Moonless Night

As evening fell, the sunset vanished after leaving a trail of orange-red afterglow on the horizon. The sky gradually darkened, and Kirigakure, shrouded in thick fog, suddenly grew dim.

"There's no moon tonight!"

A young child with white hair, purple eyes, fair skin, and the same sharp teeth as Hozuki Mangetsu looked up at the sky. Covered in mud, he trotted through the crowd and ran into the northeast corner of the Hozuki clan compound.

Although Hozuki Suigetsu was young, he was already the leader of the children under five in Kirigakure, and he had spent the entire afternoon playing wildly in the vicinity as usual.

His small hands were cupping a pool of clear water, inside which a cute little goldfish swam back and forth.

"Oh no! I played too late. Big brother is going to demonstrate his newly invented ninjutsu to the clan members at home tonight. If I go back late, I won't be able to see it!"

Hozuki Mangetsu ran a few steps anxiously, spilling quite a bit of the water he held, forcing him to slow his pace.

It's okay, big brother is the best! If I give him the little goldfish, he'll definitely demonstrate it for me again in private.

Walking along the path inside the compound toward his secluded home, Hozuki Mangetsu felt that for some reason, the lights in the compound were not as bright as usual, and even the insects and birds that usually chirped incessantly had gone silent.

Dark, eerie, and with a faint, lingering scent of rust.

The home Suigetsu was most familiar with now had its front door standing wide open, pitch black inside like a deep-sea beast lurking in the darkness, its bloody maw agape.

Suigetsu, you're almost a big boy of three years old; you can't be afraid of the dark anymore!

Bolstering his courage, Suigetsu plunged into the doorway and shouted excitedly:

"Onii-chan?"

Inside the house.

Uchiha Chen sealed hundreds of test tubes containing collected samples into a scroll and placed layers of seals on a specially selected Hozuki clan jonin before speaking:

"You're back! Are you acting according to the plan?"

"Yes!"

Hozuki Mangetsu's expression looked extremely calm, but his eyes were filled with struggle and pain.

"Ahhh!"

The little goldfish meant for his brother fell to the ground, flopped a few times, and then went still.

A scream came from the front yard; Hozuki Suigetsu had already discovered the corpses in the courtyard.

Hozuki Mangetsu clenched his fists and adjusted his expression and smile in the mirror, making himself look murderous and deranged, before slowly walking out of the room to meet Suigetsu.

"Onii~chan!"

Seeing his brother walk out of the house with a cold, indifferent expression, Hozuki Suigetsu felt as if he had found his backbone. Trembling, he pulled a dull toy kunai from the ninja tool pouch on his leg, half-crying and half-shouting:

"Brother, watch out! There are enemies! Uncle Cangyue and Clan Leader Shimotsuki are both dead!"

"There are no enemies."

Hozuki Mangetsu held the Hiramekarei in one hand, and a monstrous killing intent suddenly erupted from his body, crashing down upon Hozuki Suigetsu like a tidal wave.

"I killed them all."

"Why? Why would you do this? Aren't we all family?"

Hozuki Suigetsu wept in confusion, still unable to accept the truth spoken by this stranger who was his brother.

"If you must know, it was both a whim and a long-planned scheme."

Hozuki Mangetsu's cold, indifferent eyes fell upon the kunai in Suigetsu's hand.

"It was to obtain secret techniques like the Steaming Danger Tyranny stored within the clan, and to test my own capacity. Ahahahahaha!"

Following Uchiha Chen's instructions, Hozuki Mangetsu let out a deranged laugh with a twisted expression, his killing intent intensifying as he placed the Hiramekarei against Suigetsu's neck.

A puddle of liquid suddenly appeared at Hozuki Suigetsu's feet.

He hadn't wet himself; rather, under the pressure of the crisis, he had instinctively succeeded in releasing the Hydrification Technique.

A trace of surprise flashed in the depths of Mangetsu's eyes—he hadn't expected Uchiha Chen's method to be so immediately effective—but he continued to act according to the script for the sake of the broken Suigetsu:

"You aren't worth killing. You foolish little brother, if you want to kill me, then harbor hatred! Resentment! And then live on in ugliness! Run, run, and cling to your pathetic life!"

Under the multiple layers of stimulation, Hozuki Suigetsu rolled his eyes back and fainted.

Suigetsu, I will wait for you to come and kill me. Hozuki Mangetsu slung the Hiramekarei onto his back and spoke toward the direction of the house with a desolate air:

"I am leaving the village tonight. Do the Third and Yagura have any further instructions?"

"They told you not to worry about Suigetsu. After Yagura succeeds as the Fourth, he will find an opportunity to take Suigetsu as his apprentice.

Other than that, there is nothing else—wait!"

Uchiha Chen called out to Hozuki Mangetsu, who was turning to leave, and produced a set of cipher codes for intelligence transmission.

"If a specialized organization that recruits powerful rogue ninjas ever approaches you, you may infiltrate it and collect intelligence on a member who possesses abilities similar to mine!"

"Understood!"

Hozuki Mangetsu took the cipher, turned, and vanished into the night.

A night passed.

The Hozuki clan, a premier family of Kirigakure, suffered a great catastrophe; the clan leader and twelve other ninjas were dead, and the Water Style notes personally written by the Second Mizukage were stolen.

On the third day, Kirigakure announced that the prodigy Hozuki Mangetsu was the culprit who assassinated the clan head and stole secret techniques, issuing an S-rank missing-nin wanted order.

A week later, Anbu Minister Karatachi Yagura supported a jonin from the Hozuki clan to take power, and news broke that he had become the Three-Tails Jinchuriki, capable of achieving a full Tailed Beast transformation.

Shortly after, the head of the Hozuki clan formally nominated Karatachi Yagura to succeed as the Fourth at a jonin meeting, and the proposal was passed with an overwhelming majority of votes.

While his shadow clone was stirring up trouble in Kirigakure and collecting various secret techniques and bloodline limits, the original Uchiha Chen, who had returned to Dayu Mountain alone, felt somewhat discouraged after yet another fruitless search of the mountain.

He had originally wanted to drag Pakura along to help him dig up the mountain.

However, Pakura insisted on returning to the Sunagakure camp to bring out her loyal subordinates, otherwise, Sunagakure would surely persecute them once they learned she was still alive.

With no other choice, Uchiha Chen had to search the mountains, waters, grasses, and trees of Dayu Mountain over and over again like a savage.

"Sigh! That's the sixth time; there really isn't a trace of any Sealing Technique anywhere!"

He had searched every corner of the entire mountain without omission, scouring it inside and out. Could it be that the scroll records were wrong and it wasn't on Dayu Mountain?

Uchiha Chen stood on the peak of Dayu Mountain, looking down at the endless mountain range, when he suddenly remembered one place he hadn't searched yet—the interior of the mountain.

If I were a sealer from the Senju Clan or Uzumaki Clan, I would definitely seal it in a place an Uchiha could never find. I'd use Earth Style to dig into the mountain, place the seal inside, and then fill the mountain back up.

Uchiha Chen's eyes grew brighter and brighter.

For any Uchiha, finding a seal hidden somewhere inside the mountain would be as difficult as ascending to heaven, unless—

Unless one possessed the supreme God's Power to split mountains, break peaks, part seas, and roll clouds, peeling back the entire Dayu Mountain layer by layer like an onion.

As it happened, there was a technique whose nickname was exactly 'God's Power'!