Hidden Leaf, Hidden Talents 108 (Patreon)

There's something deeply unfair about people who are good at staring. I've thought about this a lot, actually, and I've come to the conclusion that the ability to maintain eye contact without blinking is one of those skills that the universe distributed completely at random, with no regard for who actually deserved it.

Some people got it and became great leaders, inspiring confidence with a single gaze across a crowded room. Others got it and became great interrogators, breaking hardened criminals with nothing but silence and two unblinking eyes. And then there are people like Sakumo, who apparently got it just so they could sit on a log with twelve stab wounds and make a perfectly healthy medical ninja feel like he was the one who needed treatment.

Normally, I don’t mind a little back-and-forth staring. It’s not that I’m shy, I can hold my own in a normal convo. But there’s a massive gap between someone looking at you and someone looking through you. Sakumo’s been doing the second one for ten minutes straight now, and it’s getting weird. It’s hard to keep a straight face when you can feel someone’s eyes trying to read the serial number on the back of your skull.

I kept my eyes locked on his chest while my hands started glowing that familiar shade of green.

"Okay, let’s see what we’re working with here," I said, trying my best to keep my voice casual. "You’ve got two fractured ribs on your left side, and luckily they’re both clean breaks. There’s also a hairline fracture on the third rib. You’ve got a deep cut across your right forearm with some muscle damage, though it looks like the tendons are fine. That puncture wound through your left shoulder missed the joint, but it definitely nicked the deltoid."

I paused for a second when my chakra brushed against something that definitely didn't belong there. A tiny grain of black sand was sitting just under the skin of his bicep. I pried the skin open with a little more chakra, guided the fragment back out the way it crawled in, and caught it in my palm as it slipped free.

"You also have iron sand fragments embedded in... well, pretty much everywhere. The wound through your calf went deep, but the bone is still intact, so you got lucky there. You have bruising across most of your torso, which looks pretty bad, but it’s actually not as serious as the other injuries. The internal bleeding was minimal, and I have already taken care of that…"

I moved up to his shoulder, then worked my way back down to his forearm. After that, I circled back to his ribs, mostly because ribs take forever to knit back together, but also because they aren't anywhere near his face.

His face, which was still staring at me.

"The thing about these iron sand particles is that they’re incredibly fine, so they’re a little tricky to deal with," I muttered, doing my best to sound like a guy who definitely wasn't dodging eye contact. "I’m pulling them out one at a time. It takes a bit longer this way, but it’s much cleaner than trying to flush them all out at once. The ribs are going to take the longest. I can speed up the bone knitting, but you'll want to avoid anything too strenuous for a few days while they finish setting. Your forearm and shoulder should be fully closed within the hour, no scarring. The calf wound—"

"Shinji."

I stopped talking.

His voice was calm. It was actually pretty gentle, like he was talking to a skittish animal and didn't want to spook it.

"You’re doing a great job healing my ribs, but you’ve been avoiding my face like it’s on fire," he said. "Is something bothering you?"

I finally looked up.

He didn’t look pissed or suspicious. He just had that look you give a friend who's obviously going through it but isn't ready to talk. Which, for the record, was the absolute worst way he could’ve reacted, because I had no idea how to handle someone being that decent without an ulterior motive.

"I..."

The word just hung there for a moment, not really going anywhere.

Sakumo shook his head. "It’s fine. You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Shinji."

I blinked.

"And it's not a bad thing for a shinobi to keep an ace or two up his sleeve," he said. “The ones who survive longest are usually the ones with cards nobody else knows about."

This… This man is a straight-up saint!

The thought hit me before I could even try to block it, and a grin spread across my face just as fast.

"Sakumo-san, you’re the goat. I knew you’d get it."

He blinked. "The... goat?"

"Greatest of all time," I said. "It's a compliment."

"Ah." He didn't look any less confused. "Thank you?"

