Hearing the system notification in his mind, several dark lines appeared on Yunchuan Hyuga's forehead. He silently thought, "Manifest ninjutsu, Lightning Release Armor."
[Cost 1000 Reality Points. Confirm manifestation?]
"So expensive? That would almost drop me below 10000." Yunchuan Hyuga ground his teeth.
He was not someone who refused to spend anything, but he had the habit of hoarding like a hamster. Seeing his points close to falling below 10000 gave him a strong sense of unease.
Because of that, he really did not want to spend them and hesitated about trying to develop it himself. He was still weighing the choice.
Before he could answer in his mind, a faint cat's cry reached his ears.
"Meow."
The sound was mixed in with the loud chirping of insects, and in this season it did not seem unusual. It was just another noise in the night.
However, Yunchuan Hyuga's gaze paused, and a faint smile appeared on his face. Points had delivered themselves right to his door.
Konoha was already deep into the night.
The weak moonlight was covered by clouds, and almost all the lights were out, leaving only a single lamp shining brightly in the darkness.
The leaves of the paulownia rustled in the night wind. A Root ninja with the codename "Owl" hid his body among the branches, staring at the distant window where the light was still on.
Through the gaps in the study blinds, he could see the kid named Yunchuan Hyuga bent over the desk, writing. The surface of the diary reflected the warm glow of the desk lamp.
According to Root intelligence, this habit of writing a diary had been kept up for many years.
"Meow."
A faint cat cry mixed with the sound of insects. "Owl" frowned and looked toward the sound, only to see two shadows moving up and down, two cats calling loudly at each other.
He fell silent and slowly looked away. In his heart, he cursed himself for being paranoid, since the target was only a child.
Even so, his thoughts drifted to "Kamaitachi" and the miserable sight of that person losing an arm. A chill rose in his chest.
He could never look down on anyone, since he did not want to end up like that.
At that moment, he saw Yunchuan Hyuga suddenly stop writing. The boy glanced at the clock, rubbed his reddened eyes, clipped the fountain pen into the diary's leather strap, and stood up to leave the study.
Click.
As the bedroom door closed softly, the light went out, and the entire compound fell into darkness.
"Owl" did not move at all and stayed hidden among the trees.
Only after he heard clear snoring from afar did he finally relax his hands from the sensing seals. Like a leaf blown by the wind, he quietly used Shunshin to appear outside the window.
The opened window made a faint sound. "Owl" slipped into the study without a trace, first sealing the diary into a scroll, then searching the room in silence.
He did not attempt to assassinate Yunchuan Hyuga like "Kamaitachi" had. Finding nothing abnormal in the study, he decided to leave with only the diary.
He restored everything to its original state and was about to climb out the window.
"Who's there!"
A sudden shout exploded in his ears, and "Owl's" pupils shrank at once.
Before he could react, a sharp howl of wind came from behind him, like a shrieking ghost riding the air.
"Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique."
Slash.
"Owl" barely managed to dodge to the side. A crescent-shaped wind blade swept past him, blood splattering across the wall in an uneven arc as a red line rapidly spread along his arm.
Squelch.
Blood burst out as if a dam had broken, and the arm was cleanly severed and slammed onto the floor.
"Owl" let out a muffled grunt as his body trembled. He did not even glance at the fallen arm and leapt out the window without hesitation.
What he did not see was that after he left, the black cat riding on the calico cat froze. Its pale eye turned toward the direction of his escape, and it raised a paw to slap away the foolish companion that came too close.
"If you want to take something, you have to leave something behind."
Inside the bedroom, Yunchuan Hyuga lowered his hands from the seals, a faint smile on his face as he quietly waited for the system's prompt.
At the same time, "Owl," clutching his wound, quickly reached a mountain wall. He opened a hidden mechanism and slipped into dense, heavy shadows.
As he went deeper underground, water stains and moss spread across the dark corners, wrapping him in damp air. Instead of feeling stifled, he felt a strange sense of safety, like returning home.
"That kid's strength really isn't simple. No wonder Kamaitachi fell to him."
Looking at the arm still bleeding heavily, "Owl" clenched his teeth, fear and shock mixing in his chest.
In the vast sealed underground space, the lighting was bright as day.
There was even a laboratory with a huge observation window, where figures in white coats and masks moved busily about.
Rows of glass cold storage units displayed all kinds of materials, unknown reagents, and culture dishes holding cell tissue.
Nearby were glass containers filled with clear green liquid, soaking strange plant specimens and parts of animal bodies, including bloody organs like eyeballs and kidneys.
On the other side of the observation window stood Danzo Shimura with a blank expression. His narrow left eye was filled with deep darkness as he stared fixedly at the scene.
No, he was staring at the item on the experiment table.
It was a thumb-sized piece of white flesh, cell tissue from the First Hokage.
Soon, however, a researcher turned around and gently shook his head at the man.
Seeing this, Danzo Shimura's expression darkened. He raised a hand to touch his bound arm.
"Useless trash. Without Orochimaru, can you do nothing at all?" he cursed in a low voice while feeling the increasing erosion of the Hashirama cells.
This arm had been severely injured in a past battle, so in the eyes of others, including Hiruzen Sarutobi, the arm he kept bound was thought to be an old wound. They did not know that this arm was no longer his own.
Even Danzo Shimura himself did not know where the arm came from. That bastard Orochimaru had kept silent, only saying it was a byproduct of his Wood Release cultivation experiments.
Hungry for power, Danzo Shimura chose the transplant and used up all his stored Sharingan. What he never expected was that the Hashirama cells would be far more aggressive than he imagined.
In just a few years, the cells had begun to completely erode the arm, and even now they still could not understand how Orochimaru had made this arm capable of bearing them.
No one in Root had managed it, only discovering that Sharingan could suppress the cells.
But if this continued, the Sharingan he currently possessed would no longer be enough.
"Damn it," Danzo Shimura cursed inwardly. "If Kinoe hadn't been taken by Sarutobi, I might have been able to send him to steal Kakashi Hatake's Sharingan."
As he was thinking about where to get more Sharingan, the masked "Owl" appeared at his side. Holding the scroll, he knelt on one knee beside Danzo Shimura and spoke with a trembling voice.
"Lord Danzo."
Catching the strong smell of blood, Danzo Shimura's expression tightened. He frowned and looked at "Owl's" arm.
"Another arm?"