"A misunderstanding?"
"Impossible. Absolutely impossible," Kageyama Kokugetsu said, voice flat and certain. "I've already caught the man, and he confessed."
Hyūga Hiashi's face shifted. His heart lurched. Not good.
But he wasn't ordinary. He recovered at once. Aokawa was the chief elder's right hand, a diehard among diehards. There was no way he'd confess to anything that hurt the elder or the clan. Subjectively, he would never talk. Which meant either Kokugetsu was bluffing, or he'd used means—torture, genjutsu. If it was the latter, they could claim it was a forced confession.
Close. He'd almost been taken in.
"I don't believe it. Not unless he admits it in front of me," Hiashi said coolly once his calm returned.
Tough one. Getting a big payout wouldn't be easy.
Kokugetsu's expression chilled. "In that case I'll deliver him to ANBU and report to the Hokage. Let's hope he keeps his mouth shut under ANBU and the Interrogation Division."
Hiashi's face darkened.
Aokawa would never hold out under ANBU and T&I unless Hiashi triggered the Caged Bird Seal near their compound. The seal didn't just protect the Byakugan; it could destroy brain tissue. Once the brain was damaged, even corpse-communication techniques would pull up nothing.
But doing that meant sacrificing a capable jōnin and souring Konoha's leadership against the Hyūga. Becoming Fourth Hokage was already unlikely; with a stunt like that, even the faint chance was gone. The clan's future would take a hard hit. There might be no "evidence," but the higher-ups could judge freely.
"Since Kokugetsu-kun didn't hand him over immediately, you must want something. Name a price. If it isn't excessive, I'll agree," Hiashi said, exhaling.
"Your attitude pleases me, Clan Head, but I don't like the word want," Kokugetsu said. "Call it compensation. You use your money to smooth your mess. I'm just taking a handling fee."
Hiashi's mouth twitched. He drew a breath. "My wording was off. What's the fee?"
"First, I want Hyūga knowledge on the body's acupoints."
The Hyūga had studied the Gentle Fist for a thousand years. Their mapping of the body's points probably outstripped the hospital's.
He wasn't asking for their secret Gentle Fist techniques. One, Hiashi wouldn't hand them over. Two, he didn't think much of them—the power felt lacking, a little showy. Three, if he really wanted them, he could learn by watching. At root, the Gentle Fist descended from Ōtsutsuki Kaguya's taijutsu. As a subordinate under Ōtsutsuki Isshiki, he knew Kaguya's toolkit well and how to hard-counter her dōjutsu. He simply hadn't expected the most lethal thing of all—Kaguya daring to ambush him, like a eunuch stabbing an emperor. Momoshiki and Kinshiki were the proper guardian-and-ward pairing.
"What do you want acupoint knowledge for? Planning to learn pressure-point strikes?" Hiashi's tone carried a hint of mockery. The kid couldn't think knowing the map meant mastering the Gentle Fist, could he?
"I said I don't want your clan's secret Gentle Fist. Are you giving it or not?" Kokugetsu rolled his eyes.
"Fine." A rare smile touched Hiashi's face.
"Don't fob me off. I'll have people at Konoha Hospital verify it. If you cheat me, this won't be over."
"Relax. I'm not that tasteless."
Kokugetsu dipped his head. "Second condition, and the last: the Hyūga pay me thirty million ryō."
"That's too much," Hiashi said, brow creasing. "A standard S-rank scarcely breaks a million, and you don't keep it all yourself."
"It isn't too much. Your chief elder put thirty million on my head. You can chip in a token amount and have the elders' faction cover the rest."
So he wanted to slap the elders again on the way out. Grudge-holder. Still, a good idea. If they were spooked, they'd pay.
"Very well. I agree."
"Then it's settled," Kokugetsu said, rising with a smile. "Hyūga Aokawa is in the tallest tower of the Forest of Death. He's fine."
"I'll be going. Thanks for the tea, Clan Head."
"Forgive me for not seeing you out," Hiashi said.
"No need. We're old acquaintances."
Hiashi's mouth twitched. Thick-skinned brat.
…
With the mission done, Kokugetsu drew two days' leave. After his daily training, at loose ends, he went to fish on the river near Nanga Shrine—the one where Uchiha Shisui would one day leap.
Dense leaves shaded his head. A cool river wind blew. Reclined in a lounge chair, he flipped through a book on acupoints, sipping iced drinks, crunching chilled fruit and nuts, tugging the rod now and then. Leisure. Ease.
"Who's there?" He turned.
"You really know how to enjoy yourself, Kokugetsu-kun. Heh heh."
With that rasping chuckle, Orochimaru stepped from behind a tree in blue under-armor and a green vest, black hair to his shoulders, face pale as paper.
"Oh? Orochimaru-senpai."
"What a coincidence. Care for a taste?"
"No. And you should call me Lord," Orochimaru said, half-smiling. "You didn't seem to realize—I'm already a jōnin."
"Jōnin and jōnin are not the same. Sometimes the gap is larger than between jōnin and genin."
"Is that so?"
"If you doubt it, Konoha's second prodigy—care to try me?"
First, of course, was Kakashi, the earliest to reach jōnin. Gossips said so, and the village was happy to let them.
"How do we try?" Kokugetsu asked, amused.
"Like—this."
Orochimaru vanished and reappeared behind him, voice a chill in Kokugetsu's ear.
"I can do—that too."
Kokugetsu blinked out. Orochimaru's pupils narrowed and he vanished again.
You vanish, I vanish. Along the riverbank, afterimages bloomed and died, ghostlier than ghosts.
"Orochimaru-senpai, can you do this?"
The afterimages stopped multiplying and thinned to nothing. Kokugetsu's form, his presence, his chakra—vanished, as if he had never stood there.
Orochimaru halted and probed the air. His face grew grim.
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I have published a new novel. You can check it out on my profile. The title is:
Naruto: Can You Be an Uchiha Without Doing What You Want?
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