Chapter Text
Neji stood at the head of the table, arms crossed behind his back the way Hizashi always did during clan meetings. Four faces looked back at him. Tenten, the general chairman of Konoha weaponry jonin. Hyuga Reiji, the leader of Hyuga Naibu Keibi division. Rin Fujimori, member of intelligent jonin. And Tsubaki, sensory ninja specialist.
"Thank you for coming." Neji let the words settle before continuing. "As of this morning, I've been assigned to lead this investigation. Rokudaime-sama has given us full authority to pursue it."
Nobody spoke.
"Two weeks ago, we received intelligence that classified information belonging to the Hyuga clan is being sold at Nemuri Ichi." He watched the name land. Fujimori's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly, she clearly knew the place by reputation, not just rumor. "Specifically, information related to Byakugan physiology. Chakra pathway structure. Points of vulnerability."
"That's..." Tsubaki started, then stopped herself, glancing at Neji like she wasn't sure she was allowed to react.
"That's clan-law level classified," Reiji finished for her, voice even. "Someone with real access leaked that for sure."
"Yes. Around the same time, Team 5 was attacked on a routine border patrol. All four members survived, but barely. Their report described attackers whose eyes were completely covered with bandaged, masked, we don't know the method yet and yet they struck chakra points with a precision that shouldn't have been possible without sight."
He let that sit in the room for a moment.
"Let's calling them Hachidan for now, until we know more. A working name, not a confirmed identity."
Tenten's hand had gone still on the table. "You think they're using what got sold at the market?"
"I think it would be a significant coincidence if they weren't." Neji's voice stayed level. "Which means this isn't just a leak. It's already being used against Konoha shinobi. Against people we serve with."
Fujimori leaned forward slightly. "So what's the plan?"
"We split. Reiji and I will go in as buyers. Nemuri Ichi doesn't deal with strangers easily, so we'll need a cover." Reiji nodded once, he'd already assumed this would fall to him.
"Tenten, Fujimori, Tsubaki, you'll move separately, posing as civilians in the surrounding district. I need a map that doesn't exist on paper yet. Escape routes, blind alleys, which stalls have back exits, which streets dead-end, where a person could disappear in under ten seconds if something went wrong." He looked at each of them in turn. "If this goes badly for Reiji and me, you're the reason we get out."
Tsubaki swallowed, but nodded, some of the nervousness in her shoulders resolving into focus instead.
"And if it doesn't go badly?" Tenten asked, though her tone made it clear she already suspected the answer.
"Then we still need that map." Neji said. "Because whoever we're dealing with, they didn't get this careless by accident. I'd rather have five ways out we never use than one we need and don't have."
Nobody argued with that. Tsubaki was already reaching for a blank scroll, sleeves pushed back, the particular focus of someone who liked problems with edges she could actually cut into. Neji exhaled slowly, quiet enough that only he noticed it.
This was his team now. His responsibility, start to finish. And somewhere in Nemuri Ichi, someone was selling pieces of his family like they were nothing. He intended to find out exactly who.
Nemuri Ichi came alive after dark in a way the daylight version never let on. Stalls that sold dried herbs and cheap kunai by noon became something else entirely once the lanterns dimmed. Neji kept his hands loose at his sides, chakra reined in so tight it ached. Beside him, Reiji walked with the unhurried gait of a man who'd done this before, one hand tucked into his coat like he was bored rather than buying stolen bloodline secrets.
The contact found them near the fish stalls, exactly where the tip said he would. "You're the buyers." Not a question. The man was unremarkable. "Word is you're interested in Hyuga material."
"Depends on quality." Reiji said, bored. "We've been burned before. Fake pathway diagrams, secondhand rumors dressed up as intel."
"This isn't rumor." The man's mouth curved slightly. "Come."
He led them down a narrow passage between two shuttered stalls, into a back room lit by a single oil lamp. A scroll sat on the table, already unrolled and Neji's stomach dropped the moment his eyes found it. Chakra pathway mapping. Precise and accurate. Details that shouldn't have existed outside clan archives.
"Two hundred." the man said. "For the full set."
Reiji reached for his coin pouch. Neji's eyes caught the shift first. The way the man's weight moved a half-step back. The way his gaze flicked toward the doorway behind them.
"Reiji." One word, quiet.
It was enough.
The man's hand came up fast, something small and metallic flashing between his fingers, and the room exploded into motion. Two more bodies dropped from the rafters above, Neji hadn't even sensed them there, and that alone told him everything about what they were dealing with. Their eyes wrapped in dark cloth, faces blank beneath it, and yet they moved like they could see every inch of him.
Reiji twisted to block a strike meant for Neji's throat and took it across his ribs instead. The sound he made was short, the sound of someone refusing to let it be worse than it was.
"Go—" Reiji started.
