Boots stepped into mud mixed with gravel and blood, making sticky, squelching sounds.
The sound was infinitely amplified in the deathly silent underground passage. Hyuga Xiao held Hinata's hand, his steps steady and unhurried. Dozens of fully armed ANBU elites stood on either side. These Konoha killing machines, who usually harvested lives only in the darkness, now clung tightly to the walls like vicious dogs with their teeth pulled, not even daring to breathe too hard.
The farther they went, the fainter the smell of blood and formaldehyde became.
An ANBU squad captain wearing a fox mask stood at the turn in the corridor. Veins bulged across the back of the hand gripping his ninja sword, and sweat dripped from his chin into his collar. When Xiao reached him, the captain instinctively swallowed, his Adam's apple rolling with a dry sound.
Xiao stopped.
That slight pause made the fox-masked man's body abruptly stiffen. The fingers around his sword hilt cracked from excessive force. He thought Xiao was about to strike.
But Xiao did not. He merely tilted his head slightly, his azure starry eyes coldly sweeping over the man through the dim light.
There was no killing intent in that gaze. Only the aloof indifference one might show toward gravel by the roadside.
The squad captain lowered his head as though shocked by lightning and took half a step back with his right foot, completely yielding the center of the passage.
"Boring."
Xiao snorted coldly, withdrew his gaze, and led Hinata onward.
The exit lay ahead.
The once-heavy alloy doors had been completely blasted apart in the earlier battle, twisted metal wreckage embedded upside down in the earth. A morning breeze poured in through the breach, dispersing the last trace of rot in the passage and carrying the bitterness of