I was beaming, a wide smile that you can't fake and definitely can't fight. This guy, who’s a total legend, just watched me blast a Kage across the woods with some kind of invisible force, and his only take was that everyone’s got secrets and it’s no biggie. If the rest of the village had even a tiny bit of the basic human decency that Sakumo’s got, the world would be a much better place.

Honestly, I’m so glad I killed Danzo. I’d bet anything that he was the one behind everything. The whispering, the rumors, turning the entire village against this man piece by piece until the man chose a knife over another morning. Whatever sick reason he had for it, I’m just glad he’s gone.

I looked at Sakumo’s beat-up, exhausted face and just thought, Yeah. Taking out that old bastard was worth every bit of the headache.

He let out a quiet breath. "I’ll admit, I’m curious. Anyone would be." He paused for a second. "But I won’t pry."

My grin got even wider. This guy. This absolute—

"Though I’m not sure the others are going to feel the same way."

The grin dropped off my face like someone cut the strings.

Yep.

He was talking about Sensei. Tsunade wouldn’t buy any version of 'please don’t pry.' She’d pry that info out of me the same way she prys apart enemy lines, with overwhelming force, and no amount of squirming on my part would slow her down. And Orochimaru? He might actually be worse. He’d just sit there with those creepy yellow eyes until I started blabbing just to kill the awkward silence.

I was still chewing on that lovely thought when Sakumo added, almost like it was no big deal, "Especially since it seems like it’s got something to do with your eyes."

My face froze.

Everything froze. My hands stopped glowing. My expression locked in place. I’m pretty sure my heart stopped for about half a second, which was medically concerning but felt about right for the moment.

‘How did he—‘

Sakumo caught my glitching expression and, for the first time since I'd met the man, he actually laughed. Totally at my expense, too.

"Don’t look so shocked," he said, still chuckling. It felt like he'd been waiting for this, like watching me malfunction was the highlight of his week. "You’ve got a henge running on your eyes and nowhere else. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together."

"..."

I just stared at him.

He stared right back, looking way too amused.

Damn it. I can’t believe I missed something that simple.

It was so obvious now. The Henge was only on my eyes. Everything else on my face was just me, no chakra, nothing. Any shinobi with actual training who looked at me would spot the difference in a heartbeat. Okay, maybe a chunin wouldn't catch it, but that's a pretty low bar to hide behind, and it didn't make me feel any better. Since Sakumo is an S-rank nin, he probably noticed within the first two minutes.

I sat back on my heels and let the medical chakra fade out of my hands. The smile was long gone, replaced by the look of a guy who just realized he screwed up big time.

"I wonder," I said slowly, rubbing my forehead, "if Tsunade-sensei already noticed."

Sakumo tilted his head. "...Probably not?" It came out like a question. Like even he didn't believe the words coming out of his own mouth.

My eyes lit up anyway. "Really? You think so?"

He looked at my hopeful face for about two seconds, then sighed. "No. I’m sorry. She definitely noticed."

I let out a sigh from somewhere deep in my lungs and rubbed my face with both hands. The sound I made was somewhere between a groan and a prayer for the ground to just open up and swallow me.

Of course she noticed. This is Tsunade we’re talking about. A henge sitting on my eyes and nowhere else would be like a signal fire to someone with her level of perception.

"So," Sakumo said, pulling me out of my spiral, "if you don't mind me asking. Is it a bloodline limit? Something that awakened recently?"

I opened my mouth. The words "yes, exactly, that’s what it is" were right there on the tip of my tongue, ready to go. It would've been the easiest lie in the world. Bloodline limits show up all the time, sometimes in people who didn't even know they were carrying the genes. It would explain the eyes, the henge, everything, and nobody could easily prove me wrong without doing a ton of tests and a deep investigation.

But something stopped me. It was a feeling in my gut. Not a solid thought or logic, just a quiet, nagging feeling saying that was the worst possible answer I could give right now.

I didn't know why. I couldn't really put a finger on the reason. But my gut had kept me alive through a major war, several assassination attempts, and one really unfortunate incident involving a demon and a poop prank, so I wasn't about to start ignoring it now.

