Tokuma's Secret

Late at night in Leaf Village, moonlight was shattered by the dense canopy and scattered across the stone paths of the Hyuga Clan's Branch House settlement.

Hyuga Xiao sat cross-legged in his cramped bedroom, his eyes tightly shut.

With his Byakugan activated, chakra flowed slowly through his meridians. With every cycle, the Caged Bird Seal on his forehead grew faintly hot—it was the Main House's monitoring tendril, and also the noose hanging over every Branch House member's head.

The contents of the Chronicles of Evolution he had copied from the library during the day kept resurfacing in his mind.

"The Senju Clan assisted in improving it... The upper ranks of Leaf Village used it as leverage to balance the Uchiha Clan..."

A cold curve lifted at Xiao's lips.

Just as expected.

The so-called glory of the Main House and the so-called purity of their bloodline were nothing more than a prison woven from layer upon layer of lies. And the key to that prison had never been held solely by the Hyuga Clan.

The chirping insects outside suddenly fell silent.

Xiao opened his eyes. Within his Byakugan vision, a familiar figure moved swiftly along the shadows by the wall, his movements cautious to the point of being furtive. He bypassed the patrolling Branch House guards, precisely avoiding every possible line of sight before finally stopping beneath Xiao's window.

Three long knocks, followed by two short ones.

Xiao rose and opened the window. Under the moonlight, Tokuma Hyuga's face, usually adorned with a gentle smile, was drawn taut. Fine beads of sweat covered his forehead, and his Byakugan glimmered faintly in the darkness as he warily scanned the surroundings.

"Come in." Xiao stepped aside.

Tokuma flipped into the room, as light as a cat. He shut the window behind him, then stuck a Soundproofing Talisman into the gap—a standard ninja tool issued only to Middle Ninja, clearly something he had secretly taken from his father.

"Something happened." Tokuma's breathing was slightly rushed. "My father was summoned by the Main House to attend an elders' meeting tonight. I... I eavesdropped with my Byakugan."

Xiao did not urge him on. He simply walked to the table, poured a cup of water, and pushed it toward him.

Tokuma took the cup, his hand trembling slightly. He gulped down a large mouthful, water running down the corner of his mouth and soaking his collar.

"They were discussing the 'Branch House Genius Control Plan.'" Tokuma kept his voice low, every word seeming to squeeze out through clenched teeth. "Your recent performance at the Ninja Academy has been too outstanding. You've been put on the list."

Xiao lightly tapped a finger against the tabletop.

Thud.

It was a soft sound, yet it was especially clear in the silent room.

"The specifics." Xiao's tone was terrifyingly calm.

Tokuma took a deep breath. "The plan has three levels. The first is assigning missions with high mortality rates—not open S-rank missions, but border patrols and enemy infiltrations where 'accidents happen frequently.' The mortality rate is over seventy percent."

"The second is control through marriage. If you don't die in the first level, or if you display even greater value, the Main House will arrange for Branch House women to marry in, or for Branch House men to marry into collateral lines of the Main House. They'll bind you through marriage and offspring."

He paused, lowering his voice even further.

"The third level... if necessary, they'll remotely activate the Caged Bird Seal."

The room fell silent for several seconds.

Xiao suddenly laughed.

The laugh was quiet, yet it carried the chill of ice shards, sending a shiver down Tokuma's back.

"So it finally came." Xiao stood and walked to the window. The Soundproofing Talisman blocked sound, but not moonlight. Pale light shone across his face, making his pure white eyes seem even more hollow. "I thought the Main House's reaction would be slower."

"Xiao, this isn't a joke!" Tokuma panicked. "Do you know what activating the Caged Bird Seal means? Brain death! Not even a complete corpse will be left behind!"

"I know." Xiao turned around, moonlight casting a long shadow behind him. "So what? You risked being discovered by the Main House to come find me. You didn't come just to warn me, did you?"

Tokuma froze.

He looked at the boy before him. They were both twelve years old, both from the Branch House, both branded with the same seal on their foreheads—yet there was no fear or panic in Xiao's eyes, only an almost cruel calmness.

That calmness reminded Tokuma of his father.

"My father..." Tokuma swallowed. "My father was also a 'genius' back then."

Xiao's brow rose slightly.

"Twelve years ago, he was the most outstanding of his generation in the Branch House. He had trained the Gentle Fist to the rudimentary form of Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven, and his Byakugan vision range was thirty percent greater than that of ordinary Branch House members." Tokuma's eyes reddened, but he clenched his teeth and refused to let the tears fall. "Then the Main House gave him a mission. Escort a merchant convoy belonging to the Land of Fire's daimyo to the border of the Land of Lightning—it sounded simple, right?"

"But the convoy was attacked. The enemy was an elite squad from Hidden Cloud, led by a candidate for the future Fourth Raikage. The mission rating was temporarily raised from B-rank to S-rank."

Tokuma's voice began to tremble.

"My father fought desperately to cover the convoy's retreat and stayed behind alone. In the end, they couldn't even recover his entire body. All they brought back was an eye carved with the Caged Bird Seal."

"The Main House said it was an accident. They said my father died heroically in battle and that it was an honor for the Hyuga Clan."

"Bullshit!"

Tokuma slammed his fist onto the table, and the wooden table groaned under the strain.

"I secretly checked the mission records later. The chance of that Hidden Cloud squad appearing at the border at the same time as the convoy's route overlapped was less than five percent. And..." He raised his head and stared fixedly at Xiao. "And three days before the mission began, Elder Ko Hyuga of the Main House privately met with a Hidden Cloud envoy."

