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The last slivers of sunlight disappeared, leaving the sky a deep, bruised purple. She watched as the horizon darkened, feeling nothing, just as she had always been trained. Empty. That was her truth. Emotions were useless; attachments were weaknesses.

Sixteen years old and officially a genin, but far more dangerous than her rank suggested. She had killed before—many, mostly chunin, even some from the Hidden Leaf. It didn't matter who they were, only that her orders were clear. Her kills were quick, silent, precise. The seal on her tongue ensured her silence, her loyalty bound to ROOT, never to be questioned.

And now her mission was simple: kill Haruto.

He was a calm one. Cool-headed, calculated. Not easily rattled. But she had read about the one time that calm had shattered. It had been during a mission. He had seen something that broke through his usual control—four women being violated by bandits. The report described his reaction in chilling detail. He had gone from calculating to enraged in an instant, and his anger had driven him to slaughter the bandits with a brutality far beyond what anyone expected from him.

Anger. That was the key. Anger made people reckless. Reckless people made mistakes.

She had killed many shinobi, but this one was different. Haruto wasn't like the others—he wouldn't be easy prey unless she could break that calm exterior and push him into the same state of rage that had consumed him before.

Haruto was sn orphan, just like she had been.

This made her think about the past.

Her fingers brushed the edge of the small, worn photograph she kept tucked away in her pouch. It was old, from her past, before she was brought into ROOT. It showed her and another child, back when she was at the orphanage. She had cared for that person once, someone who had meant something to her in a life that felt distant and blurred now. Danzo had ordered her to kill them, and she had done it without hesitation. It was her final test, a severing of whatever fragile connections she had left.

The memory flickered inside her, like a distant flame. She remembered feeling angry then, for the first and only time. Anger at herself, anger at ROOT, anger at everything. But she had buried it, just as she had buried everything else. After all, emotions were a weakness.

She wondered if Haruto had anyone like that—someone he cared about, someone who could push him to that breaking point again. If she could find it, she could use it. Make him angry, force him into that same blind rage.

Angry people made mistakes. Mistakes could kill a shinobi.

She slipped the photograph back into her pouch and turned, heading toward the shadows of the Forest of Death. The mission was clear, but now she had an idea of how to approach it.

When they met in the forest, she would make him angry.

And then he would make a mistake.

And that would be the moment he died.