. It seemed that after her past-life memories awakened, the Shikotsumyaku partially awakened during the life-or-death crisis, healing the stab wound.
It wasn't until she fought for her life just now and activated the Byakugan. The Shikotsumyaku seemed to be triggered by the Byakugan, fully activating and jumping straight into a Stage Two awakening, allowing her to harden her bone against the fatal thrust and kill her opponent.
Hinami struggled to her feet.
There is great terror between life and death; her limbs felt soft and weak. Though the kunai hadn't entered her brain, the sheer impact and kinetic energy had left her head spinning. She wanted nothing more than to lie down in the pile of corpses and sleep.
I can't sleep.
She slapped herself hard, the sting forcing her to stay focused. The half-digested Military Rations Pills in her stomach dissolved rapidly, and her dwindling chakra reserves found a second wind to fuel her movements.
She had just used the Byakugan to scan the area; the battle was nearing its end. The massive Anbu perimeter was shrinking toward the center, with numerous squads roaming the battlefields. Only the east had a gap torn through it.
Chakra flooded her Byakugan, the ash-grey pupils deepening in color. The trees blurred past as the world became transparent. In the ultra-long-range vision of the Byakugan:
Mist Anbu corpses, cloaked and masked, were piled like mountains. Groups of pythons as thick as barrels had left countless holes in the ground, and brightly colored venomous snakes slithered like tangled threads across the surface of the dead.
The culprit's identity required no words. Orochimaru had rescued Kimimaro and broken through from the east. If she wanted to escape the Mist's encirclement, this might be her only opening.
Suddenly. Numerous chakra signatures appeared in her field of vision.
The Byakugan shifted slightly, the grey pupils constricting. Half a mile away through the transparent forest, an Anbu squad of about a dozen people was sprinting toward Hinami's position. They were fast—approaching in just a few breaths.
Thud!
No time to see the details of the enemies, and certainly no time to run. Hinami collapsed instantly, burying her blood-stained face in the mud. The Shikotsumyaku activated rapidly, and her limbs went limp, twisting into a shape no normal human could achieve.
Unless one observed very closely for the slightest rise of her back, she was indistinguishable from a corpse.
She stayed silent for a long time.
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh!
A dozen Mist Anbu leaped down from the branches. Their masks varied, but they all wore the uniform Anbu attire. The leader had brownish-black hair and wore an O-Tengu mask. He wore the standard flak jacket but was draped in a cloak that completely concealed his frame.
Hinami kept her face buried. She pushed her Byakugan to the limit.
The masks, clothes, and even the skin and bone of the Anbu melted away. Large amounts of chakra within their pathways came into view: one Elite Jōnin, three Special Jōnin, and the rest were Chūnin. The power gap was too vast to fight!
Hinami held her breath, not daring to move a single muscle except for her eyes.
"Crow, Fox, Hound—you three stay and clean up the battlefield. If you find any Kaguya survivors, execute them on the spot. The rest of you, follow me."
"Yes!" Three ninjas answered in low voices.
The Anbu captain in the O-Tengu mask gave the order and turned to leave, the other Anbu following him in a flash.
Only three Chūnin remained on the field. One in a fox mask wore a hood; he was of medium build and had the most chakra. The ninja with the crow mask was thin with eerie grey-green hair. Beside them, the one in the dog mask was tall, nearly two meters, with blood-red hair as stiff as steel needles.
A turbid breath escaped slowly through her teeth. Hinami lay there, her lips twitching against the metallic-tasting mud.
Swoosh!
The Fox-masked Anbu raised his hand without warning. A glinting shuriken spun through the air, hurtling toward Hinami.
Hinami's eyelids flickered, but her body remained motionless.
Thwack—
The shuriken buried itself accurately into the chest of a corpse right next to her. It was so close she could feel the vibration of the blade entering the flesh.
"What's wrong, Fox?"
"Nothing. I thought I heard something over there."
The Fox ninja tilted his chin toward the Crow ninja in the center, signaling there was no need to be tense, then walked straight toward Hinami.
"Kaguya monsters are stubborn. Stay sharp," the Crow ninja warned.
"Don't worry~"
The ring at the end of a kunai spun rapidly on his fingertip like a top. The man in the Fox mask walked up to a Kaguya corpse. This person had been about the same age as Hinami—seven or eight years old—with limbs broken and twisted in the mud, face too bloody to tell their gender.
The spinning kunai suddenly stopped, lunging like a falling star into the chest.
Squish.
The kunai tore into flesh, drawing a spray of blood. The small body on the ground curled up, trembling; only the base of the broken limbs could move, the ends twitching powerlessly as they scraped the dirt. An unconscious whimper escaped the child's throat, sounding like a puppy with broken legs.
There are still survivors.
Hinami was startled. She had just searched that child for a kunai. The body had felt cold to the touch, and she thought the child was dead. She hadn't realized there was still a breath left.
But being alive was useless now.
The Fox Anbu formed a hand seal and steadily threw two more kunai. Once the target stopped making noise, he stepped forward, using his foot to flip the child's body over. He drove a kunai into the heart to finish the job, then reached into the clothes to search.
The other two ninjas, seeing no further surprises, moved to other corpses, driving kunai into hearts to ensure the kill.
Watching the ruthless Anbu drive cold steel into the chests of the fallen, Hinami's face darkened, her fingers digging deep into the mud.
She had barely survived and managed to kill one Anbu with her Shikotsumyaku, only to fall into another crisis. Damn it, the Medical Department's Corpse Processing Unit should be the ones handling bodies, why are these Anbu here?
What are they looking for?
Watching the three of them rummage through pockets, Hinami's mind raced, trying to find a sliver of hope in this desperate situation.
Seconds turned into minutes.
There weren't many intact corpses on the field. Since Hinami was very close to the previous body, the Fox Anbu soon turned his gaze toward her. Holding a kunai slick with thick black blood, he began walking over.
As the enemy drew closer and closer.
Hinami lay in the mud, her body tensing. Her limbs, stiff from staying still for so long, began to tremble slightly.
What do I do?