The walk back to Konoha was silent.
Not out of exhaustion. Not even from shock.
It was the weight. The weight of what they'd seen… and what they hadn't stopped.
Kakashi walked ahead, saying nothing. His usual ease was gone, replaced by cold awareness.
Behind him, Naruto tried to lighten the mood.
"Okay so like—what were those guys? Thorn Vein zombies or something?"
"They weren't undead," Sasuke muttered. "They felt like chakra shells. Artificial."
Sakura nodded. "Hyuk said they were blood puppets."
Hyuk didn't look up. He was walking behind them all, hood drawn over his hair, one hand pressed to his side where the vines had brushed bone.
He felt fine.
Too fine.
That was the problem.
---
When they reached the gates, they were met immediately by two ANBU and a Jōnin from the Hokage's office.
Kakashi spoke first. "We need an emergency debrief. Private. Code black."
The Jōnin's face paled slightly.
Naruto scratched his head. "Code what now?"
"Means 'classified threat tied to Konoha's internal bloodlines,'" Kakashi said. "Keep your mouths shut."
---
An hour later, in the Hokage's war room.
Hyuk stood alone on one side of the long table. Kakashi stood behind him.
Across from them sat Hiruzen Sarutobi, grim-faced and silent, fingers laced beneath his chin.
"So," the Hokage said at last. "The Thorn Vein has returned."
"No," Kakashi corrected. "It was never gone. It was just waiting."
Hiruzen turned his eyes to Hyuk. "You've been manifesting symptoms?"
Hyuk didn't flinch. "Since the mirror incident. Possibly before."
"Pain? Visions?"
"Sometimes. Mostly… clarity."
The Hokage's expression tightened. "Do you understand what the Thorn Vein really is?"
Hyuk didn't answer.
Kakashi did.
"It's not just a bloodline. It's a parasitic chakra strain locked into Haruno DNA. Not everyone awakens it. But when they do—it grows. It feeds. It remembers."
Hiruzen closed his eyes. "The original clan that wielded it was eliminated after the Second Great War. Records were destroyed. Hyuma Haruno was the last known bearer."
"He's alive," Hyuk said quietly. "Or someone's using his chakra."
At that, Hiruzen stood.
"Then Konoha is already compromised."
---
That night, Hyuk didn't return home.
He returned to the outskirts—to the cliffs above the old Haruno summer house.
He set the scroll down. The one left for him in the clearing. The one that bore his father's name.
And opened it.
Inside: no words. Just a drawing—rough charcoal sketch of a figure with vines spiraling from his arms, eyes glowing with chakra. At the bottom, a phrase burned into the paper:
> "Thorn Vein Technique: First Bloom — Crimson Maw"
Hyuk stared at it, the lines of chakra on his forearms beginning to pulse.
Then he closed his eyes.
---
He trained for hours. Alone.
Bleeding. Focusing. Letting the chakra flow into specific points of his hand and wrist, molding it as the scroll instructed.
The technique was brutal. It required pain—physical pain—to shape.
He bit down on a strip of leather and forced it through anyway.
At dawn, he stood in the clearing, breath ragged, shirt soaked with sweat.
Then, he extended his hand.
And it bloomed.
A single crimson thorn formed over the back of his palm—thick, sharp, and dripping with chakra. Not a vine.
A weapon.
Crimson Maw: a living spike of Thorn Vein chakra capable of piercing through physical and chakra barriers alike—but only at the cost of the user's own vitality.
Hyuk fell to one knee, coughing.
His blood hit the ground.
The Maw retracted.
---
Meanwhile, deep within the forest outside Konoha…
A circle of cloaked figures stood in an underground chamber lit only by thorn-shaped candles. The air pulsed with chakra, the walls covered in blood-root carvings of the spiral thorn crest.
At the center stood the man from the clearing—half his mask now shattered.
"The bloom is ahead of schedule," he said.
Another voice hissed from the dark. Female. Cold.
"Does he resist?"
"Yes. But not for long. He tasted it. Fought with it. Won with it."
A third voice, older: "Then we make our move."
The masked man turned toward the chamber's altar.
"Send in the Weaver."
---
Back in Konoha, Hyuk walked the rooftops again, alone.
Below, life went on.
Vendors shouted.
Children trained.
Sakura laughed with Naruto by a dango shop.
Sasuke sat alone on a bench, sharpening a kunai, not looking at anyone.
Hyuk didn't join them.
He couldn't.
The thorns beneath his skin were awake now.
They whispered when he touched his chakra.
Not in words.
But in hunger.