Kiyohara couldn't tell whether the stolen eyes had belonged to Hyuga Nobuhiko or Hyuga Ginka, and after a moment, he stopped trying to guess.
The original story had never made it clear. All it confirmed was that the Byakugan taken by Kirigakure had belonged to the Hyuga main family, and there had only ever been one such eye.
Logically, unless it happened in a direct clash, a Hyuga shouldn't have had their eyes taken while still alive. With the Byakugan's field of vision and the Gentle Fist behind it, they were far too difficult to kill cleanly.
Kiyohara rubbed his chin.
Now that two members of the Hyuga main family had joined the team, their scouting ability and resistance to infiltration had risen sharply. In forests and uneven terrain, the Byakugan was about as close to a perfect recon tool as the ninja world could offer.
Unless there was something that could interfere with it.
That thought made him remember a bloodline limit from the anime rather than the manga.
The Red Eyes.
It had only ever appeared through Ranmaru, making it vanishingly rare. But if Kiyohara looked at the situation from the present instead of from the future, it wasn't impossible that others had possessed similar abilities too.
Kirigakure, after all, had never lacked bloodline-limit users. The Land of Water sat offshore, distant from the mainland struggles of the other great powers. Other than its own brutal internal policies, the village hadn't endured war on its home soil the way the others had.
That isolation had preserved more than one strange lineage. Lava Release. Boil Release. Ice Release. Corpse Bone Pulse. Strange and deadly gifts kept surfacing from the Hidden Mist.
"Why are you frowning all of a sudden?" Kurenai asked, stepping closer.
"We've got another mission," Kiyohara replied casually. "I don't think anyone would be happy about that."
He was earning scraps and gambling his life for them. Was he supposed to grin?
Kurenai thought it over, then gave a small nod. "You do have a point."
"Let's move," Kakashi said from up front.
The team finished their preparations quickly and slipped toward the border.
***
Somewhere within Kirigakure's hidden command post, a beautiful young woman sat beneath dim lantern light, a scroll open in her hand.
She had long brown hair, emerald-green eyes, and the quiet poise of someone who knew exactly how dangerous she was. Her name was Mei Terumi, a prodigy of the Hidden Mist who possessed two separate bloodline limits: Lava Release and Boil Release.
She lifted her gaze from the intelligence report and looked at the hawk-faced ninja before her.
"Ao, are you saying this is our best chance?"
Ao bowed his head slightly. His face was narrow, his features keen, and his eyes carried the sharp patience of a hunter waiting for the right opening.
"Ranmaru's information is reliable," he said. "That Konoha reconnaissance team has entered the designated zone. Two members of the Hyuga main family are with them. If we move now, we have our best chance to seize the Byakugan."
As he spoke, he glanced toward the pale child standing quietly nearby.
Ranmaru's face was bloodless, his short dark-blue hair hanging over strange, deep red eyes.
Those eyes were the key to everything.
If the Byakugan was the pride of the Hyuga clan, then Ranmaru's bloodline was one of the few things capable of scrambling it, dulling it, even rendering it all but useless.
"Take those eyes," Ao continued, "and we don't just weaken Konoha's reconnaissance ability. We gain an extraordinary trophy as well."
The excitement beneath his restraint leaked through for just an instant.
If this mission succeeded, he might even earn the right to transplant the Byakugan himself.
Mei twined a lock of hair around her finger, her expression thoughtful, almost amused.
"In that case," she said lightly, "I'd like to see what Konoha's people are capable of too."
***
On the other side, Konoha's squad advanced through the dense woods in tense silence.
Hyuga Nobuhiko and Hyuga Ginka walked at the front. It was the natural formation. Whenever danger lurked, their Byakugan would be the first line of defense.
Though Ginka wore Konoha's green flak vest like everyone else, it did little to hide her figure. Her face was lovely, but there was a faint hauteur in it too, the unthinking pride of someone raised as the main family.
From time to time, those pale eyes drifted toward Kiyohara.
She had heard stories about him already. A commoner ninja with unusually keen senses. A talented upstart who had distinguished himself on the battlefield.
