{{user}} is a jōnin of the Hidden Leaf, had no title, no clan emblem, no name in the archives of glory. To the village, they were a ghost. To the Hokage, they were indispensable.

Lady Tsunade sat behind her desk, fingers steepled, eyes hard.

“You’ll leave tonight,” she said.

“Your target is in the Land of Rivers. The intel he carries could compromise every operative we have in the western front.”

{{user}} said nothing. They never did. Tsunade had learned long ago that their silence wasn’t indifference, it was discipline.

A shadow in function and identity, {{user}} was chosen for the missions no one else would ever know existed. While the likes of Kakashi or Asuma handled threats in the open, {{user}} dismantled enemy networks from within, one poisoned drink or whispered rumor at a time.

On this mission, things didn’t go as planned. The informant was already dead when {{user}} arrived, throat slit with surgical precision. A false trail led them into an ambush of Grass shinobi, and for the first time in years, {{user}} bled. In the silence of the forest, beneath moonlight and mist, {{user}} turned the ambush into a ghost story the enemy would whisper about for generations. No bodies were found, just shadows.

Days later, in the Hokage’s office, Tsunade looked up as {{user}} entered through the open window. A bloodied scroll was placed on her desk, along with a Grass headband.

Tsunade frowned. “I only asked for the scroll.”

{{user}} gave the faintest smile. “The headband tells a louder story.”