Cursed Seal of Tongue Eradication

Rain hammered against the eaves, gathering into several thick streams that poured down along the roof tiles.

The Naka River's water level had risen by quite a bit, its roar piercing through the curtain of rain and making the ground tremble faintly.

On the west side of the Uchiha clan compound, a lamp was lit inside a small detached courtyard.

Tieshan Uchiha knelt before a low table, holding a fine-tipped brush. Spread across the table was a special scroll only as wide as a palm.

He drew in a breath, raised the brush, and wrote:

"June 15th, clan meeting. Fugaku's attitude was weak. He intends to reduce the Police Force's staffing to curry favor. Dissatisfaction within the clan has reached its peak, and several people drew blades on the spot in protest. This subordinate has followed instructions and taken the lead in intensifying the conflict. At present, seven radical members have been gathered..."

When he reached this point, he stopped writing, his brows furrowing into a deep crease.

The sound of rain outside seemed to grow louder. The wind rattled the paper window, and the candle flame was disturbed by the air current, stretching his shadow long and short by turns, casting it on the wall like a fanged, clawing monster.

Tieshan put down the brush and reached for his teacup.

The instant his fingers touched the wall of the cup, his movements paused.

As a jonin who had fought his way across battlefields, he possessed an almost instinctive intuition for gazes.

Someone was watching him.

Tieshan whipped his head around, his right hand snapping toward the kunai beneath the table.

"Who's there!"

At some point, the window had opened a crack.

No wind poured in, and no rain drifted inside.

In the darkness, a pair of scarlet eyes were staring at him coldly. The three tomoe in those eyes slowly revolved, as if they meant to suck in all the surrounding light.

Shisui Uchiha.

Tieshan's pupils contracted sharply. He had just been about to mobilize chakra and break through the genjutsu, but his body felt as heavy as if it had been filled with lead. His thoughts slowed, and his eyelids wanted to close against his will.

"Smack."

A hand reached over from the side and pinned down the wrist he was using to grab the kunai.

Uchiha Xuanshi stepped out of the shadows, still wearing a black rain cape. Water droplets trickled down the edge of the cape and dripped onto the tatami, spreading into dark stains.

Xuanshi did not look at Tieshan. He walked straight to the table and picked up the scroll whose ink had yet to dry.

"This subordinate has followed instructions and taken the lead in intensifying the conflict..."

Xuanshi read it once, his voice mixing with the rain and sounding somewhat distorted.

He set down the scroll and turned to look at the immobilized Tieshan, the corner of his mouth tugging slightly.

"Not bad writing, Senior Tieshan."

Tieshan's mouth hung open, "heh-heh" sounds rasping from his throat. His eyeballs rolled wildly, but he could not break free of the suppression from Shisui's ocular power.

"Take him." Xuanshi stuffed the scroll into his robe.

Shisui nodded. His figure flashed, and he appeared behind Tieshan, bringing a hand chop down heavily on the back of his neck.

Tieshan collapsed limply to the floor.

Xuanshi took a wine bottle from his robe, pulled out the stopper, and splashed cheap shochu all over the floor. Then he kicked the bottle to the side of the place where Tieshan had just been sitting and casually messed up the items on the table.

After doing all this, he blew out the candle.

Two black shadows carried a burlap sack and vanished instantly into the torrential night.

Naka River Shrine, underground chamber.

There was no sound of rain here, only the occasional crackle of burning torches.

A bucket of ice water was splashed over his face.

Tieshan suddenly choked on a mouthful of water and woke up coughing violently.

He instinctively tried to leap up and defend himself, only to discover that his limbs had been tightly bound by special steel cables, and his chakra had been suppressed by sealing tags until not a trace remained.

He raised his head and saw his surroundings clearly.

On the main seat directly ahead, Uchiha Fugaku sat cross-legged, his hands tucked into his sleeves, looking at him expressionlessly.

Beside Fugaku, the grand elder, Yashiro Uchiha, Inabi Uchiha... seven or eight core members of the clan stood in a row.

They did not speak. They only stared at him with the eyes of people looking at a dead man.

Tieshan's heart sank violently, as if it had fallen into an ice pit.

It was over.

This was no ordinary interrogation. This was the clan purging its own ranks.

