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The Valley of Death did not earn its name by a simple whim of the people. Hundreds of kilometers away from the borders of the Land of Wind, that cursed canyon twisted like an open scar across the earth's crust.
The air there did not carry the purity of the desert; it was dense, heavy, saturated with sulfur vapors and a ferrous odor that clung to the back of the throat with every breath. The rocky walls, stained a dark red by the high concentration of minerals and iron, gave the impression that the mountains themselves were bleeding under the leaden sky.
Five silhouettes advanced along the bed of the gorge, their steady pace betraying military training of the highest level. These were no ordinary ninjas. They were the Shadows of the Desert, the elite unit that the Kazekage had forged after dismantling the naval power of the Mist and claiming its greatest treasures.
At the vanguard marched Kisame Hoshigaki. His imposing figure, with gaunt features and grayish skin, dominated the group, but it was the giant sword wrapped in bandages carried over his shoulder that truly froze the blood of anyone who looked at it: the mythical sword, Samehada.
Beside him, Kaito advanced with his eyes fixed on the cliffs, carrying the heavy axe-and-hammer combination known as Kabutowari. A bit further back, Genta walked in sepulchral silence, his hands brushing the twin hilts of Kiba, whose blades flickered intermittently with invisible sparks of Lightning Style. Closing the formation, Yura maintained a balanced rhythm with the gigantic Kubikiribōchō secured to his back.
However, the group's true life insurance in that hostile territory marched right in the center. Baki, his face partially covered by a cloth, maintained a rigid posture. His eyes, surrounded by thick, distorted veins that extended to his temples, shined with an albino purity. The Byakugan, the white eye that Daigo had transplanted into him, scanned the dense sulfur mist as if it were nothing but clear water. Between his fingers, the handle of the slender needle sword, Nuibari, swayed subtly.
"This place is a disgrace," Kisame growled, breaking the silence with a thick laugh that revealed his sharp teeth. "The water in these streams looks like rotten mud. How is it possible that a clan with a reputation prefers to rot here rather than die fighting in the outside world?"
"It is not a preference, Kisame, it is an exile," Kaito replied without shifting his gaze from the heights. His eyes calculated the blind spots of the rock formations. "Well, from what I read, they were exiled from the Land of Lightning in the past by the Uchiha. So great was the humiliation that they preferred to stay here until this time. Even so, Daigo-sama is interested in them; that is why he sent us. Still, this terrain displeases me. Not having prior reports on the exact number of enemies slows down my strategic projections."
Suddenly, Baki stopped in his tracks. The veins around his white eyes seemed to tighten even more, throbbing violently. His Byakugan focused on the rocky ledges rising on both sides of the path, about fifty meters ahead.
"We have company," Baki said in a quiet voice, impossible for anyone outside the group to hear. "Six chakra signatures are moving along the upper flanks. Three on the left, two on the right, one closing the path behind us. They are surrounding us."
Without needing to shout or make sudden movements, Baki made a subtle signal with the fingers of his free hand, hiding it behind his back. It was the Shadows' tactical code for an imminent ambush.
"What's the plan, strategist?" Genta, the user of the Kiba, whispered with a slight smirk of amusement playing on his face as his lightning chakra began to stimulate his nervous system, increasing his reaction speed.
"Keep walking," Kaito ordered calmly. "If we attack now on steep terrain, we will lose the advantage of our swords. The gorge opens up ahead, near the water basins. Lead them to the flat ground."
The group continued their march without altering their pace, feigning ignorance before the hidden eyes stalking them from the shadows of the red rocks. The minutes passed with suffocating slowness until, finally, the canyon walls opened up drastically, revealing a vast underground plain dominated by a large lake. The water of the place was neither blue nor transparent; it was a dense, viscous, dark red, fed by the iron minerals of the subsoil. It looked, literally, like a stagnant sea of blood.
Upon reaching the edge of the grim lake, the path cut off.
"End of the trail," Kisame announced, lowering Samehada from his shoulder and resting it on the ground with a dull thud. "Looks like our hosts don't want to let us pass on by."
