The Blood Prison, officially known as the Hozuki Castle, is a place where third-rate criminals are thrown into.

This isn’t a prison for shinobi who pose an actual threat to any of the countries, but rather those that were simply danger to defenseless civilians. In the first place, the idea of an international prison was naive. Which nation would be idiotic enough to send a person that possessed knowledge that could pose a potential threat to its security outside of their jurisdiction? Not to mention that from observing chakra pathway system of a shinobi, information could be gained about the techniques that the said shinobi used in their lifetime. Putting any competent shinobi into the hands of another nation was simply an unnecessary security risk.

In the end, this prison was mostly for incompetent criminals that the nations knew couldn’t be used against them and simply wanted to get rid of their hands.

I wasn’t sure how this world meshed together canon and non-canon part of the world building, but somehow, there were no major changes in the world because of it that I could detect. The Blood Prison movie was far more memorable than the one about Moryo, so I had something to compare. There were clearly elements outside the canon that shouldn’t be here; Sora being one of them. He wasn’t in the movie but had a role in different filler altogether that I could barely remember the details of. But if there was a chance that the boy wasn’t someone special, the Hidden Grass’s insistence on imprisoning him pretty much erased that possibility.

That was where another demon came into play. There was some sort of artefact, a special cube under possession of Hidden Grass, that needed huge amount of chakra to activate and summon a powerful creature. In the movie, Naruto was the sacrifice, and the Nine Tail’s chakra was siphoned from him to awaken the demon.

But the Grass wasn’t as out of their minds as they were in the movie. Them, a village not even part of the great five, attempting to kidnap Konoha’s jinchuriki? Was that a joke? Making an enemy of that caliber was akin to suicide when they were that weak.

That said, what if the demon-summoning artefact truly existed in their possession? What if Hidden Grass tried to get another sacrifice to awaken the demon? Wouldn’t the pseudo-jinchuriki be the next best thing to go after?

That would mean that Hidden Grass saw a chance and took it.

They saw an emotional kid with a thirst for revenge, someone they needed to get ahold of to rise in power, and created the situation where they could justify capturing him and dragging in a place where accidents weren’t uncommon. If Sora died, they would just make an excuse. It would be too easy.

Demons weren’t creatures anyone should play around with. I didn’t even know how strong the damn thing would be. Logically speaking, it shouldn’t be stronger than any of the tailed beasts. But I would rather not find that out a hard way.

I took a close look at the surroundings as I approached prison. The castle was situated on a cliff, surrounded with whirlpools. It had a single entrance gate, the one I was going to take. My appearance was that of Hidden Grass shinobi, transformation jutsu leaving no physical resemblance of my identity. I would prefer to infiltrate without having to go through the legal channels, but time constraints and the sensing barrier covering the castle made that option implausible. Therefore, I had Ginji make some arrangements for me make an entrance without any corresponding alarms and strict security measures.

It all came down to finding a suitable target. The money had done the rest of the job.

The lights fell on me from watchtower and I could hear some murmurs until the small iron window opened, revealing faces of two scrutinizing guards. An older man with a mustache, giving me a stern look, and an middle-aged guy with a goatee who was holding an observant gaze.

“State your business.” Came a gruff, almost irritated voice.

“I need to see the warden.” I took out prepared documents and handed it through the opening. “I was sent by an elder to deliver a message. It’s urgent.”

The older man took the papers and the two went over the documents, finding no issues with it’s legitimacy. The older man huffed in annoyance and handed them back.

“The warden’s not available right now. Leave the message. We’ll have somebody check and deliver it as soon as possible.”

Well, of course he was busy. He’s probably off to sacrifice a kid to summon a demon. Why else would I be here? I had to take such a heavy burden off him.

Maintaining the professionalism, I followed the script. “This is confidential and I was ordered to deliver the message personally. The elder was clear about this. Did you not see the clearance letter?”

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The older man glared at me. “Young man, that’s not how things work around here. As I said, the warden will see you when-“

“Wait, Gato,” the middle-aged man cut his partner off. “I know this isn’t standard procedure, but we’ll be angering an elder if we block him. There must be a valid reason.”

“The procedure are there for reason, Kazan! And it clearly states that we don’t allow passages without-”

“And this is not a regular situation. The stamp clearly came from an elder. If something goes wrong, the blame’s going to fall on us.”

