Anko's Crisis

The corridor of Konoha Hospital's intensive care unit was thick with the mingled stench of disinfectant and despair.

Hyuga Xiao stood before the observation window outside the ward. His Byakugan pierced the glass, taking in everything inside. Anko Mitarashi lay on the hospital bed, tubes sustaining her life all over her body. On her exposed neck, three tomoe-shaped black Curse Marks writhed like living creatures, and every contraction sent Anko's body into violent spasms.

"Third rampage."

The on-duty medical ninja's voice trembled as he held the medical chart. "The Curse Mark's rate of erosion suddenly accelerated early yesterday morning. We've tried every sealing technique, even the Yamanaka Clan's secret arts. We can only barely slow it down..."

Xiao's gaze fell on Anko's pale face.

This woman, who usually wore such a cheerful smile and loved eating dango, now looked like a puppet drained of all life. Her chakra fluctuations were as chaotic as a candle in a storm, liable to go out at any moment.

"When will Lady Tsunade arrive?"

"At the earliest, this evening." The medical ninja wiped the sweat from his forehead. "The Hokage has already sent out three ANBU teams to meet her, but Lady Tsunade's whereabouts are unpredictable..."

This evening.

Xiao glanced at the clock on the wall—10:17 in the morning.

Anko would not last that long.

"Let me in."

"No!" The medical ninja hurriedly blocked him. "During a Curse Mark rampage, any chakra stimulation could trigger total loss of control. Hyuga-kun, I know you're close to Elite Ninja Anko, but..."

"She taught me Shurikenjutsu." Xiao's voice was terrifyingly calm. "When she could still speak normally, she gave me an emergency contact frequency code. She said that if she ever lost control, using that frequency to stimulate her auditory nerves could bring her back for ten minutes."

The medical ninja froze. "Th-this is too dangerous! What if..."

"There is no what if."

Xiao pushed open the ward door.

The smell of disinfectant instantly grew several times stronger, mixed with a sickly sweetness like scorched flesh and blood. The ward was at least five degrees colder than the corridor. The air-conditioning system was running at full power, trying to suppress the intense heat generated by the Curse Mark.

He walked to the bedside.

Anko's breathing was so faint that her chest barely rose and fell. The black Curse Mark patterns had already spread from her neck to her collarbone, like parasitic vines greedily devouring her life force.

Xiao extended his right index finger.

Chakra gathered at his fingertip into an extremely thin thread, following the code Anko had taught him at the training ground three months ago—a secret signal used by the test subjects in Orochimaru's Laboratory to transmit emergency messages.

First frequency sequence: short-long-short.

The chakra thread lightly touched the acupoint behind Anko's ear.

The woman on the bed suddenly opened her eyes!

They were not lucid eyes, but beastlike crimson ones. The Curse Mark patterns flared, and Anko's body arched as the restraints creaked under the strain. An inhuman growl rose from her throat. The skin on her neck began to crack, oozing thick black fluid.

"Second sequence." Xiao's voice did not waver in the slightest. "Long-short-long-short."

The chakra thread precisely pierced the second acupoint.

Anko's struggles abruptly halted.

Those crimson eyes blinked, and the blood-red color receded like a tide, revealing her original brown pupils. Her gaze focused on Xiao's face, and her lips moved with difficulty.

"...Xiao?"

"You only have ten minutes." Xiao bent down, keeping his voice low. "Tell me what happened."

Anko's breathing quickened. She tried to raise her hand, but the restraints limited her movement. Xiao undid the restraint on her right hand, and that hand immediately seized his wrist with astonishing force.

"Orochimaru..." Anko's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping. "He... left a message inside me..."

"What message?"

"He wants to see me." Tears seeped from the corners of Anko's eyes—not from grief, but from overwhelming fury and humiliation. "The Curse Mark isn't out of control... it's an awakening program. He's waiting for me... waiting for me to go find him on my own..."

Xiao's Byakugan abruptly narrowed.

In his vision, the flow of chakra inside Anko's body was laid bare—those black Curse Mark energies were not rampaging randomly. They were moving along a prearranged pathway of chakra meridians. With every cycle, they reinforced an "anchor point" near her heart.

This was not an illness.

It was a summons.

"The coordinates." Xiao asked, "Where does he want you to go?"

Anko's lips trembled. She closed her eyes, seemingly resisting some command from within her body. The Curse Mark patterns began to glow again, and black fluid seeped from the corners of her eyes and nostrils.

"Down... downstream of the Nanga River... the cave behind the third waterfall..." Her voice grew weaker and weaker. "Midnight... I have to go at midnight... otherwise, the Curse Mark will consume me completely..."

"It is a trap."

"I know..." Anko gave a miserable smile. "But he calculated it... calculated that Leaf Village couldn't cure me... calculated that I would do anything to survive..."

Her fingers tightened, her nails nearly digging into Xiao's flesh.

"Kill me."

Anko stared at Xiao, desperate clarity in her eyes. "While I'm still conscious... kill me. I can't... can't become his pawn... can't betray Leaf Village..."

The temperature in the ward dropped another few degrees.

