They were gathered around the campfire in accordance with Hazō's instructions, in a well-lit space where their absolute lack of weapons could be clearly seen. Even so, Kagome was jitterier than ever at having left his beloved forest, and it took a constant stream of reassurances to stop him either turning back and fleeing or blowing up everything within a one-mile radius.

Finally, though, one of the most harrowing journeys of Hazō's life was over, and the team stood ready to greet their newest member.

"Nice to meet you, Kagome," Inoue-sensei waved slowly at him. "No hard feelings about the whole chasing-and-trying-to-blow-up business from before, right?"

"It is a pleasure to finally meet you, sir," Keiko bowed.

"Thanks for trusting us enough to come all the way out here," Noburi said cheerfully. "Don't worry—we've got your back, and we're counting on you to have ours in a pinch."

Akane beamed at the somewhat dazed Kagome. "So you're the sealing master who's taught Hazō-sensei everything he knows. He's got so many funny stories about you!"

Hazō was just about to lead Kagome over to the campfire, where they were roasting some particularly fine fish, when he (and everyone else in the camp) froze at a sudden sensation of intense, razor-sharp killing intent. What was nearly as terrifying, though, was that Kagome stayed silent, not breaking into any sort of paranoid tirade.

Twelve figures emerged from the darkness, capturing the camp in a perfect circle. Each wore a robe with a concealing dark hood.

"I must thank you, children," one of the figures announced in a soft, slightly sibilant voice. "After all these years, I never expected some random missing-nin to be the key that finally led the Brotherhood of the Sacred Immortal Eight-Headed Serpent to Kagome Yū... or should I say Uchiha Itachi?"

Kagome stood a little straighter at the name. And then, in what felt like a brief twisting of space-time itself, he was no longer Kagome. A taller figure with a deeply lined face looked back at them, eyes blazing with a sinister blood-red colour. His voice, his stance—everything about him spoke of vast power held in check by equally vast discipline.

"So that is how it is," Uchiha Itachi said. "Laid low by my own lack of faith in humanity. How ironic. The one thing I did not expect was for my mask to find friendship. And now you are here for the Sharingan... Orochimaru."

Inoue-sensei, who was already staring at Itachi as if paralysed, flinched at the sound of this new name.

"What year is it?" Itachi asked.

"Eighty-seven by the Village Calendar," Inoue-sensei responded in a trembling voice.

"Longer than I thought," Itachi said distantly. "It's coming back to me now. After Akatsuki's leader decreed that you should have the Sharingan, we fought. It took all of my hidden tricks merely to escape, but still the battle broke my mind. I meant to hide in Snow while I recovered, but I only made it as far as Iron. Kagome Yū should have protected me, a paranoid seal master who would never leave the perfect concealment array I set up around the forest with the last of my sanity."

Orochimaru laughed. "Exposition for the benefit of these children? It is as if you expect them to survive the next few minutes."

"I owe them this," Itachi replied. "They extended the hand of friendship to a stranger whose every trait was designed to drive them away. It is not their fault that they failed to investigate his true identity, or lack of it, first. Though it is unfortunate that they did not ask Jiraiya. He might have known enough to figure it out, and then things would have ended very differently.

"And now, Orochimaru, I owe it to the world to end you here, at any cost."

Orochimaru laughed again. "Things are not as you remember them, Itachi."

One by one, the rest of the figures surrounding the camp lowered their hoods. Each one bore Orochimaru's face.

"Shadow clones?" Itachi asked in bemusement. "You once told me you considered them greatly inferior to your own techniques."

The Orochimarus shook their heads. With a flash of desperation-sharpened intuition, Hazō noticed that their builds were not quite the same. These weren't clones. But how?

Itachi's eerie red eyes widened. "The double helix of immortality. So you found a way to unite them after all."

He turned to Team Inoue. "I'm sorry. I thought to give you a chance to escape, but that has ceased to be an option. There is no longer a sacrifice too great to stop him."

Then, without pausing for breath, and so fast that the words barely registered in Hazō's mind, Itachi shouted "Activate Contingency Six!"

The earth beneath their feet shattered as if being torn apart by a vengeful giant's hands. Hazō could only stare in disbelief as all around him, as far as the eye could see, it rose in great fragments and began to fall upward, into the sky.

"What have you done?" twelve voices screamed in horror.

Itachi wasn't listening. "Forgive me, Hazō, Inoue, Mori, Wakahisa, Ishihara," he said in a quiet voice that was nevertheless audible over the sound of the apocalypse. "Forgive me, people of the Country of Iron."

And then Hazō heard one final thing.

"Forgive me, Sasuke," Itachi whispered as the Country of Iron ceased to exist. "Another time..."

Author's Notes: Every year, Velorien and I play April Fool's pranks on the players. This chapter was Velorien's prank from 2016. To be clear: this chapter did not actually happen in the Marked for Death timeline.

(Wow. We've been writing this quest since 2016??? Actually, we started it December 10, 2015, but yeah. Damn, the world in general and my life in particular have changed a lot since MfD began.)