Kekkei genkai is out. What about sealing? I could say the eyes were some seal-based power-up. Kushina’s been teaching me Uzumaki fuinjutsu, and there are plenty of theories about seals that can change the body. It wasn't totally impossible.

Except for the fact that while I’m decent at sealing, I’m nowhere near the level where "I invented a seal that changes my eyes" would sound even remotely believable. Kushina would laugh right in my face. And the follow-up questions would never end. How does it work? Show us the formula. Can you do it again? Every question would just be another thread to pull until the whole thing fell apart.

Nope. That's out.

Every single excuse I came up with either had a massive hole in it or was definitely going to snowball into a much bigger mess later on. Then it finally clicked. I was sitting on the world’s most convenient scapegoat, and I’d been too busy panicking to even notice. Why should I bother inventing some story when I had a perfectly good demon sealed inside me who already got the credit for every unexplainable thing I did?

Sorry, Moryo, but you’re about to take one for the team.

I took a breath, dropped my hands from my face, and looked Sakumo right in the eye.

"It’s from Moryo," I said. "The demon," I added, though I was pretty sure he didn’t need me to clarify that part. Everyone on this squad knew about Moryo. It wasn't a secret, especially not among the people who’d been fighting alongside my clone army for weeks. "Being a jinchuriki comes with certain perks, or side effects, or whatever you want to call them." I gestured vaguely at my own face. "This is just one of them."

It wasn’t a lie, which was the beautiful part of the whole thing. Moryo was real, and the seal was real too. The connection between the demon and my abilities was already documented and verified by both Tsunade and Orochimaru. If anyone decided to check, they’d find a trail of breadcrumbs that all pointed in exactly the right direction.

Was it the whole truth? Not even close. The Rinnegan had absolutely nothing to do with Moryo. But good misdirection doesn’t need a complicated story. You just point at something real and let everyone’s imagination do the rest of the work.

"That’s from the demon?" he asked.

"Yep, it’s a gift from the tenant," I said.

"Hm." He nodded like I’d just told him what I had for breakfast. "Useful demon."

And that was it. That was the entire interrogation. I’d prepared a whole defense, and the jury didn’t even bother sitting down.

I grabbed the tweezers and got back to the tedious work of digging iron sand out of his shoulder. While I was at it, I started patching the hole Sakumo had just poked in my cover. I laid down a thin wash of henge, spreading it evenly across my whole body, face, arms, chest, legs, everything. It wasn't actually changing anything about the way I looked. It was just sitting there, humming quietly and doing absolutely nothing useful except existing.

Before, anyone with decent perception would’ve spotted those two little dots of chakra parked right on my eyes like a pair of flags. Now, all they’d find is a uniform layer of nothing-in-particular from head to toe. It’s a lot less interesting that way. And it’s definitely a lot harder to start asking questions about.

Now I’ve just gotta figure out what the hell I’m gonna tell Sensei.

I yanked another grain of iron sand out and flicked it into the dirt.

The healing went on for another ten minutes before I pulled my hands back. His ribs were still cracked, his calf was basically held together by pure willpower, and I hadn't even touched the iron sand buried in his back. But we'd been sitting there for a good chunk of time, and not a single teammate had come looking for us.

Ten minutes of dead silence. No Tsunade, no Orochimaru... nobody at all.

That silence really told me everything I needed to know about our situation.

"That’s gonna have to be enough for now," I said, pulling my hands back and letting the green glow die out. "You good to move?"

Sakumo was already on his feet before I even finished the question. He tested his weight on the bad leg and gave me a nod. "I can run."

So we ran.

Meanwhile, I had my radar running on full sweep, painting everything within six kilometers in my head like a real-time GPS. For the first few minutes, it was quiet. Just us, two dots moving south through a forest that smelled like blood and charcoal.

Then the first blips popped up, clustered tight and moving west at a solid clip.

