The night wind poured in through the collapsed dome of the Ancestral Shrine, sweeping up lime dust and dried blood crusts from the ground.
Hyuga Xiao stood in the shadow of a crossbeam, his eyes closed.
It was cold.
Not the temperature of the wind, but an absolute chill seeping from the depths of his eye sockets. The cold traveled up his optic nerves and brutally pierced his cerebral cortex.
The price of forcibly using the Tenseigan's ocular power to quell the upheaval underground was beginning to reveal itself.
He opened his eyes.
Azure starlight flickered uncontrollably within his pupils. His gaze pierced through the walls, through the earth, and into the world beyond.
The swaying of trees, the crawling of insects, even the breathing of Leaf Village residents in their sleep—all of it became nothing more than cold data and blocks of color in his eyes. Joy, anger, sorrow, happiness? None. Fear and greed? None.
He looked at the pool of dark-red blood that belonged to Hyuga Hiashi, yet could not squeeze out even the slightest satisfaction at having taken revenge.
Like a spectator watching the birth and death of an ant colony.
This was an extremely dangerous state. His power was rising, but the emotions that made him human were being drained away bit by bit. If he let that coldness spread unchecked, he would soon become a cold-blooded monster who knew only how to look down upon all living things, eventually losing himself in the absolute power these eyes brought him.
He needed something to drag him back to the ground.
Crack.
The sound of broken roof tiles being crushed underfoot rang out.
A slender figure lightly leaped down from the high wall, bringing with her a breeze mixed with the scent of char and a young