As a professional intelligence operative, Darbi had more than one way to kill himself. The insurance-scam dive was just option A.
Covert agents like him kept a last resort tucked inside a hollowed-out tooth: a fast-acting poison capsule designed to kill within seconds of being bitten open. It was standard issue for anyone in the espionage business, prepared specifically for moments like this.
The compound worked quickly and cleanly. One hard bite, death in seconds, and then the chemical would rapidly corrode the body from the inside, making it impossible for the enemy to extract any useful intelligence from the corpse. The perfect all-purpose solution for suicide, evidence disposal, and operational security wrapped into one neat little package.
Darbi's capsule was actually the deluxe version. When crushed, it released the faint aroma of strawberry shortcake, allowing the user to pass peacefully while surrounded by the scent of their favorite food. As far as ways to go, it was about as pleasant as self-termination got.
Of course, this method lacked the dramatic flair of getting your skull caved in by an enemy's palm strike. It wasn't exactly a warrior's death. But beggars couldn't be choosers. Dying came first, aesthetics second.
So in his final moment, fully paralyzed from the neck down, Darbi bit down with everything he had and...
Couldn't close his jaw.
"Mmph?! MMMMPHHH!!!"
Before he even understood what was happening, his mouth was packed full of wet dirt. A fat handful of mud had been shoved between his teeth, and the taste was exactly as awful as it sounded. His stomach lurched.
It's fine! If I swallow the mud I can choke myself to death! I just need to—
CRACK.
A sharp blow to the back of his skull cut that thought short. The world spun. His consciousness lifted out of his body like smoke rising off a candle.
It's... over...
In the last flickering instant before everything went dark, a child's face appeared in front of him. Small. Calm. Wearing the faintest smile.
"Sorry about this. The moment you stepped in here, you lost even the right to die."
Miyuki watched the shadow guard captain's palm chop knock Darbi out cold, then wiped his mud-caked right hand on the unconscious man's clothing. He allowed himself a relaxed grin.
I don't want you dead. So you don't get to be dead.
The timing had been tight. The instant the shadow guards locked Darbi's tenketsu, Miyuki had already scooped a fistful of dirt from the courtyard and sprinted over. He'd crammed it into Darbi's mouth without even looking, acting purely on the read that a spy would have a suicide pill hidden in his teeth.
The shadow guard captain's follow-up had been seamless too. Almost the same instant Miyuki moved, the captain had read the situation, stepped in, and delivered a clean knockout strike to the back of Darbi's head. No more biting. No more diving. No more anything.
"Bring this man to my father. Explain what happened."
Miyuki turned to the shadow guard captain, his voice as level as it had been throughout the entire ordeal. Eerily so. The kind of calm that, coming from a toddler, crossed the line from impressive into unsettling.
The captain, Hyuuga Himon, had served the clan for years. He'd seen a lot. But never in his life had he encountered a three-year-old who could stand in the middle of a combat situation without flinching, let alone one who could outthink a jounin in real time.
"Escort the Miyuki-sama back to his room. I'll take this one to Hiashi-sama."
"Hai!"
Himon gave the young heir one last unreadable look, then barked his orders. Two guards peeled off to walk Miyuki back. Himon slung the unconscious Darbi over his shoulder and headed for the main hall.
When Miyuki finally made it back to his room, he let out a long, slow exhale. A grin crept across his face. Not the composed smile he'd been wearing for the guards. A real one. Excited. Almost giddy.
First hurdle cleared.
Tonight's haul was enormous. He'd field-tested Kaguya-hime's Tidal Moon power-up and confirmed it worked. And he'd defused the single most dangerous political landmine on the Hyuuga clan's near-term horizon.
Kumogakure's scheme had been ruthless in its simplicity. Send a man to kidnap the heir. If he succeeds, great, free Byakugan. If he fails and dies on Hyuuga soil, even better: leverage his "diplomat" status to extort concessions during the most politically fragile moment possible. Heads I win, tails you lose.
