There was a difference between power and control.
The Hyuga clan had both.
But not in the same hands.
The Main House held power.
The Branch House bore control.
And for centuries, the seal carved into every Branch member's forehead kept that imbalance alive.
It was called the Caged Bird Seal.
Poetic. Vicious. Unbreakable.
Or so they believed.
Until Naori came to Arashi with an old, bloodstained scroll and a look in her eyes that said otherwise.
"This isn't rebellion," she said.
Arashi didn't respond.
"It's survival."
They sat on the training platform behind the Hatake estate. The sun was just beginning to bleed over the horizon, casting long, soft shadows across the wood.
Kakashi was still asleep inside.
Arashi studied the scroll.
The diagrams were precise. Hyuga-specific chakra nodes drawn with a surgeon's clarity. Annotations in faded ink. Corrections scrawled in the margins by different hands.
"This is a variant seal," he said. "Not the standard one."
Naori nodded. "It was tested once. On a Branch girl named Rei."
"What happened?"
"She resisted."
"And?"
"She died."
Arashi closed the scroll.
"Why now?"
"Because the Uchiha made their move. And the Hyuga elders noticed."
Arashi met her eyes. "They're watching you."
"They always have."
He didn't ask how she got the scroll.
He didn't need to.
Naori had risked everything—position, bloodline, future—to walk a path no other Hyuga dared.
But there was a cost.
She held up her left arm.
The skin was raw.
Burned in a perfect spiral across the upper forearm.
Seal backlash.
Arashi stood and walked to the corner of the platform, where a stack of medical bandages and a water basin waited.
He returned, dipped the cloth, and began wrapping her arm without a word.
She winced but didn't pull away.
"I can rewrite the outer seal matrix," he said quietly. "But the subdermal layer…"
"I'll take that risk."
"You might die."
Naori looked at him then.
And smiled.
"I already have."
—
That evening, Arashi visited the Hyuga compound.
Not through the main gates.
Through the rear stone drainage system—sealed off decades ago after a structural collapse.
But he knew the path.
Because Sakumo had once walked it during the Third War, when a spy embedded in the Hyuga ranks passed intel to Konoha. That spy had used this tunnel.
Arashi followed the path, emerging beneath the central courtyard. He paused behind the shrine wall and watched.
Three Branch House children were training.
Eyes pale.
Bodies trembling with each mistake.
A Main House elder stood beside them, staff in hand.
"You dishonor your blood with slow strikes," the man snapped. "Reset."
The smallest of the children—no older than seven—stumbled during the turn.
The elder raised the staff.
Arashi moved.
Not fast.
Not loudly.
But present.
He stepped into the courtyard just as the staff swung downward.
His blade unsheathed with a sing, severing the staff at the midpoint.
The children froze.
The elder reeled back. "Who—?!"
Arashi didn't speak.
Didn't need to.
His presence said enough.
He turned to the children.
"Go inside. Now."
They ran.
The elder glared. "This is sacred ground—"
"You made it a prison."
"You overstep—"
"I haven't even begun."
The elder's Byakugan activated.
So did Arashi's calm.
In an instant, they clashed—hand to blade, chakra to steel.
It lasted six seconds.
The elder lay on the ground, breathing ragged, with Arashi's blade at his throat.
"Next time you raise your hand to a child," Arashi whispered, "you lose the arm."
Then he vanished.
—
Back at the estate, Naori was waiting.
"You moved too early."
"I moved when it mattered."
She sighed. "That elder will report."
"Let him."
"This isn't war yet."
Arashi looked at her. "It should be."
They sat in silence.
Then Naori said, "There's one other."
"Who?"
"Her name's Himari. Eleven. Branch House. But something's... wrong with her seal."
"How?"
"It pulses."
Arashi frowned. "That shouldn't happen."
"Exactly."
She passed him a copy of a chakra scan.
The seal glowed faintly—but not in the Hyuga spectrum.
It carried a secondary chakra layer.
Uzumaki.
Arashi's heart skipped.
"A hybrid?" he asked.
Naori shook her head. "Not naturally. She was given something."
And then it clicked.
The Prototype-0 files.
The experimental fusion attempts.
The chakra conditioning.
"Himari is part of the program," Arashi whispered.
Naori nodded.
"She doesn't know it yet."
—
The next night, Arashi broke into the Hyuga archives.
He moved through the compound like fog—light, silent, untouchable.
The sealing records were deep beneath the shrine—stored behind blood-locked doors and sensor seals.
He bypassed them all.
Inside, scrolls lined the walls.
Old. Fragile.
Some dating back before Konoha.
He found Himari's file.
And froze.
Not because of the data.
Because of the signature at the bottom.
"Supervised by: Danzo Shimura."
He stood there, heart ice.
Danzo had access to Hyuga children.
To their seals.
To their bloodline.
And he'd been modifying them.
No authorization.
No oversight.
Just power.
The file even contained a backup seal order—active.
A single command would fry Himari's brain in under four seconds.
And she wouldn't even know it was coming.
Arashi took the scroll, sealed it, and walked out.
But something changed in him that night.
He wasn't just a protector anymore.
He was a hunter.
And Danzo had just made the list.
—
The next morning, Arashi met Shikaku Nara at the edge of the market district.
Shikaku was already half-drunk on some homemade infusion, but alert as ever.
"You're burning bridges fast," he said.
"I'm not burning them," Arashi replied. "I'm dragging the termites into the light."
Shikaku handed him a folder.
"I pulled Root's black budget allocations. You'll want page seven."
Arashi opened it.
Stopped.
Then swore under his breath.
Funding logs.
Not for weapons.
For medical supplies.
Specifically: Uzumaki-compatible seal enhancers.
He closed the folder.
"That's all I needed."
"Where are you going?"
"To speak with a ghost."
—
That night, Arashi entered his mental realm.
But he didn't summon a fighter.
He summoned Kushina Uzumaki.
Not the real one.
The memory. The simulation. Based on voice. Movement. Energy.
She appeared with a smirk.
"You look like hell."
"I need to understand sealing hybrids."
Her eyes narrowed.
"I'm a memory," she said. "Not a miracle."
"Then give me knowledge."
She sighed.
And began to explain.
For hours, they worked—walking the inner patterns of Uzumaki sealing. The energy flows. The failsafes. The costs.
And when it was done, Arashi didn't sleep.
He simply stared at the ceiling.
Because now he understood what Root was doing.
And how to stop it.
But stopping it would cost him more than blood.
It would cost him his name.
Maybe even the village that birthed it.
To be continued.