"The Chakura Asshuku-fuda (Chakra Suppression Talismans). That's why you're not allowed to use Henge no Jutsu (Transformation Technique)," Hyūga Shigeo explained, his tone calm and deliberate.
"These brides all come from ordinary families, not a single one is a ninja. Down below are countless freelance shinobi—no one knows how many are enemies. If even one of them has sensory-type abilities and detects your chakra, your disguises will be exposed instantly.
Attach these talismans to your bodies and your chakra will be sealed. They'll mask your presence completely. When we infiltrate their stronghold later, destroy the talisman and your chakra will return to normal.
And remember—don't touch the last bride's carriage. Even if you tried, you wouldn't win. Now go."
After finishing his explanation, Shigeo turned his eyes toward the distant, slow-moving parade.
He pressed his palms together, forming a single seal.
Thick mist began to spread from outside the city, rolling inward like a living tide.
Within minutes, the entire Moon City was swallowed by fog. Even the beach and the open sea were shrouded in a dense, ghostly haze.
"Figures," someone muttered from the crowd. "Whenever the Sea God takes a wife, the weather's always foul."
"Right? You can't even see the procession now. It's creepy as hell."
The streets filled with uneasy whispers. Ninjas mingled among the citizens, following the wedding procession toward the harbor. Shigeo and Hyūga Hiashi moved silently with them.
Meanwhile, Hyūga Hikaru and Hyūga Nami made their move.
First, one of Shigeo's wooden clones slipped through the crowd, snatching purses and provoking chaos. The crowd erupted in shouting, and the guards' attention scattered—even the solemn wedding line grew disordered.
In that moment, Hikaru stunned the second-to-last bride, handed her off to a waiting Mokuton (Wood Release) clone, and took her place in disguise.
The guards, distracted by the commotion, didn't notice a thing. The bridesmaids, being nothing more than controlled puppets, remained motionless and expressionless.
At the same time, Nami crawled beneath another carriage, grabbed the bride's ankle, and yanked her out from behind, taking her spot in one fluid motion.
A brief scream pierced the air, and several guards turned toward the noise—but the mist was too thick; beyond three meters, nothing was visible.
Some of the escorting ninjas used Fūton (Wind Release) to blow away the fog, inspecting each carriage from front to back.
Finding every bride seated in place, they relaxed.
By then, the two swapped-out brides were already in Shigeo's hands.
He transported them instantly into his Kūkan Ido (Dimensional Space), securing each within a wooden cage—just in case they woke up and panicked.
Then, a shrill, eerie voice echoed from the front of the procession.
"The Sea God has appeared! The Sea God comes to claim his brides!"
The leading old miko wobbled forward, shaking a bronze bell in her hand.
Each ringing note seemed to pulse through the mist, dulling the minds of all who heard it.
A strange haze fell over the crowd.
Ninjas, villagers, onlookers—all raised their hands in unison, faces blank, chanting in hollow voices:
"The Sea God has appeared! The Sea God comes to claim his brides!"
Rain began to fall. The air grew colder.
Even Hiashi beside Shigeo stood motionless, face empty, murmuring the same words.
Scanning the crowd, Shigeo sensed several massive chakra signatures hidden on nearby cliffs, watching.
To avoid exposure, he lifted his arm like the others and echoed the chant, his tone flat.
At last, the mob surged toward the harbor.
Fourteen bamboo rafts awaited, each carrying a "bride" lying motionless upon it, with two maids seated at her sides.
Shigeo frowned.
"So… forty-two women are being sent out, not fourteen?"
Even the maids were part of the sacrifice.
A black-painted boat floated before the rafts. The old miko stepped aboard, her legs trembling like reeds. Golden, crooked symbols were smeared across the hull—twisted talismanic scrawls.
As her bell rang again, the sea erupted with waves. Wind roared, pushing the boats slowly into the fog-shrouded open water.
If this scene happened in the modern world, it would be pure nightmare—but this was the ninja world.
Here, even earthquakes and tsunamis could be man-made.
Past investigators had dismissed the possibility of ninjas causing these disasters—
but that was because they lacked imagination. Ten jōnin couldn't create a tsunami…
but what about one Kage-level shinobi?
Shigeo could reshape the land itself with Mokuton. Why couldn't someone else stir the ocean?
The truth was simple—
people preferred superstition to logic.
The fog thickened. The rafts drifted farther into the sea. The old miko continued her chant, voice rising and falling like a funeral dirge. She looked less like a priestess than a reaper ferrying souls.
On the rafts, Hikaru and Nami tensed. Beneath the surface, something was moving—massive, alive.
If before they'd sensed ninjutsu pushing the rafts, now it was different.
This presence was no jutsu. It was… hunger.
The bell rattled again, louder, sharper. Black mist coiled up from the sea like the souls of the drowned.
The atmosphere grew suffocatingly grim.
Back on shore, as the brides disappeared into the fog, everyone's trance abruptly broke.
Not one realized they had been trapped in genjutsu.
Shigeo looked around for Hiashi—but the man was gone. They must have been separated in the crowd. Still, the Hyūga clan leader wouldn't die so easily. He could find Shigeo anytime with his Byakugan.
For now, the brides came first.
If the memory he had extracted from that dead shinobi was accurate, following those rafts would lead him straight to the Ranka-shū—the Orchid Sect.
(End of Chapter)
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