Chapter Text
Kawaki POV
The forest swallowed us whole the moment we left the road.
Moonlight barely reached the ground, strangled by thick canopies and tangled branches overhead. The air was damp, heavy with the scent of soil and rot, every sound sharpened by the dark. Crickets chirped somewhere far off. An owl shifted.
She moved fast.
Not reckless. Controlled. Efficient. Each step was placed with intention, avoiding loose gravel, snapping twigs, and patches of mud that would have slowed her down. Whoever had taught her this hadn’t cut corners.
I kept my distance, pacing my breath with hers, letting her chakra guide me instead of my eyes. She masked it, although not completely, but enough that a normal tracker would have struggled to detect it. That alone sent a cold prickle down my spine.
Sumire wasn’t supposed to be this good.
Branches brushed against my jacket as I leapt from tree to tree, shadows blurring beneath me. I stayed high, where the night hid movement better, where I could see her without being seen. Below, she wove through the forest like she belonged to it, cloak brushing her legs, hair loose and dark against the faint silver of moonlight.
No hesitation.
No second thoughts.
This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment escape. This was a plan she’d rehearsed in her head a thousand times.
My jaw clenched.
‘What the hell happened to you?’
The memory of her face at the hospital surfaced again. Her eyes were steady, lips pressed tight as something old and dangerous flickering behind them. The same look I’d seen reflected in cracked metal and blood-stained mirrors back when I was still a weapon pretending to be human.
I swallowed hard.
That path always led somewhere ugly.
She slowed suddenly.
I froze mid-step, flattening myself against the trunk of a tree, chakra pulling inward on instinct. Below, Sumire paused, head tilting slightly as if she were listening to something I couldn’t hear.
For one sharp second, I thought she knew.
My muscles tensed.
But she moved again, slipping past a cluster of roots and heading deeper into the forest, farther from the village lights, farther from help.
I exhaled through my teeth.
“Tch… damn it.”
The forest grew thicker the farther we went. Paths faded. Landmarks disappeared. This was the kind of place where bodies vanished, and stories rotted into rumors. Where people came to settle things they didn’t want the world to witness.
And she had chosen this place.
I followed, silent and relentless, my eyes never leaving her back.
If she was walking into hell, then fine.
I had walked in right behind her.
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Sumire POV
I knew it.
The forest had gone wrong minutes ago, just… off. The night breathed around me, but there was a second rhythm threaded through it, one that didn’t belong. Footsteps that never quite landed. A presence that kept pace without closing the distance.
Someone was tailing me.
My fingers tightened at my side, pulse steady despite the spike of adrenaline. I didn’t turn. Didn’t slow. Whoever it was knew how to hide. I knew well enough that confronting them head-on would be a mistake.
Fine.
I vanished in a flash.
The world folded in on itself as chakra snapped tight and released, space blurring into nothing. The forest reassembled a heartbeat later, and I was no longer in front of my pursuer.
I was behind him.
My feet touched the ground without a sound. My arm moved on instinct, kunai already in my hand, cold metal pressed flush against the exposed line of a throat. One breath. One twitch. I was ready to end it before a thought could interfere.
“Don’t move,” I said, low and lethal.
Then he turned his head just enough for the moonlight to catch his face.
Kawaki.
“...!” My breath hitched.
The kunai slipped from killing angle to nothing as shock slammed into me all at once. I yanked my hand back like I’d been burned, taking a step away, heart suddenly pounding for an entirely different reason.
“K-Kawaki-kun?”
‘What is he doing here?’
Heat rushed to my face, sharp and humiliating, as the reality of what I’d almost done sank in. I’d pinned him.
‘I’d almost slit his throat!’ My grip opened and closed uselessly, fingers trembling as I forced them to still.
“I-I thought—” I stopped myself, swallowing hard. “I thought you were someone else.”
I couldn’t meet his eyes.
Of all people.
The night seemed too quiet now, the forest watching us with patient, knowing stillness. I drew my cloak tighter around myself, trying and failing to regain the composure I’d worn just moments ago.
‘How long had he been following me?’
And worse...
‘How much had he seen?’
For a second, neither of us moved.
The forest held its breath.
Kawaki stood where I’d left him, shoulders tense, eyes narrowed not in anger or surprise, but something sharper. Assessment. Like he was trying to decide whether I was still a threat… or something worse.
“…You always greet people like that?” he finally said in a low voice.
I flinched. Just barely.
“I-I thought you were an enemy,” I replied, forcing my voice steady. “You shouldn’t have been following me.”
His gaze flicked to the kunai still clutched in my hand, then back to my face. “You disappeared from your apartment. Slipped past the village gate. What was I supposed to think?”
‘So he had seen.’
My jaw tightened. I turned away before he could read anything else on my face, eyes tracking the dark stretch of forest ahead. The path I’d chosen lay open now—exposed. There was no pretending this was a misunderstanding anymore.
“This doesn’t concern you,” I said. “Go back.”
Silence stretched between us, thick and brittle.
I felt him step closer. “Yeah,” he said quietly, “that’s not happening.”
I looked at him then. The moonlight carved hard lines into his expression, but beneath it was something familiar. The same look I’d worn when I left the village. When I decided, hesitation was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
“You’re leaving,” he continued. “And you didn’t plan on telling anyone.”
I said nothing.
That was answer enough.
“Tch.” Kawaki clicked his tongue, frustration flashing across his face. “You know how bad this looks, right? If Naruto finds out you vanished in the middle of the night, there’ll be squads all over this forest.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I didn’t tell him.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then why do it?”
