Chapter 139: The Fall of the Hagoromo

 

Preparation prevented the Hagoromo estate from dying quietly.

Kento's altered patrols placed guards where the attackers expected empty routes. Families assigned to underground exits escaped the first strike. Duplicate ledgers in distant offices ensured that burning the archive would not erase every contract. The emergency signers survived because none had traveled together.

None of it turned merchants and household guards into veteran combat units.

A Hagoromo defender raised a wall of wind that broke a combined Fire Release. An Amegakure assassin accepted the lost technique, entered through the smoke, and drove a kunai beneath armor designed to resist projectiles. Elsewhere, a workshop team overwhelmed two rogues with superior chakra, then died when the mercenary they had hired attacked from behind.

The enemy knew which seals protected which doors. They knew which guards had never killed. They knew the strongest escort was absent because the false trade agreement had drawn it away.

Experience, intelligence, and betrayal reduced the advantage of wealth without making wealth meaningless. Protective construction bought seconds. Medical stores saved the wounded who reached them. Contracts paid defenders who did not change sides. Every resource mattered, and none guaranteed survival.

By midnight, the attackers held the central court.

A junior accountant reached an underground exit with six children and a locked case before realizing the case slowed everyone. She abandoned records representing years of work and used both hands to carry an injured boy. In a workshop courtyard, two guards chose smoke cover over defending machinery and escorted civilians through a water channel. Kento's orders had not made anyone fearless. They had made the priority difficult to misunderstand.

Their leader counted losses, confirmed that Kento had escaped, and sent four Amegakure shinobi toward Gale Valley. The main force would follow after stripping useful records and eliminating organized resistance. An ambush beyond the estate would cost fewer people than attacking a jōnin inside terrain prepared for wind users.

After the squad departed, a pale figure emerged beside a ruined wall.

Orochimaru had arrived too late to observe Tonbo at the estate and early enough to study the disaster. He examined a dead attacker, the direction of Kento's flight, and the marks left by coordinated betrayal. Gatō's operation possessed more competence than its disposable soldiers suggested. He followed without revealing himself.

Kento reached the northern ridge with blood on his suit and one lens missing from his glasses. The loyal guard had remained behind to collapse a passage. Whether the man survived was a question Kento could not afford to answer.

Four pursuers stayed close. They wore Amegakure masks and moved through the mountain wind with practiced coordination. One controlled pursuit speed. Two spread to deny side routes. Their captain saved senbon for the moment Kento could no longer evade.

The first needle struck Kento's thigh near the valley cliff. His leg folded. He used Wind Release to turn the fall into a slide, tore the needle free, and continued on one foot. The observation platform remained beyond the ridge. If he could reach its outer sensor line, Tonbo might notice him.

The captain raised three more senbon.

Kento could no longer feel his foot. He removed the seal that activated the external accounts and wrapped its cord around his wrist so death would not hide it beneath clothing. If Tonbo reached the body rather than the living man, the mission still needed a signer and proof of payment. Commerce had taught Kento to prepare for absence. That night, the habit became a form of guardianship.

Tonbo noticed first.

At the platform, one woven moth died so suddenly that its final sensory impression reached him as broken light and hot air. The second reported unfamiliar chakra moving away from a burning horizon. Then his broad perception caught Kento and four pursuers at the edge of range.

Tonbo sealed the meteorological array.

"Full recall," he said.

The Shadow Clone dissolved, returning its measurements and remaining chakra. Atsushi activated the Byakugan without asking why. Tsuyoshi and Gaku ran toward the nearest markers. Shikyō's insects tightened every retrieval line.

"All candidates inside the barrier," Tonbo ordered. "Ki holds command here. Do not pursue me."

He vanished.

The candidates protested when lines and woven hands pulled them from the trial before their reserves failed. Shikyō covered the platform with a moving black screen and delivered the only explanation they required.

"An external attack has activated the captain's suspension authority. Sit down, check your equipment, and remain silent."

Their complaints ended.

Near the cliff, the Amegakure captain released his senbon.

Three kunai crossed them in flight. The first three pursuers dropped before the captain located the attacker. One blade entered beneath a mask; the others struck throats exposed by the throwing motion. The deaths were immediate and controlled. Tonbo had no safe time for capture while Kento remained under attack.

Smoke burst across the ridge. Wind tore it apart.

The surviving captain hid behind stone and suppressed his chakra. Unseen Presence removed Tonbo from the patterns he expected to detect. When the rogue shifted to find Kento, Tonbo stood within arm's reach.

The kunai thrust met a woven restraint. Tonbo trapped the man's wrist, disrupted both legs with precise strikes, and closed a hand over his brow.

Inner Archive opened a controlled path into memory.

The interrogation lasted seconds outside and much longer within the ordered sequence of impressions. Tonbo maintained the captive's breathing while searching; pain or suffocation could distort recall and destroy the evidence he needed. The rogue experienced no fabricated punishment. Tonbo wanted accurate operational memory, not vengeance performed inside another mind.

Tonbo did not wander through childhood, appetite, or private grief. He followed the freshest operational markers: payment, instructions, faces, signals, routes. Gatō's intermediary had divided the contract among cells. Internal collaborators provided schedules. A false trade convoy drew away the Hagoromo escort. The estate assault aimed to destroy leadership and records; teams along the northern roads would kill survivors.

The captured captain knew no proof connecting Gatō directly. He knew the voice, location, and recognition seal of the intermediary who paid him. That was enough for Konoha to pursue.

Tonbo verified the key memory against the three dead operatives using a brief Psycho Mind Transmission. Their recollections matched.

Leaving the leader alive would require guarding him while escorting injured civilians and children through additional ambushes. Abandoning him would return an experienced killer to the attack. Tonbo ended his life, sealed all four bodies for evidence, and recorded the decision for mission review.

Kento lay against the rock, holding pressure on his leg.

"How many survived?" Tonbo asked.

"I don't know." The answer hurt more than the wound. "Enough may have reached the exits. Not enough held the estate."

Tonbo gave him medicine, removed needle fragments with a woven probe, and used Metabolic Recall to guide clotting and tissue response without pretending the injury had vanished.

Kento attempted to stand. The leg failed despite reduced pain. Tonbo stopped him from testing it again and explained that the genjutsu could coordinate the body's available repair, not replace torn tissue or blood. A client who felt better before healing completed could become harder to protect than one who remained aware of injury.

"The trial is suspended," he said. "We extract everyone."

Kento looked toward the distant glow above his home. "Then amend the mission."

Behind a fold of stone, beyond ordinary perception, Orochimaru watched Tonbo close the wound and wondered which part had been medicine, which genjutsu, and which command imposed upon flesh.