Hyuga Yu removed Kurenai's pair of Red Eyes as if they were diseased body parts.
Then,
he bit his thumb, pulled a scroll from the third storage pouch on his thigh, and summoned a glass container filled with saline that sloshed as cold mist curled off it.
He dropped the pair of Red Eyes into the glass jar, sealed it, and handed it to Aburame Ryūma.
"Without a Medical Ninja like me nearby to control him, he can destroy his eyes and kill himself at any moment. So if you want the Red Eyes—and the information in his brain—you have to handle it this way."
"All I have right now is saline. Eyes like these can be preserved in saline at -9°C for about four hours."
"You'd better find some paraformaldehyde fixative as soon as possible."
"Besides Konoha Hospital, Orochimaru should have some, too."
Then,
Hyuga Yu made sure to add,
"Let's call this a trade. I'd like to exchange it for a little help."
Aburame Ryūma was silent.
This was clearly outside his area of expertise. But he understood two things: they had four hours to find a laboratory Root had funded for Orochimaru nearby, and Hyuga Yu wanted to trade this for some help.
"What do you want?"
Hyuga Yu answered frankly. "Do you have anything that can help me recover my chakra quickly?"
Aburame Ryūma's eye twitched beneath his glasses.
Something that could restore chakra quickly?
"Do you want a Tailed Beast?"
Hyuga Yu scratched the back of his head with his bloodied palm. "No, nothing that extreme. Maybe something like the Akimichi Clan's Three-Colored Pills?"
Aburame Ryūma said, "No."
Hyuga Yu: "..."
"But I have this." Aburame Ryūma let out a heavy breath, then reluctantly took a frog-sized Kikaichū from his sleeve.
"Eat it."
Now it was Hyuga Yu's turn for his eye to twitch. He could guess what it was, more or less, but had no way to get the information he needed. So he pretended not to know and asked:
"What is it?"
Aburame Ryūma tilted his sunglasses. "A giant Kikaichū."
"It can invade an enemy's body and feed on their chakra, breaking through the host's body in a short time."
"This thing can replenish chakra?"
Hyuga Yu knew of the technique, but he was surprised to learn that it could be used this way around.
"On the way here, I fed it the chakra of a Kirigakure Chunin. If you eat it, it'll keep spitting chakra back out for you at my command."
"But there's something you need to be careful about."
"When the chakra inside it runs out, the command I've implanted in its chakra will disappear. Then it'll start eating your flesh, converting it into chakra as it grows and reproduces."
"Until—"
"It bursts out of your body, crawling out through every opening."
At the thought of that image, Hyuga Yu's face paled slightly. But he still drew a deep breath, accepted the dark, slimy Kikaichū, swallowed hard, and steeled himself before opening his mouth and swallowing it whole.
Seeing this, Aburame Ryūma's gaze softened behind his sunglasses, as if he'd found a kindred spirit.
But his expression remained impassive. He only said flatly:
"You still have a chance to back out."
"Thanks, but no."
Hyuga Yu shook his head, picked up the giant bow he'd left on the ground, and leaped onto the treetops without looking back, hurrying toward the eastern side of the encirclement.
Behind him,
one shadow after another soon appeared beside Aburame Ryūma.
Among them, Terai, wearing a bird-faced mask, stepped forward. At Aburame Ryūma's silent signal, he knocked out Kurenai, whose empty eye sockets were accompanied by a steady stream of anguished cries, and tucked him under his arm.
Aburame Ryūma lifted the glass jar containing the two bright red eyeballs and gave it a shake. His face, cold as iron, was reflected in the curved glass, distorted into a faint smile.
Beside him, the Root ninja in a bird mask, Terai, suddenly asked:
"Lord Ryūma, I have to admit, that Hyuga brat did far better than we could have imagined."
"But... aren't you being a little too hard on him?"
Aburame Ryūma turned his head, an unreadable glint flashing across his sunglasses.
