Samui's fingers stopped just one inch away from Xiao's throat.
Her ice-blue eyes stared fixedly at Xiao's Tenseigan, deep within her pupils churning with some unspeakable emotion—not killing intent, not greed, but a confirmation bordering on pain.
"You..." For the first time, her voice lost its icy sense of control, carrying a slight tremble. "The Covenant Stone inside your body... why does it have my sister's aura?"
Xiao did not answer immediately.
His Tenseigan remained activated, and azure chakra circulated slowly around his body. The Covenant Stone fragments grew slightly warm on his chest, as if responding to something. He could sense that the chakra fluctuations emanating from Samui resonated in a certain way with the imprisoned soul fragments within the Covenant Stone.
"Who is your sister?" Xiao's voice was calm, but the Tenseigan's pupil power had already locked onto the flow of Samui's entire body chakra. As long as she made any unusual moves, he could cut off her meridian pathways in three-tenths of a second.
Samui slowly withdrew her hand.
She did not step back, instead taking half a step forward, nearly pressing against Xiao's face. Her gaze shifted from Xiao's eyes to the Covenant Stone position on his chest, her look mixing disbelief with a despairing sort of anticipation.
"Kaguya Otsutsuki," she said.
Xiao's pupils shrank slightly.
"Not that sealed Kaguya," Samui added quickly. Her speech sped up, like words suppressed for too long had finally found an outlet. "It's the Otsutsuki Branch Family's Kaguya. My own elder sister. A hundred years ago, the Moon Ōtsutsuki Branch Family revolted and failed; the survivors fled to the Shinobi World. Our branch integrated into Kumogakure, changed our surname to Samui, and hid our bloodline until now."
She raised her hand, palm facing upward. A wisp of pale gold chakra