The lush forest had become a graveyard.
Leaves whispered frantic prayers in the wind as Mita and his squad tore through the underbrush, moving at desperate, breakneck speed. Branches slashed their skin, roots snatched at their feet, the world blurring past in dizzying streaks of green and shadow. But no matter how fast they moved, the darkness behind them followed — relentless, silent, hungry.
Tonight, the sky had written their deaths in blood and smoke.
Tonight, fate had not spared them.
Mita's lungs burned as he sprinted, thin frame shuddering with each ragged breath. His hands shook, his vision narrowed to a tunnel. Beside him, Gora grunted, his heavy frame crashing through the forest like a wounded beast. Ayano, fast and nimble, flitted ahead — but even she couldn't outpace what hunted them.
Above, the moon was a pale, broken coin, hanging in a bruised sky. Shadows dripped from the trees like oil. Somewhere in the vastness behind them, silent as the coming of a blade, the enemy approached.
The Dark Department.
Not even the land of Mist would unleash such a monstrous division. These were the killers of Konoha's black heart — shadows that gutted entire clans without leaving a trace.
And now they had been loosed upon three genin who thought they could be heroes.
---
Far from the Land of Earth — far from home — Mita remembered the cruel jokes they used to whisper:
"Closer to the abyss than the Mist is to advancement," Ayano would say with a wicked grin, mocking both themselves and the savage, half-feral Mist ninja they hated so much.
"Two in one," Gora would add, thumping his thick fingers against his chest.
But there was no place for jokes now. No cocky grins, no boastful songs. Only the metallic taste of fear on their tongues, only the heavy footsteps of death closing in behind them.
The mission to the Land of Fire had seemed simple. Infiltrate, gather intelligence, escape.
No one told them they would be hunted like animals.
No one warned them about the blood that would come.
No one said they would die screaming.
---
Three hours earlier.
The underground building was a rotting corpse of stone and wood, buried deep in the heart of the forest. A single kerosene lamp hung from a cracked beam, casting a feeble halo of light that barely pierced the gloom. Shadows danced on the walls, long and distorted.
Three figures hunched around a battered table, their outlines wavering in the smoke and heat.
Mita — sickly thin, with eyes too large for his gaunt face — leaned forward, whispering with the urgency of a man standing on a cliff's edge.
Opposite him, Gora — stocky and sweating, his heavy body trembling with suppressed fear — nodded stiffly.
And between them, Ayano — sharp-eyed, restless, her fingers twitching against the dagger at her belt — kept watch on the door.
They spoke in desperate, broken whispers about the supply routes they had uncovered, about the stolen maps, about the glory that would await them when they returned home.
Mita wanted to believe it.
He wanted to believe they were doing something meaningful.
But deep in his gut, the storm was already brewing. A whisper of warning.
Then — BOOM.
The world tore open.
The roof above them exploded inward in a shower of dirt and fire. The kerosene lamp shattered, plunging the room into choking smoke and screaming heat. Mita didn't think. He ran — a single, primal command overriding all else.
Gora sensed them first — the flood of killing intent crashing through the trees, suffocating the air.
Ayano cursed and bolted after them, silent tears cutting tracks through the grime on her face.
Outside, the forest groaned and writhed, trees cracking as the Anbu closed in.
They fled blindly into the night, hearts hammering, lungs burning, souls shivering in the cold gaze of death.
And all the while, behind them, the bloodlust grew thicker. Like invisible blades pressing against their spines.
---
They ran for two hours.
Two hours of agony, terror, and futile hope.
Two hours before the inevitable caught them.
---
They stopped as one, bodies moving in grim understanding, backs pressed together, forming a broken, desperate circle.
Around them, the Anbu emerged from the trees — shadows with blades, phantoms with red eyes and goat masks.
In the center of the clearing, a figure stepped forward.
The leader.
Black robes fluttered around him, and in his hand gleamed a katana as red as fresh blood. His mask — a cruel carving of a goat — tilted slightly as he regarded them like insects pinned to a board.