He said nothing, but silently thought to himself:
"Not a single ninja who leaves a mark on the Shinobi World's dark side is anything but more cunning, more ruthless, colder, and more devious than every other ninja!"
"But beyond that,"
"To keep moving along this shadowy road, teeming with every manner of demon and monster, and reach the end—to claim the uncrowned throne known as the 'Darkness of the Shinobi'—"
"You have to do what no one else can!"
Aburame Ryūma watched Hyuga Yu's resolute departing figure and narrowed his eyes, as if anticipating what was to come.
The game of tag was still going on.
The known facts were—
Hyuga Genko, the highly anticipated "person," had missed his last chance to escape the encirclement with a decision that was very rational, but not at all ninja-like.
Around him were two Jonin from the Hyuga Clan's Branch House, two teammates from Hyuga Tetsu's ninja squad, and Hyuga Natsu.
Hyuga Yu remembered that one of the Chunin on Hyuga Tetsu's team was from the Aburame Clan... uh, what was his name? The other was Inuzuka Tsume from the Inuzuka Clan.
Inuzuka Tsume was the future mother of Kiba Inuzuka and Inuzuka Hana. Unless something unexpected had happened, she'd abandoned Hyuga Genko and escaped with her dogs.
The strongest Jonin assigned to protect the group, Hyuga Hideki, was dead. The other Jonin leading Hyuga Tetsu's squad, Hyuga Hiroya, had likely met the same fate.
Given the situation, Hyuga Yu couldn't count on these "useless teammates," led astray by Hyuga Genko, to be of any help.
So,
he'd have to rely on himself.
First, Hyuga Yu had to determine where the Main House was—
According to the information Hyuga Hideki had sent back through a Shadow Clone Technique before his death,
the Main House was about twelve kilometers east of Hyuga Tetsu's location.
Before he died, Hyuga Hideki had been attacked by Munashi Jinpachi, wielder of the "Explosive Blade" and one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.
From his surprised reaction before he died, it had clearly been a planned ambush.
What was a ninja's first reaction to a sneak attack?
Conceal yourself, gather information, make a quick decision, and counterattack or retreat.
In this situation, the squad would advance in stages: gather their remaining strength, break through one corner of the encirclement, and get important people or ninjas carrying vital information out first.
But judging from Hyuga Genko's decision, Hyuga Yu could no longer think of him as a ninja.
He was an intelligent man, but clearly not a competent ninja.
So what would he do?
Simple.
He'd run back the way he came.
From Hyuga Genko's perspective, the Kirigakure encirclement wasn't shaped like a "megaphone" or an "ellipse." It was simply a line blocking his way. He didn't know that as they continued forward, the "megaphone-shaped" encirclement behind them was quickly closing into an ellipse.
Especially after the death of Hyuga Hideki, the Jonin who'd protected him for years,
he'd react like a panicked "politician," realizing he needed people to protect him and that he had to flee back to Konoha.
He'd probably try to find the rear squad, which hadn't run into an ambush and had the strength of a Jonin.
Hyuga Tetsu's central squad, which had already sent its elite forces elsewhere, would be considered a pawn and a decoy.
So there was only one question left:
Would Hyuga Genko run left or right?
At that moment,
Hyuga Yu suddenly thought of someone.
Hyuga Natsu.
He recalled the afternoon before they'd gone to Hyuga Takahiro's residence. Hyuga Natsu had asked him:
"Hey, Lion-kun, if we were holding hands, would you rather hold hands on the left or the right?"
Hyuga Yu had replied, "Left."
"Why?"
Hyuga Yu had answered with the confidence of a chauvinist. "Because if we were walking side by side and a train came barreling toward us, the one standing on the left and holding the other person's left hand with his right would get hit first."
"Huh? You're saying weird things again... But in that case, when we go out for walks and hold hands, I'll stand on the left."
"Why?"
"Because... hee-hee, I'm not telling."
Before you continue