Before he could finish the sentence, the ground vibrated. From the rocky ledges and out of the dense sulfur mist, multiple figures dressed in dark rags descended like ghosts, blocking any route of escape.
"Intruders!" shouted one of the ambushers, a middle-aged man with a haggard face. "This valley is the graveyard of our clan, and we will not allow the dogs of the great villages to come hunt us down!"
"Attack!"
The order unleashed chaos. A group of three ninjas from the Chinoike clan lunged forward, shuriken and kunai flying from their hands toward the Shadows of the Desert.
"Remember the Kazekage's direct orders," Baki warned, his white eyes already predicting the trajectories of the attacks. "We didn't come to exterminate. Only leave the targets incapacitated."
With superhuman speed, Genta was the first to disappear. A blue flash of Lightning Style arced through the air of the Valley of Death. The Kiba swords clashed against the attackers' kunai, imbuing their bodies with a precise electrical discharge that immediately disrupted their nervous systems. Two of the Chinoike ninjas fell to the ground instantly, convulsing slightly but completely alive, albeit paralyzed.
Kaito advanced with a firm step, blocking a joint attack with the axe-side of the Kabutowari, and then struck the ground heavily with the hammer. The shockwave destabilized the aggressors, allowing him to strike them with the flat side of the metal, leaving them unconscious from the traumatic impact.
For his part, Baki moved with a terrifying elegance; the Byakugan allowed him to see the exact chakra points of his opponents, and using the invisible, resistant thread of the Nuibari, he entangled the weapons and limbs of three enemies at once, pulling them to smash them against the rocks and knock them senseless.
However, the true danger awaited in the lake.
Kisame Hoshigaki felt a massive accumulation of chakra concentrating beneath the red surface. The water began to swirl and rise, expanding into a giant structure: eight gigantic dragon heads made entirely of iron-rich water and clotted blood shot out from the lake, roaring with a force that echoed throughout the canyon. It was the clan's signature technique: the Chi-Kamishidari.
"Well, well! Now this is a buffet!" Kisame exclaimed, his eyes widening with genuine excitement.
The heads of the blood dragons lunged at him with the intention of devouring him and crushing his bones, but Samehada, sensing the immense amount of foreign, exotic chakra, began to writhe savagely beneath its bandages. With a roar of effort, Kisame swung the gigantic sword in a downward arc. Upon making contact with the technique, Samehada did not slice the water; it absorbed it. The sword's scales devoured the chakra maintaining the jutsu's cohesion at a ridiculous speed. Within two seconds, the imposing blood dragons disintegrated into an harmless rain of red droplets that fell back into the lake.
Before Kisame could savor his victory, the water in front of him exploded.
In a flash of pure speed, a figure emerged from the red depths of the lake. It was a girl with extremely pale skin, whose white hair floated in the air like silk threads. She wore simple, worn clothes, but what truly stood out were her eyes: two brilliant crimson gems, the Ketsuryūgan in its maximum expression. In her right hand she wielded a katana whose blade was completely coated by a thin, lethal layer of hardened blood vibrating with chakra.
The girl appeared directly in Kisame's blind spot, descending with a vertical thrust aimed straight at his neck.
Kisame, reacting on pure battle instinct, raised Samehada to block the blow. The clash of blood-covered metal against the scales of the Mist sword provoked a burst of sparks. The girl's strength was surprising for her slender build, but what happened next was the true danger.
Kisame made the mistake of looking directly into the young girl's eyes.
In an instant, the Valley of Death vanished. Kisame's reality was dyed an absolute red. He felt as if his own body turned into liquid, trapped in a sea of blood pulling him toward the bottom, completely immobilizing his muscles. The Genjutsu of the Ketsuryūgan, lethal and instantaneous, had caught him.
The white-haired girl, seeing that the swordsman's eyes went cloudy and his movements froze mid-stride, smiled coldly. Taking advantage of her opponent's trance, she slid her katana out of the block and directed it with surgical precision straight at Kisame's heart to end the fight in a single blow.
The tip of the metal blade ripped Kisame's robe and touched the surface of his skin.
But the sword advanced no further.
