Chapter 1

The Sphere

Along a mountain path with overgrown foliage, a red palanquin with a golden motif engraved on the top could be seen among the trees, outside the border of Hacho village. At each side of the palanquin were four men wearing blue nagagi with brown colored obi secured around their waists. These men were carrying the red palanquin. Following them from behind were three konoha shinobi, Kiba, Shino and Hinata. They were assigned by the sixth hokage on a B rank mission and they had been away from konoha for almost three days. A hand appeared from the left window of the red palanquin and began waving, signaling anyone to tend to this person.

"Is there anything wrong, Hisao-san?", a calm and deep voice asked the person inside the palanquin. It was Shino's voice.

"My leg hurts from sitting too long! When exactly will we arrive at the village?!" the person inside the palanquin grunted with a low, unpleasant tone.

"I estimated around three more hours. Would you like to take a short break?"

The person inside the palanquin gave a slight nod. He was Hisao from the Hosokaya family, a well-known wealthy family residing at the center of Hacho village. They were running a jewelry business and owned the largest land in the village.

Once Shino had confirmed Hisao's response, he signaled the others to stop for a short break. The four palanquin bearers and the three shinobi then stepped off the desire path and onto the grassy path. The palanquin was carefully placed down and once it was on the steady ground, one of the men gave a gentle knock on the small door. Hisao went out from the palanquin with an annoyed expression visible on his face. Noticing that, the other man took out a bottle of water and offered it to Hisao, which he accepted while throwing back a haughty look. Perhaps in his mind, performing such an act was a befitting thing to do to a servant. Kiba sat on the grass with Akamaru right beside him and Hinata leaned against a nearby tree. Meanwhile, Shino stood in front of them keeping an eye out.

"Arghh! Just how many breaks should we take? I swear we could have reached the village by now if we hadn't stopped for every damn hour!" Kiba complained.

"K-Kiba kun, we need to think about Hisao-san too," said Hinata with her soft voice.

"Hinata is right, that's because Hisao-san is our client and we have to always prioritize our client's needs," Shino stated, again with his calm demeanor.

"Geez, alright! I get it!"

Not long after the silence, Kiba sensed something. He is renowned for having a superior sense of smell, perhaps even more superior than a ninja hound. Akamaru perked up his ear and immediately got up to look back. Both Kiba and Akamaru looked at each other, confirming that they sensed the same thing. Kiba then called out to Hinata who seemed to have known what to do, "Byakugan!"

"There are 15 people, one and a half miles away from us. They're heading in our direction fast!" Hinata exclaimed.

Struck by the realization that they might be enemies, Kiba shouted for everyone to get ready. Hisao quickly climbed into the palanquin while all four servants immediately stood up and went to the same position they had been in when they were carrying the palanquin. Before they could run off, five men jumped down from the trees and threw a number of shurikens toward the palanquin. Kiba quickly jumped in and with his quick reaction time, he deflected all the shurikens with his kunai.

"Shino!" Kiba yelled.

"I understand!" Shino signaled the palanquin bearers to quickly run away as he covered them, leaving Kiba and Hinata behind. Their objective was to protect Hisao until he reached the village safely, so Kiba and Hinata must stall for time.

Hinata was already at her fighting stance with her byakugan activated. Kiba and Akamaru were prepared for a fight. The enemies emerged one after another as some of them ran toward Hinata and began to land hits but were then successfully blocked by her. While Kiba was distracted by Hinata's fight, the other enemies took that as an advantage and charged toward Kiba and forced him to jump back.

"Jujin Bunshin!" Kiba performed a hand seal which turned Akamaru into an imitation of him. "Gatsuga!"

The enemies were thrown off by Kiba and Akamaru, scattering the enemies' position at the same time injuring them. Hinata easily got rid of the enemies with her gentle fist technique, cutting off their chakra points. Even though some of the enemies performed a number of jutsus, they weren't enough to hurt the two konoha shinobi who had survived the great war.

They were able to block the enemies' path until all of a sudden a wall of mud erupted from the ground and swooped down in the direction of Kiba and Hinata. The mud quickly surrounded their body which immediately hardened and rendered them unable to move. Kiba, who was caught in the surprise attack thought to himself 'Mud release?!'

In the midst of that, a man appeared among the enemies and came up to them, exuding dominance. It was clear that this man was the leader of the group.

"Go, find him!"

The others obeyed his words and began advancing forward which he followed shortly, passing both Kiba and Hinata who were still unable to break out from the hardened mud.

'Oh no! They're heading toward Shino-kun and Hisao-san!' Hinata tried to calm herself down and began to think, what could she do in this situation?

Hinata started to concentrate on her chakra control around her body, making it sharper and stronger. The moment she got the grip of it, she released the chakra from her chakra points and shattered the hardened muds to pieces.

Meanwhile, Shino, Hisao, and the servants were running in the direction of Hacho village. Shino could have run faster if not for the servants carrying the palanquin with Hisao in it. After running for what felt like five minutes long, Shino's bugs suddenly became alert, letting him know that the enemies were approaching. Shino stopped and turned around when an enemy suddenly threw himself at Shino to create an opening for his comrades to ambush the palanquin.

