'How is this even possible?! How can this person be sitting in a normal village shop at ten in the morning?! How could I have mistaken this person for a random female traveler! Why is he wearing a dress and smiling right at me?!' Kakashi's mind screamed in absolute horror as he stared at the corner table.
'It can't be... it's impossible...'
"OROCHIMARU—"
Asuma, Kurenai, and Gai immediately swarmed around Kakashi, completely oblivious to the danger sitting just a few feet away.
"Take it easy, Kakashi!" Asuma said, leaning over and pounding him firmly on the back to help him clear his lungs. "You're breathing too fast. Just take a deep breath."
Kurenai quickly pushed her own untouched glass of cold water across the table. "Drink this, Kakashi. Don't try to force your breath. Just slow down."
"Lean back, my eternal rival!" Gai commanded, his loud voice full of genuine, frantic worry as he fanned the air with his bare hands. "Let the fresh air fill your lungs! Do not let a simple cup of tea defeat your youthful spirit!"
Kakashi didn't open his eyes. He couldn't. He forced his eyelids to stay tightly shut, keeping his head dropped low, pretending to still be completely incapacitated by the coughing fit. He needed time. He needed his brain to process the absolute nightmare unfolding in front of him.
Underneath the fabric of his mask, his teeth were gritted so hard his jaw ached. His breath came in short, jagged rattles, but it wasn't from the tea anymore. It was pure, suffocating panic.
'Focus... think...' Kakashi's internal voice screamed, the words racing through his mind in a chaotic, terrified loop.
'That face... those eyes... there is absolutely no mistaking them. The pale skin, the purple markings, the cold chakra... It's him. It's really him. Orochimaru is sitting less than ten feet away from us.'
A cold sweat broke out across his forehead, soaking into his silver hair.
'Two days ago... at the border... it was a complete bloodbath. A total massacre. Innocent locals, wiped out without a single trace left behind. And he was there. He is the monster responsible for that slaughter. Hikaru-san and I fought against them... we barely survived...'
His chest heaved as he forced himself to maintain the act of a choking victim, keeping his eyes firmly closed so he wouldn't accidentally draw Orochimaru's attention back to him.
'But why is he here?!' the thoughts pounded against his skull like a war drum.
'How did he slip past the Konoha barrier division without triggering a village-wide alarm? The sensory unit should have located his rogue chakra the second his foot touched the grass! Unless... unless his infiltration methods are far beyond anything the village has ever prepared for.'
Then, the true horror of the situation settled deep into his stomach, turning it completely ice-cold.
'He's sitting in a normal, crowded village shop... wearing a dress... playing the role of a helpless woman. He is completely hidden in plain sight. And right now, Asuma, Kurenai, and Gai are sitting here, laughing, drinking tea, completely defenseless.'
Kakashi's hidden hands tightly gripped the fabric of his pants, his knuckles straining.
'If I draw my kunai right now, if I even breathe his name out loud, a battle will break out instantly. In a cramped shop like this, with innocent civilians and the shopkeeper right there... it would be a total catastrophe. Asuma and the others will try to fight, but they don't know what this monster is capable of.'
'They don't know about the mass murder at the border. I can't look at him. I can't let him know that I've recognized him. I have to keep my eyes closed... I have to wait for the perfect moment to move...'
Right across the room, the heavy, silence of the dark corner table loomed over them. Orochimaru remained perfectly still, resting his chin lazily on his palm, his slitted golden eyes tracking the commotion at the front table with a quiet, terrifying amusement. He hadn't moved an inch, simply waiting for his 'husband' to arrive.
But completely unnoticed by Kakashi, his frantic friends, or even the legendary Sannin himself, another figure sat in the darkest, quietest corner of the dango shop.
The man sat completely still, deeply cloaked in a heavy black fabric that completely shadowed his form. He was staring directly at the back of Orochimaru's head.