"Clan... Clan leader..." Tieshan's voice was hoarse, his teeth chattering. "What is the meaning of this? What did I do wrong?"

Fugaku did not answer. He merely threw the scroll taken from Tieshan's table in front of him.

The scroll rolled twice and unfurled.

The words written on it about "intensifying the conflict" and "acting under instructions" looked especially glaring in the firelight.

Tieshan looked as though someone had seized him by the throat, all his excuses stuck there.

"Is Root's treatment that good?" Fugaku finally spoke, his voice very soft as it echoed through the empty chamber.

Tieshan lowered his head, not daring to meet Fugaku's eyes.

"Answer me." Fugaku's voice rose a few degrees.

Tieshan's body trembled, and he gritted his teeth. "Clan leader, I had no choice."

"Everyone has a choice."

"I didn't!" Tieshan jerked his head up, his eyes red as he roared hysterically. "My youngest son! Nobuhiro! He disappeared last year while carrying out a mission in the Land of Rivers. All of you thought he was dead! But he wasn't!"

Several clansmen around them exchanged glances.

Tieshan panted heavily, snot and water mixing together and flowing into his mouth. "Root's people came to me with Nobuhiro's forehead protector. If I didn't listen to them, Nobuhiro would be cut into pieces and sent back! Clan leader, what was I supposed to do? He is my own flesh and blood!"

The chamber fell into deathly silence.

Fugaku closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

This was Danzo.

Using family bonds, using weaknesses, turning people into tools.

"So you sold out the clan?" Xuanshi, who had been leaning against the corner of the wall, walked over, his footsteps especially clear on the stone floor.

Xuanshi stopped in front of Tieshan and looked down at him from above.

"Tell me, who is Root's contact? Where were you supposed to deliver this intelligence scroll?"

Tieshan looked at Xuanshi, his eyes flickering slightly.

"If I tell you... can you spare my life? Or... save Nobuhiro?" Tieshan sounded as if he had grasped his final straw.

"That depends on whether your intelligence is worth anything," Xuanshi answered coldly.

Tieshan swallowed.

He knew he had no way out. If he did not speak, he definitely would not leave this chamber today. If he did, perhaps Fugaku would remember their kinship and help him rescue his son.

"The contact location is... behind the memorial stone in the northwest corner of the village, inside a tree hollow under the third pine tree." Tieshan spoke very quickly. "The contact's code name is 'Hei.' He wears a cat-face mask..."

"Did Danzo give you any other special instructions?" Xuanshi pressed.

"Yes..."

Tieshan had just opened his mouth when his pupils suddenly dilated.

His expression froze in an instant, as though he had seen something utterly terrifying.

"Urgh... ghk..."

Strange sounds were squeezed from deep in his throat.

Tieshan opened his mouth wide, his hands clawing madly at the ground. His fingernails snapped, leaving several bloody marks on the stone slab.

Everyone saw a black pattern suddenly appear on his tongue.

The pattern was like a living centipede, writhing and spreading madly. In an instant, it crawled over his entire mouth, then burrowed downward along his throat.

"Ahhh—"

Tieshan could not form complete syllables and could only let out muffled, garbled screams. His body convulsed violently as if he had been electrocuted, his eyes rolling upward until only the whites showed. All the blood vessels in his body bulged, turning an eerie purplish black.

"It's a cursed seal!"

The grand elder cried out in shock and took half a step back. "This is... Cursed Seal of Tongue Eradication!"

Everyone present was an experienced ninja, so they had naturally heard of the technique's infamous reputation.

This was the curse Danzo planted to prevent Root members from leaking secrets. Once the host tried to reveal any core secret regarding Danzo, the cursed seal would activate instantly, paralyzing the host's entire nervous system, even directly causing death.

"That old bastard Danzo..." Yashiro Uchiha clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking. "He never treated them as people from the very beginning."

Tieshan's convulsions grew weaker and weaker.

His face had already turned ashen, and he was foaming heavily at the mouth. He looked as if he was about to breathe his last at any moment.

"There's no saving him." Fugaku looked at his cousin on the floor, a trace of reluctance flashing through his eyes before it was replaced by resolve.

He drew the short blade at his waist.

Rather than let him die in such agony, it was better to give him a clean end.

Fugaku raised the blade and aimed it at Tieshan's heart.

