The Branch House's Reputation

The morning mist had yet to disperse when seven or eight Branch House ninja had already gathered at the edge of the training grounds.

The moment Hyuga Xiao reached the field, the quiet conversations stopped.

Several gazes fell on him.

They were no longer the indifferent, distant glances of the past, but carried a certain scrutiny, a certain... respect?

"Xiao."

Tokuma Hyuga stepped out from the crowd and patted him on the shoulder. The gesture was natural, but Xiao noticed that the eyes of several Branch House ninja around them shifted with it.

"Are your injuries better?" Tokuma asked.

"More or less." Xiao smiled, his expression warm and perfectly measured. "The medicine from the Main House worked well."

He said it softly, but the air at the edge of the training grounds seemed to freeze for an instant.

A Branch House Elite Ninja in his thirties walked over. A scar slashed diagonally across his face from brow bone to mouth. Xiao remembered that his name was Tetsu Hyuga. He had spent seven years carrying out missions at the border and had only returned to the village last year.

"I heard about what happened last night." Tetsu's voice was deep. "You saved the Main House's eldest daughter."

Xiao lowered his eyes. "It was my duty."

"Duty?" Tetsu tugged at the corner of his mouth, making the scar move with it. "The Branch House's duty is to die for the Main House, not risk its life saving them and come back alive."

His words were blunt, and the expressions of several younger Branch House ninja changed.

Tokuma frowned. "Tetsu, don't talk nonsense."

"Am I wrong?" Tetsu stared at Xiao. "Over the decades, it wasn't as though the Branch House had never saved the Main House. But you're the first one to receive a 'reward' after saving them."

Xiao raised his head, allowing a trace of perfectly timed confusion into his eyes. "A reward?"

"You don't know?" Tetsu sneered. "The Mission Office issued a notice this morning. You've been assigned three months of double mission workload, with payment calculated at Elite Ninja rates. They call it—focused training, developing your potential."

The edge of the training grounds fell completely silent.

Several Branch House ninja exchanged looks, their expressions complicated.

Double mission workload was a punishment during wartime, but in peacetime, it was a disguised form of recognition—it meant that one was qualified to shoulder more responsibility, qualified to be "seen."

And payment at Elite Ninja rates...

That money was enough to let a Branch House ninja avoid dangerous missions for two years while still allowing their family to live decently.

"What good luck," someone muttered.

Xiao heard it, but merely lowered his head slightly, letting the loose strands of hair over his forehead hide his eyes.

Luck?

He sneered inwardly.

He had traded his life for that, traded Hinata's 65% trust for it, traded for it with that "Obsession" status on the system panel.

"The mission order has already been delivered to your residence." Tokuma lowered his voice. "The first mission leaves this afternoon. Escort a merchant caravan to the Land of Fire border. I checked the roster. Besides you, there are two Branch House Middle Ninja and three Lower Ninja."

Xiao nodded. "Understood."

"Be careful." Tokuma pressed his hand against Xiao's shoulder again, this time with more force. "The Mission Office... Elder Ko Hyuga is in charge of reviewing things there."

Ko Hyuga.

Xiao searched his memories for the name. A lower-ranking member of the Main House elders, responsible for internal mission assignments and resource allocation. He was in his fifties and known for being "rigorous"—or rather, known for being harsh on the Branch House.

"Thank you for the warning," Xiao said.

When he turned and left the training grounds, he could still feel those eyes sticking to his back.

There was envy, jealousy, scrutiny, and even a trace of... expectation?

At two in the afternoon, at the eastern gate of Konoha Village.

A merchant caravan made up of five carriages was already prepared to depart. The drivers were all ordinary people, and the cargo was tightly covered by oilcloth, but judging by the tracks pressed into the road by the wheels, the load was not light.

When Xiao arrived, the other five Branch House ninja were already waiting at the gate.

There were two Middle Ninja, one man and one woman. The man was named Aoki Hyuga. He was twenty-five or twenty-six, leanly built, with steady eyes. The woman was Hyuga Rei, barely into her twenties, with short hair and two kunai tucked at her waist.

The three Lower Ninja were all teenagers. The oldest was no more than fifteen, while the youngest looked a year younger than Xiao. The Caged Bird Seal on his forehead was a painfully vivid blue.

"Captain." Aoki spoke first, his tone calm.

Xiao froze for a moment before realizing that Aoki was addressing him.

According to Leaf Village rules, if a mission squad had no designated captain, the highest-ranked member would take command. Xiao was a Middle Ninja, and so were Aoki and Rei, but he had been personally "designated" by the Main House to carry out this mission.

"No need to be so formal." Xiao waved a hand, his smile warm. "This mission is simple. We escort the caravan to the border outpost, complete the handover, then return. We just need to look after one another on the road."

Rei glanced at him but said nothing.

The three Lower Ninja visibly relaxed—they had clearly been worried about getting a harsh captain.

