If it had been hunter-nins, they would have held.
That truth settled over the settlement the moment the warning came—not as fear, but as assessment. Hunter-nins could be misdirected, delayed, or buried under terrain and patience. Hunter-nins followed a procedure.
This was not a procedure.
The first signal was subtle: a pressure in the air that did not belong to scouts. Chakra that didn't bother to hide because it didn't need to.
Shigen felt it and went still.
"…No," he murmured.
Aoi knew before he finished the thought.
Kushimaru's presence cut cleanly through the land—thin, precise, like a wire pulled taut across the valley. Jinpachi followed like thunder under stone, loud even when restrained.
Not hunters.
Executioners.
"They didn't send eyes," Shigen said quietly. "They sent endings."
There was no debate after that.
The elders moved as one.
Hidden routes opened all at once. Signals passed without sound—hand to shoulder, a nod, a touch of frost on bark that meant now. Women gathered children. Packs already prepared were lifted without panic.
The settlement began to empty like a tide reversing.
Shigen found Aoi by instinct, not sight.
"We're evacuating," he said. "All noncombatants. You're leaving with them."
Aoi shook her head immediately.
"No."
"Aoi—"
"They won't chase the children first," she said, breath steady despite the weight she carried. "They'll cut the head. They'll burn the ground. If no one slows them—"
"You're almost due," he snapped, fear breaking through his control. "You can't—"
"I can," she said firmly. "And I will."
Ice gathered at her feet without flaring—controlled, restrained. The land answered her the way it always had when she was resolute.
"You planned for this," she continued. "Routes. Delays. False centers. You planned for someone to stay behind."
Shigen's jaw tightened. "Not you."
Aoi stepped closer and took his hands, pressing them against her abdomen. For a moment, he felt the faint, undeniable movement beneath his palms.
"This is why," she said softly. "Because I know what I'm protecting."
The sound of distant movement reached them—metal whispering through fog.
Kushimaru was already close.
Shigen closed his eyes for a heartbeat, then opened them clearly.
"I'll buy time," he said.
"No," Aoi replied. "You coordinate the evacuation. If they lose cohesion, people die."
"You're asking me to leave you."
"I'm asking you to trust me."
That hurt more than fear.
They stood there for one more breath—just one—then Shigen nodded.
"Three layers," he said quickly. "You don't hold. You bend. You disappear before they adapt."
Aoi smiled faintly. "I know how to vanish."
He leaned in and rested his forehead against hers.
"Come back," he said.
"I will," she replied. "Just… later."
Shigen turned away because if he didn't, he wouldn't.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The evacuation flowed.
Children moved through ravines that looked like dead ends. Women passed into fog corridors that scattered chakra signatures into meaningless noise. Decoys activated—ice that looked panicked, loud, desperate.
Aoi became the opposite.
She stood where the land narrowed, where wire would need to sing, and explosions would echo wrong. She layered cold carefully—misleading, exhausting, delaying.
Not fighting.
Buying minutes.
Each step she took was deliberate. Each breath is measured.
Pain flickered once—low, insistent.
Not yet, she told herself.
The ground trembled as Jinpachi drew closer, laughter echoing too early.
Kushimaru's wire whispered through the fog, testing.
Aoi raised her hand.
Ice answered—not sharp, not lethal.
Just enough to say:
You will not pass quickly.
Far behind her, the last child vanished into the trees.
And Aoi stood alone—not because she was abandoned, but because this was the line she chose not to move.
Even as time pressed in.
Even as life within her waited.
Even as the world sent monsters to end a clan that had learned how to live.
She would hold.
Just long enough.