Night shrouded the City of Wind Chimes like thick ink that would not dissolve.
And the Wind Chime House was the most elegant, and most sinister, stroke within that darkness.
The evening breeze passed through the tower, stirring thousands upon thousands of wind chimes into an unending symphony.
Clear and pleasing to the ear.
But to Sasuke, those chimes were the most rigorous alarm system in the world.
Every wind chime here was connected to the demon's senses.
Any irregular current of air, any footstep that did not belong to the wind, would instantly expose an intruder's position.
Trying to infiltrate such a place was no different from dancing through a minefield.
Sasuke stood on the rooftop opposite the tower, his black haori snapping in the wind.
He observed in silence.
Then he slowly closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, scarlet eyes had replaced their original inky darkness.
Two jet-black tomoe slowly revolved against a blood-red backdrop.
Sharingan, activate!
In that instant, the entire world was completely reconstructed in his vision.
The clamor of the chimes vanished.
In its place were countless translucent ripples representing sound frequencies.
The flow of the wind was no longer an intangible sensation, but a clear path visible to the naked eye.
Every swing of a wind chime, every collision between clapper and shell, formed a complex, precise mathematical formula with a fixed cycle in his eyes.
He saw them.
Between those ceaseless tides of sound lay countless fleeting "passages" of absolute silence.
Sasuke moved.
Like a weightless falling leaf, he drifted soundlessly into the courtyard of the Wind Chime House.
Rather than use the door, he climbed silently up a veranda pillar like a gecko, heading straight for the second-floor eaves.
Every footfall landed precisely at the instant the wind changed direction