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In the five halls, fingers were still turning the pages of Volume Eleven at nearly the same moment.
And after the training pages that had made the world laugh and brought tears to more than a few eyes, the next page turned…
and with it, the mood of all five halls flipped at once.
[— Manga Scene —]
Night. A full moon over Konoha.
Atop one of the buildings — total devastation. Cracked pillars, a roof torn open as if a beast had passed through, thin smoke rising from the rubble.
And in the middle of it all, Gaara stood alone beneath the moonlight.
"Hah… hah…"
The red-haired boy was panting, his black-ringed eyes unnaturally wide, the sand dancing slowly around him as it returned to his gourd.
And on the ground, among the charred debris…
nothing remained of Dosu — the Sound shinobi with the resonating arm — but a single blackened arm stretched out over the wreckage.
At a short distance, two shadows stood watching the scene in silence.
"Impressive… is this his true nature?"
said the first shadow.
"But… is this alright? He was one of the Sound's…"
"It's fine. We only worked with him for a while."
the second shadow answered with complete calm, like a man commenting on the loss of a cheap chess piece.
And atop another roof, hidden in the darkness, a shinobi of Konoha was watching the scene with stunned eyes.
'I thought he was just a tool to test Sasuke's ability…'
Then his eyes narrowed further as he stared at the two conversing shadows.
'Why is he talking… with the Sand?'
[— End Scene —]
No one laughed in Konoha's hall.
The first scene alone was enough to pull the air out of the readers' chests: a twelve-year-old boy, standing beneath the moon over a charred corpse, panting — not from exhaustion…
but from something else no one dared to name out loud.
"He killed him…"
Kushina whispered from the quiet corner, the volume trembling slightly in her hands.
"He killed him like it was… like it was breathing."
From the perspective of the general readers, the horror was Gaara himself.
But from the perspective of the few who read between the pages, the true horror lay in the two shadows standing a short distance away.
'A Sound shinobi dies…'
Minato thought, his eyes narrowing.
'And watching his death with total indifference — the Sound itself, with a Sand shinobi at its side.'
'In the heart of Konoha. In the middle of the night. Two weeks before the finals.'
The thirteen-year-old raised his head, unbidden, toward the head of the hall, where the Third Hokage was reading those very same pages…
and where Hiruzen's fingers had stopped turning entirely.
…
[— Manga Scene —]
Under the cover of night, the two shadows finally stood face to face.
Kabuto Yakushi… and Baki, jonin of the Sand.
"No — that is no longer necessary…"
said Kabuto with his usual smile, the moon reflecting off his glasses.
"In truth, I ordered Sasuke's kidnapping…"
"What?!"
"But… I failed at it… hehehe."
Baki stared at him with his single visible eye.
"Yes — they know I'm a spy from the Sound Village."
Kabuto continued, with the lightness of a man discussing the weather.
"And then… if we are discovered meeting in secret… everything that plan to crush Konoha depends on — the 'Leaf' — will be for nothing."
"I had heard you were Orochimaru's right hand, but…"
Baki said slowly.
"Even so, you still meet me after they have seen your face… you truly are a fool."
"Well… they never caught me."
Kabuto raised his head, and on his face was a smile that made even the veteran Sand jonin feel uneasy.
"I was the one who revealed myself to them."
"I wanted to see how Konoha Village would react. I am not prepared to kidnap Sasuke-kun after seeing that reaction."
"If you people are going to fail, then we will withdraw."
Baki said coldly.
"This is the Sound Village's plan — you brought it to us. Even so…"
"The Sand will not appear at the front until the very last moment."
"Those are Kazekage-sama's wishes."
And in the darkness, behind the bushes, the eyes of the eavesdropping Konoha shinobi went wide.
'What…'
Baki extended his hand and passed Kabuto a black scroll.
"This scroll contains the Sound Village's plan."
"Also… regarding the timing… please inform the three about the plan."
Kabuto leapt away across the rooftops, his black silhouette crossing the disc of the full moon.
And behind the bushes, the eavesdropping shinobi was slowly backing away, his heart pounding violently.
'Our ally… the Sand… is tied to the Sound…'
'I need to inform Hokage-sama of this immediately…'
But before he could move—
"Oh… also…"
Kabuto stopped mid-leap and turned around slowly, his glasses gleaming under the moonlight with a white flash that hid his eyes completely.
"I'll take care of the eavesdropper."
[— End Scene —]
…
Konohagakure:
A heavy silence settled over the reading hall — the kind that precedes storms.
Then the hall erupted.
"The Sand?! The Sand is allied with the Sound?!"
"A plan to crush Konoha… he said it word for word! 'The plan to crush Konoha'!"
"Wait, wait… isn't Suna our ally in those pages? Their children are competing in our exam!"
"So THAT'S what the line on the back cover meant… the secret alliances… they've been right under their noses the entire time!"
Amid the storm, there were those reading the scene with colder calculations.
From the perspective of Orochimaru, seated in his deep corner, the interesting thing about the scene was not the alliance.
'The weak allying with the strong against the stronger… an equation as old as the villages themselves.'
What truly caught his interest was the boy with the glasses.
'He ordered Sasuke's kidnapping… then deliberately revealed himself to measure Konoha's reaction… then meets his ally face to face despite being exposed.'
'A piece that moves with the daring of two, and thinks with the mind of three.'
Orochimaru licked his lips slowly.
'So this is what you look for, my counterpart… not tools that obey — tools that dare.'