The caravan's leader was a plump middle-aged merchant named Mitsui. Seeing that the ninja had all arrived, he came over with a cheerful smile to greet them, slipping each person a small cloth pouch while he was at it.

Xiao weighed his pouch in his hand. It contained silver, not much, but enough to eat at a few inns along the way.

"A small token, just a small token." Mitsui rubbed his hands together. "I'll be relying on all of you for this journey."

"It's our duty." Xiao accepted the pouch, then casually handed it to the youngest Lower Ninja beside him. "You keep it. If we need anything on the road, we'll purchase it together."

The boy froze, holding the pouch without knowing what to do.

Aoki and Rei exchanged a glance, something new appearing in their eyes.

The caravan left Konoha Village and traveled east along the main road.

The roads of the Land of Fire were smooth and level, and the carriages moved steadily. The first half of the day passed without incident. The three Lower Ninja gradually relaxed and began chatting quietly.

Xiao sat on the shaft of the first carriage with his eyes closed, as though asleep.

But he was not.

His Byakugan silently opened beneath his skin, his field of vision spreading outward from his body—fifty meters, one hundred meters, two hundred meters...

After its purity rose to 6%, the Byakugan's detection range had nearly doubled, and it revealed details it had never shown before. He could see insect eggs wriggling within the grain of trees, tiny holes turned up by earthworms deep beneath the soil, and the trembling of a distant mountain sparrow's feathers as it beat its wings.

And he could see the chakra signatures of more than a dozen crouching figures behind a hillside three hundred meters away.

Bandits.

Xiao opened his eyes, the pale blue in his pupils flashing away in an instant.

"Aoki." He spoke quietly, but loudly enough for the entire caravan to hear.

"Here." Aoki leaped down from the second carriage and crossed the distance to Xiao in a few strides.

"Three hundred meters ahead, behind the hill on the left. Thirteen people." Xiao spoke evenly. "Their chakra is weak, at most Lower Ninja level. But they have crossbows—three of them. The arrowheads are coated with something, probably poison."

Aoki's expression hardened. "An ambush?"

"Almost certainly." Xiao jumped down from the carriage. "Rei, take the three Lower Ninja and protect the caravan. Form a defensive formation on the spot. Aoki, come with me. We'll circle through the forest on the right."

"Circle around?" Rei frowned. "Not break through head-on?"

"They have crossbows. Charging them head-on will cause casualties." Xiao was already removing the ninja tool pouch from his back. "We have few people. We can't take risks."

He said it as if it were obvious, as if it were the most basic tactical judgment.

Aoki studied him for two seconds, then nodded. "We'll follow the captain's orders."

The two of them flashed away and vanished into the forest to the right.

Behind the hillside, thirteen bandits crouched behind the brush.

Their leader was a one-eyed brute gripping a crude crossbow. The arrow in its groove had a dark green tip.

"Boss, the caravan's almost here," a skinny man whispered.

"Keep your eyes open." The one-eyed man licked his lips. "Once they're in range, shoot down the guards first, then rush in and take the goods. Remember, leave no survivors."

"Understood!"

The skinny man had barely answered when he suddenly felt a chill at his neck.

He looked down and saw the tip of a kunai piercing through his throat, blood running down the metal.

He wanted to scream, but no sound came out.

Then he heard a faint whisper from behind him, almost too quiet to hear.

"The first."

As the skinny man fell, the one-eyed brute whipped around.

He saw two figures pounce out from the shadows of the forest, moving faster than humanly possible.

One of them was especially fast—a boy who looked no older than twelve or thirteen, with a forehead protector tied around his head and faint blue seal markings visible beneath it.

The boy's eyes were white and pupil-less, and they were fixed coldly upon him.

The one-eyed brute instinctively raised his crossbow.

But before he could pull the trigger, the boy was already in front of him.

It was not a Body Flicker Technique, merely pure speed—so fast that the one-eyed brute did not even have time to react.

Then he saw the boy press a hand against his chest.

A very light press.

But the next second, the one-eyed brute heard his ribs snapping, crack after crack, like branches crushed underfoot. Before the agony even reached him, his body had already flown away. He smashed through two small trees, crashed into the brush, and never rose again.

The battle ended within thirty seconds.

Of the thirteen bandits, seven were dead. The other six had their chakra points struck by Aoki's Gentle Fist and lay paralyzed on the ground, unable to move.

Xiao stood amid the corpses, his breathing steady and his clothes not even rumpled.

He bent down, picked up the crossbow, examined the poison on the arrowhead, then casually snapped the arrow and tossed it to the ground.

"Captain." Aoki walked over, his eyes complicated. "That move you used just now..."

"A variation of the Gentle Fist," Xiao said. "I came up with it myself. The method of exerting force is a little different."

He made it sound casual.

But Aoki knew that was not the case.

