Hidden Leaf, Hidden Talents 130 (Patreon)

Inside the town, Hachiro, the old man Konan had saved from four Uzumaki shinobi, held his brother against the wall and tried not to look at how pale he had become.

The room was cramped and packed with old rice sacks. A single oil lamp burned beside the door, turning the blood on the floor almost black.

Shioda pressed one arm across his bandaged chest. Fresh red had already soaked through the cloth, and every few breaths, something wet rattled in his lungs.

He coughed and doubled over. Hachiro caught him by the shoulders as blood ran between his fingers.

“Easy,” Hachiro said. “Don’t speak. Just breathe.”

Shioda wiped his mouth and leaned back against the wall. “I’m not dying. But I can’t lead them tomorrow.”

“You won’t be leading anyone.” Hachiro pulled the bandage tighter. “I already sent for a medic. Until they get here, you’re going to lie still and save your strength.”

“Hachiro, look at me. Even if the medic comes, I won’t be fit to lead the operation. You need to take over.”

Hachiro’s hands stopped.

Shioda was looking at him the same way he had after their father died, fourteen years old and trying to carry the whole family without letting anyone see him shake.

“No,” Hachiro said. “You did this back then too. Made the choice alone and expected the rest of us to live with it. I won’t let you do it again.”

Footsteps pounded below them. Men shouted, and furniture scraped across the floor.

Shioda grabbed his wrist. “Then do what you should have done back then. Stand beside me, listen, and take over when I no longer can.”

He reached for the large scroll beside him. His hand missed.

Hachiro caught his wrist. “Leave it.”

Shioda tried again and shoved the scroll into his arms. It was thick, almost as long as Hachiro’s chest, and tied with three red cords.

Then he pulled a smaller scroll from inside his coat.

Hachiro recognized the mark on its cap. Shioda’s supply of anti-sensor tags.

“Take both,” Shioda said. “You know the route and which families are coming. If I’m not there, they’ll follow you.”

“The medic is coming. Once you’re stable, I’ll carry the scrolls and get you out with everyone else.”

“I can barely stand. Carry me through town and you’ll get them caught.”

“Then we change the plan.” Hachiro pushed the smaller scroll back against his chest. “I’m not leaving you here.”

Shioda closed his eyes as pain tightened his face. When he opened them, he caught Hachiro’s sleeve.

“You’re the only person I trust with this.”

A shout rose from below.

“They’re here!”

“Hold the stairs!”

Wood cracked. Someone screamed.

Hachiro hooked an arm beneath Shioda’s shoulders, and hauled him up.

“Come on. I’ll carry you.”

Shioda’s knees gave out. He grabbed Hachiro’s coat and pushed him away before they both fell.

“You’ll never get them through town dragging me with you. Take the scrolls and go.”

“They’ll kill you.”

“They won’t.” Shioda gave a weak laugh. “They’re Uzumaki. So am I. They’ll drag me before the elders, call me a traitor, and lock me in a cellar. Maybe break a few more ribs if they’re feeling righteous. But they won’t kill me.”

A heavy crash shook dust from the ceiling.

The front door downstairs came off its hinges.

Hachiro looked at the narrow window behind them. The alley outside was empty. From there, he could reach the dye shop roof and escape into the western lanes.

The thought made him sick.

Shioda pulled him closer.

“Waiting until dawn was already a risk. Now they know we have a plan. By morning, every road will be watched.”

“But our people aren’t ready.”

“Then take the ones who are ready. Those left behind won’t be alone. I’ll stay with them and do what I can. Use the tags and get everyone you can through the barrier before the elders close off every way out.”

Boots hammered up the stairs.

Shioda tightened his grip.

“Get them out, Hachiro. This town is going to fall,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week. The elders can keep pretending it won’t, but we can’t.”

Hachiro looked down at the scrolls.

A way off the island, if he could force himself to take it.

Tink.

Shioda struck the back of his fist against the metal plate of Hachiro’s forehead protector. “We may lose the town. We may lose the island. But they don’t get to end us.”

He caught Hachiro by the shoulder. “Keep our people alive… Keep the Uzumaki alive.”

The men outside struck the door.

Once.

Twice.

The wood split down the middle.

“Go.”

Hachiro strapped the larger scroll across his back and climbed onto the windowsill.

He looked back. “I’ll get them out. Every family that trusted us. The Uzumaki will survive.”