"Hold up a second," I said, slowing my pace down. "I've got three squads on my radar. They're about four kilometers northeast of us, and they're heading west."

Sakumo glanced over. I could tell he wanted to ask how I suddenly had sensor abilities on top of everything else, but the man had already seen me blast a Kage through the trees thirty minutes ago. At this point, one more unexplained talent was probably just another Tuesday for him.

"How many per squad?" he asked.

"Twelve each. So, thirty-six total," I replied.

He frowned. "That's... a lot of people."

I was about to say something when more signatures started bleeding into my range. Two extra squads, trailing behind the first three, all pushing in the same direction.

I clicked my tongue. "Make that five squads. Two more just showed up behind the first group. They're all heading west."

Sakumo's frown deepened. "West... That doesn't make sense. Our main force should be keeping them pinned down in the east. If they were reinforcing the Kazekage, they're heading the completely wrong way."

"Right? That’s what I’m saying." I scratched my chin while we ran. "They’re definitely not looking for us. And with them heading due west... are they actually retreating back to Wind Country?"

Sakumo shook his head slowly. "A retreat doesn't make sense either. They wouldn't pull back without a direct order from the Kazekage himself."

"Which is exactly why it's so weird," I muttered. "We literally just killed the guy. Like, less than half an hour ago. There's no way the news already got out to the front that fast. It's not like we sent anyone a memo or anything."

But that was a problem for later. There's definitely something going on, but right now isn't the time to sit around playing detective in the middle of a warzone.

"So, should we just ignore them?" I asked.

Sakumo didn't even hesitate. "Yes. Engaging them would just be unnecessary combat. We don't have any secondary objectives, and trying to fight five squads in our current condition would just be reckless.”

I couldn't argue with that logic. The Kazekage was dead, the job was done, and hunting down sixty of his employees on the way home was basically volunteering for unpaid overtime. Hard pass.

So we took the long way. I mapped out a path that swung wide around those five squads, giving them plenty of space while keeping us moving south. Sakumo followed my lead without asking a single question, trusting my radar to keep us in the clear.

But the further south we ran, the more blips kept popping up on the edge of my range, all flowing west. It wasn't just those five squads. It was dozens of signatures, all drifting in the same direction like a current. Interesting, but irrelevant. Whatever Suna was doing with their grand exit could wait. Our teammates couldn't. People who abandon their friends are worse than trash, or whatever that saying is. I'm pretty sure I heard it somewhere.

"I still can't pick up our team on my radar," I said, and honestly, it was starting to get a little worrying. "That means they're at least six kilometers out. Sakumo-san, do you have any idea where the others would go to regroup?"

He shook his head. "Not without knowing how far the fighting pushed them." He went quiet for a second before adding, "They wouldn't've evacuated, though. Not without confirming the mission was complete first."

I wanted to tell him that maybe staying alive should come before double-checking anything, but we’re talking about Tsunade and Orochimaru here. I can't see either of them ditching their teammates. Danzo? Sure. Danzo would've been halfway back to the village by now. But those two? Zero chance.

So they were still out there somewhere. Still fighting. And they were still way too far away for me to find.

"Where should we search?" I asked.

"Southeast," he said. "The contingency plan was for the others to pull the enemy's attention away from us and the Kazekage if things got messy. Tsunade and Orochimaru would've led them south, then kept going east to draw in even more squads from that direction. The further they run, the more enemies they'll attract, and the more time that buys us to deal with the Kazekage. That was the idea, anyway.”

"Ooh..." I raised an eyebrow. "So they were kiting them?"

Sakumo looked at me like I’d just started speaking in tongues.

"It's when you run away from enemies but keep shooting at them so they follow you instead of your teammate. You take all the aggro on yourself. That's the enemy's attention. And while they're busy chasing you, your partner goes and finishes the job."

The blank stare just got worse.

"Don't worry about it," I said, waving it off. "It won't be invented for another few decades."

