Author's notes:

I've decided to take up a First Person POV for this story because of the emotional depth that I want to explore through this fic. The world that we'll be seeing is different from the one in canon since the disappearance of Naruto will have triggered a different series of events. The world and story will also be a lot darker.

Chapter 1

They say the most feared enemies are the ones you can't see.

My eyes flicker. Night consumes the surrounding forest. The life among the trees retrieves into the silence. Waiting. Hiding from the predators that strike swiftly and mercilessly from under the shadows.

A gust of wind brushes sharply against my face as I race through the treetops. I stop abruptly and sniff. Nothing. Just a sprinkle of moist earth, rain, and a few hares burrowed in their nests and the fox on the prowl. I throw my head backwards and inhale deeply, arcing it for a comprehensive view. Not even a whiff.

Fuck. I lost the scent.

Last time I checked, they were still slightly over a kilometer ahead.

I channel chakra to my feet, crouching to kick into another sprint. Logic dictates that I keep true. They are still five kilometers away from the border. With their speed, I have thirty minutes to catch up and intercept. But right now, logic feels wrong.

I've never lost a scent in a downwind. Something just doesn't add up here. A gust of wind and poof. Their scents just vanish. Gone. Impossible.

My ears perk. Silence. Complete silence. Even for my heightened senses. The forest, despite the hour, should bustle with life. But no chirps or scuffles fall on my ears. Not even the rustle of leaves. As if I just stumbled into a pocket of space frozen in time.

My eyes quickly dart around as I scan the vicinity. My hand rests on the hilt of the tanto sashed to my back.

Genjutsu?

A bead of sweat collects on my brow, trickles down my cheek, and into my black mask. I grip the handle. My knuckles bleed white from the anticipation. I free the blade from its sheath and slide it across my palm. Pain courses through my body.

In a matter of seconds, the ambience of the forest returns to me. With it, the whistling of a kunai slicing through the air. I quickly skip backwards onto a tree branch as the kunai lodges itself into the bark of the tree in front of me.

More kunai and shurikens fly at me, trying to overwhelm me before I can locate their sources and regain my bearings. I deflect a few and leap onto another tree. Metal gleams as shurikens litter the branch I stood on.

I drop onto the rain caked earth to dodge another salvo of shurikens and dart behind a tree. Using its shadows, I form a hand seal.

"Chakra Suppression Jutsu."

I sprint into the shade of another tree and sniff. Two targets. A male and a female. Standing a few meters apart as they retrieve their projectiles.

I gauge the distances between us. The male is only a couple dozen feet away. I don't see him, but I can smell and hear him. That's more than enough.

I flick my tanto. Blood splatters on the soil beside me. With blinding speed, I rush at the man. Bringing my tanto around in a horizontal arc, I slash across the side of his body. He howls and falls from the lofty haven of the treetops. His navy shirt darkens along the side of his body as the shirt soaks up the crimson red pouring from the gash.

Before his partner can turn to see his crippled body drop, I lunge at her. Widened eyes greet me as I drive my blade through her throat. Her jet black hair ripples from the impact. Her dark pupils stare into my scarlet ones. I slowly extract the blade from its temporary flesh sheath. She gurgles, blood gushing from the wound, and joins her partner on the cold, stained earth.

I leap off the branch. The bloodied soil slushes into my black sandals, squashing under my feet.

I admire my work.

The woman lies lifeless as her blood melts into the ground.

The man quivers with his last few inklings of life. One hand struggles over the gaping streak of red on his side while the other claws the red earth under him. He pushes himself away from me, groaning as he fights the jaws of imminent death. Futile. I step on his outstretched hand, holding it in place. Despite my small size, I manage.

He looks up at me. The whites in his eyes glisten under the moonlight.

"You... you're just a kid". His mouth gapes in horror as he struggles to cough up the words.