Shioda leaned against the wall and gave him a tired nod.

The door burst inward.

Hachiro dropped into the alley as men flooded the room behind him.

He made it to the dye shop before his brother’s voice carried through the broken window.

“At last! I was beginning to think the elders had sent cowards to fetch me.”

Hachiro gripped the scroll against his chest and kept running.

…

An hour later, Hachiro stood in the back room of a bathhouse, the barrier scroll spread across the table.

Nearly thirty people filled the room. His brother’s men lined the walls, many still bandaged or stained with blood from the fighting. Three Nagi elders sat at the far end in grey robes.

The Nagi had backed Shioda from the beginning. Supplied food, safe houses, false work orders, and enough armed men to make the escape possible. None of them looked pleased to see Hachiro standing in his brother’s place.

The oldest Nagi elder rested both hands on his cane. “We gave your brother men, shelter, and our name. In return, he promised a quiet departure at dawn. Instead, his people fought in the middle of town and exposed the warehouse.”

“The fight wasn’t my brother’s doing,” Hachiro said. “Their men came for us.”

“And now your brother is gone, with half his inner circle dead or detained.”

Hachiro kept one hand on the table. “The route still works. I can lead them out, but some families haven’t made it here yet. Give me another hour.”

Murmurs moved around the room.

“You don’t have another hour,” the elder said. “The elders will search every house tied to your group. The western patrol has already doubled. We leave now, while the town is still confused.”

“If we go now, we leave people behind.”

“We will not risk everyone for those who failed to come.”

Hachiro stared at him.

“This is no longer about saving every family in town,” the elder continued. “It’s about making sure the Uzumaki still exist when this war is over. Your brother understood that some would have to be lost so the rest could survive.”

The words struck deeper than Hachiro wanted. His brother had told him the same thing.

Keep the Uzumaki alive.

Not everyone. The Uzumaki.

Hachiro looked around the room. Thirty people stood here, with perhaps another hundred waiting nearby.

He lowered his eyes to the scroll and rested both hands against it. For a long while, he said nothing.

Then his shoulders sank.

“Tell them to get ready.”

The room emptied quickly. Orders passed from one man to the next, and pairs slipped into the rain with anti-sensor tags hidden beneath their coats.

Within minutes, Hachiro stood alone beside the table.

Then he took the scroll and followed the others outside.

...

Half an hour later, the bathhouse door opened again.

A man stepped inside with rain running from his hair and panic written across his tired face. They were the family Shinji saw at the food stall during the festival.

His wife followed, holding their daughters by the hand. The younger girl was crying from the cold. Her sister still carried her painted festival mask, cracked along one side with the ribbon looped around her wrist.

The father searched the empty room.

“Hachiro?”

No answer.

He checked the back room and the hall, then returned with panic spreading across his face.

The table was bare. The lamps had been put out, though one still smoked.

His wife watched him, already understanding from his face. “They’ve gone?”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came.

“They said dawn,” she whispered, pulling the girls closer. “You promised me they would wait for us.”

“I know.” His hands curled at his sides. “I believed them too.”

The older daughter looked around the bathhouse.

“Papa, where is everyone?”

He crouched and retied the loose ribbon on her mask. His fingers shook, and it took him three tries.

“They had to leave early,” he said. “That’s all.”

“Did they forget us, Papa?”

His wife shut her eyes.

He stood and pulled all three of them close.

“We’re going to be fine,” he told them. “Stay here, keep the door barred, and don’t answer anyone unless you hear my voice.”

His wife caught his sleeve. “Where are you going?”

“To remind them they gave us their word,” he said, his face hardening, “and that they don’t get to leave my family behind.”

He looked through the narrow window.

Beyond the rooftops, the barrier glowed purple against the clouds. Each strike from Kiri sent pale ripples across it.

He had spent weeks helping Shioda find a way through the western barrier, testing one seal after another until they knew exactly where to break the formula without bringing the whole dome down.

And now they thought they could use his work, take the safe road out, and leave his wife and daughters behind.

His jaw tightened.

If they thought he would quietly watch them use the path he helped make, they had badly misjudged him.

…

-Fishing village-

The village chief lost it.

One second he was topping off Kirara's cup like the world's most attentive butler, and the next his face was going purple, chins wobbling, spit flying, screaming at Genta.

