"Good."
Tatsuya's voice was calm. Flat. Unshaken.
His expression remained unreadable—like water untouched by wind.
Sarutobi Shinnosuke gave a stiff nod and turned sharply, exiting the room with a face locked in quiet rage. His boots struck the polished floor of the Hokage building like war drums, echoing his frustration down the corridor.
Kurenai Yuhi, still seated nearby, shot up from her chair.
"I'll join as well," she said briskly, brushing back a lock of her raven-black hair.
She was a Jōnin. Of course she'd want in. But—
"Stay put."
Tatsuya's hand didn't move, but his tone stopped her cold. No anger. No raised voice. Just full authority.
"You've still got reports from the southwestern border patrol to complete."
"But—" Her lips trembled in protest, her red eyes widening slightly.
"No buts."
Tatsuya's gaze hardened just a fraction, a subtle edge cutting through his usual composure.
"Right now, I'm your commanding officer. You follow my orders. Clear?"
Kurenai bit her lip and sank back into her seat, frustrated but silenced. Her cheeks puffed slightly in childlike defiance—but no more words came. Her posture was stiff, her fingers clenching the edge of the desk.
Deep down, she knew he was right.
Still, she couldn't help it. In her mind, the inner dramatics kicked in, playing out like a theatre of betrayal.
"Tatsuya, you've changed! You used to smile more. Now it's all barked orders and cold decisions…!"
She buried the little voice in her head and returned to the stacks of intel reports on her desk.
Tatsuya didn't notice. Or at least, didn't show it.
His thoughts were already elsewhere—focused.
That expression on Shinnosuke's face wasn't frustration from being outmaneuvered in a meeting. It was dread. The kind of dread only certain names in the shinobi world could provoke.
And in this village, one name sat above all when it came to forbidden fear:
Orochimaru.
The Snake Sannin.
Even Hatake Kakashi once said there were only a handful of people in the world whose presence made chakra crawl the wrong way. Orochimaru was one of them.
And if that was the opponent... Kurenai staying behind wasn't a slight. It was protection.
Tatsuya wouldn't say it aloud, but he'd calculated the odds. She wouldn't make it out.
No point risking good people for sentiment.
---
Training Grounds – ANBU Staging Site
Five ANBU squads assembled, masked and ready.
Three under Shinnosuke. Kakashi's Eleventh. One more—Team Twelve.
None of the elite bloodline clans were present. No Hyūga. No Aburame. No Uchiha.
Tatsuya's eyes narrowed beneath his porcelain mask.
Too quiet. Too clean. Too convenient.
He glanced at the silent squads. Standard black ANBU gear. Customized weapons. Light chakra suppressors. But no scouts with Byakugan or sensory types with insects. None of the detection powerhouses.
Orochimaru's involved. No doubt.
Someone up top wanted this off the record. No clan interference. No loose tongues.
The Third wasn't covering up a rogue scientist. He was cleaning up the remnants of a decaying legacy. His own.
Tatsuya folded his arms, watching the silent squads prepare. His own team—what little of it remained—was still scattered on missions. Only Yuhi's squad, and Uzuki Yugao's backup team, were around.
They'd slow him down. He already dismissed them from this assignment.
Today wasn't for the hopeful or the inexperienced.
Today was for killers.
"Captain Tatsuya," one of the ANBU addressed, "are we—?"
"We move now," Tatsuya cut him off. "Regroup at the Hokage Tower."
"Yes, Captain!"
The next second, the entire force dissolved into the wind—vanishing from the training grounds with silent speed.
---
Hokage Tower — Rooftop Platform
Sarutobi Hiruzen stood waiting.
Combat gear donned. Monkey King Enma strapped across his back. His expression? Stone.
Tatsuya landed silently at the edge of the rooftop, joining the semi-circle of masked shinobi now kneeling before the Hokage.
Hiruzen's aged face scanned them. Not as a leader looking at subordinates. As a man counting the number of names he might write on tombstones tonight.
"Shinnosuke. Tatsuya." The Hokage's voice was cold steel. "Each of you will take a squad. You're with me. The rest—execute the instructions in the scroll. Monitor Root and the Uchiha District."
Heads nodded in silent affirmation.
