The cellar felt like a tomb of damp stone and stale earth, but it was cold. After the suffocating, chemical roar of the fire above, the biting metallic chill of the lower level felt like a reprieve. My lungs burned with every shallow intake, the air tasting of ancient dust and the faint, sweet rot of the forest floor.
Gantetsu led us deeper, his heavy boots dragging a jagged rhythm across the stone. He didn't speak. Every step was punctuated by a wet, rattling sound in his chest—a sound like glass grinding in a bag.
Then, we saw him.
Akio lay curled on a thin pile of straw behind heavy iron bars. He looked small—half-beaten and covered in a layer of grey grime.
"AKIO!"
Todoroki lunged forward. The Forest Swordsman vanished, replaced by a desperate, frantic boy. He gripped the bars, his knuckles turning white as he shook the iron. The metal didn't budge. Todoroki hammered his fist against the cage, a dull, hollow thud that echoed through the chamber.
Gantetsu moved him aside. The giant stepped to the center, his soot-stained hands wrapping around the iron. He planted his feet, his massive frame trembling before he even began to pull.
CREEEEEAK.
The sound was a long, agonized shriek of metal. Gantetsu's neck muscles roped like bridge cables. He sucked in a breath that ended in a sharp, hacking cough, a spray of red dotting the floorboards.
Akio's eyes fluttered. "Gan... tetsu...?" His gaze shifted, landing on the ashen-haired man. "Bro... ther...?"
I took a breath, my fingers twitching toward my mask. My gut felt like an empty, aching void. Remember what you've seen Hinata do, I told myself. The flow.
I stepped forward and slammed my palms against Gantetsu's broad, shaking back. I didn't have much, but I had intent. I channeled the final, stinging dregs of my energy—not into his wounds, but into his muscles. The light flickering between my hands lacked the pure white of a standard heal; it carried a sickly, feverish green tint.
A surge of nausea so sharp I nearly retched into my gaiter hit me. My vision fractured—the iron bars doubled and then tripled into a vibrating lattice of gray as my depth perception dissolved. Proprioception failed; I felt like I was falling through the stone floor even as I stood rooted. My hands began to vibrate with an uncontrollable, high-frequency tremor that made the greenish glow stutter and spark.
Gantetsu let out a sound that wasn't human—a low, gutteral roar of pure leverage. The iron groaned, the bars bowing outward. With a final, explosive snap of tension, the gap widened. Gantetsu fell to his knees, his forehead striking the stone with a heavy thud.
Todoroki didn't wait. He leaped through the opening, gathering his brother into his arms.
BOOM.
A muffled explosion rocked the ceiling, showering us in plaster dust. I looked up, but the ceiling was a swirling blur of gray-on-gray. Vertigo hammered my skull. I tried to orient toward the sound, but the floor seemed to tilt at a forty-five-degree angle. Todoroki shouted something, but the sound arrived compressed, as if my ears were filled with wet sand. I slumped back, my head thumping against the damp stone as the migraine flared into a blinding, white-hot needle behind my left eye.
Naruto...you better be...safe...
The hallway funneled heated wind directly into Naruto.
He ducked as a tongue of flame roared over his head, the fire-starter in Shura's umbrella turning the narrow corridor into a furnace. He felt the hair on the back of his neck singe, the smell of burnt protein and scorched cotton filling his nose.
His right shoulder screamed—a sharp, tearing heat that made his vision flicker white every time he pumped his arms. He didn't have leverage. He had to lead with his left, his body tilting awkwardly as he scrambled up the steep wooden stairs.
Shura didn't look back. He burst onto the roof, the cold mountain wind hitting with the force of a physical slap. He triggered the umbrella, the silk snapping open with a metallic crack as he launched himself into the grey November sky.
"GET BACK HERE!" Naruto screamed, his voice raw from the ash.
He looked at his right sleeve. The blood was a stiff, dark crust. Not again. Not the red. Not the drill.
Two clones appeared beside him. They didn't speak. They grabbed Naruto's arms, their fingers digging into the orange fabric.
"RASENGAN!"
The blue sphere spun into existence—whirrr-thrum—the rotation so violent it pulled at the surrounding fog. The clones spun, using their combined weight to hurl Naruto off the roof.
He soared. The forest below was a blur of dark teal. Above him, Shura adjusted the umbrella to fire a web of wires. Naruto saw the gap—the space right between Shura's ribs.
He paused.
In a heartbeat of suspended motion, the image of Toki's chest overlaid Shura's robes. Naruto's hand over-rotated. The rotation of the sphere wobbled, the high-pitched whine dropping into a low, discordant thrum as his motor command hesitated. His clone's grip on his left sleeve slipped, nearly sending him into an uncontrolled spin. Naruto's eyes darted across Shura's chest to his shoulder.
CRASH.
The Rasengan hit the base of the umbrella. The force wasn't a piercing strike; it was a hammer blow. The rotation caught the silk and the man's arm, spinning them into a violent descent.
Naruto didn't land cleanly. He slammed into a spruce trunk, bark stripping away as he slid down the rough wood. He hit the forest floor face-first, tasting dirt and cold mineral water. A jagged pain shot through his re-injured shoulder as he tumbled across a bed of frost-rimed needles.
He staggered to his feet, his breath coming in white plumes. Shura lay ten feet away, groaning in the dirt, his umbrella a mangled ruin of wire and silk.
Kakashi stumbled out of the brush a beat later, his vest torn and his breathing a heavy, ragged rasp. He smelled of burnt resin and sharp sweat. He stopped, leaning against a tree as the orphans trailed behind him, their eyes wide.
Naruto stood over the fallen bandit. He didn't raise a fist. He didn't offer a boast. He just stood there, his blood-stained sleeve flapping in the wind, hyper-focusing on the steady, rhythmic sound of his own breathing.
The clearing was silent, save for the dry rattle of the branches in the wind.