Before Absolute Power

"What are you standing around for?"

Yan held the unconscious Red Bean in his arms and turned around. His voice shattered the laboratory's palpable dead silence, as calm as if he were giving some trivial instruction.

"Take her to Konoha Hospital, to the highest-level isolation ward. Notify the medical unit and tell them she has been struck by a special Fire Release and poison compound ninjutsu. She needs emergency treatment."

His voice paused, as though he were considering his wording, before he added,

"In my name. Shadow Guard, codename Lava."

Cat Mask's body jolted as if he were a puppet receiving an order. He instinctively snapped to attention and replied, "Yes!"

"And one more thing." Yan's gaze slowly swept over the three of them through that pure black, featureless mask. "Other than what must be reported to the Hokage, I do not want to hear anything about what happened here today anywhere else, in any form."

His voice remained calm.

Yet beneath that calm tone lay an unquestionable threat, one powerful enough to burn a person and their soul alike to ashes.

"Understood!"

Cat Mask, Eagle, and Owl—three elite members of the Shadow Guard—lowered their heads in unison like three ninja academy freshmen who had just enrolled.

Before absolute power, any doubt, discussion, or even thought was superfluous and dangerous.

Yan paid them no further attention. Carrying Red Bean, he walked out of the laboratory. His steps were steady, and the girl in his arms weighed almost nothing. As he passed Cat Mask, he did not pause in the slightest.

Only after Yan's figure vanished around the bend in the corridor did the tangible heat wave and pressure weighing on their hearts slowly fade. Only then did Cat Mask and the other two realize that their backs had long been soaked with cold sweat.

"Captain..." Owl's voice was dry, like sandpaper rubbing together. "What... did we just see?"

Cat Mask did not answer. He slowly raised his hand and looked at his faintly trembling fingertips. He recalled something the Third Hokage had said when he assigned "Lava" to the Shadow Guard.

"What you are watching over is not a blade, but a living volcano. Do not try to extinguish it. Learn how not to get burned by the lava when it erupts."

He had not understood then.

Now, he did.

He understood it in his bones.

Konoha Hospital, highest-level isolation ward.

The pungent smell of disinfectant filled the entire room. White walls, white sheets, white ceilings—everything was oppressively white.

Mitarashi Anko's consciousness was like an ant struggling in a pot of boiling syrup.

Pain.

Endless pain.

First came the frigid pain, as though countless venomous snakes were gnawing at her marrow. That was Heaven's Cursed Seal eroding her mind. Then came an even more tyrannical, more absolute burning pain, as if her entire soul had been thrown into the heart of the sun. Every inch of flesh and blood, every thought, was being mercilessly incinerated and vaporized.

The two extremes of pain repeatedly surged and tore through her body, nearly ripping her consciousness completely to pieces.

She felt as though she had died.

Yet it also seemed as though she had lived countless times.

Amid endless darkness and searing heat, she struggled like a drowning person, desperately trying to grasp something.

Then, she felt pressure.

A heavy, cold pressure that somehow carried a peculiar sense of safety pressed down on the top of her head. Like an invisible hand, it forcibly pressed her soul, on the verge of collapse, back into her body.

Then came that devastating torrent of heat.

She "saw" the black venomous snakes within her, representing Orochimaru, melt like ice and snow before that dark crimson flood.

She "heard" their wails.

And she "heard" the roar of that torrent.

It was a pure, utterly unreasonable, sovereign dominance.

"You dare touch what is mine?"

A vague, icy voice seemed to echo directly within the depths of her soul.

At that moment, at the edge of destruction, Red Bean's consciousness gave rise to a new, twisted understanding.

So...

There was a power in this world more terrifying, more powerful, and even more... captivating than Lord Orochimaru's cursed seal.