"Kill."
A single word.
Cold. Final. Absolute.
The other Anbu surged forward, movements mechanical, merciless. Death incarnate.
Mita's muscles froze. His mind screamed at him to move, to fight, to do something — but terror had rooted him to the ground.
Beside him, Gora raised a trembling kunai. Ayano lowered herself into a defensive stance, teeth bared in a silent snarl.
It didn't matter.
They were nothing but lambs before the slaughter.
And as the first blade cut toward him, Mita closed his eyes — and heard her voice.
---
Flashback.
The land of Earth stretched out in endless shades of gray and brown. Jagged mountains clawed at a pale sky. The ground cracked and wept dust with every footstep.
Hidden Rock Village — a fortress carved from stone and blood.
The day before the mission, Mita had stood at the edge of the village, staring out at the wasteland beyond. Beside him, Muthu leaned heavily against the wall, one hand pressed against her swollen belly.
"You shouldn't go," she whispered, voice raw. "Please... for us."
Her hair clung to her forehead, soaked in sweat. Her face was drawn, pale. She had fought too long, bled too much. The life inside her drained what little she had left.
Mita had dropped to his knees before her, pressing his forehead against her stomach.
"I have to," he said, voice hollow. "If I don't... they'll send someone else. Someone younger. Someone weaker."
Tears slipped from her eyes.
"Closer to life," she rasped, "brings you closer to death."
He had smiled then. A bitter, broken thing.
"I'd rather die out there," he said, "than rot away in here."
She had slapped him, weakly, feebly.
And he had kissed her hand, breathing in the scent of dust and blood and life.
"I hope my child doesn't live by the blade," he thought then, even as he stood and walked away, never looking back.
---
Present.
The blade found his throat.
A clean cut. Merciful, almost.
His last thought was not of fear.
Not of regret.
Only of a small, unborn child, growing in a world that devoured its children.
---
Ayano screamed — a wild, wordless shriek of rage — and lunged at the Anbu. Her blade scraped harmlessly off black armor. In one fluid motion, the Anbu leader caught her wrist and shattered it with a twist.
She collapsed to her knees, sobbing, broken.
Gora fought too — a clumsy, desperate struggle — but the red katana opened his gut with a single swipe, spilling his life onto the roots of the forest.
The Anbu wasted no time.
They drew black scrolls from their sleeves, sealing the bodies with a flick of chakra, the parchment drinking in the blood, the flesh, the memories.
Not even ashes would remain.
Mita's severed head was scooped into a scroll like garbage.
Ayano's shattered body was folded away like a piece of broken pottery.
The intelligence they had bled and suffered for — gone.
Their lives — meaningless.
---
The forest was silent once more.
Only the creak of the trees bore witness to their end.
Above, the moon turned its face away, shrouding the massacre in deeper darkness.
---
Somewhere Else.
In the Hidden Rock Village, Muthu woke screaming, clutching her belly.
In her dream, the earth split open and swallowed the sun.
In her dream, her child cried and cried, but no one came.
In her dream, the blade hovered over the crib — cold, patient, inevitable.
She wept until her throat was raw, knowing deep down that she would raise the child alone.
That the world had claimed another soul.
---
The Goat-Masked Anbu.
He lingered after the others left, standing alone in the clearing, staring at the blood-soaked earth.
Somewhere deep inside him, a memory stirred — of another forest, another life, another mission where he had not been the executioner, but the prey.
He crushed the thought ruthlessly.
There was no place for weakness here.
Only duty.
Only death.
Only the endless hunger of the village that demanded blood and sacrifice.
He turned and vanished into the night, leaving nothing behind but the faint scent of burnt paper and spilled life.
---
3:31 AM, Forest of Hollow Graves.
The forest shivered.
The wind shifted, carrying whispers through the trees.
And somewhere, deep beneath the roots, something ancient stirred — a thing that fed on death, on sorrow, on forgotten names.
It smiled.
The world would burn soon enough.
And the blood of three forgotten genin was only the beginning.