Curse These Old Bones - Chapter 55

Chapter 55

Konoha

Sura(tobi) eyed the woman sprawled on the ground before him, one brow lifting in mild amusement. Koyuki Kazahana. So this was the so-called exiled princess, now a film star, chased through the streets like a common thief.

He extended a hand, palm up, fingers loose but expectant. "Need a hand?"

She hesitated—just a flicker, a quick dart of her violet-blue eyes up to meet his—before she took it.

Her grip was softer than he expected, but not weak. She had the delicate hands of a woman raised in luxury, a noble’s touch, yet there was tension there, an edge to her hold, as if she expected something to go wrong at any moment. Sura could recognize that kind of apprehension. It was the wariness of someone who had lived through enough betrayal to know trust was a currency spent too easily.

As he pulled her up, she nearly lost her balance for a second, her weight shifting forward—not quite falling into him, but close enough that he could take in everything with a scientist’s precision.

She was striking. Even more than in the movie — but Sura had started being used to it. It was his reality, now.

Her long black hair fell in soft waves, the strands swaying as she caught her footing. A few locks framed her face, curling against her cheekbones in an almost artful way, accentuated by the faint dusting of pink eyeshadow and the bold red of her lips. The color should have been too harsh, too stark against her fair skin, but it wasn’t. It drew attention—a mask of beauty, designed to captivate. The soft fabric of her green blouse was fitted just right, its neckline generous but still modest enough to play at decorum. The pink jacket over it did little to conceal the shape beneath—full breasts, the kind that would draw stares, but framed in a way that suggested she knew exactly how much to show to keep an audience wanting more. A body trained for performance, for elegance, not battle.

But her eyes betrayed the act.

She was scared.

Not of the men who had been chasing her — that was staged —, but of something deeper, something rooted beneath the practiced poise and the carefully constructed exterior.

Sura gave her a charming, almost lazy smirk as he steadied her, his grip lingering just long enough to ensure her attention remained on his face. It worked—her cheeks reddened slightly, a reaction she clearly didn’t intend, but one he used to his advantage.

With a subtle flick of his fingers, he loosened the clasp of the crystal necklace hanging at her throat, replacing it with an identical copy in the time it took for her breath to hitch. The original disappeared into his sleeve, then into the pouch at his waist.

By the time she realized she had been staring at him too long, he was already stepping back, his hands empty, his smirk still in place.

"So, you’re Yukie Fujikaze, huh?" His voice carried just enough familiarity to make it sound like he already knew the answer, like she was the one confirming it for him, not the other way around.

Her lips parted slightly, her breath still uneven from the chase—or, maybe, from something else entirely. She stammered, struggling to regain her composure, blinking rapidly as if that would reset the moment.

Before she could answer, the sound of heavy footsteps approached from behind them.

A man, panting heavily, rushed forward, his face flushed from exertion. Sandayū Asama, her manager, his expression hovering somewhere between relief and outright panic as he took in the scene before him. His gaze snapped between Sura and Koyuki, then to the motionless bodies of the men still reeling from Zabuza’s killing intent, then back to Sura—lingering just a little too long, as if trying to gauge who exactly he was dealing with.

Sura kept his smile just sharp enough to be unreadable.

"Welcome to the party," he said lightly, his hand resting against the pouch where the real necklace now sat. "You’re a little late."

— — —

Kusagakure

“WOAH! LOOK AT THIS!”

Naruto’s voice shattered the peaceful hum of the marketplace like an exploding tag. He was practically glued to a vendor’s stall, hands gripping the counter, eyes gleaming like he’d just discovered a new jutsu. The shopkeeper—a grizzled old man with the air of someone who had seen too many overenthusiastic customers—watched with wary patience as Naruto pointed at a wooden shuriken, nearly knocking over a stack of intricately carved kunai.

“Sensei! Sensei! This one’s HUGE!” Naruto brandished the oversized shuriken like it was a legendary artifact. “And it’s got writing on it! Haku, what does it say?”

Haku, ever composed, stepped closer, glancing at the inscription. His voice was smooth, measured. “It says, ‘To strike with precision is to honor one’s enemy.’”

Naruto blinked. “Huh. That’s kinda deep.”

“It is,” Haku said mildly. “Efficiency matters more than strength.”

“Yeah, but hitting a lot is more fun!” Naruto countered, grinning.

Kushina exhaled through her nose, arms crossed as she trailed behind her team. At least he was happy. Her kid had been vibrating with excitement since they stepped outside the gates of Konoha, thrilled at his first real mission abroad. She figured it was better to let him run his mouth here rather than during a political meeting.

