Tokuma's Warning

Night was like thick ink, soaking through the eaves of Leaf Village.

Hyuga Xiao sat cross-legged on the tatami in the Branch House dormitory. Moonlight filtered through the paper lattice outside the window, cutting alternating bands of light and shadow across his face. His eyes were closed, yet the Byakugan's vision pierced the walls, sweeping over the Main House guards patrolling the outskirts of the clan grounds—twelve men divided into three rotating teams, changing shifts every four hours.

Twenty-three hours remained on Anko's life countdown.

His fingertips lightly tapped against his knee, a rhythm only he could understand. The barrier layout of Konoha Hospital, the guards' shift changes, fragments of the curse mark suppressant formula... the information repeatedly rearranged itself in his mind, like puzzle pieces searching for the optimal solution.

Just then—

Three faint knocks came from the window frame.

Short, long, short.

Xiao opened his eyes, a faint glimmer flashing through his pupils in the darkness. He rose and pushed open the window. A black figure flowed into the room like water, landing without a sound.

The visitor wore black night clothes and a face covering, but those pure white eyes stood out sharply beneath the moonlight.

"Tokuma." Xiao's voice was low, almost no more than the vibration of air brushing against his vocal cords.

Tokuma Hyuga pulled down his mask. The Caged Bird Seal on his forehead glimmered with a dark bluish-gray light beneath the moon. His breathing was slightly ragged, his chest rising and falling. He had clearly rushed here at full speed.

"Something happened." Tokuma pulled a thumb-sized transparent crystal from his robe. Pale blue chakra patterns flowed within it. "The meeting record. See for yourself."

Xiao took the crystal and fed a thread of chakra into it with his fingertips.

Ripples spread across its surface, and an image emerged like a reflection on water—

The Hyuga Main House conference hall, with candle flames flickering.

Hiashi Hyuga sat at the head of the table. Six Main House elders sat on either side of him, their faces covered by an icy, nearly indifferent expression. Xiao knew that expression well. It was the look one gave a tool.

"Abnormal chakra fluctuations have appeared along the border of the Land of Rice Paddies. They are suspected to be residual traces from Orochimaru's escape route." An elder's voice came from the crystal, dry as sandpaper scraping together. "The Hokage has requested that the Hyuga Clan dispatch an elite reconnaissance squad. They will depart in three days."

Hiashi's fingers lightly tapped the armrest. "Have the candidates from the Branch House been selected?"

"As customary, they will be chosen from young Branch House members under twenty." Another elder unrolled a scroll. "Tetsu Hyuga, Homura Hyuga, Iroha Hyuga... and Hyuga Xiao."

When Xiao's name was read aloud, Hiashi's eyelids lifted slightly.

"That boy who has recently been acting 'normal'?" Hiashi's voice carried no emotion. "Fine. Send him too. Branch House members should contribute something to the clan."

Contribute.

A faint curve tugged at Xiao's lips. There was no amusement in it, only ice.

The image continued.

"The mission has been rated S-rank." A white-haired elder added, his voice carrying deliberate emphasis. "Orochimaru is one of the legendary Three Legendary Ninja. Even tracking his residual traces is extremely dangerous. But for Leaf Village, for the glory of the Hyuga Clan..."

Xiao did not listen closely to the rest.

An S-rank mission, Branch House elites, the Land of Rice Paddies border.

Placed together, those three terms could only mean one thing—murder by proxy.

They would use Orochimaru as the blade to eliminate a group of potentially disobedient young Branch House members, especially Hyuga Xiao, this anomaly whose recent behavior had been "too normal." If they died, it would be a glorious sacrifice. If they returned alive, the Branch House's strength would still be drained, and their loyalty could be tested along the way.

Three birds with one stone.

The image within the crystal gradually faded, finally freezing on Hiashi's calm, unruffled face. Those pure white eyes stared into empty space, as though they had pierced through time and seen the Branch House children dying miserable deaths during the mission.

Xiao put away the crystal, and the room fell into brief silence.

"How did you get this?" Xiao asked, his voice terrifyingly calm.

