Late at night.
A bright moon hung high in the sky.
Within the Hyuga compound, Branch House ninjas moved in three-man cells. The bulging veins at their temples signaled that their Byakugan were operating at full capacity, their vigilant gazes piercing through the night to scan every corner repeatedly.
Outside the perimeter, ANBU ninjas remained hidden in the shadows, ready to reinforce the compound at a moment's notice.
"Captain!" Yamato landed on a rooftop where Kakashi was concealed, reporting in a low voice. "The third patrol rotation is complete."
"Good work." Kakashi, wearing his white cat mask, tilted his head slightly and nodded.
Since Kakashi had rescued Yamato from Danzo's Root base the previous year, Yamato had been transferred to the Hokage's direct ANBU squad under Kakashi's personal mentorship. Hiruzen Sarutobi hoped Kakashi could mold Yamato into a shinobi who carried the Will of Fire, grooming him as a potential future ANBU Commander.
For this mission, Kakashi led the First Division to guard the Hyuga perimeter, while coordinating the Second Division to patrol the village interior. They had to ensure Shura didn't pull a feint and strike elsewhere.
"Captain," Yamato crouched beside Kakashi in the shadows, looking toward the Hyuga estate with a grim expression. "Shura attacked the Hyuga last time, and now he's sent an advance notice. What exactly does he want from them?"
Yamato was now privy to high-level intel. He knew Shura's first appearance involved killing the Cloud envoy to frame the Hyuga. Recalling his own brief clash with Shura, Yamato felt a lingering chill. The man's strength was unfathomable—he had defeated Yamato with a single round of taijutsu.
To bridge that gap, Yamato had been training relentlessly in Wood Style and close-quarters combat, but he knew growth wasn't instantaneous. Facing Shura again made him feel uneasy.
"Who knows." Kakashi's masked head lowered slightly. Suddenly, he felt an instinctive prickle of danger. "The Hyuga sector has been quiet for too long, hasn't it?"
He didn't move yet. The Byakugan's sensory range was legendary; he couldn't believe Shura could bypass it. He assumed the Hyuga had simply tightened their internal formation.
However, in an area Kakashi couldn't see...
The Hyuga patrol ninjas suddenly felt a change in the air. A thick, unnatural mist began to roll into the compound.
"Byakugan!" Hyuga Tokuma, leading the front gate patrol, pushed his eyes to their limit. The sight that flooded his vision made his pupils shrink to pinpricks.
"What?!" Tokuma gasped. Under the X-ray vision of his Byakugan, hundreds of humanoid chakra signatures were suddenly swarming the gates!
These 'entities' possessed massive chakra reserves, each comparable to a Jonin! Tokuma didn't have time to wonder how so many enemies had infiltrated Konoha or bypassed the perimeter patrols.
"Everyone! Combat stations!" Tokuma bellowed a warning. "Fire the flare!"
Whish—!
A crimson signal flare tore through the night sky, looking like a drop of blood falling into the silver moon.
The rest of the Hyuga ninjas reacted instantly. Not everyone had a range like Hinata's; most ordinary Hyuga could only see about a kilometer. To cover the estate, they were spread thin. As they turned toward the gate, they saw the same terrifying sight.
"Impossible!"
"Is the village under a full-scale invasion?!"
"Where did they all come from?!"
The Hyuga clan erupted into chaos. While sweating profusely, they fired more flares and rushed to intercept the intruders under their respective captains.
Whish! Whish! Whish!
Dozens of flares shot up like macabre fireworks, exploding across the sky.
Kakashi, seeing the first flare, immediately mobilized the First Division. But the moment they crossed into Hyuga territory, they were engulfed by the fog.
"Hidden Mist Jutsu?" Kakashi was no stranger to this; he had fought many Mist ninjas during the Third War.
When Kakashi, Yamato, and their team reached the source of the first flare, they saw Tokuma and two others frantically attacking several figures in the mist. Kakashi didn't hesitate. Drawing the tantō from his back, he flickered forward.
With a swift horizontal slash, he cleaved a silhouette in two—only for it to dissipate into smoke.
"Not a real body? Not a Shadow Clone either?" Kakashi immediately went on the defensive, backing up toward Yamato.
"Where is the enemy?" Kakashi asked. His Sharingan was being severely hampered by the mist, so he turned to the Hyuga for guidance.
"I... I don't know..." The Hyuga ninjas, who usually countered Hidden Mist with ease, were now drenched in sweat. They were swinging wildly at shadows.
"Not clones? Not genjutsu?" Kakashi noticed the sheer panic in the Hyuga's eyes.
Tokuma, roughly the same age as Kakashi, was panting heavily. The veins at his temples were bulging painfully. He stared at the mist, his world filled with hundreds of enemies. Hundreds! Infinite!
Under the cover of the Hidden Mist, the Hyuga could no longer distinguish between a real person and these hollow chakra phantoms. Their primary advantage—seeing the truth of chakra—had been turned into their greatest weakness.
"Go to the Main House meeting hall! Go now!" Tokuma grabbed Kakashi's arm.
Kakashi's heart hammered. If hundreds of phantoms were jamming the Byakugan's vision, then the real enemy was already...
"Move!" Kakashi shouted to Yamato. They sprinted toward the heart of the compound.
Along the way, figures lunged at them from the fog. Kakashi and Yamato fought back with everything they had, only to find every single 'enemy' they struck shattered like glass.
Suddenly, Kakashi spotted several Hyuga ninjas slumped on the ground. He knelt to check them—they were alive, breathing steadily, but knocked out cold.
'Shura... what is your true goal?' Under the cat mask, cold sweat soaked into Kakashi's balaclava.