"What?"

"So basically they ran... southeast? Dragging as many Suna squads as possible away from us?"

He decided to just ignore whatever I’d just said. "Yes. And given the number of hostiles in the area, they would've attracted more and more forces the further they went."

"That's insane." I blurted out before I could even think to filter my words. "That means they're out there somewhere right now, running from God knows how many squads just to keep the heat off a mission that's already finished. They don't even know we already smoked the Kazekage."

"…Correct."

That was all I really needed to hear. We immediately picked up our pace.

The forest started telling the story of what went down while we were headed south. The first body was one of the elite jonin, flak jacket ripped wide open, blood soaked into the dirt. Sakumo took one look at the guy’s face and didn't even slow down. I did the same.

We found the Hyuga thirty meters further south. His Byakugan was still open, just staring at nothing. He had a massive gash across his chest, he'd clearly been swinging until the very end.

The second elite jonin was another three hundred meters past that.

It wasn't exactly a surprise, war leaves bodies everywhere, but knowing that in the abstract and actually stepping over them are two totally different things.

We kept pushing southeast, dodging the enemy squads still hanging around the area. Most were headed west like the rest, but a few were still prowling. We looped around every contact because stopping to throw hands would just eat up more time.

Then, my radar finally caught something.

Two signatures lit up on the southeast edge of my six-kilometer limit. Heavy hitters, both of them. One was burning bright and angry, like a furnace running way too hot. I'd know that signature anywhere. That was Sensei. The other was oily and dense, something that made your skin itch just by existing on your radar. That had to be Orochimaru.

They were alive.

The relief lasted for about half a second. Because they weren't alone. I started tallying the signatures swarming around them. One squad. Two. Three. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Roughly a hundred and eight people. And those were just the ones inside my bubble. The way they were spread out, trailing off toward the eastern edge of my range, told me there were probably way more outside of it.

How many more? I didn't know, and I wasn't trying to guess, because every number I came up with was worse than the last.

Sensei. Hang on. We’re coming.

…

-Dan Kato-

Three hours before Shinji's blade found the Kazekage's throat, Dan Kato was standing in a tent that smelled like wet canvas and old sweat, the signature scent of every forward base he'd ever been stuck in.

He'd been listening to Shikaro Nara break down troop movements for almost ten minutes on a field map so cluttered with pins and notes it looked more like a conspiracy board than a battle plan. Three colors for confirmed spots, two for guesses, one special shade for the positions Shikaro had just made up to mess with the enemy's head.

But the actual result? It was a work of art. Dan had to give the guy that much.

Shikaro Nara had somehow scrambled Suna’s chain of command. Dan didn't quite grasp how he'd done it, the explanation was full of fancy terms like "information decay" and "cascading uncertainty," featuring a diagram with fourteen arrows all pointing at one another, but he couldn’t argue with the outcome. Half of Suna’s western force had just stopped functioning like a real army.

And the craziest part? Sakumo's assassination squad hadn't even made contact with the Kazekage at that point.

The Kazekage was still alive, still breathing, still giving orders, and his army was already falling apart around him because Shikaro Nara had made them ‘believe’ he wasn't. All Suna knew was that something was very, very wrong, and their Kage wasn't answering.

The result was exactly what Shikaro wanted. Half the enemy force stayed locked in their positions, afraid to move without orders. The other half cracked like an egg, splitting between those who tried to reinforce the Kazekage, those who started pulling back toward Wind Country, and a handful who simply broke and ran for the border. That day, the Nara clan head had turned the largest standing army in the western theatre into a disorganized mess.

It was genius. It was ruthless. And the side effect was going to get Tsunade killed.

Because all those panicking squads? All those Suna nins scrambling to find their Kage, to reinforce him, to retreat toward him? They were flooding the exact area that Tsunade and Orochimaru are using for their operations and escape route.

