Laboratory Intruder

The underground passage ran deeper than expected.

Hyuga Xiao kept his Byakugan at maximum range in the darkness, chakra flowing slowly through his meridians as he moved without a sound. Scorch marks left by Lightning Release lined the cave walls, while the air reeked of ozone and blood—a distinctive trace of Hidden Cloud ninja combat.

The deeper he went, the colder it became.

Signs of artificial excavation began to appear on the rock walls, along with faint, crude rune carvings. Xiao's gaze penetrated three layers of stone and saw an underground space three hundred meters ahead—a circular laboratory over fifty meters in diameter, with glowing crystals embedded in its dome, metal grating across the floor, and three cylindrical incubation tanks standing in the center.

The tanks were already empty. Their glass had shattered, and nutrient fluid had pooled across the floor in viscous pale-green puddles.

And there were three people in the laboratory.

Xiao stopped, pressing himself into a recess in the rock wall as he suppressed his chakra until it was nearly nonexistent. Through his Byakugan, he could clearly see the chakra flow of all three—they were all Kumogakure Lightning Release ninja, each with at least the chakra reserves of an Elite Ninja.

One of them was kneeling before the central console, his right hand pressed against a dark-red Curse Mark rune on its surface.

"Captain, this thing is absorbing my chakra!" The young ninja's voice trembled with suppressed fear.

"Don't let go, Takuya." The middle-aged man standing behind him spoke in a low voice. "This is a sealing formula left by Orochimaru. We need to continuously suppress it with chakra to remove the data protection. Hold on for another thirty seconds."

"But..."

"No buts." The third person stood guard at the laboratory entrance. She was a tall female ninja, her voice icy. "We've already triggered the outer Curse Mark traps. Orochimaru's subordinates could arrive at any moment. Takuya, if you can't hold on, the captain and I will take the data and retreat first."

Takuya gritted his teeth, and the muscles in his arm began to twitch unnaturally.

Xiao's pupils narrowed slightly.

Through his Byakugan, he saw the dark-red Curse Mark spreading up Takuya's arm, burrowing beneath his skin like a living thing and tangling with his meridians. This was no ordinary sealing formula—it was some kind of biological parasitic Curse Mark, restructuring its host's body.

"Captain... my arm..." Takuya's voice turned hoarse.

The middle-aged captain bent down to inspect it, and his expression changed drastically. "Damn it, this isn't a sealing formula. It's a bait trap! Takuya, cut off your chakra supply immediately!"

But it was already too late.

Countless tiny tumors swelled beneath the skin of Takuya's arm. They expanded at a visible rate, burst open, and sprouted dark-red tendril-like tissue. The tendrils wound around his arm and spread toward his shoulder, turning the skin they passed into a grayish-brown, bark-like texture.

"Ah—!"

Takuya let out a tortured howl and sprang off the ground, his body twisting into a grotesque arc in midair. His right arm had completely mutated, swelling to three times its original thickness. His five fingers had fused into three massive claws, corrosive slime dripping from their tips.

"Captain, what do we do?" The female ninja had already drawn the short blade from her back. Blue lightning danced across its edge.

The middle-aged captain took two steps back, rapidly forming hand seals. "Takuya can't be saved. Yumi, prepare to carry out the elimination procedure."

"But—"

"That's an order!" The captain's voice was firm and absolute. "Once Orochimaru's Curse Mark enters its second stage, the host will completely lose their mind and become a monster that knows only slaughter. We can't let something like that leave here alive."

Yumi bit her lip, and the lightning on her short blade grew more intense.

At that moment, the mutated Takuya slowly turned around.

His right eye had turned a murky dark red. His left still retained a human pupil, but his gaze was filled with pain and madness. His mutated right arm hung against the floor, its claws scraping across the metal grating with a piercing screech.

"Cap... tain..." Broken syllables squeezed from Takuya's throat. "Save... me..."

"I'm sorry, Takuya." The captain closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were cold as iron. "Lightning Release: Lightning Binding Coffin!"

Dozens of bolts of lightning shot up from the ground, forming a cage around Takuya. When the lightning struck his mutated arm, sharp crackling explosions rang out, and the stench of charred flesh filled the air.