“BOY! Are you deaf?! Terumi-sama asked you a question, and you stand there like a wet cabbage! I swear on my mother’s grave, if you don’t open your mouth right now, I’ll...”

“Now, now.”

The chief shut his mouth.

Kirara turned her cup between her fingers and smiled at Genta like he was a shy child being fussed over by an aunt.

“Don’t be cross with him. He’s clearly had a long morning.” She tilted her head, letting her auburn hair slip over one shoulder. “Sweetheart, why don’t you fetch it for me? The sword. I’ll stay here and enjoy this lovely meal your chief prepared, and by the time I’m finished, you’ll have brought it back. Won’t that be nice?”

Her voice stayed soft, but it was not a request.

She took another sip.

Shinji gave her a nod and shuffled toward the cart.

He could feel the chief staring at his back the whole way, furious at being told to shut up so politely in front of stupid Genta.

But the chief said nothing. You didn’t stay village chief on an island crawling with Kiri shinobi by being stupid. Yelling at a foreign shinobi’s chosen errand boy while the foreign shinobi was still watching was the shortest possible route to becoming a former village chief.

Shinji took the cart handles and pushed off up the road.

That had been close.

And she had let him walk away.

That was interesting.

Kirara Terumi had a sword across her lap, twelve jonin behind her, and an entire village serving her lunch. She could have had Genta dragged back and questioned on the spot. Instead, she had smiled, given him an errand, and sent him on his way.

Shinji had been wondering why the village was still standing. Now he had his answer.

Part of it was Kirara. For whatever reason, she preferred grilled fish to slaughter today.

The other part was the lack of red hair.

Not one Uzumaki in sight. This close to Uzushio, that was unusual. Most villages had at least one distant cousin who had married in years ago. This one had none, which meant it had probably never sheltered any Uzumaki at all.

No Uzumaki, no reason for Kiri to burn the place down. The villagers were feeding them, staying useful, and giving them no trouble.

That was why the village was still alive.

Moving on.

Minato.

Where was Minato.

He stretched the sensor out. Six kilometers. Full sweep.

Empty.

No Minato-shape in it. No Jiraiya-shape either.

If Minato or Jiraiya had come this way, Shinji would've felt them.

He hadn't felt shit.

So they weren't here.

They'd gone south. Probably snuck around the port town, looking for some hole in the dome they could squeeze Kushina through. Then they'd haul her back to the Leaf and call the job done.

Which meant Shinji could leave right now and forget this fishing village ever existed.

There was no reason to start trouble with Kiri here. Kushina wasn't here. Minato wasn't here. Jiraiya wasn't here. The whole damn reason he'd come was somewhere else.

He looked at the empty cart.

Then up the hill, at the bush where he'd stuffed the real Genta.

Ah, hell.

He couldn't just leave.

Soon as Kirara got sick of waiting, she'd send somebody up here. They'd find the cart. Find no sword. Find Genta snoring in the weeds like the world's dumbest corpse.

Then the poor bastard would wake up with a pack of pissed-off Kiri nin standing over him, all of them looking for somebody to pay for their dead friends.

And Genta would pay.

With everything.

Kid would be dead before he even figured out what he'd done wrong.

Wasn’t his problem.

Genta was a stranger. An ugly stranger, even. Shinji owed him nothing.

He even made it three whole seconds before his conscience started chewing on him.

Damn it.

He let out a long breath.

Fine. He'd get the damn sword.

...

He went back to the bushes and checked on Genta.

Still out cold. Still drooling down his own shoulder.

Good for him.

Shinji left the cart beside him, found the wheel tracks again, and followed them through the village. They went between two houses, crawled up a slope, then ran past a half-rotten shack with some the roof missing.

Probably Genta's place.

Poor bastard lived exactly how he looked.

Shinji shoved the door open.

Dark inside. Damp too. The whole place stank like wet wood, old fish, and clothes that had lost the fight against mildew years ago.

He checked the first room.

Nothing.

The second room had more stink, a busted loom, and a sword leaning against the far wall.

Shinji stopped.

That thing wasn't big.

Big was a club. Big was a fat man blocking a doorway.

This thing was damn near as tall as a grown man, with a grip half an arm long and a pale, ugly blade that bent into a nasty little hook near the tip. Old bandages hung off it in loose strips.

And under those bandages wasn't steel.

Scales.

Shinji walked over and wrapped one hand around the hilt.

Then lifted.

