Three weeks had passed in the blink of an eye.
Hyuga Kyo was quite surprised that during this long period, the village hadn’t sent a support squad or made any further attempts to purge him and Anko. This was clearly contrary to his expectations and defied common sense.
“How can a purge be conducted so sluggishly?” he thought.
“Could something have happened in the village?”
Hyuga Kyo searched his hazy memories, trying to find clues to understand what had happened. After thinking for a long time, he had yet to succeed. Suddenly, an image flashed in his mind, and his whole body shook as he murmured, “The…the Nine-Tails incident!?”
Although he didn’t know the exact timing of the Nine-Tails incident, Hyuga Kyo knew it happened on the night Naruto was born. Naruto’s mother, Kushina Uzumaki, was the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, and all information related to her was classified. Given Hyuga Kyo’s status in the village, he needed help finding out.
However, this didn’t stop him from speculating. Since Hinata and Naruto were about the same age, and he had heard the news of the clan leader’s wife being pregnant before he left the village, Naruto would be a few months older than Hinata. Therefore, Naruto’s birth should be around this time.
“How could I have forgotten about this?” Hyuga Kyo blamed himself.
It was understandable, though. After all, he had been in the ninja world for over a decade, and his memories had become fuzzy. Plus, he had always been under the threat of death due to his lack of strength. He neither had the ability nor the desire to intervene in various significant events, so he paid little attention to them.
But now, things were different. With the Tenseigan, he had the ability to meddle in some matters. Therefore, he needed to pay attention to every significant event in the ninja world like an influential person would to gain benefits from them.
After reflecting on his oversight, Hyuga Kyo began analysing the current situation in the village.
If the Nine-Tails incident had indeed occurred, it meant the village’s structure would undergo a drastic change. The young Fourth Hokage and Kushina dying simultaneously meant the town lost two of its most promising Kage-level forces, plunging Konoha into a period of decline.
With White Fang’s suicide, Tsunade’s departure, Orochimaru’s defection, and Jiraiya leaving the village to pursue him, Konoha had no solid Kage-level fighters left among the younger and middle-aged generations except for the absent Jiraiya. The town was now held up by the elderly Third Hokage and Danzo, who had been in power for over twenty years.
Moreover, during the Nine-Tails incident, the Nine-Tails seemed to be controlled by the Sharingan, leading the village to suspect the Uchiha clan. All the Uchiha strong members were put under surveillance. Without his previous life memories, Hyuga Kyo could foresee the inevitable internal conflict between the Uchiha and the village.
After analysing the village’s shifting dynamics, Hyuga Kyo considered his own situation.
Without a doubt, compared to the powerful and united Uchiha clan, who were suspected of causing the Nine-Tails incident, Hyuga Kyo and the other former subordinates of Orochimaru didn’t seem like much of a threat to the village. Moreover, many ordinary ninjas would have perished in the incident. With the town losing a large number of personnel, they would be preoccupied with rebuilding the damaged areas and monitoring the Uchiha clan. Even a city as substantial as Konoha would be short on the workforce at this time, making it reasonable for them to neglect the border outpost.
It wasn’t long before Hyuga Kyo’s suspicions were confirmed.
The village sent a message to abandon the outpost and ask all personnel to return to the town immediately.
After a quick cleanup, the four remaining members of the outpost set off on their journey back to the village. On the way, Hyuga Kyo secretly felt lucky that Scorpion hadn’t tracked him down during this time.
In reality, Hyuga Kyo had overthought the situation.
The capture of the Third Kazekage puppet was actually an accident, something Hyuga Kyo was aware of, but Scorpion was not. In Scorpion’s eyes, Hyuga Kyo’s techniques were so bizarre that he overestimated Hyuga Kyo’s strength, mistaking him for at least an elite Jonin, thus overlooking the border outpost. As a result, the outpost became a “blind spot,” ironically making it the safest place. This was why Scorpion hadn’t found Hyuga Kyo.
After a week of hurried travel, the four finally returned to the village.
The village now looked like a massive construction site, bustling with artisans, scaffolding everywhere, and transport carts coming and going.
Pointing to the distant damaged walls, Anko was stunned, “What happened here?”
The two other ninjas who accompanied them, suspected to be from the Root, seemed to know something but were equally surprised by the extent of the damage.
Hyuga Kyo was also shocked.
Although he knew the Nine-Tails incident had caused profound harm to Konoha, the sight of the village’s devastation still took him aback.
Even during the brutal war, the village hadn’t suffered such severe damage!
After a brief mission debriefing at the mission centre, the four disbanded.
Having gained his first bit of freedom in months, Hyuga Kyo didn’t idle but instead started gathering information about the village’s changes.
It took a little while for him to gather significant details.
Firstly, the exact date of the Nine-Tails incident was about a month ago, which coincided with the time Hyuga Kyo had encountered Scorpion at the border.
Secondly, in just one night of chaos, the village had lost over twenty Jonin and hundreds of Chunin and Genin. Almost every ninja clan in the town had suffered casualties, and the funerals reportedly lasted for an entire week.
Finally, several districts ravaged by the Nine-Tails were levelled entirely, with civilian casualties being challenging to estimate. Even now, many civilian bodies have yet to be recovered.
Having collected enough information, Hyuga Kyo returned home deep in thought.
Obito Uchiha was not unfamiliar to Hyuga Kyo. Among his peers, very few could rival Hyuga Kyo, and Obito was one of them. Yet, this seemingly dull last-place student had grown into a mastermind capable of killing the Fourth Hokage and the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, manipulating the entire ninja world.
Honestly, Hyuga Kyo felt quite annoyed.
But annoyance aside, he understood that Obito, now possessing the Mangekyo Sharingan and the cells of the First Hokage, was no longer the same person and couldn’t be judged by his old school reputation.
At the same time, a sense of ambition rose within Hyuga Kyo.
If Obito could stir up trouble with his Mangekyo Sharingan, why couldn’t Hyuga Kyo, with his Tenseigan, step out of the audience and onto his own stage?
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