Tokuma took a deep breath. "The improved version of the Mirror Shadow Technique you gave me last time—I carved it into the crystal chandelier in the conference hall ceiling. Its chakra fluctuations would be concealed by the chandelier's decorative patterns. Unless someone specifically used Byakugan: X-Ray Vision to inspect every corner, they wouldn't find it."

As he spoke, lingering fear entered his voice. "But I could only maintain it for three minutes. Any longer, and the chakra traces couldn't be hidden."

Xiao nodded.

Three minutes were enough.

He took out a blank scroll and spread it open. Chakra gathered at his fingertips as he began writing swiftly. Ink spread across the scroll, forming lines of coded writing—a cipher only he and Tokuma could understand, combining ancient Hyuga Clan script with Xiao's own code.

"Three things." Xiao spoke as he wrote. His pace was not fast, but every word seemed to nail itself into the air. "First, find a way to contact the people on this list in the name of the Caged Bird Mutual Aid Society. Tell them this mission is a trap, but don't say it outright. Hint at it."

Tokuma accepted the scroll. Looking at the dozen or so names on it, his pupils contracted. "These people... are all talented Branch House members who are dissatisfied with the Main House."

"Correct." Xiao finished the final stroke, rolled up the scroll, and sealed it with chakra. "Second, I need access to the Main House medicine vault tomorrow night. Not for long. Fifteen minutes."

Tokuma's expression changed. "The medicine vault has dual barriers, and two Main House Elite Ninja guards rotate shifts there. Fifteen minutes is too risky. If you're discovered—"

"That's why I need your cooperation." Xiao cut him off and drew an even smaller crystal from his robe. "This is a Phantom Voice Stone. It can imitate specific chakra fluctuations. At exactly eight tomorrow night, create a little 'commotion' at the training ground on the west side of the clan grounds to draw those two guards' attention. Between eight and eight fifteen, they'll be away from their posts for at least ten minutes."

Tokuma took the Phantom Voice Stone, his fingers trembling slightly.

He knew what he was doing—betraying the Main House, betraying the curse mark carved into his forehead, the one that controlled his life and death. If he were discovered, Hiashi Hyuga would need only a thought for his brain to explode like a smashed watermelon.

But Tokuma looked up at Xiao.

This Branch House boy, two years younger than him, held neither fear nor hesitation in his eyes. There was only a clarity so cold it was almost cruel. That look reminded Tokuma of a lake in deep winter—calm on the surface, with undercurrents below powerful enough to swallow everything.

"What's the third thing?" Tokuma asked, his voice steadier now.

Xiao pulled a mission scroll from beneath the tatami. The Main House had sent it over that afternoon. On the surface, it was an "ordinary patrol assignment," but Xiao had used the Byakugan to see through the scroll's inner layer, where the real mission details were hidden.

He opened the scroll and lightly tapped a coordinate with one finger.

"The Land of Rice Paddies border. Thirty-five degrees forty-two minutes north latitude, one hundred thirty-nine degrees forty-six minutes east longitude." A subtle shift appeared in Xiao's voice for the first time. "This location is less than fifty kilometers in a straight line from Orochimaru's secret base in the Land of Rice Paddies."

Tokuma sucked in a sharp breath.

"The Main House... knows Orochimaru might be there?"

"They may not know the exact location." Xiao put away the scroll, his gaze deep. "But the Hokage's higher-ups definitely have intelligence. Hiashi Hyuga's expression was too natural when he accepted this mission. Natural enough that it seemed like he had prepared his explanation beforehand."

He rose and walked to the window.

Moonlight fell over him. The Caged Bird Seal on his forehead glimmered with a faint bluish-gray sheen, like a wound that could never heal.

"Tokuma." With his back to him, Xiao spoke softly. "Tell me, if a dog knew its master would send it to a fighting pit to die tomorrow, what should it do?"

Tokuma opened his mouth, but no words came out.

Xiao turned around, his pure white eyes shining startlingly bright beneath the moonlight.

"It bites through the chain tying it down first," Xiao said. "Then, before it walks into the fighting pit, it drags its master inside."

The room fell utterly silent.

Tokuma felt a layer of cold sweat seep across his back, but something hotter burned within his chest. It was anger suppressed for too long, the humiliation of being raised as a tool for over a decade, the teeth he had ground to pieces every time he lowered his head.

