Secret Meeting

When Lin Feng pushed open the hidden door behind the shrine, his fingers were still trembling slightly.

The sluggishness in his chakra was worse than it had been two hours ago. The residue of Root's drugs clung to the surface of his meridians like a greasy film; every attempt to refine chakra felt like cutting flesh with a dull blade. He slowed his breathing and squeezed sideways through the narrow crack in the stone, barely wide enough for one person.

The dim yellow candlelight of the underground chamber spilled out.

Uchiha Mikoto sat before a stone platform, an ancient book with a blackened cover spread open at her side. The instant she heard footsteps, she jerked her head up, her right hand already on the hilt of a kunai.

Once she saw who it was, her fingers slowly loosened.

"Lin Feng?"

Mikoto kept her voice low. Her gaze swept over the dust on his collar, then shifted to the hidden door behind him.

"How did you know where this chamber was?"

Lin Feng did not answer. He walked to the stone platform, took out the fragment from his ninja tool pouch, and gently placed it beside the ancient book.

"Lady Mikoto, I found this fragment while investigating the Outer Path Secret Art. The chakra seal on it seems related to the Uchiha's forbidden techniques. Could you help me identify it?"

Mikoto's gaze fell on the edge of the fragment.

She picked it up gently, but Lin Feng saw her pupils suddenly contract when her fingertips touched the lingering traces of chakra along the paper's edge.

"Where did you get this?"

Mikoto was no longer asking.

She was demanding an answer.

The chamber's candle flame flickered. Lin Feng did not look away and answered in a low voice, "The Anbu Archive. It was tucked inside an S-rank mission report that had been torn apart."

Mikoto fell silent.

Her thumb brushed over the lingering seal marks at the fragment's edge. The thin layer of residual chakra gave off a faint, shimmering blue glow beneath her fingertip. It lasted only an instant before sinking into her skin as though absorbed.

"This is a Contract Seal."

Mikoto set the fragment down. Her voice was softer than before, yet it carried a strain Lin Feng had never seen in her.

"Only the successive Uchiha clan heads can perform it. It is used to conceal the contents of agreements with outside forces. Once the seal is formed, no one but the caster can read it."

Lin Feng's heart gave a heavy thump.

"Outside forces?" he pressed, lowering his voice until it was nearly breath. "Do you mean Danzo and Root?"

Mikoto's fingers froze over the pages of the ancient book.

She did not look up.

"Fugaku..." Mikoto began, then paused for three full breaths. "He has indeed been meeting Danzo frequently lately. Every time he returns, he enters this chamber alone. He refuses to tell even me the details."

At last, she raised her eyes. Nothing remained in those gentle eyes now but exhaustion.

"Some within the clan already suspect that he is using Danzo's power to sideline the clan elders."

Lin Feng leaned forward slightly, the candlelight casting interwoven shadows across his face.

"What about the clan itself? What is the situation now?"

Mikoto closed the ancient book.

"It has already split into two factions." Her voice was calm, as if she were talking about someone else's affairs. "The faction led by Yashiro insists on using force to pressure the village. Fugaku, meanwhile, is wavering between the moderates and Danzo."

She paused.

"I'm worried... if this continues, no matter which side wins, the Uchiha will lose themselves."

The chamber fell silent.

After a moment of silence, Lin Feng asked the question whose answer he already knew.

"Have you considered stopping it?"

Mikoto looked up.

Her expression changed.

She was no longer the tired but gentle mother from moments ago. In her place was a cold, hardened resolve.

"Lin Feng, you cannot keep investigating."

Mikoto rose to her feet. The ancient book's cover struck the stone platform with a dull thud.

"The clan head has already begun suspecting that you and Shisui are plotting something in secret. I only agreed to see you because you are Sasuke and Itachi's friend, but if you keep interfering..."

She stopped.

Lin Feng saw her fingers clench the fabric of her sleeve.

"I will no longer be able to protect anyone."

Lin Feng did not retreat.

He met Mikoto's gaze and asked, word by word, "Are you protecting me, or protecting Fugaku's secret?"

Mikoto's pupils trembled.

She did not answer. But her silence was an answer in itself.

Lin Feng put the fragment back into his ninja tool pouch. He moved slowly, so slowly that every motion seemed to give Mikoto time to change her mind.

Mikoto turned her back to him.

The candlelight cast her shadow against the stone wall, stretching it long.

"There is only so much I can say."

Her voice came from behind her, carrying a restraint pushed to its limit.

"To undo a Contract Seal, you need the caster's blood, or the chakra of someone with sufficiently close blood ties. You should weigh your options carefully."

Lin Feng's movements paused for an instant.

He gave a slight bow toward Mikoto's back.

"I understand. Thank you, Lady Mikoto."

By the time he stepped out through the hidden door, a thin layer of sweat had seeped into Lin Feng's palm.

The residual seal marks along the fragment's edge resonated faintly with his left eye. A needlelike ache spread from deep within his eye socket to his temple. He drew a deep breath, forcibly suppressed the chakra fluctuations, and moved swiftly through the woods beyond the shrine.

Moonlight filtered through the canopy, scattering broken patches of silver-white light across the ground.

Lin Feng stopped on his tenth step.

Not because he heard something.

Because he saw a shadow.

Beside the torii at the shrine entrance, beneath the shadow of an old camphor tree, a figure stood silently. Moonlight illuminated only the lower half of his face, but those eyes—

The Three-Tomoe Sharingan turned slowly in the darkness.

Uchiha Itachi.

He did not speak. He did not move. He simply stood there, his gaze passing through the woods and resting on the hidden door Lin Feng had just exited.

He was watching his own mother.

Lin Feng held his breath and pressed his body fully into the tree's shadow.

Itachi's gaze lingered for only three seconds. Then his figure silently melted into the night, as though he had never appeared.

Lin Feng did not move at once.

He remained still, counting his heartbeats, until he confirmed there were no longer any chakra fluctuations nearby. Only then did he dart out from the other side of the tree and leave the woods.

Wind rushed into his lungs, carrying the bitter, grassy scent of nighttime vegetation.

Lin Feng raced across the rooftops, his mind churning with the intelligence he had just obtained.

Fugaku's meetings with Danzo. The clan's factional split. The Contract Seal. Undoing it required the chakra of a direct relative. Mikoto's warning. Itachi's surveillance.

Every link locked into the next like a tightening noose.

He had to obtain Itachi or Sasuke's chakra to remove the seal on the fragment and find a way to lift the suppression caused by Root's drugs.

At the same time, the clan head suspected him. Itachi was watching him. Mikoto's trust had already shattered.

When Lin Feng landed at the junction of abandoned drainage pipes, Shisui was leaning against the pipe wall, wiping the blade of his short sword.

Shisui looked up at him.

"You look terrible."

Lin Feng leaned against the damp concrete wall and closed his eyes.

"We don't have much time."

He opened his eyes, a dull ache pulsing deep in his left eye.

"Even less than we thought."