Chapter 13

In the blink of an eye, three weeks had passed.

Hyuga Kagami was quite surprised that even after all this time, the village had neither sent a support squad nor resumed the purge against him and Anko.

This clearly didn't align with his expectations, nor with common sense.

Who conducts a purge this slowly and half-heartedly?

"Could something have happened in the village?"

Rummaging through his blurry memories, Hyuga Kagami tried to find clues and figure out what might have taken place, but no matter how much he recalled, nothing substantial came to mind.

Suddenly, a vivid image flashed in his mind. His entire body jolted as he muttered, "The... Nine-Tails Rampage!?"

Although he didn't know the exact date of the Nine-Tails Rampage, Hyuga Kagami knew it coincided with Naruto's birth.

Naruto's mother, Kushina, was the Nine-Tails' Jinchuriki, and anything related to her was top-secret. With Hyuga Kagami's status in the village, it was impossible for him to know any of it.

But that didn't stop him from speculating. After all, Hinata and Naruto were of similar age. Before he left the village, he had already heard that the clan leader's wife was pregnant. If Naruto was a few months older than Hinata, then his birth must have been around this time.

"How could I forget something like this!"

Internally, Hyuga Kagami chastised himself.

It was understandable though. After spending over a decade in the ninja world, his memories had grown fuzzy. And being relatively weak all this time, he had constantly lived under threat of death. He neither had the power nor the desire to interfere in major events, so he rarely paid attention to them.

But now things were different. With the power of the Tenseigan, he finally had the ability to get involved. Like a true powerhouse, he needed to keep a close eye on every major event in the ninja world to seize opportunities.

After self-reflecting, Hyuga Kagami analyzed the current situation in the village.

If the Nine-Tails Rampage really had occurred, the village's internal structure must have undergone a dramatic upheaval.

The Fourth Hokage and Kushina both died in their prime. Losing two of their most promising Kage-level fighters left the village in a transitional crisis.

White Fang committed suicide, Tsunade left the village, Orochimaru defected, and Jiraiya was away pursuing missions.

Now, aside from Jiraiya who wasn't even in the village, Konoha had no solid Kage-level strength among the younger or middle generations. Only the old guard—the Third Hokage and Danzo—were left holding things together.

Moreover, during the Nine-Tails Rampage, the beast was apparently controlled by the Sharingan, causing the village to suspect the Uchiha clan. All their strong members were put under surveillance. Even without memories from his past life, Hyuga Kagami could foresee the inevitable conflict between the Uchiha and the village.

After analyzing the shifting power dynamics, he turned to his own situation.

Without a doubt, compared to the powerful and tightly-knit Uchiha clan suspected of triggering the Nine-Tails Rampage, former subordinates of Orochimaru like himself posed far less of a threat in the village's eyes.

Especially considering the rampage had cost the lives of many ordinary ninja, the village now had to rebuild destroyed areas and divert elite manpower to monitor the Uchiha. Even a strong village like Konoha was stretched thin, so it made sense that they had no resources to worry about a remote outpost.

Soon, Hyuga Kagami's speculation was confirmed.

The village sent word: abandon the outpost and return to the village immediately.

After packing up quickly, the four remaining members at the outpost began their journey home. Along the way, Hyuga Kagami secretly felt relieved. He figured he was lucky that Sasori hadn't tracked him down yet.

But in truth, he was overthinking it.

The acquisition of the Third Kazekage's puppet had been purely accidental, and Hyuga Kagami knew that. But Sasori didn't.

To Sasori, Hyuga Kagami's strange use of the Rotational Will Technique and chakra-less puppet strings was far too bizarre, leading him to overestimate Kagami's strength. He believed Hyuga Kagami was at least a jōnin-level elite and therefore dismissed the possibility that he was stationed at a mere border outpost.

Logically, border outposts that served mostly as warning stations wouldn't have high-level shinobi assigned to them.

As a result, Hyuga Kagami's post had become a blind spot—ironically the safest place. That's why Sasori had never found him.

After a week of traveling at high speed, the four finally returned to the village.

What greeted them was practically a massive construction site. Everywhere they looked, there were craftsmen working, scaffolding being erected, and transport carts going to and fro.

Pointing to the broken sections of the village wall in the distance, Anko looked puzzled. "What the heck happened here?"

The two Root operatives traveling with them seemed to know some of the story, but even they looked shocked by the extent of the damage before them.

Clearly, the destruction in the village had far exceeded anyone's expectations.

Hyuga Kagami was equally stunned.

Even though he already knew that the Nine-Tails Rampage had caused massive damage to Konoha, seeing the devastation with his own eyes was something else entirely. For a moment, he couldn't fully take it in.

Not even during the harshest days of war had the village ever suffered losses this severe.

Once they reached the mission center, they quickly handled the necessary paperwork to end their mission and disbanded.

Gaining some freedom for the first time in months, Hyuga Kagami didn't rest. Instead, he began digging for details about what had transpired in the village.

It wasn't long before he had gathered plenty of information.

First, the Nine-Tails Rampage had occurred about a month ago, which lined up perfectly with the days when he had run into Sasori on the border.

Second, in just one night of chaos, the village had lost more than twenty jōnin and hundreds of lower-ranked shinobi. Nearly every ninja clan had casualties. It was said that the funeral ceremonies alone took over a week to complete.

Lastly, several blocks of the village had been completely flattened by the Nine-Tails. The civilian death toll was immeasurable, and even now, many bodies hadn't been recovered.

With a heavy heart, Hyuga Kagami returned home.

He wasn't unfamiliar with Obito. Among his classmates, there were only a few Kagami could confidently say he had surpassed, and Obito was one of them.

And yet, this seemingly dim-witted underachiever had now become the mastermind capable of forcing the Fourth Hokage and Kushina to their deaths, playing the entire ninja world like a puppet.

To be honest, Hyuga Kagami felt more than a little bitter.

But despite that, he also understood clearly: Obito now possessed the Mangekyou Sharingan and Hashirama's cells. He was no longer the fool from the academy and couldn't be judged with old assumptions.

At the same time, a wave of ambition surged within Hyuga Kagami.

If Obito could stir up the world with the power of the Mangekyou Sharingan, then why couldn't he, Hyuga Kagami, with the power of the Tenseigan, step off the sidelines and claim a stage of his own?