Curse-Mark Hound

Dust in the pipes poured into Lin Feng's lungs like knives.

The instant he crashed through a crack in the ventilation duct, Danzo's order chased after him from behind—"Release the Curse-Mark Hounds. He took something he shouldn't have."

Then came the hounds' first roar.

It did not sound like it came from a throat. It was more like the resonant tremor produced when some sealing technique was activated—dull, low, rebounding again and again between the metal walls until it became overlapping echoes.

Lin Feng's feet slipped against the inner wall of the duct.

Rusty sheet metal shrieked beneath him. He braced himself against the pipe wall with one hand while the other reached for his ninja tool pouch. The instant he released the chakra disguise of the Transformation Technique, the sense of pursuit behind him pierced through it. He could clearly feel that lock-on that was not chakra—like an icy needle pressed constantly against the back of his neck.

Not scent.

Not lingering chakra.

The hounds' claws scraped through the duct in a dense metallic shriek, and the distance was closing.

Lin Feng pulled out a Smoke Bomb and hurled it behind him. Thick smoke exploded through the narrow duct. At the same time, he created two Shadow Clones, one on either side of a pipe junction, and left behind the remnant body of a Substitution Technique for whoever followed.

Ten seconds later, he sensed the Shadow Clones being passed through directly.

Three pairs of dark red points lit up in the smoke. They were the hounds' eyes locking onto him.

The remnant body from the Substitution Technique was ignored.

"Can't shake them—they're not tracking chakra."

Lin Feng forced his breathing tight in his throat.

The duct abruptly narrowed ahead, turning into a straight section that allowed only one person to crawl through. He pushed off with his knees and elbows, speeding up once more, but the scraping behind him only drew closer. The hounds' body structures seemed perfectly suited to the tight confines of the pipes. Their joints could bend backward, and mixed with the sound of claws gouging metal came short, rhythmic barks.

Every bark came at exactly the same interval.

Like the echo of a locked-on position.

Lin Feng was forced to stop at a sharp bend in the duct.

It was a right-angle turn with just enough room to turn around. His shoulder pressed against the cold pipe wall as he quickly checked himself—gloves, wrist guards, ninja tool pouch, collar—then his gaze stopped on the outside of his left glove.

A sheet of paper was stuck to it.

The paper from the archives.

Black lines seeped from the edges of the paper like the capillaries of a living thing. They had already spread from the page into the fabric of his glove. He could feel a tingling numbness over his skin. Those lines were penetrating it.

"It's this stuck paper—"

Lin Feng tore open his left glove.

The black lines had already passed through the fabric and attached themselves to his skin, forming a dense ring of Curse Seal markings along the inside of his wrist. The paper clung to his skin like a living thing, its fibrous edges embedded in his epidermis. He tried to pinch a corner and peel it back, but the moment he tore it up three millimeters, piercing pain shot from his wrist straight into his shoulder.

Like he was tearing apart his own nerves.

At the same time, the black lines began extending toward his forearm, crawling past the middle of it at a visible speed.

Three overlapping growls came from the other end of the duct.

The hounds had confirmed his location and began their charge.

Lin Feng's pupils contracted.

There was no way he could brawl with three Curse-Mark Hounds at once in such a narrow pipe. Kunai could not be used properly in this space. Explosive tags would collapse the duct and bury him as well. The Sharingan required visual contact, but the hounds did not rely entirely on sight.

His back pressed against the icy pipe wall.

The hounds' running grew closer and closer.

Then Shisui's voice rose from his memories.

"The precision of Sharingan genjutsu depends on the stability of your focus, Lin Feng."

At the training ground, Shisui sat cross-legged atop a wooden post in a relaxed pose, his Three-Tomoe Sharingan beneath the moonlight like three motionless dark red tomoe.

"Pain will tear apart your concentration. But if you can keep the Three-Tomoe steady even through unbearable pain, genjutsu will become part of your body rather than merely a tool of your eyes."

Lin Feng remembered poking the wooden target before him with a kunai. "Easy for you to say. Only a monster like you can do something like that."

Shisui smiled.

"Who said you aren't a monster?"

The hounds' growls shattered the memory.

Lin Feng opened his eyes.

His right hand gripped the edge of the paper.

"Since I can't shake you off—"

His fingers tightened.

"Then I'll make all of you focus right here."