His raven-black hair fell in sharp, distinct strands framing his face, and his black eyes were cold, fixed intently on the disguised rogue ninja.
He had slipped into the shop as silently as a ghost, almost as if he had simply teleported straight into the seat. His chakra was suppressed to an absolute, flawless zero—completely erased from the physical world.
It was a level of stealth so perfect that even a shinobi as monstrously perceptive as Orochimaru had absolutely no idea a predator was watching him from behind.
The silent observer didn't move a single muscle, keeping his gaze locked entirely on the pale woman at the table, completely invisible to the rest of the noise room.
Finally, Kakashi managed to force his breathing back under control. He stopped pounding his chest and slowly sat up on the wooden bench, his face completely returning to his normal, calculative, and deeply analytical expression.
He was a professional shinobi, and he needed to think his way out of this nightmare.
Right across from him, Orochimaru remained in his deeply relaxed state, resting his chin lazily on his palm, completely at ease in his disguise.
But then, as Kakashi's single dark eye swept across the room, his entire expression froze. His gaze locked onto something in the background, and his eye widened in pure, unadulterated shock.
Seeing that sudden look of sheer terror return to the boy's face, a dark smirk crept onto Orochimaru's lips. The legendary Sannin sat there, completely and utterly unaware of the person who was sitting directly behind his back.
Instead, Orochimaru internally laughed, thinking to himself that Kakashi's sudden shock was simply because his brain had finally processed the full memory of that brutal border battle and remembered exactly what Orochimaru and his ruthless comrades were truly capable of.
But then, the most unexpected thing happened. Kakashi's face completely calmed down. The deep terror in his expression vanished, replaced by a visible wave of pure happiness that crinkled the edges of his eye.
'He's here!' Kakashi's mind cheered, a massive sigh of relief washing over his soul.
'Thank goodness... we're safe. Just like at the border, he can easily match this monster. He will handle Orochimaru quietly, and no one here will get harmed!'
But just as the overwhelming relief settled in, a sharp, cold fragment of a memory suddenly crushed its way into his mind.
It was a memory from the previous night, up on the Hokage monument. Kakashi remembered standing on the giant stone statue of Namikaze Minato, reporting the events of the border to the Fourth Hokage himself.
The vivid memory of Minato's face flashed in his mind— Minato's expression had been completely different, entirely shocked and filled with a profound dread the exact moment he heard the 'man's' name leave Kakashi's mouth.
Before Kakashi could lose himself in that confusing doubt, he snapped his focus back to the present. In the corner, the person was looking straight at him, casually waving his hand.
Seeing that reassuring wave, Kakashi threw all his hesitation away. Without thinking another second, he opened his mouth to call out.
"Hikaru-sa—"
"My, what a beautiful woman..."
The smooth, mocking comment cut Kakashi's words completely short, slicing through the quiet dango shop.
Hearing that specific, dangerous voice right behind him, Orochimaru's relaxed posture shattered instantly. He sat up completely straight, his spine going rigid as a jolt of pure shock hit his system.
Slowly, the legendary Sannin turned his head around to look behind him, his slitted golden eyes widening in genuine horror.
And there sat Uchiha Hikaru, looking right back at him, his face filled with pure, mocking amusement.
Before anyone in the shop could even process the heavy, suffocating silence stretching between Hikaru and Orochimaru, the front door slid open with a sharp click.
A tall, heavily built man stepped inside the dango shop. He moved with a quiet, dangerous confidence, holding a small brown paper bag in his large hand. Inside the bag were several pieces of taiyaki—a sweet, traditional fish-shaped pastry cooked to a perfect golden brown, filled with various warm flavors that sent a sweet aroma drifting through the air.
The man didn't look around the room at first. He kept his head down, his sharp jaw tight with pure annoyance as he let out a heavy, irritated sigh.
"Hey—" the man called out, his deep, rough voice cutting right through the quiet shop as he closed the door behind him. "Has anyone seen a person around here with pale—"
But his words died instantly in his throat.