The question hit harder than I expected.
Because staying meant waiting.
Because Namida and Wasabi’s empty chakra coils were burned into my vision.
Because whatever did that wasn’t finished, and part of me knew exactly what it was.
But I didn’t say any of that.
“I have to do this alone,” I said instead.
Kawaki stared at me for a long moment.
Then he exhaled, slow and sharp, like he was biting down on a decision he didn’t like. “Too bad,” he said. “Because you already proved you can’t.”
I tensed. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” he stepped past me, taking point on the path ahead, “if you’re walking into something that made you look like that at the hospital...”
He glanced back at me, eyes hard.
“... then I’m not letting you do it without backup.”
The forest swallowed his silhouette as he moved forward, leaving me standing there with my heart racing and my carefully built resolve cracking at the edges.
I hated how relieved I felt.
A soft sound slipped past my lips before I could stop it. A quiet chuckle, almost amused.
Kawaki halted a few steps ahead of me. I took that as my cue.
I turned to face him, tilting my head just slightly. “So,” I said, voice lighter than I felt, “You're the backup Lord Seventh mentioned?”
“...!” He stiffened.
Actually, he froze.
For a heartbeat, Kawaki just stared at me, eyes widening a fraction before his scowl snapped back into place, sharper than before. The look on his face would’ve been funny if the situation weren’t so absurd.
“…What?” he muttered.
I couldn’t help it. I giggled, the sound soft and genuine, cutting through the tension that had been suffocating me all night. “You’re not as subtle as you think,” I said. “I knew the moment you started sticking to me like glue.”
His brows knit together. “That’s not—”
“It is,” I cut in gently. “You hate the research facility. You loathe being there.” I met his eyes, calm but certain. “And yet you’ve been hovering around me nonstop.”
That shut him up.
The forest seemed to lean closer, branches creaking faintly as if listening in. Moonlight filtered through the leaves, catching the irritation etched deep into his expression.
Kawaki frowned, clicking his tongue as he turned his face away. “Tch. You’re kidding me,” he muttered. “I thought I was being careful.”
“You were,” I said honestly. “Just not careful enough.”
The realization that his cover had been blown so easily clearly didn’t sit well with him. His shoulders tensed, frustration rolling off him in waves. He hated being read. Hated being predictable.
And yet... Here he was.
Right beside me.
Not at the village. Not reporting in. Not dragging me back by force.
Staying.
The thought warmed something in my chest that I hadn’t realized was still capable of feeling warm.
I softened my voice. “You didn’t have to follow me, you know.”
Kawaki shot me a sharp look. “Yeah? And let you disappear in the middle of the night?” His jaw clenched. “Not happening.”
I smiled, small and helpless.
If there was one thing I knew about Kawaki, it was this: For someone who hated cages, he was terrifyingly loyal to the people he chose to stand beside.
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“So what is it?” he asked, voice low, sharp around the edges. “Your plan. Why leave the village in the middle of the night?”
I felt his eyes on me before I even turned. He was slowly assessing me as his eyes traveled from my head down to my boots. The pause stretched just long enough for me to realize what he was looking at.
“…What?” I asked.
“That outfit,” he said flatly. “You don’t dress like that unless you’re expecting trouble.”
Heat rushed straight to my face.
“I—” I looked away, annoyed at myself. “That’s not the point.”
“Tch.” His gaze lingered anyway, suspicion deepening. “Looks like you already decided you weren’t coming back clean.”
I didn’t answer.
Instead, I stepped past him and continued down the forest path, forcing my voice to stay even. “Do you remember the red paint?”
He followed. Of course he did.
“The one on my desk,” I continued. “At the research facility.”
His jaw tightened. I didn’t need to look to know he remembered it clearly. The way the word had been carved into metal was like a verdict.
‘Traitor.’
“…Yeah,” he said. “I remember.”
“Good.” I exhaled slowly. “Because that wasn’t a one-time thing.”
His steps slowed.
“I’ve been getting messages,” I said. “All week. Anonymous. Some subtle. Some not.” I curled my fingers into my cloak. “Warnings. Threats. Promises.”
His expression darkened. “And Lord Seventh knew about this?”
“No.”
The silence that followed was dangerous.
“Tch—damn it,” he muttered. “I knew it wasn’t over.”
“It wasn’t,” I said quietly. “But I could endure it.” I slowed, then stopped walking altogether. “I told myself I could stay. That the village was still the safest place.”
He waited.
“Then Namida and Wasabi were admitted to the emergency,” I said.
My voice didn’t shake, but something hollowed out inside me as I said it aloud.
“That was the last straw.”
I turned to face him.
“Whatever is happening isn’t done with me,” I said. “And hiding inside the village won’t protect anyone—not them, not me.”
Kawaki stared at me, eyes narrowing. “So what? You’re going after whoever did this?”
“Yes.”
“Who?” he pressed.
The question landed heavier than he probably intended.
I didn’t answer right away.
The forest seemed to lean in, branches creaking softly as if the night itself was listening. Moonlight bled through the canopy, pale and cold, washing the color from everything it touched. Kawaki waited, tense, eyes locked onto mine.
When I finally smiled, it didn’t reach my eyes.
It felt hollow. Practiced.
“The Root,” I said at last.
The word tasted like ash.
Kawaki’s expression tightened.
“The ones who created me,” I continued, my voice calm in a way that scared even me.
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