CH 488

After the Evacuation Drill was finished, the celebration continued for the next two hours… time passed and everyone started to get drunk and tired and sleepy… whoever was tired and drunk and sleepy would just sleep on his chair by leaning his/her head on the table.

While everyone was either distracted or sleeping, Kurenai quietly approached Kuroto and sat on the empty seat on his left side.

After a moment, of silence, she poured Sake into two cups and passed one of the cups to Kuroto, “Captain… let’s have a drink together.”

‘Weird.’ Thought Kuroto internally and became vigilant, but externally he smiled in appreciation and took the cup Kurenai passed to him with his left hand, “Of course.”

Secretly he analyzed the Sake and the Cup, and after making sure that it wasn’t drugged with any kind of drug, he took a light sip in silence, while his right hand was gently rubbing the back of Yui who was sleeping on the chair on his right side.

The reason for Kuroto’s vigilance is the term Kurenai used to refer to him… When not on Anbu duties or training, Kurenai would refer to Kuroto as ‘Kuroto-Kun’ but the fact she used ‘Captain’ implies that she is talking to him as a subordinate, which is kind of odd considering that they are not on Anbu duties.

Of course, it can also be assumed that Kurenai said so because she is drunk, but Kuroto would never believe it. The reason is also very simple… Among the contemporaries of his generation, Kurenai’s alcohol tolerance is the highest… In fact, it wouldn’t even be wrong to say that no matter how much she drinks, she never even gets tipsy much less drunk… This is one of the reasons why Kuroto generally uses Kurenai to gather information from various Izakaya when performing Anbu missions, so Kurenai also excels in intelligence gathering just like Jiraiya… and perhaps the reason she has approached Kuroto this time is also that she wants to get some kind of intelligence out of him.

After having a few bottles of Sake in silence, Kurenai lowered her voice, and asked in a casual tone, “Captain… I have always been curious about the Hyuga Clan. I have heard that the Hyuga Clan is divided into the main family and the branch family of the Hyuga Clan, and there are not many members in the main family, is that really the case?”

Kuroto looked at Kurenai with a suspicious gaze and nodded.

Kurenai then asked with a curious tone, “And do you know all of them?”

Kuroto frowned and nodded again.

The main family of the Hyuga Clan comprises the Patriarch’s line and several Elders’ lines. The reason for having extra Elders’ lines is to prevent the collapse of the main family, in case, the Patriarch’s line disappears all of a sudden due to any number of reasons. Of course, the Elders’ lines are extremely low key and more than often they will not leave the grounds of the Hyuga Clan or make themselves exposed to any kind of danger, or else there is a distinct possibility that they will be specifically targeted for their Byakugan.

Therefore, very few people outside of the Hyuga Clan are aware of the existence of the Elders’ lines of the main family of the Hyuga Clan.

Of course, in terms of rules, the Elders’ lines are no different from the Patriarch’s line, so no matter how many heirs there are in each generation, only one person is eligible to be exempted from being marked with the Caged Bird Cursed Seal to act as an alternative in case the Patriarch’s line disappears for some reason.

Of course, the role of the Elders’ line is not just to act as the replacement, one of the rules is that the marriage partners of the Patriarch’s line always come from the elders’ line.

In fact, Kuroto’s mother was also a member of the Elder’s line, but as mentioned earlier there can only be one exemption for each generation… so his mother was also marked with the Caged Bird Cursed Seal and was later transferred to the Branch Family after which she married Kuroto’s father who was actually her servant and guardian during her days as a member of the Main Family, pretty neat master-servant love story wouldn’t you agree?

But anyway, not getting side-tracked anymore, when it comes to the main family, even if all the members of the main family are counted, the number of people who are not marked with the Caged Bird Cursed Seal will never exceed more than ten, and Kuroto, because of his current high status within the Branch Family of the Hyuga Clan does indeed knows of all the members of Main Family.

Receiving an affirmative nod from Kuroto, Kurenai thought a little, then asked with a bit of hesitation, “Does anyone in the Main family of the Hyuga Clan has white hair?”