The man froze dead in his tracks, his entire body going completely rigid. The sentence hung unfinished in the air as his sharp eyes snapped upward, locking directly onto the silver-haired boy standing right in front of him.
He stared straight at Kakashi.
Kakashi, who was still standing by his bench with his mouth half-open, found himself staring right back at the newcomer. The air in the shop turned completely ice-cold in a fraction of a second.
The sweet smell of the fish pastries felt sickeningly out of place as the absolute shock of the encounter slammed into both of them.
"Huh? More new faces today?" Asuma muttered, looking past Kakashi's shoulder toward the large man holding the pastry bag.
Beside him, the shopkeeper nodded in agreement, squinting at the newcomer with an annoyed grunt.
But Kakashi didn't hear them.
The moment his eye locked onto the man's face, the entire world around him started to spin violently. The wooden floor beneath his feet felt like it was tilting, and his vision blurred at the edges.
His single dark eye fluttered, and his body completely disbalanced, swaying dangerously as if he were about to crash straight onto the floor.
He was completely losing his consciousness from the sheer, overwhelming horror of seeing the two most impossible, terrifying people alive standing inside his village.
Inside his fading mind, his thoughts began to run completely wild, screaming through the fog.
'Wait... wait, wait, wait...' Kakashi's brain pounded frantically, trying to grasp a fleeting image.
'Two days ago... at the border... he was there. He was fighting alongside Orochimaru and Minato-sensei... What was his name?! What was this bastard's name?!'
Suddenly, a faint, chaotic fragment of a memory from the bloody battlefield crashed into his consciousness. He vividly remembered the sound of explosions, the smell of smoke, and the desperate, frantic voice of the man with the raven-black hair screaming out a warning over the noise of the clash.
"DON'T USE THE KARMA!!!!"
The memory snapped into place like a lightning bolt.
"Kakashi? Hey, Kakashi, what's wrong?!" Kurenai cried out, her voice filled with sudden panic as she reached out to catch his swaying body. "What's wrong with you?!"
Instead of falling, Kakashi suddenly lunged forward. His trembling hands reached out and grabbed Kurenai's shoulders with a terrifying grip, squeezing so tightly that she let out a sharp gasp.
And then, his head snapped up.
For the first time in front of his friends, Kakashi didn't just open his normal eye—he violently forced both of his eyes wide open. Without any fabric or protector hiding his face, his left eye was completely, bare and exposed to the entire room.
There, spinning with dangerous intensity in the dim light of the shop, was his Sharingan.
His bloodshot eyes stared blankly into space, tracking ghosts from the battlefield as the sheer terror of the memory completely consumed him. He opened his mouth and screamed at the absolute top of his lungs, his voice cracking with pure desperation.
"KAWAKIIIIIII!!!!!!"
The echoing sound of Kakashi's desperate scream still hung heavily in the air of the dango shop. But before Asuma, Kurenai, or Gai could even open their mouths to ask who on earth 'Kawaki' was, a calm, smooth voice sliced right through the panic.
"That's my boy! Yes... indeed, Kawaki was the name."
The voice belonged to Hikaru, coming calmly from his dark corner.
Hearing the confirmation, Kakashi's chest heaved. He closed his eyes tight for just a single, brief second, his head spinning as he tried to steady his vision.
But the very moment he snapped his eyes back open, his heart completely stopped dead in his chest.
No one was there.
The tall man with the fish pastries was gone.
The pale woman in the dress was gone.
The space in front of him and the dark table in the back were completely empty, as if they had never existed in the first place. There was no trace of them, no lingering chakra, absolutely nothing.
Kakashi's bloodshot eyes widened in horror.
'This... this can't be happening!' his mind screamed, a wave of furious, helpless rage washing over his soul.
'They vanished right in front of me! I let them go... I let them slip away so easily!'
The frustration boiled over inside him. He couldn't contain the panic anymore.
