The cave was dim and damp, filled with a nauseating moldy smell and the stench of some unknown creature's waste. Mizuki Han leaned against a massive stalactite, panting heavily. Every breath brought a knife-like stab of pain from the wound that Ice had forcibly sealed across his chest. But he didn't even furrow his brow. He simply kept his eyes fixed on the cave entrance.
Haku huddled in a corner three paces away, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her little face was deathly pale, and lingering terror filled her large eyes. She didn't dare make a sound. She even kept her breathing as quiet as she could, afraid of disturbing the fiend before her, who had just crawled back from hell.
"Drip."
A drop of murky groundwater fell from the ceiling and struck a puddle by Han's feet, ringing out sharply. As it fell, Han's gaze instantly sharpened like a blade.
His body was pushed to its absolute limit. Though the system had used Haku's high-purity genes to forcibly repair his mortal wound and purify his Ice Release, his body was too weak to begin with. His original body had been tortured until it was nearly dehydrated in the death row cells. Then he'd just gone through apparent death and an attack by mutated rats. Now, forget using jutsu—even standing up and taking a couple of steps required all his willpower.
He raised his left hand, covered in dark red scabs, and slowly pressed it against the layer of pale blue ice over his chest. The chakra inside him was like a thin trickle in a dried-up riverbed, pitifully weak.
"Just a little more." Han's lips barely moved, his voice as hoarse as sandpaper scraping together. "Make it a little firmer."
He forcibly gathered the last few wisps of chakra he had and channeled them into the ice over his chest. The ice crystals gave a faint crackling sound as they contracted, brutally squeezing the surrounding capillaries and muscle fibers that had not yet fully closed, sealing them shut. The pain stabbed into his nerves like a barbed thorn. His body went rigid, and cold sweat instantly soaked through his tattered Anbu uniform. Yet his black eyes were terrifyingly lifeless, without the slightest trace of weakness.
This was his fine control. He had no spare energy to waste. Every last bit of chakra had to be used where it mattered, even if it meant treating himself like a corpse without feeling.
Two minutes later, the pain in his chest had dulled a little. Han slowly exhaled a breath of white mist with a faint dusting of frost, then turned his gaze to Haku, huddled in the corner.
"Come here." He spat out the two words coldly.
Haku shuddered all over like a frightened fawn, but she remembered what Han had just told her: obey. She bit her lip, fighting the fear that made her knees tremble, and crawled over to him on her hands and knees without daring to look up.
Han lifted Haku's chin with the finger he'd just smeared with the monster's blood. The little girl's skin was very pale, a sickly whiteness from years without sunlight. There was even a fine scratch on her chin, where she'd scraped it against the rock wall while fleeing.
"Do you think we're safe now?" Han's voice sounded especially icy in the empty cave.
Haku timidly shook her head. Tears welled up in her eyes again, but she fought to hold them back, not daring to let them fall.
"Good." Han withdrew his hand and looked through the cave's exit toward the endless dark passage. "In a place like this, safety is a joke. We have no food, no water, no weapons. Even the weakest mutated rat—or a Genin who just graduated from the Ninja Academy—could easily crush us."
He paused. The curve of his lips suddenly deepened, forming a smile of utter madness and cruelty.
"If they're treating us like rats while they carry out their pointless Great Purge up there, why shouldn't we play the part of man-eating rats for a change?"
Haku jerked her head up. She didn't really understand those complicated words, but she heard something bone-chilling in Han's tone: pure murderous intent. It was an extreme hunger to survive, as well as the ultimate revenge against every enemy threatening his life.
Han needed no sympathy, and he had no intention of barely clinging to life. His Persecutory Delusion had fermented into the most vicious of plans. He was going to kill. He was going to seize resources. In this perilous underground world, he would build his own absolutely secure zone by the most primitive and bloody means.
"Listen." Han lowered his voice until it sounded like a snake hissing. "We're not far from the main drainage outlet. The Anbu won't find us by searching the area at random, so they'll definitely set up supply points and hidden sentries at key junctions. All we have to do is find prey that's alone, strip off their skins, drain their chakra, and take their ninja tools."
Though Haku was just a little girl, she'd grown up in the Bloody Mist and vaguely understood what Han was planning. He was going to kill those masked villains. He was going to seek them out in such a desperate situation?
Han paid no further attention to Haku's shock. He used the last of his strength to force himself upright. He had to act at once, before the Anbu completely sealed off this underground maze. He fished the only Kunai from his ninja tool pouch, still smeared with Haku's tooth marks, and dragged it hard across the slick stone wall.
Scritch. A spark flickered.
Han glanced at the thick darkness outside the cave. Without Soldier Pills, his strength would recover very slowly. He had to find an Anbu supply point as quickly as possible.
Just as Han was about to leave the cave with Haku, a faint and highly unusual disturbance came from thirty meters outside.
It wasn't footsteps, but the faint squelch, squelch of someone treading across the water with a steady rhythm.
Han's body instantly tensed. He pressed Haku to the ground and held a finger to his lips, signaling that she absolutely must not make a sound. Then, like a specter melting into the darkness, he silently flattened himself behind the stalactite beside the cave entrance.
He narrowed his eyes and peered through a tiny gap, using the faint glimmers from the underground stream to make out what lay beyond.
Two figures wearing Mist Anbu masks were moving single file through a passage flooded with standing water. The one in front had a bulging scroll hanging from his waist, while the other carried two short swords on his back.
People from a supply point! They'd actually delivered themselves right to him!
Han's pupils contracted, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. A cruel smile slowly bloomed beneath his icy mask. What a fat sheep, walking right into my hands.
He turned and fixed a cold gaze on Haku's deathly pale little face.
"Would you dare lend me a drop of your blood?" Han whispered, so softly it was barely audible.
Haku's eyes widened as she stared at the gleaming Kunai in Han's fingers. Before she could react, Han's wrist suddenly flipped, and the Kunai's tip darted straight toward her slender neck!
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