A fierce and terrifying smile stretched across Kisame Hoshigaki's shark-like features. In the final millisecond, Samehada, which shared a symbiotic bond with its wielder, detected the intrusion of enemy chakra into Kisame's system. With a violent spasm, the sword injected a massive surge of pure, devoured chakra back into Kisame's body, breaking the flow of the Genjutsu instantly.
"A very pretty visual trick..." Kisame whispered with a voice that made the girl's hair stand on end. "But my partner is a bit jealous with my chakra."
Before the young woman could process how someone had broken her strongest Genjutsu in the blink of an eye, Kisame moved his free hand at blinding speed. He grabbed the blade of the girl's katana directly with his bare palm, ignoring the superficial cut, and slammed it down with brutal force toward the stone ground, pinning it and disarming the youth.
With a fluid, upward movement, Kisame used the flat side of Samehada to strike the girl's back with force. The impact sent her straight to the ground, knocking her down completely. Without wasting a second, Kisame placed the bandaged tip of Samehada directly over the young woman's spine. The sword began to emit a sound of satisfaction as it actively devoured the girl's chakra reserves, weakening her so much that she couldn't even stand up.
"You're strong, girl," Kisame admitted, panting slightly as he looked down at her. "You've got impressive speed, and that eye of yours almost cost me my heart. If you hadn't gotten overconfident thinking the Genjutsu had already finished the job, this fight would have lasted much longer."
The young woman, breathing heavily and feeling her strength being drained by the strange living weapon, raised her head with difficulty. She looked around and saw her entire ambush force on the ground: some unconscious, others paralyzed by lightning or tied up by threads, but none dead.
"Who... Who are you?" the girl asked, gritting her teeth with rage and frustration. "Are you assassins sent by Konoha? Or bounty hunters from the Land of Lightning? Just finish this at once!"
Kisame let out a dry laugh, lifting Samehada slightly to stop the energy drain, though keeping it close enough to act at any false move.
"We aren't small-time mercs, nor do we belong to those villages," Kisame replied with pride. "We come from Sunagakure. And we didn't come to kill you, but to bring you a direct offer from our Kazekage, Daigo-sama."
The girl's eyes widened in surprise, showing deep suspicion. The name of Daigo, the Crystal Demon who had defied the world order, had already reached even the isolated corners of that canyon.
"The Kazekage?" she retorted bitterly. "Why would a great military power like the new Hidden Sand need a cursed, exiled, and dying clan like ours? This is a trap."
Kaito approached slowly, sheathing his Kabutowari on his back. His serious and analytical face was just as intimidating as Kisame's strength.
"In reality, the situation is very simple," Kaito said, taking the floor with a tone of cold logic. "Currently, you only have two options on the table. You join Sunagakure under the absolute command of the Kazekage, or you all die here today. We, the Shadows of the Desert, do not return to the Sand empty-handed. If the answer is a no, we will consider your clan a potential danger and eliminate the problem at its root."
The girl looked at Kisame, seeking to confirm if Kaito's words were a real threat. The Mist swordsman simply smirked widely, showing his sharp teeth, nodding as if he were completely on board with the idea of a massacre.
However, Baki stepped forward calmly, deactivating his Byakugan. The veins on his face returned to normal as he sheathed the Nuibari and shook his head.
"Don't scare the girl, Kaito. And you, Kisame, stop playing along," Baki intervened with his usual direct tone. "The Kazekage did not ask us to assassinate them if they refused. His orders were clear: if they did not accept, we were to leave them in peace and return to Suna. Daigo-sama does not force anyone to be part of his nation through unnecessary terror."
Kisame let out a snort of frustration, pulling Samehada completely away from the girl's body so she could begin to recover.
"Wow, Baki, you really are a party pooper," Kisame complained, scratching the back of his neck and signaling the young woman with his gaze not to try anything funny if she wanted to keep living. "We were gaining a psychological advantage in the negotiation and you come ruin the act. You have no sense of drama."
The white-haired girl took the opportunity to slowly sit up, rubbing her sore arms. Although she remained suspicious, the contradiction between the group members showed her that, at the very least, they were not a typical execution squad.