His arm dipped.

Sixty kilos. Maybe seventy. Heavy enough to drag a normal man face-first into the floor.

He gave it a swing.

The blade shoved the air aside with a low, hungry whuush.

Well, that settled it. Unless Kiri had two giant swords covered in scales that breathed against your palm like a starving dog, this was Samehada.

Shinji held it up in the dim light and stared. The Sharkskin. The Living Sword. One of the Seven, and the only one on the roster that could think, if what it did could be called thinking. Sentient weapon. Ate chakra. Recognized its wielders. Occasionally decided, on its own, that its current wielder was boring and jumped to somebody more delicious.

As far as he could remember, it was the only sentient weapon on the elemental map. He'd spent a fair amount of brainpower trying to think of another one and never found any. Which put this thing in a class of its own, even among a set as flashy as the Seven.

And Genta had grabbed it.

Just walked up, put his hands on a living, man-eating sword, and somehow didn't get gutted for being nobody.

The boy might've been the luckiest idiot alive.

Shinji rested the flat of the blade on his shoulder.

Now.

Was he really going to hand this over to Kirara?

He thought about it for maybe half a breath.

Yeah. No.

Absolutely not.

Wasn't like he wanted it for himself. The thing was huge, ugly, and about as subtle as carrying a door around. Shinji had used a tanto his whole career. No need to knock down half a house every time he turned around.

But he knew somebody who might like it.

Or more importantly, somebody Samehada might like.

The sword loved chakra.

Kushina had enough chakra to feed a small country.

Samehada would take one taste of her and start wagging its damn tail.

Shinji pulled a scroll out of the leather glove and slapped it open across the busted loom.

One tap of Samehada against the ink, and the whole ugly thing folded into smoke and got sucked into the paper.

Shinji rolled the scroll back up and shoved it into the glove.

It was a two-step pain in the ass, but the glove only had so much room in there. Kunai, food bars, spare clothes, small junk like that? Fine. A sword the size of a full-grown man? That thing would've swallowed half the space and still asked for seconds.

Seal the sword into a scroll first, then store the scroll.

A cheap way to cheat the space limit, maybe, but the seal hadn't complained and neither would he.

The sword problem was handled.

Genta wasn’t.

He left the room and hopped onto the roof.

Good spot.

He could see the trees, the dirt path Genta had used, and part of the village yard farther down. The party was still going.

Somebody had started singing.

Badly.

Real badly.

Shinji pulled out his brush and ink.

The plan was easy.

Leave the Kiri a note.

Something clear enough to get the point across, and pretty enough that they might actually read it. Something that said a random stranger had stolen the sword, nobody in the village knew a damn thing, and the big-eared kid sleeping in the bushes was innocent of all crimes, past, present, and probably future.

Genta had done nothing wrong.

Genta was a fine young man.

A gift to the world.

He'd draw a fox too.

Maybe two.

Shinji rolled the brush between his fingers and looked over the roof tiles, hunting for a good patch.

Then he felt it.

Chakra.

Moving fast.

Coming straight at him.

One person.

He saw her come sailing over the trees, hair streaming behind her.

She landed on the roof across from him, her long, thin sword resting over one shoulder like a parasol.

She smiled. “Oh my. Where does this little boy think he’s going?”

"Lady. I'm a grown man. All this 'sweetheart' talk is going to give a fellow ideas."

“Is that so? Then a grown man should have no trouble understanding a lady’s small request. Be a darling and give me back my sword. You wouldn’t make a lady ask twice, would you?”

Shinji shrugged. "No can do, ma'am. The sword's fond of me now. I couldn't hurt its feelings."

“Mm. What a shame.”

She looked ready to say more.

Then her eyes dropped to the brush in his hand.

Her smile sharpened.

“Oh, my,” she said. “Oh, my, my, my.”

Shinji didn’t like the my's.

“Sweetheart, you’ve been a very naughty boy, haven’t you? Sneaking around the island and leaving that little frog face of yours everywhere you go.”

Shinji blinked. “Frogs?”

She took his confusion for an admission. “How lovely to finally meet the frog thief in person.”

He stared at her.

Frog?

Thief?

He opened his mouth to complain, then remembered he was still wearing Genta’s face.

Right. Genta.

Shinji swallowed the complaint.