The Hokage had chosen to remain with the Daimyo, flanked by his ANBU escort for whatever political maneuvering was happening behind closed doors. That left her in charge of Team 7, following the invitation of their hosts. The Daimyo had graciously arranged for a tour, and so they were given two guides—one of whom had yet to shut up.

Sakura sighed, adjusting her gloves. “Naruto, we’re supposed to be learning about the village, not acting like tourists.”

“This is learning!” Naruto spun dramatically. “I learned their shuriken have writing, the markets are kinda small, and Haku knows how to read fancy stuff. That’s educational, right?!”

Senzō, their assigned guide—a young, talkative chunin with well-groomed dark hair and the kind of diplomatic enthusiasm that screamed picked for political reasons—laughed. “He’s got a point. Marketplaces are the heart of a village. You can learn a lot about people by what they sell—and what they yell about.”

Naruto grinned smugly. “See? He gets it!”

Kushina chuckled under her breath, casting a lazy glance around. Her sensor net stretched outward, skimming the chakra signatures moving through the streets. Nothing interesting yet.

Behind Senzō, the second guide, Zōsui, stood in stark contrast. He was quiet, composed—watching rather than engaging. Fair-skinned, with long black hair combed back to frame his sharp, pupil-less grey eyes. His Kusagakure forehead protector sat neatly against his brow, and his dark brown-grey kimono-like shirt, edged in cream, was tied at the waist with a pristine white robe. His posture was elegant but reserved, like a weapon sheathed in silk.

Unlike Senzō’s warmth, Zōsui’s presence was cold. Not hostile—just measured. He moved with the kind of stillness that made Kushina’s instincts itch. A man who didn’t waste energy, not even on unnecessary expressions.

“And that brings us to today’s lesson,” Senzō continued, gesturing widely. “Unlike the great shinobi villages, Kusagakure isn’t independent. Our ninja exist as a district within the capital itself. We don’t have a Kage. Instead, leadership is shared between the Daimyo and a Triumvirate—our three strongest shinobi.”

He clapped Zōsui on the back with the ease of someone who either had no fear or too much familiarity. “And this is one of them—Lord Zōsui!”

Naruto squinted at him. “Wait, you’re one of the strongest ninja here?”

Sakura choked on air.

Zōsui didn’t blink. “Yes.”

Naruto frowned, arms crossed. “You don’t look strong.”

Senzō nearly had a stroke.

Haku’s mouth twitched.

Zōsui, impressively, remained completely unbothered. “Strength isn’t always visible.”

Naruto gave him a long, considering look. “…So you’re like a ‘quiet but scary’ type? Like Haku?”

Haku, betraying himself, turned away slightly, covering his mouth as if suppressing a cough. Kushina definitely caught the way his shoulders shook.

Zōsui just exhaled through his nose. He looked…angry — though he quickly hid it. “You could say that.”

Senzō, recovering from his near-death experience, cleared his throat. “Anyway! The Triumvirate ensures no one person holds too much power. It allows for balance. No reckless ambition."

That last part had a weight to it. Kushina caught the way Zōsui’s chakra barely flickered as he said nothing at all.

Sakura, despite herself, was intrigued. “That’s… so different from our village. It’s strange to imagine sharing power when one leader usually decides everything.”

Zōsui’s gaze flicked to her, considering. “Systems evolve to fit their people. What works for one does not work for all.”

Sakura nodded slowly, absorbing that.

Kushina, who already knew all this, hummed to herself, eyes flicking toward the rooftops. Her sensor net brushed against something— And then, she felt it.

Kushina stopped. It was so sudden, so instinctive, that she barely remembered to mask it. Her fingers twitched as she forced herself to look at the stall beside her, pretending interest in the glinting blades on display.

No.

No, that wasn’t possible.

Senzō sent her a glance, sharp and assessing, but she ignored him, focusing on the pulse that had just reverberated through her chakra net. It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t a trick of perception. The signature she had just felt—faint, but undeniable—was Uzumaki.

It couldn’t be.

They had all died.

The weight of memory crushed against her ribs, pressing so hard she thought she might choke on it. Uzushio had fallen. She had seen it burn. She had heard the screams, the clash of steel against steel, the brutal roar of enemy jutsu carving through the streets of her home.

Her home.

She could still remember it before the war reached them, before the world decided they were too dangerous to be allowed to exist. The laughter of children in the square, red hair flashing in the sunlight, the scent of sea salt carried on the wind. Her mother’s hands, gentle as they braided her hair. Her father’s voice, strong and steady, the warmth of his palm against her head as he told her—you will be stronger than me someday, my little Kushina.

