The Night Before Defection

In a corner of the Konoha Library, sunlight slanted through the high windows, carving stark patterns of light and shadow across the aged desks.

Hyuga Xiao sat by the window with a copy of Records of Shinobi World Geography spread before him, but his gaze was fixed on the training ground outside. For three days in a row, he had "run into" Anko Mitarashi at this same time—on the first day, they had brushed past each other at the library entrance; on the second, they had met on a wooded path outside the training ground; today was the third day.

Footsteps came from the stairway.

They were light, deliberately restrained, but Xiao's Byakugan had already caught that familiar flow of chakra—slightly disordered, carrying suppressed agitation.

"Meeting again."

Anko's voice sounded behind him. Xiao closed his book and turned, a gentle smile already on his face. "Senior Anko, are you here to look up information again today?"

"Mm." Anko sat across from him, holding a scroll of Atlas of Poison Pharmacology. Yet her fingers unconsciously rubbed against the scroll, her knuckles tightening slightly.

Xiao quietly activated his Byakugan. His vision pierced through her clothes, revealing the chakra pathways within her body—several nodes were unusually active, a sign of chakra slipping out of control amid intense emotional turmoil. Deeper still, at the back of her neck, a pale purple curse mark flickered in and out of sight, radiating a cold, sinister chakra pulse.

Orochimaru's Curse Mark of Heaven.

"Senior, you seem to have something on your mind." Xiao's voice was soft, like an offhand expression of concern.

Anko raised her head. Her eyes, usually carrying a touch of wildness, were unfocused now. She stared at Xiao for a few seconds, then tugged at the corner of her mouth. "You're just some Branch House brat, but you're pretty good at reading people."

"I merely observe more carefully." Xiao lowered his eyes, his fingers lightly tracing the edge of the page. "After all, in the Hyuga Clan, those who can't read the room... don't live long."

He said it flatly, but Anko's pupils contracted slightly.

She fell silent for a moment. Outside, the distant training ground echoed with the whistling of shuriken through the air and the shouts of jonin instructors. In the quiet library, those sounds seemed especially clear—and especially far away.

"My teacher..." Anko suddenly said, her voice so low it was nearly drowned out by the turning of pages. "He's leaving."

Xiao's fingers stopped on the page.

"Going somewhere far away." Anko continued, her gaze resting beyond the window without focusing on anything. "He said that place has the truth he seeks."

Only the sound of pages turning remained in the library. A bespectacled chunin walked between the shelves, his footsteps making faint creaks on the wooden floor before vanishing behind another row of bookshelves.

"Will you go with him?" Xiao asked.

The question was so direct that Anko froze for a moment. She turned to look into Xiao's pale white eyes—calm eyes, without curiosity or probing, simply waiting quietly for an answer.

"I'm a Leaf Village shinobi," Anko said. She spoke slowly, as if forcing every word out of her throat.

Xiao nodded.

He did not say, "That's good," nor did he say, "You should stay." He simply nodded.

That reaction made Anko uncomfortable instead. She had thought this Hyuga Branch House boy would react like everyone else upon hearing that Orochimaru was leaving—with surprise or relief—or at least press her for more details.

But Xiao did not.

He merely closed his book, rose to his feet, and walked to the window. The setting sun stretched his shadow long across the old bookshelves.

"Senior Anko." Xiao spoke with his back to her, his voice especially clear in the silent library. "Do you remember when you first learned shuriken techniques?"

Anko frowned. "Why ask that?"

"I learned when I was seven." Xiao did not turn around as he continued. "That day, I practiced for six full hours. My arm was so swollen I couldn't lift it, but in the end, I finally hit the bullseye three times in a row. My father—a regular chunin from the Branch House—secretly brought me red bean cakes that night. He said, 'Xiao, you did very well today.'"

He paused.

"That was the last time I remembered him praising me. Three months later, he died on a mission. The Main House called it 'a necessary sacrifice.'"

Anko's fingers tightened around the scroll.

"What I mean is..." Xiao turned around, his pale white eyes haloed in faint gold beneath the sunset, "we'll always be labeled in this world—'Orochimaru's disciple,' 'Hyuga Branch House,' 'genius,' 'trash'... But those labels were never who we truly were."

He walked over to Anko. The distance between them was close enough for her to see her own reflection in his eyes—the face filled with confusion and struggle.

"So, if one day you find yourself standing at a crossroads," Xiao said softly, yet his words struck Anko's heart like a hammer, "remember that you are Anko Mitarashi. You are not anyone's shadow, nor are you an accessory to any label. The choice you make should belong to you alone."

Anko was stunned.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but it felt as if something had clogged her throat. The emotions buried deep inside her—the contradiction of both admiring and fearing Orochimaru, her doubts about the value of her own existence, her confusion about the future—suddenly surged forth, crushing the calm she had struggled to maintain.

She abruptly stood up, her chair scraping across the floor with an ear-piercing sound.

"I... I have something to do."

Anko grabbed the scroll and fled. Her steps were hurried; at the stairs, she nearly collided with a female shinobi carrying books. Without even apologizing, she rushed downstairs.

Xiao remained where he was, watching the direction in which she had disappeared.

