"Ah haa."
Tears pricked the corners of his eyes as Kotetsu Hagane yawned and tipped his head back. The sunset washed the sky in red, a slow current that looked ready to swallow the distant blue of the sea.
Even beauty goes stale if you stare at it every day.
"Is it time yet? I want to clock out," Izumo Kamizuki muttered. One eye on the sky, one shoulder on Konoha's rusted gate, he radiated boredom. His mild neat-freak tendencies had been cured by the monotony of gate duty.
"Five minutes," Kotetsu said without checking. He had looked a minute ago.
"Ugh."
They sighed in unison and kept watching the glow on the horizon. After the old gatekeeper retired and vanished to live his carefree life, the promised rotation never materialized. With manpower tight, it had been the two of them ever since.
Who knew when this would end.
"After we're off, come over for drinks and a few hands," Kotetsu perked up, the word cards scrubbing the sleep from his face.
"Drinks, yes. Cards, no," Izumo said. "You get carried away and we go half the night."
"Tomorrow is the weekend. What is the problem," Kotetsu grumbled, the itch already in his fingers.
Izumo let it slide and focused on the finish line. An all-nighter of cards with Kotetsu was worse than a workday. On his rare day off, he wanted to do nothing.
Beep beep beep.
The radio clipped to Izumo's belt shrilled.
They looked at each other and stood at once. Kotetsu's drowsy eyes snapped clear. Izumo straightened and thumbed the radio.
"Alert.
Three unidentified chakra signatures are breaching the village barrier. All three read as jonin. They are approximately one kilometer from the main gate. Hold the gate and delay the enemy.
Reinforcements are mobilizing and should arrive before the enemy reaches you."
Silence fell between the two gate guards.
"Main gate, copy."
"How long on reinforcements," Izumo asked, voice rough as he stared into the distance.
"At least three minutes."
Kotetsu narrowed his gaze. Down the dirt road framed by the blood-red light, three figures streaked toward the gate, each wrapped in flickering lightning like blades shot from a bow.
Reinforcements needed three minutes.
The enemy would arrive now.
Two special jonin would have to stop three jonin and hold for at least three minutes.
"Copy."
The indicator on the radio dimmed.
Two slender silhouettes stood before the gate.
"Izumo, that drink might have to wait," Kotetsu said.
"Can't be helped."
"Let's go."
"Right."
The glare of lightning rushed upon them. No more words. They drew kunai and ran to meet the storm head-on.
A roar, the clash of bodies.
Sparks fountained. A water dragon surged and tore at an ocean of thunder.
Behind them, Konoha under the setting sun drew breath. Lamps bloomed in the windows like stars.
At the same time, on the far side of the village.
Outside the eastern fence of Training Ground Zero.
Chuk chuk chuk.
Like a shredder chewing paper. Hundreds of kikaichū swarmed over the scroll, eating away the glowing, delicate formulae in seconds. The parchment dwindled in Shino Aburame's hand as he nudged his sunglasses with a middle finger. Pale larvae writhed from the shadows of his collar.
"Does she have anything else on her," he asked.
Hinata focused the Byakugan.
"Mm. A large pouch of powdered drug in the pack. A whistle in her left pocket. Perfume and money in the rear sleeve of the pack. Rations, water, medicines, and some winter clothes. There is poison hidden in a rear molar. Two short knives tucked at the edge of her boots."
Hinata rattled off the contents like a market list. Sawada Fuka's face went a shade darker. The Byakugan was vile. No wonder Kumogakure coveted it. She had never faced the Hyuga directly and finally understood that hunger.
She watched the scroll crumble in Shino's hand and felt despair open under her feet. The mission from Kumo had failed, and three jonin had died for nothing. Exposed in Konoha, she knew what waited for her. ANBU interrogation. A cell without end.
She thought of the old man she had locked in her own cage and clenched her teeth. She went to crush the poison in her mouth.
A white explosion burst in front of her without warning.
Hinata and Kiba flung up their arms against the glare.
When the brilliance faded, a towering ironwork silhouette stamped itself upon the world. Blue-violet arcs crawled over the air, sketching the outline into a human shape.
Shino, the only one who had not been blinded, lifted his chin to meet the gaze of the two-meter giant walking out of the light. The creature's shadow blanketed them.
An old man.
His short silver hair knifed upward like steel bristles. His body had the thickness of a hillside. Lightning clothed his skin like a mantle, muscles under dark brown flesh jumping like tangled roots in the shade of a banyan.
Hinata and Kiba blinked the dazzle away and finally saw him. Their legs carried them backward on instinct. They did not need to probe. The sight of that body alone struck the breath from their lungs. This was not someone they could handle.
"Dogs. Bugs. And the Byakugan. How familiar," the old man rasped, voice full of old memories.
He looked down on them as if from a cliff. Everything had changed, and nothing had, and the only thing that had lost to time was his own body.
"But we destroyed the scroll," Kiba stammered. The danger in the air was so thick it locked his joints. There are times when fear is so great even running takes courage. Turn your back to an enemy like this and your head will be off your neck in a heartbeat.
He did not dare run.
"It was only a coordinate transmitter," the old man said. He rolled his stiff neck. Even Lightning Release Chakra Mode could not erase the strain of Heavenly Transfer on flesh.
At least the plan was half a success. Use space-time to pierce the perimeter without tripping chakra detection. While Konoha reeled, seize the Nine-Tails and the Byakugan. Then blow the bone whistle, call down the elephant bird circling high above, and fly everyone out.
That was the whole of Kumo's plan.
He turned. Cables of muscle stood out at the nape of his neck, close to bursting. Lightning danced in his pupils.
"Yotsuki Isao," Shino said under his breath, naming the clan crest etched by lightning across the man's skin.
Isao's gaze settled on Sawada Fuka, who was still shaking.
"I have the Byakugan in sight. Now tell me where the Nine-Tails jinchuriki is."
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