Huuu… haaa…
Seimei forces his pulse back to ice-cold calm.
He glances at the time; night's already deep. Figured he'd crash and pick the grind back up tomorrow.
He stands, then side-eyes the jungle that's been creeping in while he was busy turning himself into a furnace. Trees everywhere, choking the damn air.
Fuck that.
No hesitation; hands flash through seals.
Wind Release: Blades of Wind!
Shwick-shwick-shwick!
A dozen invisible, razor-sharp gusts scream out low across the ground, slicing clean through everything in a twenty-meter radius.
For a second nothing happens.
Then the night breeze hits, and every trunk in sight cracks at the base with a thunderous craaaack, toppling like drunks after last call.
Instant clearing. Twenty meters of flat, open dirt.
Seimei doesn't even spare the fallen timber a glance; body flickers straight to the cabin on the island's edge, clears another patch the same way, then finally walks inside and knocks out.
Next morning he's up at the crack of dawn, quick rinse, a fistful of juiced-up soldier pills shoved down his throat, and back to the volcano for another round of self-inflicted hell.
He thought this time he'd ride the pain train all the way to the next transformation.
Yeah, no. One week in, something decides to cock-block his grind.
That afternoon.
He teleports out of the magma chamber still smoking, and instantly a Wood Clone hits him with the Mind Transmission Jutsu:
"Ten kilometers out. Uninvited guests. Bunch of them."
Seimei's brow twitches.
No time for natural healing; he floods his body with chakra, forces every burn and blister to knit shut in the span of a heartbeat.
All shadow clones; poof, gone. Memories sealed for later. No time to sort through that shit right now.
Flying Raijin.
Scene rips, location swapped.
One blink and he's hanging ten kilometers out, mid-air over open ocean.
Gravity forgets him for a second; he drops half a meter before Byakugan flares open and he just… floats.
Wood Clone's hovering beside him in flight pose; the same one from this morning that ferries shadow clones to the forest and plays lookout.
"What the hell's the situation?" Seimei growls.
Clone jerks his chin toward the horizon. "See for yourself, boss."
Didn't even need the heads-up. The second Byakugan came online, Seimei clocked the boat cutting through the waves, dead-set on Moon Island.
A whole squad. And not civilians; every last one screaming shinobi chakra signatures.
Who the fuck comes out here? This island's in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, surrounded by water that'll rip your average ship apart just for fun.
Only two Mist missing-nin ever stumbled on this place, and that was because they were running for their lives.
Now a whole crew just shows up? Yeah, nah.
Seimei's eyes narrow.
He zooms in hard on one guy, vision tunneling until the dude might as well be standing right in front of him.
Few seconds later he pulls back, lips curling into a cold smirk.
"Bingo."
Wood Clone raises an eyebrow. "Well?"
"Every single one of them's been under the knife. Heavy body-mod jobs."
Clone's eyes go wide. "Orochimaru?"
"Pretty fucking likely."
Exactly. Right timeline, right creepy surgical scars, right ballsy approach; who else could it be?
Seimei figured the snake might come sniffing after he ripped Danzō's memories a few weeks back, but damn, dude works fast.
Clone again: "We killing them?"
Seimei rolls his neck. "You stay up here and watch the show. I'll go say hi."
He could just genjutsu the boat into turning around and forgetting this place ever existed.
But that's a band-aid. As long as Orochimaru's obsessed, he'll keep sending waves.
Seimei's done playing defense.
Besides; he needs the snake's current hideout list. And these idiots just gift-wrapped themselves.
Perfect.
Human Imperial cloak snaps on; presence erased from the world.
Gravity bends to his will and he glides down toward the boat like a silent missile.
Meanwhile, on the deck…
The exact guy Seimei was just dissecting with his Byakugan suddenly shudders hard, like someone pissed on his grave.
He spins, eyes darting everywhere.
"The hell, Monkey?" one of the others snaps.
Monkey doesn't answer right away, still scanning the empty ocean.
Finally: "Don't know why, but I just felt someone staring straight through my soul."
The others instantly go on alert, kunai half-drawn, heads on swivels.
Nothing. Just waves and wind.
One of them scoffs. "Cut the shit, Monkey. Yeah, Lord Orochimaru said this job's dangerous, but making up ghost stories?"
Another laughs nervously. "Trying to spook us, man? Place is empty as fuck."
Only one guy stays dead silent, still searching the horizon, knuckles white on his sword hilt.
They have no idea death's already thirty meters out and closing fast.