"Not without you." Neji activated his Byakugan, and the room turned into veins of white light and chakra signatures, and there, he could see it, how the attackers moved without eyes, some strange dense concentration of chakra threaded just beneath the cloth wrapping their faces. Not Byakugan, but something built to imitate it.
He didn't have time to think about what that meant. A blade came for his shoulder and he caught the wrist instead, twisted, and the weapon fall onto the floor. He kicked it toward himself, snatched it up without breaking his stance.
Reiji was bleeding badly from the side, one arm wrapped tight against it, still trying to fight through the pain.
"Behind the stalls." Neji snapped, hauling Reiji's arm over his shoulder. "Move."
They burst out into the alley just as the third attacker dropped in behind them, and for one horrible second Neji thought this was where it ended, Reiji barely upright, no clear way out. Then a hand grabbed his sleeve from a gap between two crates so narrow he hadn't even registered it as a passage.
"Here!" Tsubaki's voice, breathless, urgent. "This way, hurry—"
Neji didn't ask questions. He shoved Reiji through first, followed after, and the gap swallowed them into a black seam between buildings that hadn't existed on any map an hour ago, except the one Tsubaki had walked herself, step by step, all afternoon.
Behind them, the sounds of pursuit scraped against brick and then, fell away. They didn't stop moving until the alley spat them out three streets over, into shadows deep enough to catch their breath in.
Reiji slid down against the wall, pressing hard against his side, breathing through his teeth. "That went well." He managed to say it and even now, there was a hint of bitterness beneath the words, an attempt to make the moment seem more trivial than it actually was.
Neji crouched beside him, checking the wound with steady hands even as his own pulse hadn't slowed yet. Not fatal, at least not yet. But close enough that it settled cold and heavy in his chest. In his other hand, still gripped tight, was the weapon he'd wrestled away, dark metal, unfamiliar make, dried blood not his own crusted faint along the hilt.
Evidence.
He tucked it carefully into his pouch, like it might matter more than anything else that had happened tonight. It probably would.
Once they arrived to Konoha again, the forensics wing smelled sharp with antiseptic, a leftover from the medics who'd patched them up twenty minutes earlier. Reiji sat stiffly in his chair, one arm still bound against his ribs.
Neji set the weapon down on the examination table. "This is what came off one of the attackers." He nodded toward it without touching it again. "I need everything you can pull from it."
Kyousuke Amakusa leaned over the table, tilting his head, studying the curve of the blade. "Unusual make. Not standard issue anywhere I recognize."
"Tenten." Neji turned to her. "Do you recognize the type?"
Tenten stepped closer, she turned it slightly with two fingers, careful of the dried blood along the hilt, eyes tracing the curve of it.
"Hachigari." she said finally. "Bee sickle. It's an old design, you don't see it much anymore. Curved for close-range, meant to hook and pull rather than just cut." She glanced up. "Whoever made this knew what they were doing. This isn't some back-alley knockoff."
"Hachigari." Neji repeated it quietly, like fixing it into memory. "Good, that's something to work with." He looked back at Amakusa. "Run DNA off it. Blood, skin, anything you can pull from the hilt or the blade. If we're lucky, it'll tell us who we're dealing with."
"Understood." Amakusa was already reaching for gloves, sliding the weapon into a sterile case with practiced hands. "Results by tomorrow evening. I'll have someone flag me the moment they're processed."
"Thank you." Neji meant it, tired as the words came out.
Amakusa gave a short nod and left with the case tucked under his arm, the door swinging shut behind him. What remained was just the five of them, worn thin, the adrenaline long since curdled into fatigue. "That's all we can do for tonight." Neji said. "Go home and rest. We'll discuss again once the results come back."
"Finally." Fujimori muttered. "Thank you, Hyuga-taichou."
"Yeah, thanks." Tsubaki was already halfway to the door, waving tiredly over her shoulder. "See you guys tomorrow."
Tenten lingered a beat longer, eyes flicking to Reiji's bound ribs before meeting Neji's gaze, some unspoken agreement passing between them that they'd both watch out for their people tonight. Then she offered a small, tired smile and followed the others out.
Reiji didn't move.
Neji glanced at him. "You heard me. Go home."
"I will." Reiji shifted. "After I finish some paperwork in the Bunseki Shitsu. I'd rather clear it tonight than let it pile up."
Neji studied Reiji for a moment. "Don't stay too late then."
"I won't." Reiji offered a faint. "Go home, Neji-san. You look like you need it more than I do."
Neji almost argued, almost. But there was nothing left in him to push with tonight, and Reiji's excuse was reasonable enough on its surface.
"Get some rest eventually." Neji said instead, and turned to leave, already thinking about how he'd explain tonight's outcome to the Hokage, already thinking about Hachigari and the blood on its hilt and how many answers might be waiting inside it by tomorrow evening.