The library clock chimed five times, its lingering toll echoing through the dusk. Outside, the training ground was already empty. Only several wooden posts stood there alone, still embedded with uncollected shuriken.

[Ding!]

[Detected that a crucial inner turning point for target character "Anko Mitarashi" has been touched. Bond establishment has risen to "Initial Trust."]

[Destiny Points +30.]

[Warning: Based on current intelligence, countdown to Orochimaru's defection—48 hours.]

The corner of Xiao's mouth lifted into the faintest curve.

He returned to his seat and opened Records of Shinobi World Geography, lightly tapping the page on the Land of Rice Paddies. Orochimaru would go there after defecting and establish Hidden Sound Village. And Anko Mitarashi—this young jonin branded with Orochimaru's curse mark and regarded as a "dangerous factor" by Leaf Village's upper ranks—would fall into years of self-doubt and surveillance after the defection.

In the original story, she would not truly move on until much later.

But now...

Xiao closed the book. A thread of exceedingly fine chakra gathered at his fingertips as he carved a complicated jutsu symbol into the tabletop. The symbol existed for only three seconds before fading without a trace.

"A piece has already been placed," he murmured. "Next comes waiting for the board to shake."

Outside, the dusk deepened.

One by one, the lights of Leaf Village came on. Seen from Hokage Rock, the entire village resembled a sea of stars. And in some corner of that sea, Anko Mitarashi leaned against the railing of a training ground, clutching a shuriken so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.

"I am Anko Mitarashi..."

She repeated those words again and again.

In the distance, the top floor of the Hokage Tower was still lit. The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, stood before the window, the ember in his pipe flickering in the darkness. Behind him, Shimura Danzō emerged from the shadows.

"Has everything been arranged on Orochimaru's end?" Danzō's voice was hoarse.

"Mm." The Third Hokage exhaled a cloud of smoke. "ANBU will 'pursue' him after he crosses the border, but they won't truly stop him."

"What about the test subject?" Danzō asked. "Anko Mitarashi. She carries the curse mark Orochimaru left inside her. She's a potential threat."

"She's still young." The Third Hokage turned around, the wrinkles on his face appearing especially deep beneath the light. "Besides, we need someone... to remember this."

Danzō gave a cold snort but did not reply.

The two men silently watched the village outside the window, each harboring his own thoughts.

Meanwhile, within the Hyuga Clan compound, Hiashi Hyuga sat in seiza before a tea table in a tatami room of the Main House estate. Across from him sat a white-haired elder. The tea between them had already gone cold.

"Has there been anything unusual among the Branch House recently?" the elder asked.

Hiashi picked up his teacup, then set it down again. "Hyuga Xiao has behaved normally—more 'loyally,' even, than most Branch House children. He trains diligently and completes his missions well."

"Too normal is suspicious instead." The elder narrowed his eyes. "I heard he's been visiting the library often lately?"

"It's normal for someone from the Branch House to want to learn more." Hiashi said, though a nearly imperceptible chill tinged his tone. "As long as he doesn't cross the line, let him do as he pleases. The Caged Bird Seal is still on his forehead. He can't overturn the heavens."

The elder nodded, though a trace of doubt flashed through his aged eyes.

The night grew deeper.

When Xiao returned to the Branch House dormitory, Tokuma was already asleep. Xiao quietly walked to his bed, sat cross-legged, and silently activated his Byakugan.

His vision pierced through the walls and the ground, extending thirty meters underground—there lay the outer perimeter of the barrier surrounding the Hyuga Clan Main House's secret vault. Complex sealing formulas wrapped around it layer upon layer like a spiderweb. Each layer slowly rotated, radiating pale blue chakra light.

One of the nodes was 0.3 shades lighter than the others.

That was the "back door" he had left three days earlier using a special method, a minute flaw detectable only once the Byakugan had evolved to a certain level. Through that flaw, he could slowly erode the barrier with chakra like water seeping through stone, without triggering an alarm.

The process required time—at least three months.

But Xiao had patience.

He withdrew his gaze, closed his eyes, and began refining chakra. Under the Byakugan's internal vision, the chakra pathways within his body were clearly visible. The nodes that had once been somewhat sluggish due to the Caged Bird Seal were now much smoother.

On the system interface, the progress bar for Byakugan purity remained at [57.3%].

The removal progress for the Caged Bird Seal stood at [18.7%].

It was still far from enough.

But compared to the Hyuga Branch House boy from three months ago, who could only lower his head before the Main House and had to be careful even when breathing, he now possessed the capital to flip the table—though it was not enough yet, at least he could see hope.

"After Orochimaru defects, Leaf Village will enter a period of turmoil." Xiao organized his plans in his mind. "The Third Hokage will tighten internal control, Danzo will use the opportunity to expand Root's influence, and the major clans... will all reassess their positions."

"This is an opportunity."

"And a crisis."

He opened his eyes, his pale white pupils glowing faintly in the darkness.

An owl hooted outside the window, long and lonely. In the distance, the stone faces of the past Hokage on Hokage Rock silently overlooked the village beneath the moonlight. Within the eyes of those stone carvings, it seemed as though every secret and darkness of this village lay hidden.

Xiao lay down and pulled the blanket over himself.

One second before closing his eyes, he softly said something only he could hear:

"Forty-seven hours left."