Deep in the narrow underground passage, the air was damp and cold, like a sponge that had been wrung dry, clinging stickily to the skin. After the sound of pursuit stopped, the only noise spreading through the darkness was the faint trickle of water draining into the cracks.
Another Anbu chūnin stopped.
It wasn't because he'd heard what had happened by the reservoir. His prey had simply run out of places to flee.
"Why stop running? What happened?" The Anbu ninja mockingly twirled the short blade in his hand. Its edge cut through the damp air with a faint whine.
Before him stood a rough stone wall, overgrown with moss and some unknown, slimy fungus. Haku sat collapsed in the corner, her back pressed firmly against the wall, her slight chest heaving violently. Her tattered kimono was soaked through, filthy water mixed with grit dripping from her calves. She looked like a fledgling that had fallen into an icy pit, shivering uncontrollably.
Following Han's instructions, she had run all the way to this narrowest of dead ends. She hadn't looked back or made a sound she didn't need to. She had done it.
But as she stared at the blade glinting coldly above her, the girl's eyes reddened. She bit down hard on her lower lip, forcing herself not to make a sound. Big Brother Han had told her: finish the mission. If you had to die, then die.
"You're the last remnants of the Yuki Clan, yet you can't even beg for your life?" The Anbu ninja snorted, seemingly disappointed by his prey's dull reaction. He had planned to make a few cuts on the girl first and savor her breakdown. It was the only amusement he could find during his high-pressure purge missions.
He raised his foot and stepped toward the shallow puddle, his mud-caked boot poised to take the final step and end this tiresome game of cat and mouse.
Now.
At the precise instant before the Anbu ninja's boot touched the surface, the murky puddle underwent an unbelievable physical collapse.
Hidden in the shadows a few meters away, Mizuki Han gave a slight upward flick of his pale index finger. The blood-red ice crystal embedded at the back of Haku's neck became the perfect relay for transmitting chakra. Though he was seven or eight meters away, wherever water existed, Han's will could follow like a shadow.
The Anbu ninja's toe came down.
There was no splash, nor the solid feel of a firm step. His boot met a layer of ice hard enough to feel unreal. The extreme cold pierced his waterproof boot in an instant, freezing the skin and muscle on the sole of his foot together.
"Hm?!" The Anbu ninja's expression changed abruptly. As a battle-hardened chūnin, he had a keen instinct for anything amiss in his surroundings. This wasn't natural ice! It was a jutsu!
He didn't hesitate. His waist muscles tensed, and he twisted his wrist around the hilt, preparing to leap backward and put some distance between them.
Too late. Mizuki Han's calculations never left his prey even half a second to recover from a mistake. At that moment, he brought the principle of spending only three points of chakra to its fullest: restrict the opponent at minimal cost, then finish them off with the most discreet means possible.
Before the Anbu ninja's heel could leave the ground, a needle-sharp, transparent ice spike burst without warning from the center of the palm-sized ice patch. It didn't thrust straight up; it shot out at an exceptionally tricky angle.
Like a venomous snake darting from its den, it tore through the sole of the boot and pierced the arch of his foot. Then it kept going, driving through his Achilles tendon, calf, and the hollow behind his knee, surging upward with unstoppable force!
The Anbu ninja's mouth flew open, but the pain cut off the signals in his nerves. His vocal cords seized up in a violent spasm, leaving him unable to make a sound.
The ice spike accelerated a second time over a very short distance—a technique Mizuki Han had developed through experimentation after merging the genes. Its tip, flecked with blood and torn flesh, carried the chill of absolute zero as it smashed through the Anbu ninja's spine with thunderous force, finally bursting out through the brainstem at the back of his head.
"Pfft—"
A faint, muffled sound. A blood-and-brain-streaked ice tip, an inch long, protruded from the back of the Anbu ninja's head.
The chūnin's eyes were fixed wide open, his eyeballs nearly bulging from their sockets as the pressure inside his skull spiked. The short blade fell limply from his hand and hit the icy puddle. His tall frame was like a worm-eaten tree trunk. Still pitched forward, he toppled stiffly less than half a meter from Haku, twitched twice, and fell silent forever.
No blood gushed out. The extreme cold had frozen the blood vessels around the wound the instant the spike pierced him.
Haku stared at the lifeless body before her, her mind blank for a full three seconds. Then a faint breeze brushed past, and Mizuki Han's lean, cold silhouette stood between her and the corpse.
"Not bad." Han's voice was still hoarse, but to Haku, it was more reassuring than any praise. The girl's taut nerves abruptly relaxed. She slumped to the ground and gasped for breath.
Han didn't spare Haku so much as a glance. All his attention was focused on the corpse at his feet.
For someone with a severe case of Firepower Deficiency Phobia, scavenging spoils was the most wonderful thing in the world. It eased the anxiety that had sunk deep into his bones.
He crouched and searched the body with practiced, rough efficiency. First, he ripped the ninja tool pouch from the corpse's waist. When he opened it, a restrained gleam lit Han's otherwise still eyes.
Seven Explosive Tags! Two smoke bombs! Three spare Kunai and a large coil of sharp wire!
For an Anbu ninja, that was an exceptionally lavish loadout. Han stuffed it all into his pockets and carefully smoothed out each Explosive Tag. They were the trump cards he'd need to lay down the law in this hellhole. The sense of security he got from stockpiling firepower made him feel better than blood flowing into his heart.
Next, he felt inside the corpse's inner pocket and found a small waterproof pouch. Inside were several dark-brown pills—Soldier Pills.
Without a moment's hesitation, Han popped one into his mouth. Its bitter taste dissolved across his tongue. As he swallowed, a faint warmth stirred deep in his depleted core for the first time in a long while; his chakra was beginning to recover. The medicinal effect also eased the pain in his damaged lungs a little.
He tucked away the remaining Soldier Pills, then picked up the short blade of fine steel from the corpse's hand. After weighing it twice, he tucked it into the back of his waistband. Only after confirming that not even a single valuable strand of copper wire remained on the body did he straighten up.
He had killed two Anbu, and the supplies he'd scavenged were only a drop in the bucket, but at least now he had the means to fight back. The more cards he held, the better his odds would be when he faced certain death.
"Big Brother Han..." Haku got to her feet and rubbed her arms with her small, reddened hands. Her voice was as faint as a mosquito's. "Where... where do we go now?"
Han didn't answer right away. His mind was rapidly calculating their next escape route and the potential gains from striking back. Based on his estimate, once the two Anbu had been missing for a certain amount of time, it would trigger the Mist Village's search and capture protocol. They had fifteen minutes at the shortest, half an hour at the longest.
He had to find somewhere he could make the most of the system's functions. The chakra inside this chūnin's body hadn't fully dissipated yet. Combined with the corpse by the reservoir, he could use them to raise the floor of his strength even further.
"Back to where we were. The air doesn't circulate here." Han tossed out the words and turned to step over the corpse. The moment his heel passed over its waist—
"Beep—beep—beep—"
A faint but piercing alarm suddenly sounded from inside the Anbu mask Han had just searched. Its rapid pulses carried an unmistakable urgency.
Han froze. He spun around at an incredible speed, bent down, and snatched up the mud-smeared white fox mask.
The Communication Rune slot inside the mask, near the temple, held a pattern that should have been dim. Now it glowed a glaring crimson. As the light flashed, a suffocatingly concentrated toxic gas began silently seeping out through the gaps in the ventilation ducts!
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