The next morning, Uchiha Itama opened his eyes and felt something in his hand.
He looked.
"The book from last night?"
His gaze flickered.
"It is real."
"But why is there still no text?"
Frowning, he left his room.
He set the book on the dining table.
Mikoto and Sasuke came in and acted as if they did not see it at all.
As if the book did not exist.
Itama thought it through.
"The book came from that tentacle, and the tentacle extended from the vortex. The vortex appeared because my left eye absorbed Mizuki's black haze."
"This book must be tied to Mizuki."
He took it to the Academy.
He placed it on the lectern.
No student seemed to notice the book.
Yamashiro Aoki walked in, and likewise did not see it.
Iruka too.
Until Mizuki.
Staring at the lectern, Mizuki frowned.
At the same time, the book opened inside Itama's mind.
— Ghoul Bloodline
Those three words floated across his thoughts like a cover title.
Mizuki, almost without thinking, reached for the book.
At once he felt the world around him change, as if he had stepped into another realm.
Darkness without end.
Strangely, he felt no fear.
Only familiarity, and ease.
The air here was familiar and warm to him.
As if he belonged here by birth.
More comfortable than the Leaf.
Suddenly, a chewing sound rose.
Like a beast gnawing its prey.
He saw it.
A human shape crouched on the ground. Another human lay before it.
The chewing came from the croucher's mouth.
For no clear reason, Mizuki felt a powerful urge well up inside him, the impulse to join the croucher and feed.
He lunged.
CRUNCH!
He tore a mouthful free.
A surge of bliss flooded him, as if some power had poured into his body.
The croucher raised its head.
Mizuki looked at its face.
His pupils shrank. The face was identical to his own.
It grinned.
BOOM!
All images vanished.
Mizuki came back to himself and found he was in the classroom again.
"Good morning, sensei."
"Good morning, everyone."
He forced his thoughts still and looked over the students, only to feel a sudden craving: to see them as food, to eat.
Startled, he crushed the urge down.
Then he looked at the book in his hands.
"Because of this?"
He closed his eyes and recalled.
His heart began to beat faster.
"If I follow what this book instructs, I can obtain power."
"Chunin will not be my limit."
"I can become jonin, special jonin, even higher."
Clutching the book, he could barely stop himself from leaving at once.
Itama opened the book that existed in his mind.
"As I expected. The book exists because of Mizuki, so only he can see it."
"Through a special rite, devouring corpses grants power."
"This is born from Mizuki's deepest desire?"
Itama glanced at him and soon looked away.
"Iruka, Aoki-senpai, I feel unwell. I will leave first."
"All right."
Mizuki left the Academy at once.
Itama closed his eyes.
A scene unfolded in his mind.
He saw Mizuki rush out of the village and head for the herb outpost nearby, where his fiancée, Chie Tsubaki, worked.
A bad hunch rose in Itama's chest.
"Is he going to test this on his own fiancée?"
Hearing footsteps, Chie trotted out. Seeing Mizuki, her face brightened.
"Mizuki, what brings you here?"
A hunger flickered in his eyes, hunger for flesh and blood. After a struggle he forced it down.
"I came to fetch something."
Before Chie could speak, he went into his room, opened a chest, pulled out a bundle, and left quickly.
A watchtower rose into view.
Only one ninja manned it.
Mizuki went inside.
Soon he came out.
Now he carried a large black bundle, big enough to hold a person.
He took it to a hidden cave.
He unwrapped it.
Inside lay a corpse.
A Leaf ninja.
Like Mizuki, a chunin.
Mizuki stared at the body, eyes twisted with conflict.
The images that had flooded his mind replayed again and again.