Old man scoffed. His reluctance to permit my passage wasn’t really surprising. Despite working here more than decade, this was first time encountering situation like this. In the middle of the night, unannounced, without any heads up from the warden. If elders wanted to send an urgent message, they would make use of the member of Anbu who held a key to enter the barrier undetected, bypassing the official entrance without leaving any traces. After all, you didn’t really want to inform some random guard if something confidential was going on. Of course, the old man didn’t need to know this. And also, I bet there was something else he would rather not deal with.

“Gato, for love of God, just let me take care of this. I don’t wont to lose my job.”

That seemed to finally made him gave in. “Damn it, fine. But you’re going to be one doing the paperwork for this.”

The middle-aged man just sighed in response. “Alright, old man. I guess I’m the foolish one for taking the responsibility.”

Finally, the gate opened and, after I went through, closed immediately afterwards. The middle-aged man, Kazan, led me inside the castle.

The activities inside the walls of the castle were subdued during the night. The silence was only disturbed by footsteps and murmurs of the patrolling guards. From time to time, the searchlights from the watchtowers would cross the area, checking if something was out of the place.

We kept walking. After creating sufficient distance from the rest of the guards, I turned to him. “How are things going?”

Kazan continued with the normal pace as he replied. “The prisoner was taken in three hours ago. I’ll lead you to his cell, but I can’t guarantee that we won’t be stopped.”

“You’re job’s to be a guide. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“That’s fine by me.” he nodded. “Also, thought you should know this , but there have been an escape attempt about an hour ago.”

“What happened?”

“We’re not really sure, but there has been a fight. Ninjutsu had been used, part of the building had been burnt. The warden is keeping tight leash about it. Only thing we know is that the prisoner had been thrown into a solitary confinement. But something doesn’t match.”

It wasn’t hard to guess why. “The celestial prison.”

“Yeah. Every prisoner that’s admitted to Hozuki Castle are subjected to that jutsu. It restricts their chakra. There shouldn’t be even be a fight if the prisoner was the one that the warden was against.”

We moved past the smaller buildings and advanced towards the main one where the prisoners were contained. If my suspicion was right, I would have Kazan lead me to the disciplinary cell later. But for now, I had to get Zangei out before this place got too chaotic. I dropped transformation jutsu. The actual clothing that I wore was replica of what my fellow guard held. Better to blend in rather than keep pretending to be a messenger. A messenger would have no business going where I was going in the middle of the night.

We used darkness as a veil and Kazan’s knowledge of the castle’s layout and distribution of the prison guards to swiftly reach our destination and avoid the unwanted attention as we came to the entrance.

As we approached the main building, where the prisoners were kept, two guards stationed at the entrance tensed up at the unexpected arrival. But before they could say a word, tendrils erupted behind them and ensnared them both.

Kazan whistled next to me. “Damn, that’s scary.”

“Hang around if you want to see something more impressive.”

“No thanks. I like being alive.” he said as he took the keys from the guards and found the right one to open the iron door. “We’re in.”

We walked through the entrance, but not before hiding the two guard’s unconscious bodies and taking their form. I had to knock out few more guards that were patrolling the cells and visit the surveillance room to slow down the prison's response, but we finally approached the first target.

The hallway inside of the prison was narrow, with the cells spanning several floors high. Instead of iron bars, the cells had wooden slats that prevented the escape. Though, their appearance was deceiving. The wood came from a special tree that was no less durable than iron, and without access to chakra, prisoners held no hope of breaking through it.

A middle-aged man seemingly lay asleep in his cell. But moment he heard footsteps approach the cell, he opened his eyes.

At my signal, Kazan inserted the key into the lock and opened the cell. Once again, I dropped the transformation jutsu, took off the guard cap and took a step inside while barely stopping myself from laughing at the man’s bewildered face.

Another minion- I mean, loyal subordinate acquired.

“Am I seeing something?” the man murmured. “Is that you, Kakuzu?”

“It’s been a while, Zangei.” I responded with a grin. “How about we ditch this place?”

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The three of us moved towards Sora’s prison after Zangei changed into the guard’s uniform. I had to reach him and leave before the alarm was raised. On the way, I gave Zangei quick rundown of what had happened.

We slowed down after approaching the section where Sora was imprisoned. More guards.

“We’re almost there.” Kazan informed us. And after making quick work of the patrol, we reached the boy’s cell shortly. Though things didn’t stay as I hoped them to.

My expression changed into more serious one when we finally stood in front of the cell that Sora was supposed to be in.

It was empty.