"I understand." Tokuma rose, carefully putting away the scroll and the Phantom Voice Stone. "Tomorrow at eight, there will be an 'accidental fire' at the training ground. I'll bring you the medicine vault barrier layout before dawn."

Xiao nodded.

Tokuma walked to the window and was about to vault out when he suddenly stopped.

"Xiao." He looked back, the curse mark on his forehead especially glaring beneath the moonlight. "If we fail..."

"We won't fail." Xiao interrupted him, his voice as calm as if he were stating a fact. "Because we have no way back anymore."

Tokuma looked at him deeply once more, then melted into the night and disappeared.

Xiao shut the window and returned to the tatami.

He unrolled the mission scroll, his fingers brushing over the words "Land of Rice Paddies border." A slow curve formed at the corner of his mouth.

Orochimaru's base.

Anko's curse mark.

The Main House's murder by proxy.

Those three lines, once parallel, were beginning to converge in his hands. Like a carefully woven net, every node placed exactly where it needed to be.

A system interface emerged in his mind, pale blue words flowing across it:

[Detected an opportunity to intervene at a Fate Node: Main House Conspiracy · Murder by Proxy]

[Method of intervention: Turn the mission to your advantage and execute the "Anko Mitarashi Rescue Plan" simultaneously]

[Expected rewards: Byakugan purity +3%, unlock "Cursed Seal Analysis · Beginner," Destiny Points +500]

[Warning: Mission failure will result in the Main House forcibly activating the Caged Bird Seal. Mortality rate: 99.7%]

Xiao closed his eyes.

Hiashi Hyuga's face appeared in his mind, forever calm, forever high above everyone else. Then came Anko struggling in unconsciousness, the bluish-gray curse mark on Tokuma's forehead, and the hatred that flashed through the eyes of every Branch House child whenever they lowered their heads at the training ground.

Those images intertwined, finally condensing into one clear thought—

It was time to close the net.

He took another scroll from his robe. It was a map of Leaf Village's underground pipelines that he had secretly drawn over the past month. One abandoned drainage pipe ran from the edge of the Hyuga Clan Grounds all the way to the woods behind Konoha Hospital.

Distance: 1.2 kilometers.

Travel time: seven minutes.

Xiao drew a circle around one point on the pipeline map.

It was a maintenance hatch in the pipes. Directly above it was the outer wall of Konoha Hospital's isolation ward. The wall was thirty centimeters thick, with a sensory barrier embedded inside. But the barrier had a flaw—every day from three to three-oh-five in the morning, it would experience a 0.3-second fluctuation due to automatic calibration.

0.3 seconds.

For an ordinary person, that was no more than the time it took to blink.

But for someone who had developed the Byakugan nearly to its limit and had planted chakra markers in advance, it was enough.

Xiao put away all the scrolls and blew out the oil lamp.

The room fell into darkness. Only moonlight passing through the paper lattice cast cold squares across the floor.

He lay down and closed his eyes, his breathing gradually steadying.

But the calculations in his mind did not stop—the inventory of medicinal materials in the medicine vault, the proportions for the curse mark suppressant, the timing of Tokuma's distraction, the possible mishaps in the pipeline, the exact moment of the barrier fluctuation...

Every detail replayed over and over, like a chess player calculating ten moves ahead before placing a piece.

Outside the window, the night watch drum sounded three times.

It was midnight.

Xiao opened his eyes. His pure white pupils glimmered faintly in the darkness.

Tomorrow night, the medicine vault.

The morning after tomorrow, the hospital.

Three days later, the Land of Rice Paddies.

A clear timeline stretched through his mind, every point upon it glimmering with dangerous, enticing light.

He turned over to face the wall.

On the other side of that wall lay the Hyuga Main House's core territory. The lights there were still bright. The Main House elders might be enjoying late-night snacks, discussing the "glorious sacrifice" of that group of Branch House children three days from now, discussing the Hyuga Clan's standing in Leaf Village, discussing the greatness and necessity of the Caged Bird Seal.

They did not know that only one wall away, a "dog" in their eyes was sharpening its teeth.

A cold, razor-sharp curve rose at Xiao's lips.

Sleep.

Tomorrow, the game would officially begin.