The sound of ice cracking was especially piercing in the silent Glacier Canyon.
Hyuga Xiao withdrew his hand from the forehead of the Hidden Mist rogue ninja. The corpse crumpled limply to the ground, terror from the genjutsu interrogation still lingering in its eyes. Kurenai Yuhi stood beside him, breathing a little heavily after the recent battle had taken its toll.
"Leaf Village ANBU... scar beneath the right eye." Xiao repeated the information he had forced out, his voice soft, as if weighing every word. "The reward is a scroll for breaking the Caged Bird Seal. Twenty guardian ninja are lying in ambush in the shrine's underground palace."
He rose to his feet. The wound on his shoulder had stopped bleeding, but the strange patterns formed by the Caged Bird Seal and Covenant Stone Fragments flickered beneath his skin, slowly writhing as though alive.
"The higher-ups are secretly researching curse marks." Hong's voice was cold. "What are they trying to do?"
Xiao did not answer immediately. He walked over to the corpse of the one-eyed Elite Ninja—the earlier ambush had been blasted aside by the Repulsive Force Field from his Tenseigan Prototype. The man had smashed through three layers of ice walls, his chest caved in beyond saving.
Xiao crouched and pulled open the corpse's collar.
At the collarbone was a tiny black mark—not the Caged Bird Seal, but similar in structure, like some simplified experimental curse mark.
"They're doing more than researching." Xiao rose and brushed ice chips from his hands. "They're improving it, trying to create a new method of control. The Caged Bird Seal can only control the Hyuga Branch House, but if they develop a universal curse mark that works on all ninja..."
Hong's expression changed.
"Then Leaf Village will no longer be a village. It