I push my foot down, as if I was driving it hundreds of meters deep into the ground. His jaw clenches to fight back a scream. He fails. I kick him onto his back and slide my blade through his chest. With a moan, he exhales his last breath.

My eyes glide over to his forehead protector. A slash breaks across the middle of two stacked pairs of slanted lines.

Missing nins from Kirigakure. That's who my target contracted his security out to. I picked up on more than a dozen signatures earlier from their scent. Two of them lie dead in front of me. The others won't be as easy. If he can afford missing nins as his mercenary protection, then at least one of them will be B-rank or higher. Besides, they are almost at the border, and they saw me coming.

I hop onto a nearby tree. Releasing the Chakra Suppression I casted earlier, I shoot forward.

The view of a caravan greets me as I descend into the cover of bushes. Three wooden carts with contents concealed under a leather tarp linger behind a stagecoach. Their wheels cluck against the uneven terrain as they stubbornly trail forward under the pull of the marching horses.

A masked man in standard dark shinobi garb leads the formation. A slashed line through two stacks of slanted line decorates his forehead protector as it glimmers under the naked full moon. The man's eyes survey the flanking forest cautiously. Probably wondering where his dispatched cohorts are. He doesn't seem to notice me yet.

A troop of armed men treks behind the missing nin. Six flanking each side of the caravan while four steer the wagons. They dress in varying rags and garments. Katanas strut against their waists. Hands unsuspectingly limp on the sides. Hired blades. Merely simple thugs.

Another missing nin guards the formation's rear. Her dark violet bangs cascade over her blemished Kiri forehead protector and onto her sleek but faded, grey flak jacket. A hand rests over the kunai pouch fastened on her thigh while another twitches in painful anticipation. The two parallel scars across her cheek glare at me menacingly as her lips tighten.

I don't see my target anywhere. Probably lounging in the comfort of the stagecoach trailer and sighing in relief as the border crawls into their sight.

Plan or no plan, I have to act now.

I reach into my pouch. Two sets of three kunai welcome my callouses. Their cold steel hilts press against my sweaty fingers. With a sharp exhale, I lodge them in the three wagons.

The cautious stoicisms of the two missing nins morph into alarm as they turn. Their eyes panic as the tags strung on the hilts of the kunai twirl in the wind. An "Explode" character glares at them. They open their mouths, but it's too late.

I form a single hand seal. Fires rupture and kick the wagons onto their sides. Wood beams gasp as the carts collapse. Debris litter across the beaten path. Among them, in a soup of carnage, lies the mutilated bodies of several hired swords.

Orochimaru-sama would have preferred a more discrete approach. However, going in hard and fast yields better results, sometimes. He would disagree. But I'll deal with the rebukes later.

While the surviving few mercenaries are unsheathing their blades, I jump into their midsts.

A slash across the throat. One falls. His left hand softens its grip around the white handle of his weapon. A quarter of the blade still rests in the wooden scabbard. Blood jets from the opening across his neck. A fountain of red among the flames. His right hand clutches at the wound. But his effort is in vain. He surrenders. Life fades from his eyes.

A yell pierces the sky. I turn. A woman with her sword in both hands charges at me. I dash towards her and dip. With a twist of my torso, I slice across the length of her belly. Using my momentum, I spin to the side before we collide. She stumbles and crashes into the ground. A clang echos among the droning flames as her blade escapes her grip.

I take a deep breath. The female missing nin glares at me. Three seconds have passed since my explosive assault. Two seconds since I slit the man's throat. One second after I cut open the woman's belly. The shock from my ambush is dead. In its wake, murderous intent perches. From behind the licking flames of the wreck, the woman's scars smile familiarly as she steels her gaze. Paralysis grips me as a name digs itself free from my mind's abyss and into recollection. Hyoga Mizumi, the Crimson Glacier of Kirigakure.

Mizumi lunges. She leaps through the fire like a conqueror. A kunai in each hand. She's only a few feet away now. I watch the panic across my face in the cold steel of her kunai. My distorted frame shimmers on the edge where two sides of the blade converge. My red eyes, captured in terror, have never looked more humane.