"I will not forgive them... I will not forgive them!!!" Kakashi shouted at the absolute top of his lungs, his voice cracking with raw, unbridled fury.
Without giving his friends a single second to explain, Kakashi turned on his heel and completely barged out of the shop, slamming the front door open as he raced out into the street.
"Oi! Kakashi, what is the matter with you?!" Asuma yelled, jumping up from his seat so fast his chair nearly flipped over.
"Where are you going?!" Gai called out, completely bewildered by his rival's sudden, chaotic outburst.
But inside the quiet, tense dango shop, the chaos seemed to completely disappear around the dark corner table.
The only person left sitting there was Hikaru. He didn't look bothered by the screaming, the running, or the sudden disappearance of the others at all.
Instead, Hikaru simply adjusted his dark cloak, sat back down comfortably in his chair, and looked up at the trembling shopkeeper with relaxed smile.
"A tea, please—" Hikaru said smoothly, his voice filled with an eerie, deep satisfaction. "Make it fresh and warm... I am incredibly happy today."
The front door slammed shut behind the screaming, sprinting Kakashi, leaving the dango shop in a stunned, breathless silence.
For a few seconds, the regular customers and the shopkeeper just stood frozen, trying to process the absolute whirlwind that had just departed.
Hikaru, however, remained completely unbothered by the sudden chaos. A slow, chilling smile spread across his face, his eyes gleaming with a manic, chaotic light.
He lifted his freshly poured, steaming cup of tea, tilting his head back slightly as the warmth hit his face. He looked entirely caught up in his own twisted world, a soft, breathy chuckle escaping his lips.
"Ah... Marvellous...." Hikaru whispered to himself, his fingers tightly tapping a rhythmic, frantic beat against the ceramic cup.
"The air in this village is so deliciously fragile. Run along, little scarecrow... chase the ghosts. The stage is set so beautifully today."
He took a slow, deliberate sip, completely losing himself in his own quiet madness. But as he savored his drink, the quiet rustle of the regular customers returning to their seats brought a new sound to the room.
The whispers started.
"Hey... look over there...." a customer at a corner table hissed, leaning across the wood to nudge his companion, his eyes darting toward the back of the room.
"Look at the man who just ordered tea... and now look at the booth right by the window."
"Whoa!...." the friend whispered back, squinting through the dim lighting of the shop.
"Are those... twins? They have the exact same raven hair. Even the way they're sitting looks identical!"
"They must be traveling brothers—" a woman nearby chimed in, keeping her voice low but utterly failing to hide her curiosity.
"But why are they sitting at completely different tables? Did they have a fight? You know how brothers can be..."
"Shh! Not so loud! They look moody. Especially the one by the window... he looks like a total devil in black."
Following the fearful glances of the gossiping villagers, the focus shifts to the shadowed window booth.
There, completely hidden in plain sight, sat another figure. Underneath a dark traveling cloak, the man sat with his head tilted down.
His long, raven-black hair fell across his face in a style that was almost a perfect mirror image of Hikaru's. He didn't speak a word. He didn't pull down his high collar. He just sat there like a dark, immovable statue, his single visible eye tracking the room with absolute, lethal intensity.
The two deadliest forces in the timeline were sitting just feet apart, while the clueless village gossiped about family drama.
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⚡NEXT CHAPTER⚡
The face from two days ago has finally been named.
A ghost from another era has stepped into Konoha.
A madman smiles. A devil loses his patience.
Old grudges will collide beneath a blood-stained roof.
And somewhere in the middle of it all...
someone is about to discover that they walked into the wrong tea shop.
👉Chapter 36: The Devil In The Window
SNEAK PEEK LINES 💬
"Or maybe... the little scarecrow—"
"...I will just control the Kyubi with my powerful eyes. Let it tear the village to pieces. And while everyone is panicking..."
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—With love, one forehead poke away from collapse,
Sakura Shinomiya 💫
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