Next time, make the pages invisible.

On the yellow window panes of the library a winged shadow appeared. It had feathers as black as the night, and eyes darker still. It croaked and tapped the glass with its beak repeatedly.  The sound hung over the Kozai Yuki Library, like a trumpet of awakening. The Byakugan heir raised his pale eyes from the book he was writing and placed his quill aside. Though the library in Hoshi was snug and warm, Ayato could not stop shivering. Something about the croaking of the animal took the ANBU Commander of his current location and dropped him in a haunted battlefield of the mind, where birds of prey feasted upon the flesh of the fallen.

When the raven pecked into the window again, Ayato closed the leather-covered book he was writing - a copy of the Lost Arts of Kiri- scroll, originally written by the long-gone first Hogokage Denkiteki Hayato. The young boy shielded a yawn with the back of a pale bony hand that accumulated a twist of those thin shoulders of his. The reading lamp was flickering, the oil within all but gone, as the first beams of sunlight entered through the windows. The taijutsu expert had been at through the dark of the night, but nothing out of the ordinary in there. Ayato Hyuuga was not a fan of sleeping.    

“My lord of Hyuuga.” Scholar Walgrave stood beside him. The raven that had just arrived on his arm. The bird’s black plumage shone like coal oil in the torchlight. Wet, Ayato realized. And in the librarian’s wrinkled spotted hand a parchment. That will be wet as well.

Walgrave bowed and took his leave after handing the letter over. Ayato broke the blob of purple wax with the Hoshigakure symbol and unrolled it slowly. As his tired eyes moved through the parchment, his brow narrowed down to what appeared uncomfortably like frustration. The Byakugan heir put the damp parchment into one of the pouches clipped to his belt. It should be noted that Ayato had kept his bloodline activated the whole time, chakra pulsing along the veins and nerves of his long face. They bulged up in a manner almost grotesque, reaching up from the top of his spinal column and across his cheeks, up to his temples, and into his eyes. Other than peering into the sealed archives, he made sure that no civilians or otherwise none authorized figures were within the library.

Those legs of his were sore and heavy, too heavy to move as he made to rose from the bench. With a rough callused finger, he massaged some of the vitality back to them and limped heavily on the table where the fellow Hyuuga on today’s task was snoring softly. He was using a close scrolled he had finished copying the contents of the archives on as a pillow in front of him.

Ayato glanced at the title “Cavum Nigrum by Hikari Namikaze, ” No wonder he had fallen asleep. “Takeshita,” The boy said softly. The branch member jerked up blinking, confused the curse seal on his forehead twisted as his brow formed into what appeared to be a frown. 


“I’m off to the Leader Chambers, my presence is required there. See that you review your copies one final time and put them to selves. Be gentle with them, don’t roll them until the ink on the parchment is dry. Neither of us would care to spend another evening copying them.” His brethren gaped at him, still half asleep. With a soft sigh, the Byakugan heir repeated himself and clapped the man on the shoulders and left him to his task.

When they were done the Hyuuga heir proceeded to place his own spare copies into a small rift in space/time with the storage displacement technique. It was more secure to create an extra copy in case the library ever burned down. And it was another layer of security to place the said copy in a different dimension than carrying them on his person he figured. If he ever fell in battle, they would never get it by looting his body. And if he happened to be captured instead, they would have to beat it out of him first by threating his life. Which he would more than welcome if it ever came to this. For a Hyuuga of the Byakugan to be taken prisoner was the only fate worse than death.  

As he took his first step in the outside world, blowing rain lashed at his face. Muttering courses on the weather Ayato began his laborious way of the steep cobblestoned streets of the village. It wasn’t the fastest pace, to be honest, the streets were wet and slippery, ready to trip the careless and unwary. 

He walked as fast as he dared, the stone seemed to soften upon contact with his feet muting any sounds his footsteps might have made. The application of the newfound knowledge he had gained from the sealed archived, worked properly it seemed.

He was more than willing to share the contents of the scrolls with anyone had they so wished. Being a selfish piece of shit that kept all good things to himself, was never something that identified with this particular Byakugan heir.  The only requirement for someone to get in Ayato’s good graces was to prove in some way that they were worthy of his time and effort.


Ayato had to thank a certain Hoshi Genin later for sparking his mind and making him figure it out how to make the contents of the National archives public once more. The boy had misunderstood word he had heard around town and falsely believed the entire Library was sealed off from the public. Thus not giving him access to the posted missions within. “ You could use your Byakugan to read them!” The branch member had proclaimed innocently enough, getting the story wrong, but the facts correct. That was the angle that no one had thought of before, not even Ayato. Even if Hikari Namikaze put twelve hundred seals on those particular archives they would not stop Byakugan from reading the parchment within. 

Yes, everyone had been outsmarted by a kid who had been a ninja for two days.

WC: 1041
EXIT

[Making Kozai Yuki National Archives Jutsu Contents open to the public once again. To promote social roleplay, the requirements are a thread with Ayato anywhere in Hoshi or receive IC permission from the Kage and or Hikari Namikaze to get them from the library.]

1041 to Lost Arts of Kiri with 25% Max Discount [1041 to 1500]