The hair color of the Hyuga Clansmen is majorly dark, most people have either brown or black hair color such as Kuroto or Neji and Yui or Hinata respectively, there are also clansmen with dark blue, dark green, and dark purple hair colors but each of these hair colors has black tinge on them, but there has never been a Hyuga Clansmen having White hair.

So, the fact that Kurenai is asking this question from Kuroto clearly indicates that she is trying to investigate ‘Futen’, thinking so, Kuroto thought, ‘Huh, so that’s her game? Does she want to privately investigate ‘Futen’? Or is it that she suspects me to be ‘Futen’ because of our similar appearances, that is why she did not report anything about ‘Futen’ to the village?’

These thoughts were only internal, externally, he replied to Kurenai without much thought, “As far as I know, there is no member of the main family who has white hair.”

“None?!” Kurenai was stunned, she thought that since there are not many members in the main family of the Hyuga Clan, so it should be easy to identify ‘Futen’ with those characteristic features, but unexpectedly Kuroto gave her the opposite answer.

Looking at Kurenai’s stunned expression, Kuroto narrowed his eyes, slightly, and asked with a slightly curious tone, “Why do you ask?”

Kurenai quickly recovered, and waved her hand casually, “Nothing, I was just curious is all.”

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Kuroto squinted his eyes, and thought to himself in silence, ‘It appears that I underestimated her, never did I expect that her thoughts would be so deep… she wants to use my ‘Futen’ Clone as a breakthrough point to investigate Amatsukami huh?’

Kurenai sighed, lightly took a sip of sake in silence, and thought, ‘Futen is strong enough to fight Shodaime Hokage-sama, Nidaime Hokage-sama, and Orochimaru at the same time… he is the strongest Shinobi I have ever seen or known, how can Kuroto-kun not know about this kind of clansmen? Or is it possible that his existence was kept a secret from all because he possessed Shikotsumyaku of the Kaguya Clan? And he left the Hyuga Clan at a very young age… hmm, this must be the case.’

Immediately, Kurenai became a bit worried, ‘But if this is indeed the case, then I won’t be able to find anything about ‘Futen’ even if I search for any information about him in the Hyuga Clan!

What to do? What to do?

Should I…… give up?

No! How can I give up so easily? I must continue to search for him. As long as we are both alive, our paths will definitely cross again…

Moreover, Kuroto-kun and Futen are quite similar in appearances… perhaps they are distant brothers… might know something about each other but are hesitant to tell others.’

Thinking so, Kurenai’s gaze subconsciously turned towards Kuroto’s face, and Kuroto who was also thinking a few things related to Kurenai’s thought looked at her, and two pairs of thoughtful eyes intertwined.

‘If I continue to work with Kuroto-kun who is also a member of the Hyuga Clan, sooner or later I am bound to land on any piece of news about Futen…’ thought Kurenai.

‘You want to investigate information about Amatsukami secretly, huh? Well, as long as you are my subordinate, I will make sure that you get absolutely NOTHING!!!’ thought Kuroto.

The two people who were again not on the same channel looked at each other with friendly smiles and continued to ddrink Sake in peaceful silence.

Just before everyone was about to leave, Asuma who was a little drunk plucked out the courage and asked Kurenai to go on a Hot Spring Trip together, but was politely turned down by the thoughtful Kurenai.

Perhaps it was because Hayate had persuaded Asuma before, so he was psychologically prepared to be turned down, and didn’t feel frustrated about it.

On the contrary, Kakashi on the side was desperate, he held the Icha Icha Paradise in his hands and kept muttering to himself, “How can this be possible?! This is Nirvana! Why did it fail?”

Looking at these two idiots, Kuroto sighed… but he didn’t care too much, just carried the sleeping Yui on his back and slowly walked towards his home in the direction of the Hyuga Clan while enjoying the cold wind brushing his cheeks and rustling his clothes.

“Tonight, was a peaceful moonless night.” Muttered Kuroto as he looked up at the clear night sky that had no trace of the moon.

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