The strikes Xiao had used just now—their speed, power, and angles—had all been terrifyingly precise. Especially the final palm he pressed against the one-eyed brute's chest—it was not an ordinary Gentle Fist technique, but a method of compressing chakra to the absolute limit before releasing it in an instant.

Without at least five years of Gentle Fist training, it would have been impossible to use.

Yet this boy was only twelve.

"Clean up the battlefield." Xiao turned and headed back. "Take the crossbows and poisoned arrows. They can count as extra merit when we turn in the mission back at the village. Bury the bodies, tie up the survivors, and hand them over to the border garrison."

"Yes." Aoki responded.

He watched Xiao's retreating back and suddenly remembered what Tetsu had said at the training grounds that morning.

"Over the decades, it wasn't as though the Branch House had never saved the Main House. But you're the first one to receive a 'reward' after saving them."

Now, he understood a little.

Perhaps it was not a reward.

It was an investment.

By evening, the caravan safely reached the border outpost.

After handing over the cargo, Xiao had the three Lower Ninja take the six bound bandits to register with the garrison. He himself sat on a stone block outside the outpost and wrote the mission report.

The report was concise: encountered a bandit ambush, detected it in advance, circled around and attacked, eliminated all enemies, no casualties on their side.

He paused briefly over the words "detected in advance," then continued writing.

Once he finished, he signed it and stamped it.

The report would be sent back to Konoha Village tomorrow with the outpost's messenger hawk, delivered to the Mission Office, and placed in Elder Ko Hyuga's hands.

Xiao put away his pen and looked west.

The sun was sinking, staining the sky a sea of blood.

Aoki walked over and sat beside him. "Captain, I'll tell the Branch House brothers the truth about what happened today."

Xiao turned his head to look at him.

"The Branch House needs an example." Aoki spoke bluntly. "We need someone to prove that we are not only capable of dying for the Main House. We can earn merit too. We can be 'seen' too."

Xiao was silent for several seconds, then smiled. "Do as you like."

He rose to his feet and brushed the dust from his clothes.

In the distance, the three Lower Ninja were running toward them, their faces full of excitement after completing the mission.

The youngest boy ran up to Xiao, panting as he said, "Captain, the garrison said those six bandits are wanted criminals. The bounty is one hundred and fifty thousand silver! They said we can collect it after returning to the village!"

"Mm." Xiao nodded. "You can split the money."

The boy froze. "We split it? Captain, you don't want any?"

"I'm not short on money," Xiao said. "You take it. Buy something for your families."

After saying that, he left, leaving the boy standing there with the bounty certificate issued by the garrison clutched in his hands, which trembled slightly.

Rei walked to Aoki's side and watched Xiao's receding back. "He's different."

"He is." Aoki said, "That's why the Main House 'rewarded' him, and why Elder Ko is watching him."

"Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing?"

Aoki did not answer.

He merely stared at the blood-red sky for a long time.

Three days later, Konoha Village, Mission Office review room.

Ko Hyuga set down the mission report in his hand and narrowed his eyes.

The report was thin, only a single page. Yet its contents had made him read it three times.

Thirteen bandits eliminated, no casualties on their side.

Ambush detected in advance.

Circled around and attacked.

Every word was standard, so standard that no fault could be found with it.

Yet Ko Hyuga simply felt that something was wrong.

He picked up another document, a supplementary statement sent by the border outpost garrison. It confirmed that the wanted criminals had been captured and that the mission had been completed perfectly.

There was also a letter of thanks from the caravan leader, Mitsui, filled with praise between every line. It described how Captain Hyuga Xiao had been calm and decisive, how he had protected the caravan, and so on.

Ko Hyuga spread the three documents across the desk and tapped his finger against the words "detected in advance."

The Byakugan being able to spot an ambush was not strange.

What was strange was that a twelve-year-old Branch House Middle Ninja, leading five Branch House ninja, had managed to eliminate thirteen bandits without taking a single casualty—even if those bandits were merely ordinary people.

It was unreasonable.

Unless this Hyuga Xiao's strength far exceeded that of a Middle Ninja.

Unless he had been hiding it all along.

Ko Hyuga leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

He thought of the boy lying in the hospital bed a few days ago, of the faint, almost imperceptible resistance he had felt when he examined him with the Byakugan.

At the time, he had thought it was an illusion.

Now, he wasn't so sure.

"Someone," Ko Hyuga called.

A Branch House ninja pushed open the door and bowed. "Elder."

"Bring me Hyuga Xiao's mission assignments for the next two months," Ko Hyuga said. "I'll arrange them personally."

"Yes."

After the Branch House ninja withdrew, Ko Hyuga opened his eyes again and let his gaze fall upon the signature at the bottom of the report.

The handwriting was neat, even somewhat childish.

But as Ko Hyuga looked at those two characters, he suddenly felt—

That Branch House brat probably would not remain so "docile" forever.

He needed to keep a closer eye on him.

Closer.