Shikaro's well aware of this. Dan watched him trace a line across the map with one long finger, following the path of Suna’s messy withdrawal, and saw exactly where it ran into Sakumo’s last known location. The Nara’s face didn't even twitch. He just moved to the next pin and kept right on talking.

Dan watched Senju Minoru's fingers tighten around the table. The commander clearly wasn't thrilled about the Nara's plan either, but Minoru knew a sound strategy when he saw one, even if he hated the cost.

When the silence came, Dan decided to fill it.

"I'd like to volunteer for extraction duty," he said. "The assassination squad is going to need a way out once the job's done. Please, let me take a squad and bring them back safely."

Every head in the tent turned his way. Shikaro’s dark eyes found him for a brief moment, and then the Nara gave a single nod, like Dan's request was the least interesting thing on his map today.

It wasn't a lie, exactly. Sakumo definitely would need extraction support. The part Dan was conveniently leaving out was that his interest in that sector had very little to do with Hatake Sakumo.

Senju Minoru's eyes flicked to him for just half a second, and a brief look of appreciation crossed the old man's face. Everyone on this side of the war knew how Dan felt about Tsunade. Dan had never been subtle about it. Minoru, to his credit, had never once tried to nudge his niece in Dan's direction either. The old man seemed content to let things play out naturally, which Dan respected, even if it meant he was on his own.

"Approved. You have my permission,' Minoru said. He said it so fast, it was like he'd already made the decision before Dan even finished asking. He didn't even bother to ask for Shikaro’s opinion, which Dan found quite interesting. The commander had been deferring to the Nara on every tactical decision for days, so it was nice to see that even a man like Minoru had a line where the chess game stopped and family started.

"Take twelve men. Make it a light squad so you have plenty of speed. Your objective is to locate and help the withdrawal of any surviving members of the assassination squad," he stopped for a second. "If the Kazekage is dead by the time you arrive, confirm the kill and pull everyone out. If not..." He paused again, longer this time. "...use your best judgment."

Dan gave a salute and turned on his heel, stepping out into the grey light of an afternoon that smelled like smoke and distant rain.

He didn't head straight to the assembly point. Instead, he swung by his quarters first, a rough timber box that barely counted as a room, and grabbed his pack from the corner. He'd packed it that morning, before he even knew Tsunade was in any danger. Dan always packed early. He'd figured out a long time ago that being ready was usually the only thing separating the people who came home from the people who didn't.

He reached into the inner pocket of his flak jacket and pulled out a small, slightly worn photograph.

A little girl's face looked back at him, showing off round cheeks and a cute, gap-toothed smile. That was his sister, back when she was eight and the biggest problem in her life was brushing her hair, which she refused to do, hence the short cut. In the photo, she was proudly holding a frog—a big, ugly brown thing she'd caught in the creek behind their house and named "Lord Ribbit." She'd had a daughter of her own before the war took her. Dan sometimes wondered if little Shizune had inherited her mother's talent for catching frogs.

Dan pressed his thumb against the photo's surface, right over that silly grin. He couldn't change the world. He knew that. He wasn't a Nara who could win wars with a map and a bluff, and he wasn't a Senju princess who could put a dying person back together with glowing hands. But he could make sure that what happened to her never happened to anyone else's little sister. A medic on every squad. That was the promise he'd made to this photograph, and he intended to keep it.

"I'll be back, sis," he said quietly. They're the same words he says every single time.

He tucked the photo back safely against his heart and walked out.

…

They covered ground fast, and for good reason. Dan's squad was hand-picked specifically for their mobility. It was twelve chunin and jonin who could maintain a hard sprint for hours without totally burning through their reserves. There weren't any heavy hitters or ninjutsu specialists among them, instead they focused on speed, stamina, and having enough combat sense to survive a bad situation long enough to actually get out of it.

At least, that was the theory.

In reality, the western front was a total mess. Shikaro's bluff had worked a little too well, it seemed. The forest was absolutely crawling with Suna shinobi, most were confused, some were panicking, and a handful were angry enough to attack anything wearing a Konoha headband the second they saw it. Dan's squad ended up dodging four separate squads in the second hour alone.

