At night

The tavern’s thin walls seemed to close in as Kurenai settled onto the edge of the modest futon, her crimson eyes fixed on the wooden door, senses honed to a razor’s edge despite the weariness tugging at her bones. Every fiber of her being screamed that something was deeply wrong with this village—the villagers’ too-perfect movements, their lingering stares, their voices lacking natural rhythm. She hadn’t let her guard down since arriving, and now, with Mirai sleeping soundly in her sling of crimson cloth on the far side of the room, her gentle breaths breaking the eerie silence, Kurenai’s unease sharpened into certainty. They were controlled, connected by something unnatural, and she—a Jonin of the Hidden Leaf—wasn’t about to ignore it.

The sound came soft at first—a shuffle of feet on the stairs, a creak of wood too deliberate to be chance. Her head snapped up, and she slid the kunai free, rising in a fluid crouch as shadows stretched beneath the door. The villagers didn’t know what she was—a Shinobi forged in blood and shadow—and that was their first mistake. The door burst inward, splintering under a burly man’s shoulder, and the room erupted into chaos. Five of them spilled in—farmers and tradesmen turned puppets, their eyes glinting with an unnatural red glow, wielding fists and a rusted pitchfork. Kurenai moved like smoke, her body a blur as she sidestepped a wild swing and drove her kunai into the first man’s throat, blood spraying hot across the floor. Another charged, and she spun, her heel cracking against his temple, sending him crashing into the wall with a dull thud.

Her hands flashed through seals—Genjutsu: Binding Illusion—and the third froze, clawing at his face as phantom serpents writhed in his mind, collapsing under the crushing weight of her mental ****. The last two fell to precise strikes, her blade finding vital points with surgical grace, and within moments, the room was still, littered with bodies leaking crimson into the cracks of the wood. Her chest heaved, senses straining, when a slow clap echoed from the doorway. The innkeeper stood there, her wiry frame filling the threshold, but it was the eyes that stopped Kurenai—red as fresh blood, glowing with a malice that wasn’t hers. Beside her was Naomi, her beauty marred by the vacant devotion in her crimson gaze, and in her arms—Mirai, stolen from the futon in the chaos, cradled gently against her chest.

A cold fist clenched around Kurenai’s heart, her breath hitching, but she held her ground, kunai raised, her voice a low growl. “Let her go. Now.” The innkeeper’s lips curled into a slow, knowing smirk, too smooth and cruel for the scarred face it adorned, and Baby’s voice slithered forth, velvet and venomous, rich with amusement. “Oh, Kurenai, you’re exquisite—such fire, such precision. You put up quite a fight, darling, but your little girl? She’s mine now, just like this village.” Naomi rocked Mirai gently, her red-tinged eyes locked on Kurenai with a lover’s intensity, and Baby stepped closer, the innkeeper’s boots thudding against the blood-slick floor. “Drop the blade,” he purred, his tone a seduction laced with threat, “or I’ll have Naomi snap that pretty neck before you can blink. You’re strong, yes—a Shinobi, a Jonin even—but I’m inevitable.”