Then, the nightmare.

Fire. Bodies in the streets. The deafening roar of waves as the sea itself turned violent, as their people fought like demons to protect what was theirs. She had clutched her mother’s hand so tightly her fingers had ached. Her father had stayed behind. He had kissed her forehead, his blood already staining his uniform, and told her to run. To live.

They had run for weeks. Starving, hunted, never stopping long enough to grieve, to breathe, to even hope. She had held onto her mother as tightly as she could, but even the strongest could not outrun war forever.

She remembered the moment her mother had collapsed, the way she had shoved Kushina forward with the last of her strength. The Konoha ninja had found them, had caught her mother before she hit the ground—but it had been too late. The woman who had fought for so long had nothing left to give.

Kushina had screamed.

A five-year-old child, her voice raw with loss, as hands that were not her mother’s pulled her away.

She had no family left. That was what she had believed. That was what she had known for certain every single day since.

But this chakra—

This chakra was Uzumaki.

She inhaled sharply, forcing the tremor in her hands to still. She sent out another pulse, this time deliberate, this time searching. She didn’t care that Zōsui felt it, that Senzō’s polite expression tensed just slightly at the edges. Let them react. Let them wonder.

Six, maybe seven hundred meters.

And there it was.

The ping, so distinct it nearly made her knees buckle. Orange and bright, pulsing with something fierce and uncontainable. Uzumaki chakra. It was alive.

Not just one.

Two.

Her breath hitched.

Two survivors. Two cousins. Two pieces of her clan that had not been stolen away.

A grin broke across her face before she could stop it.

She didn’t care.

She felt like she had just been struck by lightning, like the universe had turned itself inside out just to give her this. It was like being five years old again, back in Uzushio’s streets, surrounded by the voices of people who understood her without words.

Alive. They were alive.

She sent another pulse, stronger, almost reckless in its intensity. This time, even Senzō felt it.

His expression didn’t slip, but there was a hesitation in the next breath he took. His polite smile returned, but now it was a cover, not a truth. “Jonin K,” he said smoothly, but there was something underneath, something measured.

Zōsui’s eyes were on her now, piercing, assessing. He knew she had just done something deeply disrespectful. She was a kunoichi from another village, and she had just searched the area with her chakra in an open display of power.

It could be taken as a provocation. A warning. An act of espionage.

Kushina exhaled, forced her face into something more neutral. She dipped into a shallow bow, keeping her tone even. “Forgive me. I acted without thinking.”

Senzō’s lips curved slightly, but it was a diplomatic smile, nothing more. “Of course. A foreign land can make anyone a little… curious.”

A warning. A way to tell her that she was toeing a dangerous line.

She barely cared.

She opened her mouth to explain, to say, It’s just that I…

But then, the third pulse hit her.

The information rushed back like a slap.

Her throat closed.

Her smile vanished.

The smaller signature—

It was not a child.

It was an adult.

An abused adult.

The chakra was mangled, worn thin from something wrong. It had been drained over and over, forced through a cycle of depletion and replenishment that was unnatural.

And it was happening right now.

She could feel the ache, the raw burn of a body that had been put through hell, that had been used until the damage was permanent. There was something sickening in the way it pulsed, the way it responded to whatever force was stripping it down.

It wasn’t just suffering.

It was extraction.

Systematic. Controlled. Ongoing.

A sharp, cold rage spread through her like wildfire.

— — —

Haku was happy.

As happy as she could be without Zabuza-sama at her side.

She had watched Naruto darting through the market, laughter spilling from his lips like the chime of festival bells. His excitement was infectious, tugging at something in her chest—something wistful. It was easy to imagine Zabuza here too, watching them with his usual gruff indifference, but not stopping her. Maybe, if things had been different, they could have had moments like this. Maybe, if the world had been kinder, Zabuza would have seen what she saw.

And Sensei K…

Sensei K was unlike anyone Haku had ever known. Strong, impossibly strong, but warm too. She could picture her in another life—the mother she had wished for, the family she had never had. If she closed her eyes, just for a moment, she could pretend.

Yes. This was perfect.

And then, she felt it.

It wasn’t a presence. It wasn’t something so simple as a surge of chakra. No, this was deeper. Something primal, something ancient, a raw and furious power awakened. The moment it surged, Haku felt it in her very bones—like a great beast stirring beneath the surface of the world, its slumber shattered, its hunger boundless.