By the third hour, they started seeing real signs of fighting. There were broken branches, scorched earth, and bodies that still had some warmth in them. It was pretty clear they were on the right trail.

Then, by the fourth hour, Dan's sensor finally picked up on Tsunade.

"I’ve found them! They’re to the southeast of here, but there's a huge crowd of hostiles around them—more than eighty!"

Dan’s jaw tightened. Eighty enemies against just two people. Even if those two happened to be Tsunade and Orochimaru, eighty is a number that just wears you down eventually. You could be the strongest person in the world, and eighty opponents would still grind you into dust if you gave them enough time.

"Double time, everyone!" Dan ordered, and he was already racing ahead before the words even left his mouth.

They found them twenty minutes later, and Dan’s heart just sank at the sight.

Tsunade and Orochimaru were running, and it was obvious they’d been at it for a really long time, and it was starting to show. Tsunade had this nasty, half-healed gash along her left arm that she’d clearly had to abandon mid-treatment, simply because stopping would’ve meant getting overrun. Orochimaru was moving a lot slower than he usually would, every flicker he made was just a bit shorter than the one before. Right behind them, the forest was absolutely crawling with Suna ninjas. They were like a rolling wave of bodies that couldn't quite catch two elite shinobi, but they didn't actually need to. All they had to do was keep up the pressure until exhaustion did the heavy lifting for them.

Dan took all of this in with one glance. But what stopped him was Tsunade's face. She was mid-leap between branches when her eyes found his. Blood in her hair, dirt on her jaw, and a gash still bleeding down her arm. But her whole expression just lit up. It only lasted a second, but that one second made the entire trip worth it.

"Dan!" She landed on his branch, and she was close enough that he could see the sheer exhaustion in her eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"Hime, I’ve brought the extraction squad," he told her, trying his best to sound more confident than he actually felt. "We’re here to get you guys home."

Tsunade glanced over at his squad and then back at the literal wall of enemies closing in behind her. Dan watched the relief just drain right out of her face. He knew exactly what she was thinking, mostly because he was thinking it too, adding his squad to this mess didn’t make the odds better. It just meant there’d be more people to bury at the end of the day.

Dan could see it on her face, relief that they were here and guilt for feeling relieved.

"Let’s move," he said, because standing still was just a slow way to die.

So, they ran.

All of them pushed southwest at full speed. Dan’s twelve men folded into a tight formation around Tsunade and Orochimaru, filling in the gaps and covering their flanks. They took on the pressure that the two exhausted shinobi just couldn't handle anymore. It helped, for about ten minutes, it genuinely felt like it was working.

Then, the second wave showed up.

Thirty more Suna nins came cutting in from the northwest. It was the messy side effect of Shikaro’s grand strategy, panicked soldiers who’d been ordered to save their Kage but were now just crashing into the nearest enemy they could find. They didn't even know who they were chasing, they just saw Konoha headbands and went for blood.

Dan’s formation started to buckle. The Suna nins hit them from the side, and suddenly everyone was fighting for their lives while sprinting. They were throwing kunai over their shoulders and blocking strikes mid-leap, trading jutsu between the branches while doing everything possible to keep moving.

Tsunade knocked two enemies off a branch without even breaking her stride, and Orochimaru’s blade found a throat somewhere behind Dan. His own men were holding on, but only just, hurling wind and fire at anything that got too close and praying their next landing wasn't their last.

Five minutes later, another twenty appeared from the east.

Then fifteen more from behind.

The numbers just kept growing. Every minute they spent running, the chaos of Shikaro’s bluff pushed more bodies right into their path. What started as a bad situation had crossed the line into a total nightmare. They were trapped inside the very collapse that was supposed to win Konoha the war, getting ground up between the gears of their own strategy.

