Click… crack…
Outside the Hyuga Clan's main estate, a shadow landed silently on the tiled rooftop.
Listening to the restless movements inside, the figure formed a quick hand seal. A soft illusion spread, faint white feathers drifted through the air and slipped into the room.
The tense breathing inside soon slowed. The shadow leapt lightly from the roof, slipping through a window like a cat. There, beneath a thick quilt, lay a young girl, sleeping peacefully, unaware.
Without hesitation, the intruder scooped her up into his arms and turned to flee.
But before he could even cross the courtyard, a figure stepped out from the gate ahead.
"..."
Hyuga Hiashi's cold eyes narrowed. His gaze shifted from the masked intruder to the small figure in his arms, Hinata Hyuga. The calm mask he usually wore cracked in an instant, replaced by a fury so sharp it felt like fire burning under his skin.
'How dare you.'
Without a word, Hiashi's Byakugan flared open, veins bulging at his temples. He shot forward like a released arrow.
The first strike missed, the enemy was fast, but to Hiashi's eyes, the man's movements were sluggish, almost pitifully slow.
Bang!
The second strike, fully charged with chakra, hit squarely. It tore through the man's tenketsu with bone-cracking force.
Blood spattered as the masked intruder coughed violently and dropped to his knees. Hiashi caught Hinata in his arms and let the stranger's body collapse face-first to the ground.
"So weak."
The anger in his chest began to fade, replaced by confusion. He frowned. This "kidnapper" was absurdly weak, far too weak to have tried abducting the Hyuga clan's heir.
'Was this some foolish bounty hunter blinded by greed?'
But then, a chill pricked at his brow. He felt a cold, wet sting across his forehead. Warm liquid dripped down the bridge of his nose.
Hiashi raised a hand. His fingertips came away red.
"Blood?"
Staring down at the corpse, he suddenly noticed the kunai still clutched in the dead man's hand. His heart tightened.
'When…?'
He couldn't remember being hit. The man shouldn't have even survived two strikes from him.
A cold unease crept up his spine. Quickly, he tore a strip of cloth and wrapped it around the bleeding cut. Then, crouching down, he reached out and removed the mask.
The face beneath was disturbingly calm, not twisted in fear or pain, just still. Even dead, his half-open eyes seemed to stare right back at Hiashi.
"..."
Then he saw it, the metal plate on the forehead protector.
The symbol of Kumogakure.
Hiashi froze.
And then, sweat burst from every pore. His body turned to ice, the realization crawling up his back like frost.
'Damn it… a Cloud shinobi?!'
Drip… drip…
The next day, autumn rain pattered softly across Konoha's rooftops.
Yesterday, the village had been basking in celebration, peace had been declared at last.
Konoha had achieved what few ever thought possible: an alliance with Kumogakure. Some even called it Cloud's "submission."
But today, under a black sky, the streets were heavy with fear. The sun hid behind clouds as thick as grief.
Whispers spread like wildfire through every street, every teahouse, every market stall.
Because in a single night, the Kumo diplomatic mission was dead.
Two Cloud ninja had been killed instantly in an explosion inside their quarters. The third, the only survivor, had screamed that Konoha had betrayed the alliance before fleeing. He was later found dead… in the Hyuga compound.
Killed by Hyuga Hiashi himself.
Everyone knew what that looked like.
A cover-up.
In the Hyuga Clan's audience chamber, an old voice trembled in the dim candlelight as it muttered those very words:
"Covering up the crime…"
Two tall candles burned quietly in the gloom. The flickering light cast long shadows across Hiashi's bowed face, the bandage around his forehead stained faintly red.
Eight silhouettes wavered along the paper walls. Seven were the Hyuga clan's elders, seated in formal lines.
The eighth was the Hokage himself.
Hiruzen Sarutobi.
He sat cross-legged in the center, pipe in hand, his expression unreadable.
Taking a slow drag, he exhaled a pale stream of smoke that coiled upward, dissolving into the dim air.
"The Land of Lightning has already issued its demand," he said quietly. "They claim Konoha never intended true peace, that we broke our word and murdered their envoys. They call it cowardly, vile, and unforgivable."
His voice dropped lower. "They have issued an ultimatum. Unless we provide a satisfactory explanation, they will declare war on the Land of Fire."
Hiashi's jaw tightened. "And… what explanation do they demand, Hokage-sama?"
Hiruzen's answer came slowly, each word deliberate and heavy.
"They demand the murderer's corpse.Your corpse, Hyuga Hiashi."
The room fell into suffocating silence.
Outside, the rain thickened, its rhythm like the ticking of a countdown.
"The Cloud has already mobilized shinobi along the border of the Land of Hot Water," Hiruzen continued. "They're ready to invade at any moment."
The candlelight danced across the faces of the Hyuga elders, pale, hollow, and grim.
Everyone could sense it, something about the whole affair was wrong. Deeply wrong.
How had explosive tags appeared in the guest rooms?
Why had the surviving Kumo ninja tried to abduct Hinata Hyuga?
And why had such a skilled shinobi died so easily, as if his death had been planned?
And why… did the Land of Lightning insist on Hiashi's body in particular?
"This is a plot," said Hyuga Hiromu, one of the senior elders and Hiashi's closest advisor. His voice rasped like sandpaper. "Their true goal… is the Byakugan."
"I believe that too," Hiruzen murmured, "but it hardly matters anymore."
He sighed, long, weary, and old.
"If no one in the world seeks the truth," he said, "then even if you scatter the truth across every street… it will never take root."