'A right hand… heh. Even in your choice of pieces, your taste resembles mine more than is comfortable.'
As for Hiruzen Sarutobi, he read the scene three full times, and with each reading, his inner pen recorded a new line in the most important investigation of his life.
'The Sound Village… his village… is not content with merely appearing. It plans, it recruits, it weaves alliances with great villages.'
'My student, in that future, is no longer a rogue shinobi running experiments in the dark.'
'He has become a Kage.'
'A Kage preparing an army to crush the village that raised him.'
The Third Hokage closed his eyes for a long moment.
And when he opened them, there was no anger in them — but that thing heavier than anger: the resolve of an old man who had decided that that future, whatever the cost, would never be born by his hands.
And on the other side of the hall, Mitokado Homura had taken a small piece of paper from his pocket and begun to write.
He wrote no names and no plans.
He wrote a single question, and underlined it twice:
"Who is reading this page in Suna right now… and what is going through his head?"
…
Sunagakure:
The answer was: nothing.
Nothing at all.
Because the reading hall of the Art Store in Suna — for the first time since its opening — was utterly, completely silent.
No chatter. No comments. Not even the sound of a turning page.
Hundreds of eyes read the same lines at the same moment:
The Sand will not appear at the front until the very last moment. Those are Kazekage-sama's wishes.
Our ally, the Sand, is tied to the Sound.
The plan to crush Konoha.
And slowly, without any agreement, every eye began to crawl toward a single point in the hall.
Toward the Third Kazekage.
The man sat in his place, the volume open in his hands, his face a mask of stone from which nothing could be read.
But those seated close to him saw his fingers.
They were bone-white against the edges of the volume.
'Kazekage-sama's wishes…'
The man read the sentence for the fifth time.
'Not a splinter faction. Not a traitorous jonin acting on his own.'
'The orders come down from the office. From my office.'
'The Kazekage himself, in that future, is the one who sold Konoha's alliance to Orochimaru.'
And he did not know — nor could anyone in the hall know — whether that future Kazekage was himself, or another man who had not yet sat upon the chair.
And that ignorance, in itself, was heavier than any certainty.
As for old Chiyo, she was not looking at the Kazekage at all.
She was looking at the volume in her lap — at the line that had finally answered her question.
"On which side of the page will we find our own name…"
She whispered the old question, then closed her eyes.
"…there is the answer."
"On the side where villages walk to their own graves."
She opened her eyes slowly and looked around the silent hall — at the pale faces, at an entire generation of Sand shinobi reading their village's future betrayal in front of the whole world, at the very same moment.
'A fool… whoever made that decision in that future…'
'To tie Suna's fate to Orochimaru — a man plotting to stab his own teacher…'
'What do you suppose snakes do to their allies once they no longer have need of them?'
And in a spot not far away, Rasa was staring at the page, something cold crawling through his chest that he could not name.
'The last moment… the Sand appears at the very last moment…'
'A complete military plan. Timing. Coordination. Assigned roles.'
'This is no alliance born in a moment… this is a project that ripened over a slow fire for years.'
Then, without knowing why, the young man found himself looking down at his own hands.
And beside him, Karura quietly placed her hand over his, without saying a word.
For some things need no words.
And in his corner, young Sasori closed his volume completely — for the first time since he had begun reading that morning.
"Ridiculous."
he said in a low voice heard by no one but his parents.
"Sasori?"
"The alliance. The plan. All of it."
The boy stared at the cover coldly.
"They bind the village to Orochimaru… while these very pages say the man treats human beings as pieces."
"And pieces, once they outlive their usefulness…"
He did not finish.
But his mother felt, for a reason she did not understand, a sudden urge to embrace her son.
…
And in the three other villages, at that very moment, three halls read the same line in three different ways.
In Iwa, Ōnoki tapped his pipe slowly and said to Kitsuchi, without lifting his eyes from the page:
"The first ally's name has surfaced."
"Suna… I did not expect it to be the first."
"Neither did I."
The old man blew out his smoke.
"And that is exactly what worries me… if Suna, the open ally, is conspiring in the shadows…"
"…then the list, boy, may be far longer than we think."
In Kumo, the Third Raikage closed his eyes for a moment, then said to his two sons in his deep voice:
"The Sand chose to stand behind Orochimaru."
"An entire great village… betting on a traitor."
"Memorize this as well: the strong do not borrow fangs from another. Those who do end up as dinner for the fangs' owner."
And in Kiri, the Third Mizukage wrote a single line in his small notebook, and felt, as he wrote it, a faint relief mingled with a deeper unease:
"First conspirator: Suna. — Kiri is not in the pages… yet."
Then he raised his eyes, unbidden, toward Rob's clone behind the counter, and added beneath it, in smaller script:
"How many other names do those pages know… and have not yet spoken?"
…
And in the five halls, all the readers reached — at nearly the same moment — the final shot of the scene.
Two glasses gleaming beneath the moon.
And a single quiet sentence, colder than all the chapter's screams:
"I'll take care of the eavesdropper."
And a lone shinobi of Konoha, carrying in his hands a secret worth his village's fate…
unaware that the shadow had already begun to move behind him.
Five halls, in five villages, held their breath as one… and turned the page.
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 207: The Last Dance of the Crescent Moon!
Chapter 208: A Decisive Meeting!
Chapter 209: Madara's Game!
Chapter 210: The Fourth Hokage!
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