Xiao looked at this woman. In his memories, there was her hearty laugh when she first taught him shuriken throwing techniques; the way she stuck out her tongue after secretly taking him out for dango and getting caught by the Third Hokage; the way she patted his shoulder after returning severely wounded from a mission and said, "Branch House brat, quit looking so miserable all the time."

And now, she was asking him to kill her.

"Seven minutes left," Xiao said.

"What?"

"The time you have left while conscious." Xiao took three specially made silver needles from his ninja tool pouch. Pale blue chakra light glimmered at their tips. "Teacher Anko, you taught me this—ninja battles have never been contests of strength alone."

The needles fell.

The first needle pierced the center of the Curse Mark on her neck.

Anko's body trembled violently, but Xiao pressed down on her shoulder with his left hand. Gentle Fist chakra precisely sealed the relevant acupoints. The black Curse Mark patterns shrank as if scalded, releasing sizzling sounds.

"What are you doing..." Anko's voice was full of pain.

"Reverse analysis." Xiao's Byakugan was fully activated, his vision penetrating down to the cellular level. "Orochimaru's Curse Mark is essentially a degraded variant of senjutsu chakra, activated by a specific frequency. Since he can set an awakening program—"

The second needle pierced the "anchor point" near her heart.

Anko suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood. When the blood hit the floor, it writhed like a living thing for several seconds before losing its vitality.

"—then I can set a dormancy program."

The third needle pierced her forehead.

Xiao's chakra flowed through the silver needle, not to resist, but to imitate. He drew upon the Curse Mark data acquired from Kimimaro, the sealing techniques parsed from the laboratory chip, and the prototype of the Cursed Seal Simulation Technique that the system had just prompted.

Three forces converged inside Anko's body.

It was not brute suppression, but precise deception.

The black Curse Mark patterns began to change. Their writhing calmed, their glow dimmed. The flow of chakra inside Anko's body was forcibly redirected, and the preset chakra pathways were overlaid by "false pathways" created through Xiao's Gentle Fist.

It was like quietly laying a switch track onto a predetermined railway.

The final second of the ten minutes arrived.

The clarity in Anko's eyes began to fade, but this time, no crimson surged forth. Her pupils returned to their normal brown, her breathing gradually steadied, and although the Curse Mark patterns remained on her neck, they were motionless like a tattoo.

"I..." she said weakly. "I feel... much better..."

"It is only temporary." Xiao pulled out the silver needles, their tips completely black. "I simulated Orochimaru's dormancy command and made the Curse Mark think that you had already 'responded to the summons,' putting it into standby mode. But that state can last for forty-eight hours at most."

"Forty-eight hours..." Anko smiled bitterly. "Then what?"

"Then you need actual treatment." Xiao put away the needles. "Lady Tsunade will arrive this evening. I will ask her to prioritize your condition. Before then—"

He bent down and spoke one final sentence into Anko's ear.

His voice was so soft that even the medical ninja outside the ward could not hear it.

Anko's eyes widened slightly.

Then she nodded, closed her eyes, and slipped into a drug-assisted sleep.

Xiao walked out of the ward.

In the corridor, the on-duty medical ninja hurried over. "How did it go? The monitors showed that her vital signs suddenly stabilized! What did you do?"

"Temporarily suppressed it." Xiao did not explain further. "Prepare to receive Lady Tsunade. Elite Ninja Anko's condition requires the highest priority."

"Understood!"

The medical ninja hurried away.

Xiao stood before the corridor window, looking at the streets of Leaf Village outside. The sunlight was bright. Children practiced shuriken at the training grounds, while villagers went about their lives as usual.

No one knew that beneath this peaceful facade, a Branch House boy had just snatched an Elite Ninja's life back from the god of death.

Nor did anyone know that the same Level-Two Caged Bird Seal, on the verge of activation, was carved into this boy's neck.

A double crisis.

Anko's, and his own.

Xiao raised his hand and looked at the bruise Anko had left on his wrist. The pain was sharp, but it kept him clear-headed.

Orochimaru was summoning Anko.

The Main House was forcing him.

Time had never been on his side.

But—

The corner of Xiao's mouth curved into the faintest smile.

—who said prey could not set a trap in return?

He turned and left the hospital. His Byakugan swept toward Hokage Rock in the distance. The Third Hokage's stone visage stood solemn and majestic in the sunlight, as though guarding the entire village.

Xiao knew that the man behind that statue was currently sitting in his office, weighing the Main House's submitted "Level-Two Caged Bird Seal application."

Weighing the fate of a Branch House boy.

"Soon."

Xiao muttered softly, his voice fading into the wind in the corridor.

"Soon, you will know—"

"A cage cannot hold a beast destined to tear it apart."

He walked through the hospital gates, sunlight falling across his face, warm enough to sting.

Fourteen hours remained until midnight.

Eight hours remained until Tsunade arrived.

Less than three days remained until the final judgment on the Level-Two Caged Bird Seal.

Every second was counting down.

But Hyuga Xiao's steps were steady.

As steady as a chess player who had already seen the endgame.

And the board had only just been set.