Still, he found himself offended on the kid’s behalf. Genta was ugly, sure. Nobody was going to carve that face into a monument. But a frog was too far. His eyes weren’t that wide apart, his mouth wasn’t that big, and the ears were a completely different problem.

This needed correcting. Whatever ugly little picture she’d built in her head, he was about to set it straight.

“Lady, I’ll have you know this face has absolutely nothing in common with a-”

Kirara flicked her wrist.

Seven kunai slipped from between her fingers, each one plastered with explosive tags.

The paper fluttered as they came straight at Shinji.

The roof blew apart.

A second blast kicked through the first before the smoke even had time to rise. The whole ridge ripped off the house, tiles jumping up in a long dirty wave.

Shinji was already two houses away.

He caught a tree branch, swung under it, and planted both feet against the trunk.

Down in the village yard, twelve heads jerked up from their food.

Benches scraped.

Twelve Kiri nin took off for the smoke, some still holding cups, one poor bastard chewing as he ran.

Kirara came out of the smoke a second later.

“Last chance, sweetheart,” she called. “Give me the sword, and I may still let you walk away alive. Kiri has no quarrel with Konoha.”

Damn, how the hell did she know that?

He kicked off the tree and landed on the next roof over. “Yeah, I’m not sure Konoha would see it that way.”

She followed without hurry. “Oh?”

“Uzushio’s allied with Konoha. You lot came over, burned their homes, chased their people through the woods.”

One of the Kiri below threw a kunai at him.

Shinji leaned back.

The blade slipped past his nose and buried itself in the roof beam behind him.

He looked at Kirara again. “Funny thing about allies. Start butchering one, and the other tends to take it personally.”

Her smile thinned. “That is a very childish way of looking at war.”

“Maybe. But men have started wars over far less than murdered allies.”

The first Kiri reached the roof.

Shinji kicked a loose tile into his face.

The man knocked it aside.

Bad move.

Shinji grabbed his wrist, wrenched it the wrong way, then drove a boot into his chest, blasting him off the roof and into the two behind him.

Steel hissed at Shinji’s throat.

He slipped under Kirara’s sword and sprang sideways as the roof split behind him.

“Keep running,” she called after him, still sounding sweet. “I’m starting to enjoy this.”

That was unfortunate.

He had always wanted women to enjoy themselves around him. He just wished they didn’t only enjoy it while trying to kill him.

Kirara stabbed again.

Shinji snapped his head aside.

The thin blade missed his cheek and punched deep into the tree behind him, sliding through bark and wood like it was wet bread.

Damn.

That thing was sharp.

He kicked off the trunk.

Kirara came after him, poking that needle of a sword at every soft bit she could find.

Throat.

Chest.

Eye.

Each stab came straight and mean. Shinji ducked, bent, twisted, and kept backing through the trees.

Every step pulled them farther from the village.

Kirara stabbed for his ribs. Shinji twisted over it, turning sideways in the air.

Then something cinched around his ankle.

His body stopped moving right and got ripped hard to the left.

What the hell?

A wire ran from his leg back to Kirara’s sword.

The damn sword had wire?

Kirara flicked her wrist, and he went flying between the trees like a fish somebody had gotten tired of reeling in.

A Kiri nin stepped into his path, kunai coming for his face.

Shinji twisted around the blade.

Another one came in from the side, boot aimed at his skull.

Shinji caught the shin on one arm, wrapped both legs around the first man’s arm, and threw his weight backward.

The arm bent across his hip.

Then it snapped.

The man screamed. His kunai slipped loose.

Shinji snatched it before it fell and drove it at the second man’s face.

Silver flashed in from the side.

Shinji turned the stab into a block.

KLANG.

The kunai knocked Nuibari aside, and Shinji rode the turn through, driving his heel into the Kiri nin’s chest and blasting him through the trees. On the way down, he slashed the kunai across the wire still cinched around his ankle.

His eyes went wide.

The kunai struck the wire, skidded along it, and did jack shit.

It hadn’t even scratched the damn thing!

A wind blade was already cutting toward him.

Ah, screw it.

Shinji shoved the kunai back against the wire and flooded his arm with lightning. White sparks screamed off the kunai where it ground against the wire.

KZZAK

The wire finally snapped.

Shinji’s boot hit dirt just as the wind blade came screaming for his head.

WHUM.

The jutsu blew apart a few feet from his face.

A water dragon came barreling in right behind it.

KRAAASH!