Takuya released an inhuman roar and slammed his mutated arm into the lightning cage.

Boom!

The lightning exploded, and a gap was forcibly torn open in the cage. Takuya burst free and lunged at the captain, moving at least three times faster than before his mutation.

"So fast!" Yumi raised her blade in front of the captain. The short blade collided with the claws, and lightning and dark-red chakra erupted into a shockwave.

The metal-grated floor hummed from the impact.

Xiao watched quietly from the shadows.

His attention was not on the battle, but on the entire laboratory. There was a hidden safe behind the console. Its door had been sliced open by some high-intensity Lightning Release, and it was completely empty. But in a corner of the floor lay several scattered paper documents, along with...

A silver sealed container.

The container was about the size of a fist, its surface engraved with complex sealing runes. Through the Byakugan, Xiao saw a dark-red crystal floating inside. Liquid-like chakra flowed slowly within it, constantly changing shape—sometimes like a Seed, sometimes like an embryo.

An Active Curse Mark Seed.

The term flashed through Xiao's mind. Orochimaru's research materials had mentioned it before. It was the core product of Curse Mark technology, capable of being directly implanted into a ninja's body to create controllable Curse Mark warriors in a short time. If he could analyze its structure, he might be able to reverse-engineer the weakness of the Caged Bird Seal.

By now, the battle in the laboratory had reached a fever pitch.

Yumi's short blade had left more than a dozen wounds on Takuya's body, but they healed at a visible rate, while the mutated tissue only swelled further. The captain's Lightning Release techniques struck again and again, yet they could only slow Takuya's assault.

"Captain, this won't work!" Yumi retreated, panting heavily. Her left shoulder had been grazed by a claw, leaving a wound so deep that bone showed through. "He's recovering too quickly!"

The captain's face darkened as his gaze swept across the laboratory. "We need to find the Curse Mark's core weakness. Orochimaru's research data must have a record of it—"

His gaze suddenly fixed on the silver container on the floor.

At almost the same time, Xiao moved.

He did not rush for the container. Instead, he retreated three steps, merging completely into the shadow of the rock wall. He suppressed his chakra to its limit, until even his breathing became nearly imperceptible.

Because he saw that the mutated Takuya had suddenly stopped attacking.

Takuya stood still, his mutated arm slowly lowering as his dark-red eyes locked onto the captain. A bizarre smile spread across his lips.

"Captain..." Takuya's voice became unusually clear, even carrying a mocking tone. "Did you think... I'd really lost my mind?"

The captain and Yumi both froze.

"The Curse Mark is indeed devouring my body." Takuya raised his mutated arm, opening and closing his claws lightly. "But it also gave me power... power unlike anything I've ever had. I saw it, Captain. I saw the look in your eyes just now—like you were looking at a tool about to be discarded."

"Takuya, you—"

"Don't call me by my name!" Takuya suddenly roared, his voice shaking the crystals in the laboratory dome. "In Kumogakure, what are ordinary Elite Ninja like me? Pawns that can be sacrificed at any time? Scapegoats when missions fail? This mission—you never intended for me to come back alive from the start, did you?"

The captain's expression turned extremely ugly.

Yumi tightened her grip on her short blade and said in a low voice, "Captain, he's stalling for time. The Curse Mark is consuming his brain. This is his final moment of clarity."

"I know." The captain took a deep breath, his hands beginning to form more complicated seals. "Yumi, prepare that technique. We attack together in three seconds."

"Yes."

But Takuya laughed.

His laughter was filled with madness and despair. "Too late."

He suddenly spun around. Instead of lunging at the captain, he threw himself at the silver container on the floor!

"Don't even think about it!" the captain roared, completing his seals. "Lightning Release: Lightning Tiger Massacre!"

A fierce tiger made of lightning burst from the captain's hands and pounced at Takuya's back. At the same time, Yumi threw her short blade, its body wrapped in blinding lightning as it shot straight for Takuya's neck.

Yet Takuya did not dodge.

He shielded his back with his mutated arm and took the full force of the lightning tiger's impact. His body was blasted forward, his back a mangled mass of blood and flesh. But using that force, he lunged to the silver container and snatched it up with his claws.

