Names held power.
In the shinobi world, a name could open gates, start wars, or bury truth.
And right now, Arashi was carrying too many of them.
The second child woke at dawn.
He was nine.
Born into the Hyuga Branch Family, his name had never been recorded outside the clan.
When the seal faded from his forehead, he didn't speak.
Didn't cry.
He just stared at the sky—like he had never seen it without pain.
Naori wiped her eyes before anyone noticed.
Arashi said nothing.
This wasn't for applause.
It was for balance.
By midday, twelve more Branch members had undergone the seal reversal.
Nine succeeded.
Three passed out from the pain—survivable, but close.
One… convulsed.
The chakra misaligned, rebounding off a scarred cortical node implanted secretly at birth. An artificial limiter, likely inserted to ensure no Branch member could ever be "fully" free.
He didn't die.
But he lost his sight.
And when his Byakugan turned white and blank, Arashi stood over him for hours.
Because the boy hadn't screamed.
Not once.
Just whispered: "Was it worth it?"
And Arashi, for the first time, couldn't answer.
The next morning, an emergency council session was called.
The Hyuga Head, Hiashi, arrived first.
Uchiha Fugaku followed. Then Koharu, Homura, and a masked ANBU scribe to record proceedings.
Hiruzen sat at the front, flanked by guards.
Naori stood beside Arashi as a clan representative.
"You broke centuries of structure," Koharu began sharply.
"No," Naori said. "We broke a chain."
"The Caged Bird seal is not just tradition. It's protection—against rogue bloodlines, against betrayal."
"And Root," Arashi cut in. "Don't forget that part."
Homura frowned. "You're undermining clan balance."
"I'm correcting imbalance," Arashi replied. "They were never weapons."
"They were shields!" Koharu snapped. "Branch House was born to protect the main line."
"And who protected them?" Naori asked.
Silence.
Hiashi stood slowly.
"I… authorized the twelve test volunteers."
Gasps.
"You what?" Homura hissed.
"They are my clan," Hiashi said. "If the seal can be removed without endangering them, then I must witness it."
He turned to Arashi.
"Continue. But carefully."
And in that moment, Arashi realized something.
Not all battles required blood.
Some required weight.
The weight of a name like Hiashi Hyuga.
And his had just shifted the board.
Meanwhile, far beneath the Hokage Monument, a Root cell stirred.
The failure of the first prototype.
The exposure of the vault.
The collapse of secret summon nodes.
Danzo wasn't dead.
But his grip had weakened.
And now… another plan was activated.
Directive FUU-13
A contingency built around one man.
Fuu Yamanaka.
Mind-walker.
Memory-twister.
Designed not to kill—but to unmake.
To erase trust. Implant doubt. Turn brother against brother.
He knelt before a blank mirror.
A pulse of chakra passed through his spine.
He stood, blinking.
Then left the bunker.
Not as Root.
But as a civilian clerk of the Hokage Tower.
And no one noticed.
Because he wore no mask.
Only a name.
That night, Arashi returned home to find a scroll sealed with the Fire Daimyō's wax mark.
It wasn't meant for him.
But someone had rerouted it.
Inside, he found:
"Authorization request for clan-based chakra weapon research.
Uchiha DNA requested: declined.
Hatake lineage: pending."
And at the bottom—
A signature:
Shimura Danzo
(Stamped four weeks ago.)
Arashi's hand trembled.
He had known Root tampered with DNA—stolen from bodies, blood, even battlefield graves.
But they had requested his.
And the council hadn't declined.
Just marked it: pending.
He stood, walked out to the balcony, and watched Kakashi train in the yard.
The boy had grown sharper—more precise.
But not colder.
Not yet.
Not like him.
And if Root ever got Kakashi's blood…
Arashi clenched the scroll and burned it.
The flames licked the sky.
The next morning, Himari had another seizure.
Her chakra flared violently, reacting to external stimulus.
Kushina barely managed to suppress it before it fried the room.
And in the middle of it all, Himari said a name Arashi had never heard from her:
"...Yui."
He knelt beside her after she calmed.
"Who's Yui?"
She blinked slowly.
"My sister."
"Alive?"
"Was," she whispered. "Before the tank. She went first. Didn't wake up."
Kushina stilled.
"There was a second prototype?"
"Maybe a first," Himari said.
"She was kind. She sang in the dark."
Arashi looked at Kushina.
"We need to find the test logs."
"If they weren't destroyed," she said.
"I'll ask someone who remembers everything," Arashi said.
That night, he visited the Uchiha district.
Shisui met him at the gate.
"I need access to the clan's memory archive."
Shisui raised a brow.
"Why?"
"I need to know if Root ever tested clones before Himari."
Shisui nodded.
"There's one person who might know. He never forgets anything."
"Who?"
"The Archivist."
Deep in the Uchiha library's under-vault, Arashi met an old man with a cracked Sharingan and thousands of scrolls sealed into glass.
He didn't speak until Arashi showed the sigil drawn from the old Root lab.
Then the man whispered:
"Project Gemini."
Arashi froze.
"Twins?"
"Yes," the old man rasped. "The girl who lived. And the girl who sang."
"Where's the second?"
"She died in the dark. Or so they say."
"But you don't believe that."
"No," the man said. "Because the girl's chakra reappeared."
"When?"
"Yesterday."
Arashi stood.
"Where?"
"In the Sand Village."
To be continued.