The underground passage was filled with the stale, earthy stench of old soil.
Hyuga Xiao crouched down, his fingertips touching the metal box. Its surface was ice-cold and engraved with the Hyuga Clan crest, but several deep gouges had been carved across the emblem with a sharp weapon—an act of venting resentment that only Branch House members would commit.
"Number Seven, stay alert," Xiao said quietly.
Clone Shisui—whom Xiao had grown accustomed to calling Number Seven—silently nodded. The transplanted Sharingan in his eyes glimmered faintly red in the darkness. With his back against the tunnel wall, he scanned both directions.
Xiao opened the metal box.
There were no traps inside, only two items: a dried, blackened blood sample sealed in a glass vial, and a folded sheet of paper covered in dense, tiny handwriting scrawled with trembling strokes.
He unfolded the paper.
"To any clansman who may find this:
If you are reading these words, then I am already dead, or have become something else.
I am Ko Hyuga, Branch House Elite Ninja, Number Seventeen. Three months ago, while carrying out a 'special protection mission' assigned by the Main House, I was forcibly implanted with a Watcher Seed. They told me it was meant to enhance the Byakugan's power, for the glory of the clan.
It was all a lie.
On the seventh day after the implantation, I began hearing voices. Not voices heard with my ears, but whispers that rang directly inside my mind. It said, 'The harvest is near,' and, 'The nourishment is about to ripen.'
I tried to report the anomaly to the Main House, but Lord Hiashi only looked at me coldly and said, 'This is a necessary price.'
A price?
Only later did I understand that every one of us in the Branch House had