She didn't believe it.
No matter how sensitive a commoner ninja might be, how could his perception possibly compare to the Byakugan, a dojutsu the Hyuga had passed down for generations?
That thought kept surfacing each time she looked at him. She wasn't even trying to hide the comparison anymore.
Kiyohara noticed, of course.
The main family had always lived above everyone else, cushioned by the branch family and by their own bloodline. It was easy for people like that to become arrogant without ever realizing it.
He understood the type immediately.
He just didn't care.
This wasn't the time to bother with a Hyuga girl's pride.
A moment later, the spirit of young Kiyohara drifted back from ahead.
Kiyohara never dared grow careless when lives were on the line. Ever since the young swordsman had appeared, he'd been sending him out to scout whenever he could.
No matter how strong a ninja might be, one mistake could still kill them. Even Madara Uchiha, at the peak of his power, had once been felled by an enemy far beneath him.
The deadliest attacks were often the ones you never saw coming.
The spirit's message made Kiyohara's eyes narrow.
"There are abnormal chakra signatures hiding in the woods on both sides ahead," young Kiyohara said. "Quite a few. At least ten."
Kiyohara raised a hand at once.
"Kakashi. Stop. There's danger ahead. We may be walking into an ambush."
The squad halted so abruptly it was as though the entire forest had frozen with them.
The ones who trusted Kiyohara immediately went on alert.
Kakashi looked toward the direction Kiyohara had indicated, then swept his senses outward. His instincts were better than those of most chunin, but still less polished than an experienced jonin's.
He found nothing.
"Where?" he asked.
Before Kiyohara could answer, Hyuga Ginka's expression hardened.
She activated her Byakugan without hesitation, veins rising at the corners of her eyes as her pale gaze cut through the woods ahead.
She searched not just where Kiyohara had pointed, but the entire area beyond it.
Seconds passed.
Then she let the technique fade and looked back with unconcealed disapproval.
"There's no one there," she said. "My Byakugan detected no abnormal chakra. Within eight hundred meters ahead, aside from us and a few animals, there are no hidden shinobi."
As expected.
Kiyohara kept his face still, but inwardly his suspicions sharpened.
If even the Byakugan couldn't see through it, then the interference was real.
There were very few things in the world that could blind the Hyuga's eyes.
Now the possibility of Red Eyes had risen from a theory to a serious threat.
Kakashi's gaze moved between Kiyohara and Ginka.
Kiyohara had proved himself before. More than once, his warnings had arrived at exactly the right time.
But the authority of the Byakugan within Konoha ran deep. To doubt a Hyuga's eyes in matters of detection was almost the same as doubting fire could burn.
For a fraction of a second, he hesitated.
***
Far ahead, concealed behind a carefully disguised barrier, the Hidden Mist strike force waited in silence.
Ao watched Konoha's formation through narrowed eyes. When he saw Kiyohara suddenly lift a hand and stop the team, surprise flickered across his face.
"It stopped?"
That black-haired brat again.
His senses were far too sharp.
Ao had expected Konoha to march right into the trap. With Ranmaru scrambling the Byakugan, the Hyuga would see nothing. Once the team crossed the line, the Hidden Mist would close in and take their heads before they even understood what was happening.
Instead, Kiyohara had stopped them cold.
Ao's face darkened.
"Ranmaru, maintain the Red Eyes' interference. Increase it. Don't let them detect any cracks in the illusion."
The pale child nodded silently.
Ao's expression sharpened as he turned to the others.
"Everyone else, begin the assault."
If the trap wouldn't swallow them whole, then they would force the issue.
Just as Kakashi seemed on the verge of choosing one side over the other, the woods exploded with movement.
Rumble.
The stream behind them surged without warning, swelling as though the river itself had awakened.
An instant later, enormous water dragons rose roaring from the torrent, twisting upward with terrifying force before hurling themselves straight at the halted Konoha team.
The scale alone was enough to make the skin crawl.
These were no probing attacks.
This was a kill strike.