The short blade pierced through his shoulder, but he did not care.

"Captain..." Takuya dropped to his knees and raised the container with his last human left hand, his dark-red eyes fixed on the captain. "This thing... even if I die, I won't give it to you..."

Before he could finish speaking, he smashed the container toward the ground!

"No!" The captain's eyes nearly split with rage.

Just as the container was about to strike the floor—

A blurred figure shot out from the shadows.

So fast that there was barely even an afterimage.

The figure caught the container a tenth of a second before it hit the ground, then kicked Takuya in the chest. The force of the kick was controlled with extreme precision. It did not kill Takuya, but sent him flying backward straight into the charging captain and Yumi.

The captain instinctively caught Takuya, while the figure had already vanished into the passage on the other side of the laboratory.

The entire process took less than two seconds.

"After him!" The captain shoved aside the unconscious Takuya and was about to charge out.

But Yumi grabbed him. "Captain, wait! That person's speed just now... did you see his eyes?"

The captain froze.

"White eyes, without pupils." Yumi's voice held a slight tremor. "That was the Byakugan of the Leaf Village Hyuga Clan. And we never noticed the position he appeared from before—meaning he had been hiding there for at least five minutes."

Cold sweat ran down the captain's back.

Someone who could remain hidden for five minutes under the senses of three Kumogakure Elite Ninja, then strike at the exact moment they lowered their guard and seize their target...

"Since when did the Leaf Village Hyuga have someone like that?" the captain said through gritted teeth. "The mission has failed. Retreat immediately. Bring Takuya with us... he still has research value."

"And the container—"

"It's gone." The captain looked into the depths of the passage, his eyes sinister. "But at least we know that inside the Leaf Village... things aren't peaceful either."

Five hundred meters deeper into the passage.

Hyuga Xiao stopped, leaned against the rock wall, and slowly let out a breath.

The silver container in his right hand was cold, and the sealing runes on its surface still glowed faintly. He carefully scanned it with his Byakugan. Only after confirming that it had no tracking or self-destruct mechanism did he put it into the ninja tool pouch at his waist.

His move just now had been risky.

If the three Kumogakure ninja had reacted just a little faster, if Takuya had chosen to self-destruct before dying, if there had been more hidden traps in the laboratory...

But it was worth it.

Xiao closed his eyes and recalled every detail he had observed. Takuya's mutation process, the Curse Mark's rate of erosion, the suspicion and betrayal among the Kumogakure ninja. All of it was valuable data—about Curse Marks, and about human nature.

[Ding! High-purity Curse Mark creation "Active Curse Mark Seed" detected. Analyzing...]

The system prompt sounded in his mind.

[Analysis complete. This creation contains the core data of Orochimaru's improved "Curse Mark of Heaven," with 17.3% structural similarity to the "Caged Bird Seal." Consume 500 Destiny Points for an in-depth analysis?]

Xiao did not make a choice immediately.

He opened his eyes again and looked back toward where he had come from with his Byakugan. The three Hidden Cloud ninja had already retreated with the unconscious Takuya, and the laboratory had fallen silent again. But the lingering chakra fluctuations in the air and the documents scattered across the floor proved that another group of visitors would arrive soon.

Orochimaru's subordinates, or... the Leaf Village ANBU.

Xiao turned and headed deeper into the passage.

Since he was already here, he could not leave with just one container. Orochimaru's research materials on the God Tree and Curse Marks surely contained more valuable information among those paper documents. And besides...

His gaze penetrated three layers of rock wall, revealing a hidden lower chamber beneath the laboratory.

Inside that chamber, one incubation tank was still operating.

Submerged in the tank was a pale human body. A Caged Bird Seal of the Hyuga Clan was carved onto that person's forehead.

Xiao's steps paused slightly.

Then he quickened his pace and slipped toward the hidden entrance.

The crystals on the rock walls cast a cold light, stretching his shadow long behind him. From deep in the passage came the sound of water dripping onto stone—tap, tap, tap—like some kind of countdown.

And inside the ninja tool pouch at his waist, the dark-red crystal within the silver container slowly pulsed.

Like a living heart.