Its snout smashed flat against the same patch of empty air. The rest piled in after it, crushed itself stupid, then burst across the forest in a wall of white spray.

Water bullets hammered in from both sides.

PAK-PAK-PAK-PAK!

Each one burst before it touched him. A second wind blade screamed through the spray, split around his body, and carved two trenches through the trees on either side.

Then silence.

For several seconds, nobody moved.

Kirara looked genuinely lost, and the Kiri behind her looked even worse.

Shinji looked down at the kunai in his gloved hand. The metal glowed a sick red, its edge crumbling off in little flakes.

What a shitty kunai. One burst of heat and the thing was already falling apart.

One of the Kiri finally quit staring at the wrecked trees and took a proper look at Shinji.

His whole face changed.

“!!!”

“No way.”

Shinji didn’t like the sound of that.

The man pointed at him, alarm climbing into his voice. “I know that face. He’s in the Bingo Book!”

Shinji raised a hand.

His hand. No dirt under the nails, no chapped knuckles, no Genta.

Ah.

The henge had slipped.

Another Kiri looked again, and all the blood ran out of his face.

“The Black Death!”

Three Kiri jumped back. Then five. The rest followed, spreading out around Shinji like he had plague leaking out of his boots.

For one sweet, beautiful second, Shinji thought his reputation had finally decided to earn its keep.

Then some loud bastard ruined it.

“You idiots!” a jonin barked. “That’s the original!”

Everybody looked at him.

“He can’t blow himself up! Why the hell are you giving him room?”

The jonin waved the others in. “Stay on him. Don’t let him form a single seal!”

Understanding spread across the ring.

A second ago, they had been afraid to stand near him. Now they were scared to leave him alone.

Apparently the Black Death was only terrifying when copied in bulk. And now they thought he was much more manageable without clones.

The Kiri came at him.

Half rushed in with steel. Kunai, swords, a dagger, all of it closing from every side. The rest stayed farther back with their hands flying, cheeks puffing and chests swelling as they prepared to spit half a lake, a storm, or whatever else Kiri taught its shinobi to cough at people.

Shinji looked around.

“Geez. You’re all awfully energetic this early in the day.” He ducked under a sword and stepped past the dagger. “Did something good happen to you guys?”

Kirara answered by stabbing Nuibari straight through the crowd.

Shinji twisted aside as three kunai came with it, dropped one hand to the dirt, and whipped both heels across the nearest man’s face.

His nose burst sideways, teeth sprayed from his mouth.

Another Kiri came in with a kick. Shinji got both arms up, but the force still sent him flying. He twisted in the air and landed on a thick branch.

Branches dipped all around him as the Kiri boxed him in again.

He caught Kirara’s eye through the bodies.

She was no longer smiling.

Shinji lifted his hand and gave her a small wave.

“See you around, ma’am.”

Kirara’s eyes went wide.

Her lips parted. “Wait!”

Shinji bit down.

Blood touched the seal.

His body vanished inside a burst of white smoke.

For half a second, nobody moved.

Then Kirara felt it.

Something inside the smoke was wrong.

The chakra hadn’t disappeared. It was swelling.

“Get back!”

Orange light burned through the white cloud.

KRA-KOOM!

The clone blew.

Fire chewed through the grove. Dirt jumped. Trees cracked apart as burning wood and shattered earth ripped across the ground. The nearest Kiri disappeared inside the flames before their bodies even understood they were dead.

Kirara hurled herself aside.

The shockwave still caught her in the back and sent her flying.

Behind her, the whole forest drowned in smoke and fire.

…

Shinji expected festival trash, people crowding the streets, and perhaps a stray dog running off with somebody’s lunch.

Instead, heat struck him from every side.

He sucked in a breath and damn near choked on smoke.

What the hell?

Had the jutsu thrown him somewhere else? Had the clone collapsed before the swap finished?

Then he saw the street. The road near Kushina’s house, once bright with festival lanterns, now glowed red beneath the smoke.

The town was burning.

Flames ate through roofs and crawled down walls. People ran past him screaming, some carrying children, others beating at flames on their clothes. A man stumbled from a doorway with half his body blackened and dropped before he made it three steps.

Shinji stared through the smoke.

What the hell was going on?!

He looked up, searching for the purple glow above the rooftops.

Where was the barrier?

Had the damn thing already fallen?

He had barely been gone for two hours!