The night wind swept through the ruins of the Uchiha Clan Grounds, carrying a sound like mournful sobbing.
Hyuga Xiao stood atop an ancient tree three hundred meters from the ruins, faint azure starlight flowing through his eyes. The Tenseigan's vision pierced through layer after layer of obstruction, taking in the deathly silent grounds in their entirety.
"What is it?" Kurenai Yuhi asked in a low voice. She supported the newly awakened but still weak Samui as the three temporarily hid deep within the forest.
Xiao did not answer immediately.
His gaze fixed on the center of the ruins—the area beneath the residence that had once belonged to Fugaku Uchiha. To ordinary ninja, it was nothing more than collapsed rubble and charred wooden beams. But through the Tenseigan's vision, thirty meters underground, a pale violet sealing barrier was slowly operating.
The barrier's structure was ancient, unlike Leaf Village's common sealing formulas.
What concerned Xiao even more were the chakra traces left within the barrier—yin-nature chakra refined to the extreme, carrying the Sharingan's distinctive coldness and depth, a quality that seemed capable of devouring all light. The purity of this chakra even surpassed what he had sensed from Shisui Uchiha.
"Danzo's handiwork," Xiao said quietly.
"What?" Hong had not heard him clearly.
Xiao withdrew his gaze and lightly dropped from the treetop. Not even a fallen leaf stirred when he landed. He turned to Samui. "Can you move?"
The Hidden Cloud female Elite Ninja looked pale, but her eyes remained sharp. She tugged at the corner of her mouth, revealing an expression that could hardly be called a smile. "Seventy percent of my chakra was drained, but I can still use taijutsu. What, has the plan changed?"
"There's something beneath the ruins," Xiao said simply. "Danzo set up a sealing barrier