Xiao's pupils contracted slightly.

Ko Hyuga.

The elder whose heart was bound by the Heart-Binding Seal.

"That wasn't an accident." Tokuma spoke each word with deliberate force. "It was an elimination. The Main House won't allow the Branch House to produce geniuses who can truly threaten their position. My father was the first, but he definitely won't be the last."

The room fell silent once more.

Xiao walked over to Tokuma and placed a hand on his shoulder. That hand was steady, far steadier than a twelve-year-old boy's hand should have been.

"Why are you telling me this?" Xiao asked.

Tokuma wiped his face. "Because I've had enough. After my father died, my mother wasted away in grief. The Main House hypocritically gave me compensation and let me live in the best house in the Branch House—but what use was that? Every night, I dream of my father's gouged-out eye. I dream of the Caged Bird Seal glowing in the darkness."

"I don't want to become the next one."

"Neither do I," Xiao said.

His voice was soft, but Tokuma could hear the weight behind it.

"Tokuma, are there records within the Main House regarding your father?"

"There are. But only elders can access them. And..." Tokuma hesitated. "I heard that the mission records of every Branch House genius who was 'eliminated' are archived separately and sealed in the deepest part of the Main House Treasury. All the Hyuga Clan's secrets from the past thousand years are there—including the complete inheritance of the Caged Bird Seal, and every method the Main House uses to control the Branch House."

Xiao's eyes lit up.

It was the look of a hunter spotting prey.

"The treasury's location."

"I don't know exactly." Tokuma shook his head. "But my father once said something when he was drunk. He said... the roots of the Hyuga Clan aren't in Leaf Village. They're on the moon."

The moon.

In Xiao's mind, a passage from the fragmented Chronicles of Evolution instantly flashed through his thoughts.

"Hamura Ōtsutsuki led his people to settle on the moon and guard the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path..."

"The Hyuga are a bloodline remnant left on Earth..."

The clues began to connect.

"Tokuma." Xiao released his shoulder and returned to the table, taking out a blank scroll from a drawer. "Write down everything you heard at the meeting. Every detail, every elder who attended."

Tokuma took the scroll and pen, then began writing furiously.

Xiao, meanwhile, walked to the corner of the room and lifted a concealed floor panel. From within, he took out a small iron box. When he opened it, there were more than a dozen black crystals the size of fingernails inside—Byakugan Imprints he had refined with chakra, capable of briefly recording images seen through the Byakugan.

"Take these." Xiao handed three crystals to Tokuma. "The next time the Main House summons your father to a meeting, find a chance to place them near the meeting room. They don't need to be too close. Within thirty meters will do."

Tokuma accepted the crystals, his hand trembling again. "If they're discovered..."

"Then we die." Xiao looked at him. "Or we take a gamble and bring the Main House down."

Tokuma remained silent for a full ten seconds.

Then he nodded fiercely and carefully tucked the crystals into the innermost compartment of his ninja tool pouch.

"One more thing." Xiao suddenly said. "Lady Hinata has recently been practicing the third form of the Gentle Fist and has hit a bottleneck. Go find her tomorrow and tell her I sent you. Teach her some basic chakra circulation techniques—but don't mention the blocked meridians."

Tokuma was stunned. "Why?"

"Because she's my bargaining chip." Xiao's voice was cold. "Hinata is the Main House's eldest daughter, and Hiashi's only legitimate child. She trusts me and relies on me now. At some point in the future, that relationship will become the sharpest blade aimed at Hiashi's heart."

Tokuma sucked in a cold breath.

He looked at Xiao and suddenly found the person before him terrifyingly unfamiliar.

That was not the look a twelve-year-old Branch House boy should possess. Too many things were hidden within it: calculation, ambition, hatred, and a nearly mad resolve.

"Xiao..." Tokuma opened his mouth. "What exactly are you trying to do?"

Xiao walked to the window and tore off the Soundproofing Talisman. The night wind rushed in, stirring the loose strands of hair over his forehead. Under the moonlight, the pattern of the Caged Bird Seal flickered into view.

"I want to live," he said.

"I want to live like a person."

"Not like a dog with a chain around its neck, one that its master can strangle to death at any moment."

Tokuma left.

Xiao sat back down on his floor mat and closed his eyes.

The system panel appeared in his mind.

[Current Main Quest: Completely remove the Caged Bird Seal (Progress: 7%)]

[Side Quest Triggered: Investigate the Hyuga Main House Treasury]

[Quest Hint: The treasury may contain the original engraving template of the Caged Bird Seal, as well as the complete inheritance of the Hyuga Clan's bloodline from Hamura Ōtsutsuki]

[Warning: The Main House has activated the "Branch House Genius Control Plan." Host has been listed as a Level-One surveillance target]

A smile tugged at Xiao's lips.

Surveillance?

Then let them watch.

He needed time. He needed more Destiny Points, needed to intercept more women with great fortune, needed to purify his Byakugan bloodline, and needed to unlock the power of the Tenseigan.

And before that—

"Who doesn't know how to play the fool?"

Xiao muttered softly, his fingers brushing over the seal on his forehead.

The pattern grew faintly hot beneath his fingertips, like a venomous snake ready to bite through his neck at any moment.

But no matter how venomous a snake was, it could still be skinned and gutted.

Outside the window, the moon had risen to its zenith.

Pale, cold, and high in the night sky, it overlooked this cursed land.

Xiao opened his eyes, moonlight reflected in his pure white pupils.

One day.

He would personally drag that moon down as well.