**Abandoned Textile Factory – Night**
The antiseptic burned worse than the wound.
I bit down on a strip of leather as Konan pressed the soaked cloth against my ribs, her fingers methodical. Around us, the orphans slept fitfully, their breathing uneven in the damp air. Only little Sora remained awake, his wide eyes reflecting the single candle's flame as he watched us.
"You're lucky it didn't puncture your lung," Konan muttered. She tied the bandage tighter than necessary, making me grunt.
Before I could retort, a weak voice cut through the dark.
"That technique…"
Yuriko sat propped against the wall, her fever-glazed eyes fixed on Konan. "Your paper… where did you learn that?"
The room went still.
---
### **The Fever Breaks**
Yuriko's hands trembled as she reached into her frayed kimono. What she pulled out wasn't medicine, but a photograph—yellowed at the edges, showing three children standing before the Amegakure orphanage.
I recognized them instantly.
*Younger Yahiko. Nagato. And—*
"You trained with Jiraiya," I blurted.
Konan's head snapped toward me. Yuriko's breath hitched.
The old woman's next words sent ice down my spine:
"Hanzo burned that orphanage to the ground the day after they left."
---
### **Hanzo's Shadow**
Two days later, the patrols changed.
Where there had been two Iwa-nin circling the factory district, now there were four—and they moved differently. Slower. More deliberate.
"They're searching for something," Konan observed from our rooftop perch.
I didn't say what we both knew. *For us.*
The black-market trader's body had been found floating in the canals, his fingers broken one by one. Someone had talked.
As if sensing my thoughts, Konan placed a hand on my wrist. Her palm was cool despite the humid air.
"We need to move Yuriko."
---
### **The Paper Trail**
That night, Konan's origami reacted on its own.
The tiny crane she'd folded from a medicine wrapper suddenly jerked to life, its wings beating frantically before darting toward the factory's broken skylight. We chased it across three rooftops before it disintegrated in a burst of chakra—right above a hidden cellar entrance.
Inside, buried under rotted floorboards, we found them:
Scrolls.
Not just any scrolls—*Jiraiya's* scrolls.
Konan's fingers hovered over the familiar handwriting. "This… this is a fuinjutsu array for—"
The distant howl of a summoning beast cut her off.
Somewhere in the rain, Hanzo's forces were on the move.
---