In the original timeline, the Hyuuga and Konoha had both been forced to eat it. Hizashi's death was the price. And while losing one Branch House member might not have registered as a catastrophe to the village leadership, the injustice of it was nauseating. Especially for Neji, who'd spent years marinating in resentment over his father's sacrifice only to end up being the one member of the Konoha Twelve who actually died in the war. The kid couldn't catch a break in any timeline.
But with Darbi captured alive, Kumo's whole extortion play collapsed. A living prisoner could be interrogated, questioned, confronted with evidence. You couldn't demand blood money for a diplomat who was sitting in a cell, breathing. The insurance scam only worked if the scammer was dead.
And beyond the political win, Kaguya-hime's performance had genuinely surprised him.
Miyuki hadn't expected much from Tidal Moon going in. The base stats were so pathetic that even with a moonlight power-up, he'd figured the ceiling would be low.
He'd been wrong.
Granted, even in her Tidal Moon state, Kaguya-hime's raw strength was only a bit above genin level. Nothing that would impress anyone in a straight fight.
But factor in invisibility, and the equation changed completely.
Picture it. A combatant that no one can see. That can attack from any angle, at any moment, without warning or detection. Even if that invisible fighter only had genin-level strength, the sheer tactical advantage was absurd. You couldn't block what you couldn't perceive. You couldn't dodge what you didn't know was coming.
And Kaguya-hime's Growth Potential was still an open-ended question mark. Her user was three years old. If she was already this capable now, what would she look like in five years? Ten? The ceiling might not even exist.
"Hehehe... hahahaha!"
Miyuki couldn't contain it anymore. The laughter bubbled up and spilled over, equal parts relief and excitement. And maybe because that rush of adrenaline had made him sloppy, he didn't notice the figure that had slid his door open and stepped inside.
"What's so funny?"
"GYAH!"
The familiar, flat voice hit him like a bucket of cold water. Miyuki practically launched out of his futon and found himself staring at his father's face. The same face as always. Carved from glacier ice. Byakugan eyes revealing nothing.
The Hyuuga were famous for looking cold. Hiashi had elevated that reputation into an art form. That frozen expression didn't thaw for anyone, not even his own son.
But tonight, there was something in his eyes. A hairline fracture in the ice. Surprise. Faint, barely visible through the pale Byakugan irises, but there.
"Father, it's the middle of the night. Could you maybe not sneak up on people?"
Miyuki swallowed hard, still recovering from the jumpscare.
"Sneak up on people? Who snuck up on whom? You're the one who was running around outside in the dark. I hope tonight taught you a lesson about wandering off."
Hiashi's gaze was fixed on his son, steady and cold as ever. He was trying to sound normal. Parental. Scolding. But his lips were trembling, just barely, and that small involuntary movement betrayed everything his face was trying to hide.
Himon had brought Darbi straight to him, explained the entire sequence of events from start to finish, and Hiashi had listened without interrupting. By the end of it, he'd realized something uncomfortable: he had never actually understood this three-year-old child of his.
Hiashi knew Himon. The man was incapable of exaggeration. He reported facts, nothing more. And the facts he'd reported, the composure, the strategic thinking, the split-second decisions Miyuki had made under pressure tonight, were so far beyond what any three-year-old should be capable of that Hiashi still wasn't sure he believed them.
"Father, Kumo was obviously coming for me. Whether I stayed in bed or went for a walk, I was getting grabbed either way. Not sure it made much difference."
Miyuki rubbed the back of his head, his expression landing somewhere between sheepish and knowing.
"Hmph. Weren't you the one who just called him a rogue ninja? And now suddenly you know he's from Kumogakure?"
Hiashi's eyes narrowed. On his way here, he'd been turning the situation over in his head, and the deeper he looked, the uglier it got. The implications of what Kumo had attempted, and the consequences that would have followed if they'd succeeded, sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the night air.
Hiashi was the head of the Hyuuga clan. He could see the game Kumogakure was playing. Whether their operative succeeded or failed, Kumo walked away with something. Kidnap the heir and get the Byakugan. Operative dies on Hyuuga soil and they get political leverage. A guaranteed return on investment no matter the outcome.
And a three-year-old had dismantled the entire thing.
If anyone told that story out loud, they'd be laughed out of the room.