"Root members are not to leave their compound. Uchiha shinobi are not to approach the eastern sector."
Tatsuya's eyes flicked sideways at that.
Root made sense. But Uchiha? That wasn't coincidence. The tension between the clan and the village elders had been simmering for months. Now it was showing cracks.
Two powder kegs. And one spark about to drop.
"Move."
Twenty masked shinobi blurred into motion, leaping from the rooftop, scattering like shadows at dusk.
---
Fifteen Minutes Later — Training Ground 44
The Forest of Death loomed before them.
A dense labyrinth of predatory chakra and twisted flora. It was a place that swallowed sound—and sometimes, shinobi.
Officially, it was a training zone for the Chūnin Exams.
Unofficially, it housed ruins of past experiments—buried infrastructure from Konoha's darker history.
And today, it was active.
BOOM.
A section of forest cracked, stone and root splintering as a team of ANBU cracked open the reinforced entrance of a hidden underground base.
The trees shook.
Birds scattered.
Tatsuya crouched on a high branch, observing everything.
This was no random discovery. This was a surgical strike.
Third Hokage landed behind the breaching team. "Status?"
"The barriers have been neutralized, Lord Hokage," said one ANBU—white cat mask, code-named Xiang.
"You can proceed."
"Good." Sarutobi gave a tight nod. "Xiang. Shinnosuke. Tatsuya—you three are coming with me."
"The rest of you: secure every possible exit. No one gets out."
His tone shifted, low and grave.
"The target is Orochimaru. The order is to capture—alive."
A wave of silent horror rippled through the squad.
Even under masks, you could feel it—the way their postures stiffened, fingers tightening on blades, shoulders pulling back just slightly.
Orochimaru. Alive.
They might as well have been ordered to leash a lightning storm.
Yet not one of them protested.
Not aloud.
Tatsuya's eyes slid toward Xiang. That name—he remembered it now.
A former personal bodyguard of the Fourth Hokage. An elite. But… not the reliable kind.
This was the same ANBU who, during the Konoha Honkai incident, gave battlefield commentary while his Hokage died inside a containment seal.
A "narrator" instead of a protector.
You really never know what kind of people survive the longest.
---
Interior — Secret Laboratory Entrance
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"
Hiruzen's chakra flared.
The tunnel lit up in orange and red as a massive sphere of flame erupted from his hands, blasting away the final barrier wall.
Smoke swirled in every direction.
"Move!" the Third barked.
He didn't wait for it to clear.
He stepped directly through the haze.
Tatsuya flung a tagged kunai into the doorway, marking his reentry point, and followed. Shinnosuke and Xiang entered behind him.
The smell hit them immediately.
Ash. Burnt flesh. Rotting chemicals. Old experiments left unfinished.
The corridor was tight, built of concrete and reinforced steel—not Konoha's usual stone.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, some flickering, others dead. This wasn't just a laboratory. It was a tomb.
A tomb with something still breathing inside.
And they were headed straight into its lungs.
Tatsuya moved carefully, fingers poised to draw. His chakra control was tight, minimized—almost indistinguishable from the stone itself. Not because he feared an ambush.
Because he expected one.
In this place, everything was a trap until proven otherwise.
---
Deeper Underground — Approaching Orochimaru's Chamber
The walls were etched with scrawlings—scribbles of chakra formulas, diagrams of human anatomy, scrollwork dense with illegible kanji.
Some of them were moving.
Not metaphorically.
They pulsed with chakra. Residual sealing tech? Or something worse?
"Don't touch anything," Tatsuya murmured under his breath.
His Sharingan wasn't active—he didn't have one. But his instincts were sharp. Experience sharper.
Ahead, the corridor opened into a chamber with dim violet lighting.
The air was thick with reishi. Not qi—chakra manipulated through forbidden means. Experimental, decaying.
The Third raised a hand. "This is it."
Then they heard it.
That voice.
Dry. Silken. Mocking.
"So the old man comes in person. And with such interesting company…"
A figure stepped from the shadows.
Long black hair. Pale skin like cracked porcelain. Snake eyes glinting.
Orochimaru.
Still smiling.
As if he'd been expecting them the whole time.
And somehow, Tatsuya knew—
He had.
---