Deep within the mine tunnel, the blood seal on Kurenai Yuhi's fingertips was still faintly warm.
Hyuga Xiao stood before her. In his eyes, gradually stained with azure starlight, his emotions were like a frozen lake—calm, yet bottomless. Hong's questions and tears seemed to have stirred only brief ripples across that icy surface before it returned to its inhuman calm.
"You handle contacting Orochimaru." Xiao's voice was flat, as though he were stating a fact that had nothing to do with him. "I need to confirm the news from Tsunade."
Hong bit her lower lip. Blood was still seeping from the wound on her shoulder. She watched Xiao turn and walk deeper into the mine tunnel, his shadow stretched long beneath the dim light like a blade about to leave its sheath.
"What about you?" she could not help asking.
Xiao did not turn around. He merely raised his right hand, palm up. Pale blue chakra spilled from his fingertips, tracing a complex jutsu pattern in the air—the encrypted seal used by the Hyuga Clan for emergency internal communications.
"Verifying the intelligence," he said. "If Ko Hyuga truly is an Observer Vessel..."
Before he finished speaking, the encrypted seal had taken shape. Xiao pressed his palm against the wall of the mine tunnel, and chakra seeped into the rock along its veins like water soaking into a sponge. This was a long-distance communication technique that only the Tenseigan Prototype could use. Its principle was to transmit information through the resonance of chakra within natural energy; the greater the distance, the greater the consumption.
But Xiao did not care about the cost now.
The mine tunnel fell silent, save for the faint hum of flowing chakra. Hong watched Xiao's back and suddenly felt that he was far away from her—not in