Moonless Night

At dusk, the setting sun left a glow of orange-red on the horizon before disappearing. The sky gradually darkened, and Kirigakure, shrouded in heavy fog, quickly grew dim.

"There's no moon tonight!"

A white-haired, violet-eyed child with fair skin and the same pointed teeth as Hozuki Mangetsu glanced up at the sky. Covered in mud, he ran through the crowd and into the northeastern corner of the Hozuki Clan compound.

Though Hozuki Suigetsu was still young, he was already the king of the under-fives in Kirigakure. As usual, he'd spent the entire afternoon running wild nearby.

A stream of water flowed from his small hands, with a cute little goldfish swimming around inside it.

"Oh no! I played too late. My big brother's showing the clan his newly invented technique at home tonight. If I don't hurry, I'll miss it!"

Hozuki Suigetsu hurried forward, sloshing much of the water in his hands. He had to slow down again.

It's okay. My big brother's the best! If I give him the goldfish, he'll definitely show me again in private.

As he walked along the compound's roads toward his home in a secluded corner, Hozuki Suigetsu noticed that, for some reason, the lights weren't as bright as usual. Even the insects and birds that usually chirped all day had fallen silent.

Darkness, gloom, and a faint smell of rust.

The door to the house Suigetsu knew so well stood ajar. Inside was pitch black, like a monstrous beast lurking in the dark, its gaping maw wide open.

Suigetsu, you're almost three years old. You can't be afraid of the dark anymore!

He psyched himself up, then plunged through the door and called out excitedly:

"Big bro?"

Inside the house,

Uchiha Chen sealed the hundreds of sample-filled test tubes into a scroll. Then, after placing layer upon layer of seals on a carefully selected Special Jōnin from the Hozuki Clan, he spoke.

"You're back! Are we following the plan?"

"Yeah!"

Hozuki Mangetsu looked perfectly calm, but his eyes were full of anguish and inner turmoil.

"Ahhh!"

The little goldfish he'd brought for his brother fell to the ground. It flopped a few times, then went still.

A scream came from the front courtyard. Hozuki Suigetsu had discovered the bodies there.

Hozuki Mangetsu clenched his fists and adjusted his expression and smile in the mirror, making himself look murderous and deranged. Only then did he slowly leave the room and walk toward Suigetsu.

"Big bro!"

When Hozuki Suigetsu saw his brother emerge from the house with a cold expression, he seemed to find something to cling to. Trembling, he pulled a blunt toy kunai from the ninja tool pouch on his leg and cried out through his sobs:

"Be careful, big brother! There's an enemy! Uncle Cangyue and Clan Head Shimotsuki are dead!"

"There's no enemy."

Hozuki Mangetsu held Hiramekarei in one hand. An overwhelming killing intent suddenly poured from him, bearing down on Hozuki Suigetsu like a landslide.

"I killed them all."

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

Hozuki Suigetsu wept in confusion, still unable to accept that the stranger before him was his brother—or the truth he'd just told him.

"If I had to say, it was both a whim and something I'd plotted for a long time."

Hozuki Mangetsu's cold, indifferent gaze fell on the kunai in Suigetsu's hand.

"It was for the secret techniques the clan had collected, like Steaming Danger Tyranny, and to test my own mettle. Ahahahahaha!"

Following Uchiha Chen's instructions, Hozuki Mangetsu twisted his expression into a crazed laugh. His killing intent grew even stronger, and he laid Hiramekarei against Suigetsu's neck.

A puddle suddenly appeared beneath Hozuki Suigetsu.

He hadn't wet himself. Faced with danger, he'd instinctively managed to use the Hydrification Technique.

A flicker of surprise showed in Mangetsu's eyes. He hadn't expected Uchiha Chen's method to work so quickly, but he continued following the script, speaking to Suigetsu, who was already breaking down:

"You're not worth killing. Foolish little brother, if you want to kill me, then hate me! Despise me! Live on in misery! Run away, run away, and eke out a wretched existence!"

Overwhelmed by everything that had happened, Hozuki Suigetsu's eyes rolled back and he fainted.

Suigetsu, I'll be waiting for you to come kill me. Hozuki Mangetsu slung Hiramekarei over his back and spoke somewhat forlornly toward the house.

"I'm leaving the village tonight. Is there anything else I need to know about the Third and Yagura?"

"He said not to worry about Suigetsu. After Yagura succeeds him as the Fourth, he'll find an opportunity to take Suigetsu as his student.

"That's all. Wait!"

Uchiha Chen called out to Hozuki Mangetsu as he turned to leave, then took out a coded message for transmitting intelligence.

"If an organization dedicated to sheltering powerful missing-nin approaches you in the future, you can infiltrate it and gather information on a member whose abilities resemble mine!"

"Got it!"

Hozuki Mangetsu took the coded message and disappeared into the night.

A night passed.

The Hozuki Clan, Kirigakure's most prominent family, had suffered a devastating blow. The clan head and twelve ninja were dead, and the Water Style notes personally written by the Second Mizukage had been stolen.

On the third day, Kirigakure announced that Hozuki Mangetsu, the village's prodigy, was the culprit behind the clan head's murder and the theft of the secret techniques. An S-rank missing-nin wanted notice was issued.

A week later, Anbu Commander Karatachi Yagura backed a Hozuki Jōnin's bid for leadership of the clan. It was also revealed that he had become the Three-Tails Jinchuriki and mastered Complete Tailed Beast Transformation.

Not long afterward, the Hozuki Clan head formally nominated Karatachi Yagura to succeed as the Fourth at a Jōnin meeting. The proposal passed with an overwhelming majority.

While his clone turned Kirigakure upside down, collecting all sorts of secret techniques and bloodline abilities, Uchiha Chen's main body returned to Dayu Mountain alone. After another fruitless search, he felt dejected.

He'd originally wanted to bring Pakura along to dig through the mountain, too.

But Pakura said she needed to return to Sunagakure's camp and bring out her trusted subordinates. Otherwise, if Sunagakure learned she was still alive, they would surely go after them.

With no other choice, Uchiha Chen had to search every inch of Dayu Mountain by himself, like a wild man, again and again—its hills and streams, its grass and trees.

"Sigh! This is the sixth time. There really aren't any traces of a Sealing Technique anywhere!"

He'd searched every corner of the mountain without missing a spot, scouring it inside and out. Either the scroll was wrong, or it wasn't on Dayu Mountain at all.

Standing on the summit of Dayu Mountain, Uchiha Chen looked out over the endless ridges. Then he suddenly remembered one place he hadn't searched—the inside of the mountain.

"If I were a Senju or an Uzumaki doing the sealing, I'd hide it somewhere Uchiha would never find. I'd use Earth Style to hollow out the mountain, place the seal inside, then fill it back in."

Uchiha Chen's eyes grew brighter and brighter.

For any Uchiha, finding a seal hidden somewhere inside the mountain would be almost impossible—unless they possessed the supreme power to split mountains and cleave peaks, part the seas and roll back the clouds, peeling away the entire mountain layer by layer like an onion.

As it happened, there was a technique also known as God's Power!