He violently tore away the entire page along with the surface skin penetrated by the Curse Seal. Blood splattered across the inner wall of the duct. Black runes surged from the wound, spreading toward his upper arm and shoulder like activated venom. The instant agony swept through his body, his vision was nearly torn to pieces.

His nerves screamed.

His muscles spasmed.

But he forcibly opened his Sharingan.

The three tomoe in his pupils shook madly, like windmills caught in a storm, spinning, trembling, nearly torn apart by the pain—then they stopped.

Shisui, this time I'll listen to you.

At the end of the duct, three hounds pounced around the corner at once.

They were larger than ordinary ninja hounds, their bodies covered in black lines formed from Curse Seal runes. Their growls shook through the pipe into layered echoes, and their dark red eyes drew three locking trajectories through the cramped space.

Lin Feng's left hand was still bleeding, and the black runes had already climbed to his shoulder, but his Three-Tomoe Sharingan did not waver in the slightest.

All three hounds entered his field of vision.

Genjutsu: Shackling Stakes Technique.

The first hound froze in midair, its limbs seemingly pierced by invisible stakes and nailed to the ceiling of the duct.

The second hound's pouncing trajectory halted abruptly. Its body hung at the corner of the right-angle bend, its growl caught in its throat and turning into a whimper.

The third hound's snout was already inches from Lin Feng's face, its foul breath spraying over him—then its eyes lost focus.

Three targets under mental control at once.

Lin Feng's left arm shook violently. Blood from the wound dripped down his fingertips onto the metal pipe wall, making tiny pattering sounds. He maintained the focus of his Sharingan and stared at the three rigid hounds, watching the black runes over their bodies still struggle to break free of the genjutsu. The Curse Seal lines writhed beneath their skin like trapped insects.

Ten seconds.

The opening would last only ten seconds.

He turned around, grabbed the edge of the duct exit with his uninjured right hand, and crawled outward as fast as he could.

A faint sound came from behind him, the sound of the Curse Seals inside the hounds cracking.

The genjutsu was being forcibly broken.

Lin Feng ignored it. His knees and elbows scraped bloody trails across the metal surface. The black runes on his left arm spread with every beat of his heart, and the burning sensation had already climbed to his collarbone. The light at the duct exit widened ahead, and cold moonlight mixed with the rotten-water stench of an abandoned reservoir flooded into the pipe.

He grabbed the rusted iron bars at the exit and rammed them open with his shoulder.

His body rolled out of the duct.

His back slammed into the cracked concrete beside the reservoir, and the stench of stagnant, rotting water flooded his nostrils. Lin Feng lay on his back, gasping, his chest heaving violently. Blood still flowed from his left forearm, seeping into the cracks in the concrete.

Moonlight fell over him.

He raised his left arm.

The black runes had spread from the wound to his shoulder, forming a ring-shaped Curse Seal pattern near his shoulder blade. The runes were arranged in a hexagonal pattern, each line like a scar left by a burn. They were scorching to the touch, as though someone were painting beneath his skin with a branding iron.

No hounds came out of the duct.

He was safe for now.

Lin Feng propped himself up with his right hand and leaned against the wall of the reservoir. He pulled out the Konoha map Shisui had left behind from his ninja tool pouch and spread it over his knees.

His finger touched the watchtower's location.

His gaze moved down along the marked route and found the gathering place of the radicals marked by Shisui's code. The two paths stretched under the moonlight in opposite directions.

He had traveled the route from the watchtower to Root's outer perimeter before. To deal with the Curse Seal infection, he needed to return to the watchtower and use the medical ninja tools and sealing techniques Shisui had left behind to suppress the spread of the runes. That would take time.

The route from the reservoir to the radicals' gathering place was longer. The Hour of the Boar was nearing its end, but he could still get there before the deadline and confirm the intelligence Shisui had left behind.

But he could not take both paths.

The angle of the moonlight stabbed into his vision.

The Hour of the Boar was nearly over.

Lin Feng's left arm was still spasming, and the black runes pulsed across his shoulder blade.

He realized he was standing at the edge of another choice—the exact same deadlock as in Chapter Thirty-Two. But this time, the Curse Seal's countdown burned through his veins. Moonlight weighed upon his back, and the hounds' blockade was still tightening around Root's outer perimeter.

His hand pressed against the edge of the map.

There was no choosing one of two.

His fingers curled, folding the map and tucking it into his clothes.

Lin Feng pressed down on the wound in his left arm as blood seeped between his fingers.

"I have to find a third path."