"My name is Malenia Chinoike," the young woman said, straightening her back with what pride she had left. "I am the current leader of what remains of our clan. If your intentions are truly diplomatic, I invite you into our settlement. But first... I need you to help me carry the members you left weakened."
"No problem," Baki nodded.
With the help of the Shadows, the injured and fainted Chinoike ninjas were lifted. Malenia guided the group toward one of the imposing rock walls at the back of the canyon. She approached a section of stone that looked identical to the rest, but after channeling a small amount of chakra into her fingers, she pushed a hidden mechanism. The heavy, solid rock slid open with a dull groan, revealing the entrance to a massive cave hidden from the acidic mist outside.
Upon entering, the Shadows of the Desert fell into silence. Any expectations of finding a ninja settlement or a hidden military base crumbled instantly.
The place was of a heartbreaking poverty. Small tents made of old fabrics and dying campfires tried to warm the damp environment of the cavern. Around the lights, the Shadows could count the rest of the survivors of the legendary Chinoike clan.
There were no more than ten people in total, including Malenia.
Of those ten, two were weakened elders who could barely stand upright; three were older adults with scars from old battles; four were youths around Malenia's age who barely knew how to wield a weapon, and in the deepest corner, clinging to a woman's skirts, was a single small child looking at the imposing Sand ninjas with eyes full of pure terror. The clan was on the brink of total extinction. That Valley of Death was not their home; it was their waiting room for disappearance.
"Daigo-sama sent us to give you this," Kisame said, holding out an official scroll sealed with the emblem of the Kazekage, which Malenia took with trembling hands. "Sunagakure offers you a formal invitation to become full citizens of the Sand. You will be granted a safe territory within the village's new infrastructure, a home safe from any enemy of the past, medical supplies for your elders, and an academy for your youth to recover the splendor of their skills. You will belong to a better place, where your blood will no longer be a curse, but a respected asset."
Malenia looked at the scroll and then observed the elders of her clan, who looked back at her with pleading eyes. The proposal was too good to be true; it was, literally, the salvation of her lineage.
"What's the catch?" Malenia asked, her voice cracking but keeping the firmness in her red eyes. "Nothing in the ninja world is free, let alone coming from a Kage. What does Daigo want from us in exchange for such generosity?"
Kaito stepped forward, taking the floor with a formal, clear tone.
"The payment is the standard of our nation," the strategist explained. "In exchange for protection and resources, the Chinoike clan commits to integrating its eligible youth into Sunagakure's shinobi forces. You will aid the village in times of war, cooperate in the internal security divisions, and use your mastery of your dojutsu and iron to collaborate. You will not be slaves; you will be soldiers and citizens of the Sand."
Malenia fell silent. She walked toward the two elders of the clan and knelt beside them. For several minutes, the ten survivors spoke in whispers, debating the fate of their lives. The elders wept softly, nodding their heads as they looked at the only child in the cave. The decision had already been made from the moment the Shadows showed mercy at the lake. They had no other option if they wanted to survive tomorrow.
Malenia stood up and returned to face Kisame. Her scarlet eyes shone with a new determination.
"We accept the general terms of the invitation," Malenia declared firmly. "But before signing this scroll and moving my people out of this valley, I demand an non-negotiable condition. I want to have a face-to-face word with the Kazekage myself. I need to look into the eyes of the man who will rule the fate of my family to know if his promises are as solid as the crystal of his techniques."
Kisame looked at Baki and Kaito, searching for any objection. Seeing that neither of them showed opposition, the Mist swordsman smiled again, this time with a gesture of genuine respect.
"The Kazekage isn't a man who hides behind a desk, girl. He'll like your boldness," Kisame said, settling Samehada on his back. "Pack your things. We leave for Sunagakure immediately."
With the Shadows of the Desert leading the way and escorting what remained of the decimated Chinoike Clan, the group abandoned the gloom of the Valley of Death. Malenia walked at the front alongside the Sand warriors, clutching Daigo's scroll, ready to cross the borders and directly confront the supreme leader of the Sand in search of a new beginning for her clan.
End of Chapter