"Wait."

A hand reached over and gripped Fugaku's wrist.

Fugaku turned his head and saw Xuanshi's face, calm to an almost excessive degree.

"Don't be in such a hurry, Father."

Xuanshi released Fugaku's hand and crouched down.

He looked at the dying Tieshan on the floor and reached out to brush aside the bangs already soaked through with cold sweat.

"If you kill him now, the lead is cut off." Xuanshi said mildly, "and if we don't pull this nail out whole and then drive it back in, how will Danzo believe we are following his script?"

"But the cursed seal has already activated." The grand elder frowned. "Cursed Seal of Tongue Eradication is one of the forbidden techniques developed by the Second Hokage. Aside from the caster, no one can undo it."

"No one can undo it?"

A faint curve lifted the corner of Xuanshi's mouth.

His right hand pressed against Tieshan's forehead.

In a field of vision invisible to everyone else, a translucent, dark-blue panel popped out and hovered above Tieshan's twisted face.

[Target status: dying (neurotoxin spreading)]

[High-level technique detected: A-rank sealing technique · Cursed Seal of Tongue Eradication (activated state)]

[Description: This technique connects to the host's cerebral cortex through chakra. When trigger words are spoken, it immediately carries out neural destruction.]

[Consume family prosperity: 20 points to use "Causality Reversal: Formula Stripping" on the target?]

20 points.

The 15 points brought by yesterday's regression, plus the 10 points rewarded by the system for today's spy-capture operation, were just enough.

Xuanshi did not hesitate and silently recited in his heart.

"Confirm."

Buzz—

An invisible ripple suddenly spread out with Xuanshi's palm at its center.

The torches in the chamber shook violently, as if a cold wind had blown through.

Fugaku and the grand elder's eyes widened at the same time.

They saw the vicious black curse marks on Tieshan's tongue begin to rapidly melt and recede like snow meeting blazing fire.

The black lines that had already burrowed into his throat were forcibly dragged back by an overbearing power, condensing again at the tip of his tongue before turning into a wisp of black smoke that dispersed into the air.

Tieshan's convulsions stopped.

He sucked in a huge breath, his chest heaving violently. His eyes, which had rolled back, focused again, filled with the terror of surviving disaster.

That bone-deep numbness had vanished.

The mark that had tightened around his soul like a constricting curse was gone.

Tieshan lay limp on the floor, gasping for breath as he looked at the young man before him like he was looking at a god, and also like he was looking at a demon.

Xuanshi withdrew his hand, stood up, and took a handkerchief from his robe to wipe his fingers, his movements as elegant as if he were wiping a piece of porcelain.

He tossed the used handkerchief onto Tieshan's face, covering that snot-and-tear-covered visage.

Xuanshi turned and looked at the dumbstruck Fugaku and the clansmen, his voice steady as it pierced the chamber's dead silence.

"I have picked Danzo's lock."

He pointed at Tieshan on the floor.

"Now he can talk. Not only can he tell the truth, from now on, he can also help us tell Danzo 'lies.'"

Xuanshi looked toward the pitch-black night sky outside the window, his gaze darker than the night.

"This is only the first one. The rain is heavy tonight. Perfect for washing all the filth clean."

"Who's next?" Xuanshi asked.

Yashiro Uchiha immediately handed over a list, his voice carrying a trace of awe he could not conceal. "...It's Inagaki Uchiha."

Xuanshi took the list, swept a glance over it, and walked toward the chamber exit.

"Then let's continue."

His back vanished into the shadow at the doorway, leaving only one sentence echoing beside everyone's ears.

"Before dawn, I want there to be not a single pair of eyes in this shrine looking on behalf of outsiders."

The rainstorm continued to fall, and booming thunder rolled across the sky above Konoha, covering all sin and cleansing.

Meanwhile, deep underground in Root beneath the Hokage Building, Danzo Shimura sat before the dim candlelight, looking at a row of candlesticks on the wall.

One of them, the candle representing Tieshan Uchiha, flickered slightly, as if it were about to go out, only to strangely begin burning again, even a little brighter than before.

Danzo narrowed his lone eye, a cold smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.

"It seems the seed of hatred has already sprouted."

What he did not know was that this seed had already been replaced with a deadly poison.