By the time Hyuga Xiao left Orochimaru's temporary hideout, night had fully fallen.
The streets of Leaf Village were sparsely lit, and ANBU patrol squads occasionally swept across the rooftops like flocks of silent ravens. Xiao moved along the shadows at the base of the walls, every step impossibly light—not because he was deliberately hiding, but because he had no choice.
The draining sensation of the Curse Mark felt like countless fine needles piercing deep into his marrow.
The diversion circuit Orochimaru had constructed had indeed delayed his death, but the cost was relentless weakness. Whenever chakra flowed through his body, he could clearly feel a third of it being forcibly siphoned away the moment it gathered, drawn by the Curse Mark on the back of his neck through some invisible conduit toward the Main House. The remaining chakra moved sluggishly, like water mixed with sand.
"Thirty percent of my strength..."
Xiao leaned against the wall of an abandoned warehouse and slowly exhaled a breath of stale air.
His Byakugan activated automatically, and the chakra meridian map in his vision was far dimmer than usual. He tried forming hand seals. His fingers lagged half a beat behind, and the chakra within him responded as slowly as if separated by a thick layer of cloth. In this condition, let alone taking Hiashi's eyes, even infiltrating the Main House would be a problem.
He had to find help.
Xiao took a specially made communication talisman from his ninja tool pouch—the means of contact left behind during his earlier deal with Tsunade. Complex sealing formulas were inscribed across the paper, and it required chakra at a particular frequency to activate.
He bit his fingertip and let blood drip onto the center of the talisman.
The moment chakra entered it, a faint green glow