I force myself to move. Reaching in my utility pouch, I retrieve a smoke bomb and cast it onto the ground. With a hiss, dark, grey fingers dance as they escape their prison. A momentary reprieve as I adjust my mental bearings. With ice cold determination, I will myself to survive. I will not die. Not today. Not here. The fear retreats into its void.

During the one second I allowed myself to freeze, I forgot about the other missing nin. A song of sandals chewing through wet earth reminds me. He's behind me. But I vanish under the cover of smoke. I need to deal with him before the two missing nins can coordinate against me.

Holding my breath, I let my enhanced hearing guide me. Two sets of breaths echo. Mizumi's is slow and calculated: cold as ice from her years of experience. The other is uneasy and raspy. Panic reverberates as he inhales. He's only a few feet behind me. My blade sings as it hacks deep into his neck and kisses his spine. His legs give. The moist earth hugs his knees. With a grunt, I jerk my tanto free and kick the missing nin. His silhouette melts away into smoky dusk.

The slightest of rustles, as cloth graces wind, warns me. I scurry backwards. But a sharp pain vibrates through my arm as a kunai tears across my shoulder. A quarter of a second too late and that would have been my jugular.

I breathe a sigh of relief. I nurse the pain with the flat of my palm. I expected her to be faster. Regardless, she's a formidable foe and I am still out of my depth. But my mission isn't to bring back the head of the Bloody Glacier. The carriage appears in the corner of my eye as the smoke begins to dissipate.

Mizumi reads my eyes. I kick off towards the wagon. She rushes to put herself between me and the wagon. But I'm faster. I'm almost there. But I see her on my tail, holding a hand seal. Her cheeks swell.

"Water Release: Gunshot." An orb of water flies.

My feet flashes red as I pump them with chakra. The ground craters as I stomp into it, bringing myself to a hasty halt. Water sails past my head. With a thunderous boom, it snaps a nearby tree and saws the top half cleanly from the stump.

The Bloody Glacier of Kirigakure now stands between me and the stagecoach. Her bulky frame jeers at me imposingly. She crouches into a fighting stance. The tips of her drawn kunai stare at me. She's left me no choice. I have to fight.

I dive at her, tanto poised to kill. The cacophony of steels clashing harmonizes with the whispers of the flaming debris. Both of us dance against the others' movements without breaking. She acknowledges my speed superiority and tries to peel away to make room for her veteran ninjutsu arsenal. But I don't let her. My blade licks her blood as it nicks her above the knee. Slowly, but surely, I whittle her away.

I grin. But so does she. And then I notice it. She's been drawing me in as she studies my movements, feeding me a predictable rhythm as I grind against her like a serrated whirlwind. Winking at me, she breaks away from her three move set and brings a kunai down against my exposed side. I try to twist away, but it's too late. My speed fails to match her experience. I gasp as her blade carves through my flesh. My vision blurs as tears sear through my eyes.

While her first kunai tears through me, the other kunai levels against my throat. Before she can skewer the blade through the side of my neck, I use my rotational momentum to ram my elbow against her temple with as much strength as my body lets me. Her head jerks back. Using that small window, I kick her off me and roll in retreat.

I fall to my knee, clutching at my side. The agony burns through every cell of my being. And with it, rage comes knocking. I let it in.

Within a few seconds, the gash seals, and the pain subsides. Mizumi's brown eyes bare into my blazing reds' in intrigue. Then it coalesces into terror. A look all too familiar.

"You..." she snarls. She knows what I am. And in the silence of revelation, a crimson mountain rises through her chest. Its tip greets me.

But it's not a mountain. It's a blade. Smeared in blood. Mizumi's blood. But her eyes don't fall to acknowledge it. Instead, they continue to stare at me. Frozen. As if immortalizing the moment she realizes what I am. A jinchuriki.