The air thickened, the marketplace itself seeming to hold its breath. People stopped mid-motion, mid-sentence, mid-thought. Conversations died in their throats, the murmur of trade and barter snuffed out in an instant. The distant clang of a blacksmith’s hammer faltered, the rhythmic tapping of a street performer’s drum ceased.

Every shinobi in the vicinity froze.

Not in fear. Not even in confusion. In sheer, instinctive recognition of something greater.

Haku wasn’t the only one who noticed.

Sakura flinched as if struck, her breath hitching. Naruto whipped around, his easy grin vanishing, his body tensing, animalistic instincts overriding thought. The two "hidden" ninja escorts flared their chakra, their hands drifting toward their weapons.

And then, beside them—Senzō, their guide, paled.

The color drained from his face, his eyes flicking to their sensei with a growing horror that spoke of someone who knew exactly what was happening.

Even Zōsui, ever composed, went still.

Then, the blade sang.

The jonin nearest to them unsheathed his tanto, the whisper of steel against its scabbard unnervingly loud in the unnatural hush.

"Jonin K…" Senzō’s voice was weak, disbelieving, like a man watching the ground crumble beneath him. His hands trembled. "What… what are you doing?"

Sensei K did not answer.

And then—the chains came.

They did not emerge—they unfurled, like things born of another world, slithering into existence from beneath her sleeves. They moved like living serpents, but their form was wrong, their shapes shifting, flickering at the edges, as if they were not meant to be seen by human eyes. They did not simply glow—they radiated, pulsing like eldritch veins of molten gold and blood, their eerie luminescence warping the air around them, sending ripples through reality itself.

They were not just angry.

They were furious.

The ground shuddered beneath them.

Haku felt sweat bead on the back of her neck.

The power rolling off her sensei was not human.

And then, before she could even process it—they struck.

One wrapped around her waist.

Another ensnared Naruto.

A third coiled itself around Sakura.

And then—they were moving.

Faster than thought, faster than breath, the world blurred around them, the wind roaring past as they were yanked forward, dragged through the streets by an unstoppable force of nature.

They were not running.

They were being carried.

Dragged in the wake of a storm given form, of something so vast and furious that even the seasoned jonin behind them could do nothing but follow in its wake, barely keeping up.

More joined them—two more ninjas, their chakra signatures flaring, their confusion bleeding into panic. The presence of reinforcements barely registered in Haku’s mind.

Because nothing could be more terrifying than what was carrying them forward.

Sensei K was not holding back. And whatever she had felt—whatever had drawn her into this rage—was waiting ahead.

They landed.

A building.

Ordinary at first glance, but Haku was a hunter, trained to see.

She saw the reinforced door—iron-plated, chakra-sealed. Too heavy for a normal storage room. She saw the guards—not genin, not hired muscle, but a chunin, standing at attention with his hands already in a seal. And a chunin, in a small village like this one — that meant something.

Sensei K did not stop.

The door shattered.

No hand seals. Just raw, monstrous strength. The iron screeched as it was ripped from its hinges, crumpling in on itself like wet parchment. The chunin moved, his arms raising, his mouth parting for a jutsu—

He never got the chance.

A single golden chain lashed out.

He was gone. Swept aside like a piece of debris in a hurricane, his body sent hurtling into the alleyway, landing in a heap of limbs and unconscious silence.

Zōsui reacted.

His hands blurred through seals, his chakra flaring—but the earth betrayed him.

The ground behind him fractured, and more chains surged upward, splitting the street apart, forming a barrier that locked him away.

The rest of them followed.

Through ruined doorways. Through shattered corridors.

Haku barely had time to register the destruction, barely had time to understand what was happening—

Until they reached the last door.

The smell hit her.

Haku froze.

Thick. Clotted.

Old blood.

It was not just the scent of a wound. It was soaked into this place. Drenched into the walls.

Naruto took a sharp step forward—then staggered, eyes wide.

Haku followed his gaze.

And saw them.

A girl, their age, curled in the corner.

Red hair.

The same, fiery red as Sensei K.

She was shaking, arms wrapped around herself, sobbing so softly it was barely a sound.

And then—

A woman.

Sprawled on a table, drained, her body little more than a husk, her skin clinging to fragile bones, red hair tangled around her, like a banner of a fallen house.

She was moaning, barely alive.

And at her throat—

A man.

A shinobi, his mouth pressed against her skin, siphoning from her, draining her like a parasite, his hands digging into her wrists.

For a single, horrifying second—

Nobody moved.

And then…