Shino wasn't going to let that happen. He created a dome around the palanquin with his bugs which acted as defense. Shino then focused his attention on the enemies in front of him. While dodging various attacks, Shino succeeded in encasing some of the enemies with his bugs and devoured their chakra.

But then, what had happened to Kiba and Hinata also occurred to the dome of bugs. A mud of wall erupted from the ground and started surrounding them.

As the mud hardened into the shape of the dome, the same man who seemed to be the leader, came up and tore it down, causing the palanquin inside the dome to experience the effect. The palanquin abruptly flipped over, causing the servants to scatter around it.

"Hisao-sama!" One of the servants screamed with a panicked look on his face.

Hisao immediately climbed out of the palanquin while showing his horrified expression, as if processing what just happened. He looked at his servants scattered around the ground, then to the front where this man was approaching directly at him. Fear overtook his eyes.

Right before the man could grab Hisao, something hit the man at a ferocious speed and threw him away, leaving several scratches. Coming to the rescue were Kiba and Akamaru. Not long after that, Hinata jumped in and gave Shino a hand who was being attacked by the enemies from all directions.

"How did you-"

"Heh! It seems that you underestimated us. Hinata is the best at chakra control, your mud trick is nothing!" Kiba exclaimed as he was about to throw his fist at the man when suddenly, the man rested his hand on the ground.

"Deiton, Doro Ningyo!"

A number of mud dolls emerged from the ground where Kiba was standing. They started attacking Kiba and Akamaru, who was still in the form of Kiba.

Soon, Kiba and Akamaru realized that no matter what attack they directed at the mud dolls, they would instantly recover from the damage. Shino and Hinata, who had defeated the other enemies, noticed Kiba's struggle right away. They pitched in and helped Kiba ward off some hits from the mud dolls.

"Oi! What are you guys doing?! Get your asses off the ground and bring your precious Hisao-sama to the village!"

Hearing Kiba's words, the servants, who were still terrified, got up on their feet and began to turn the palanquin over to its original state. Hisao climbed in straight away and they began running toward the village again.

After quite some time, the three of them were able to take down some mud dolls while holding off the man from pursuing the palanquin. Exhausted from the fight, Hinata wasn't able to move as fast as before when an attack suddenly hit Hinata, causing her to bounce far away from her initial position and rolled downhill.

"Hinata!" Kiba panicked.

Unbeknownst to her, as soon as she stood up, a mud doll was already in front of her and landed another hit on her stomach. The momentum of the hit sent her body way back, causing her to slam and break into an old wooden house.

She instantly stood up again, this time, prepared for a fight. She drew a breath in and exhaled them, "Hakke Sojishi Hogeki!". The chakra surrounding the mud doll was rapidly drained as she threw punches towards it, and soon after, the mud doll burst.

At this moment, Hinata definitely felt the pain and exhaustion from using too much chakra. But she knew, she had to get back to her friends. Once again, she activated her byakugan to find where her friends were. Soon, she was able to confirm their position when suddenly something caught Hinata's eyes.

A small rounded object at the edge of the room distorted Hinata's vision. This reminded her of the Toneri incident a few months ago when she found the tenseigan inside a hidden location in the moon, which also distorted her vision. Hinata came closer to the small object to get a better look of what it is. She picked it up and it was a small metallic sphere almost the size of a smoke bomb.

Someone made sure whatever was inside this object would not be found.

Just as she held it in her hand, a crack began to spread across the sphere and eventually it broke. A light suddenly flashed toward Hinata's eyes from within the sphere.

"W-what?!"


A broad shoulder with dark gray hair. A menacing aura even with his back facing the others. He was scribbling on the blank space of a scroll. He wore a sleeveless, high-collar, dark gray haori that had a symbol of three diamonds at the back of it.

The silence in the room created an intimidating atmosphere when suddenly, something struck him.

His hand stopped writing and he straightened his back. The man then looked to the side, where half of his face was now visible. A smirk suddenly appeared slightly.

Meanwhile, somewhere in a forest, a man was walking out of his house and was about to wear his sandal when the same feeling struck him. Instead of a smile, fear was shown in his face.

"It can't be."


Hinata had a hard time opening her eyes to see its content. She squinted her eyes and tried to sneak another peek when suddenly, a woman's voice whispered into Hinata's ears.

"... the clan."

She was surprised and tried to seek the source of that voice but there was no one in the wooden house besides her.

When the light slowly dimmed out and Hinata could open her eyes at last, she was greeted with an array of unknown symbols suddenly creeping up to her body causing her to feel immense pain.

Hinata crouched down on the floor with the symbols still creeping up her body from her left hand, where she held the sphere before. The pain was most intense on her back, which eventually faded away.

Suddenly, the symbols that were creeping up her body were nowhere visible on Hinata's body. It seemed to disappear or so she thought. Her mind was still in shock, not knowing what just happened. Then she remembered her friends who were still fighting that one man and his mud dolls.

'There's no time for this, I need to get back to my friends!' As soon as she confirmed that there were no injuries and she was not feeling anymore pain, she immediately ran out of the old wooden house, which was more of a wreck than before, and began pursuing her friends.