Tsunade and Orochimaru were way too strong to be taken down by a simple rush. Even when they’re exhausted and bleeding, those two can hold off a small army if they actually plant their feet. But there’s a big difference between holding your ground and actually getting away. Every time they stopped to fight, more enemies piled in. And every time they ran, they ran a little slower than the last time. That's how exhaustion kills you. Not all at once, just a little bit off every sprint until the people behind you don't need to be fast anymore.

Dan watched his squad slowly shrink. Every few minutes, someone else went down. A wind blade to the thigh here, a kunai in the shoulder there. They kept fighting and throwing jutsu, but the gaps in their formation were getting bigger and way harder to fill. By the time twenty minutes passed, Dan only had eight men left. Tsunade’s chakra felt dimmer and Orochimaru was fighting with just a kunai in each hand, clearly trying to save every bit of chakra he had left.

He remembered the evening she'd laughed at something he said. A big laugh that she immediately tried to cover with her hand and failed. Dan had replayed that sound in his head more times than he'd ever admit. He'd always figured there'd be more evenings like that. More chances to make her laugh, more chances to say all the things he kept almost saying.

But there weren't going to be more evenings. Not unless someone did something right now. Someone had to stay behind. Someone had to stand their ground and buy Tsunade enough time to outrun the wave. Dan was fine with that someone being him.

Tsunade would never go for it, though. If he even asked, she’d refuse. She’d rather die with all of them than live knowing she’d left people behind. That’s just the person she is. So, Dan wasn't going to ask.

He looked over at his remaining men. The oldest one caught his eye first. That veteran had been watching Dan for a while now, looking pale and dripping with sweat, and his expression said he already knew exactly what Dan was thinking. He gave Dan a small nod, looking like a man who’d already said all his goodbyes.

Dan opened his mouth. The words were right there on the tip of his tongue. Just six words, and the rest of his men would die so that Tsunade could live.

His lips parted. And then he made the mistake of looking at the youngest. Barely eighteen. The kid had already read Dan's face, and his eyes were wide and wet and terrified. Just a boy who didn't want to die.

Dan swallowed the hard knot in his throat and averted his gaze from their faces. Those words felt like poison, but he was going to say them anyway. He had to. He—

BOOM.

The first explosion hit somewhere behind them and the world turned white. Dan was airborne before he understood what happened, branches snapping under him, ears ringing, dirt and wood raining from every direction. He grabbed something solid, swung, landed. The screaming started a second later, and it wasn't coming from his side.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Three more massive impacts slammed right into the Suna ranks. Bodies went flying everywhere, and trees snapped just like they were dry twigs. The forest behind them was coming apart at the seams.

Everyone stopped running. Every single person involved in the chase just froze in place, staring up at the sky in total shock.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Dozens of black shapes were falling from the clouds. Each one hit the ground and took everything around it with it. Dan's brain couldn't keep up. This wasn't a battle anymore. It was an extermination.

It was almost like watching the sky itself decide it wanted to join the fight on their side.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

The pursuit completely shattered. Some of the enemies tried to scatter, and others tried to bolt, but it didn't really matter. Another wave came screaming down through the thick smoke, and another huge stretch of the forest just went up in giant fireballs.

Then, he heard her voice.

"That reckless brat... thank god he's okay."

He looked over at her, and something about her face made him forget how to breathe. She was smiling.

Over the years, Dan had basically collected every single version of Tsunade being happy. He knew the little smirk she gave after a successful surgery and the loud laugh that came out after two cups of sake. He'd saved every one of those moments in his mind like they were precious treasures. But this specific smile? It wasn't in his collection. This one came from a place he'd never been allowed to reach. It was unguarded, unfiltered, and so completely honest that it made every other happy expression he'd ever seen from her feel like a rough, unfinished sketch of the real thing.

Dan followed her eyes to the smoke and the fire and whoever was making it all happen. And he understood that no amount of evenings or laughter or almost-said words were ever going to put that look on her face for him.

Dan smiled too. It was the saddest thing he'd ever done.