Chapter 188: Impact
The subsequent developments unfolded much as Ishiro had thought. Hyūga Tokuhiro's body was quickly discovered by patrol ninjas, only the ones who found Hyūga Tokuhiro's body were from the Uchiha clan.
This was because the location where Ishiro had left Hyūga Tokuhiro's body was near the Uchiha clan's encampment.
Uchiha Akira, an Elite Jōnin of the Uchiha clan, discovered Hyūga Tokuhiro's body while patrolling with three of his clan subordinates.
Because Ishiro hadn't even done the simplest cleanup, Uchiha Akira's party smelled the stench of blood on Hyūga Tokuhiro from a great distance.
The four Uchiha immediately adopted a combat formation and quickly yet cautiously approached the location of Hyūga Tokuhiro's body. The four of them recognized his identity almost the instant they saw Hyūga Tokuhiro's corpse.
Uchiha Akira said in a trembling voice, "It's the patriarch of the Hyūga clan: Hyūga Tokuhiro."
The Hyūga clan was a great clan no weaker than the Uchiha clan. Although Uchiha Akira, like other members, was arrogant, he also understood that Hyūga Tokuhiro was a prominent figure whose strength and status were comparable to his own clan leader, Uchiha No.
Now, the body of such a prominent figure had appeared before him without any warning. Uchiha Akira found it hard to accept for a moment.
Moreover, Uchiha Akira knew that the Hyūga clan was also the Uchiha clan's biggest competitor. In the hearts of the Uchiha clan, Hyūga Tokuhiro was their clan leader Uchiha No's greatest rival in the competition for the position of Fourth Hokage.
Now that Hyūga Tokuhiro's body had appeared near the Uchiha clan's camp, Uchiha Akira's first reaction was: "Could it be that the clan leader did this?"
But Uchiha Akira quickly realized that this was impossible. Firstly, as an Uchiha, he knew his clan leader's pride; Uchiha No would not resort to such means to seize the Hokage position.
Secondly, he, Uchiha Akira, was a key member of the Uchiha clan's main war faction. If Uchiha No had really targeted Hyūga Tokuhiro, he would certainly have brought along trusted aides like them to ensure success. And last night, he was with Fugaku and others, and no one had left the camp.
Lastly, if Uchiha No had really done so, he wouldn't have dumped Hyūga Tokuhiro's body here.
However, if even he, an Uchiha, suspected his clan leader, what would others think?
Just as Uchiha Akira's mind was in turmoil, a voice reached his ears: "Uncle Akira, the Byakugan!"
Uchiha Akira was startled: "Right, Hyūga Tokuhiro is from the Hyūga main family. If a member of the Hyūga main family dies, then what about the Byakugan?"
Although Hyūga Tokuhiro's clearly sunken eyelids already indicated the result, Uchiha Akira still said with a tremor, "Shisui, go check if Hyūga Tokuhiro's Byakugan are still there."
That's right, one of the three subordinates Uchiha Akira led was none other than the Uchiha clan's most dazzling genius at present, Shisui Uchiha.
Shisui was currently less than ten years old. Although he held the rank of Genin, his strength had already reached Chūnin level. Moreover, influenced by the war, Shisui had already awakened his Sharingan.
Shisui, still a young boy, went forward to examine Hyūga Tokuhiro's eye sockets, then stood up, shook his head at Uchiha Akira, and said, "The Byakugan are gone."
Taking a deep breath, Uchiha Akira murmured, "Gone is gone. It's good that they're gone."
At this point, Uchiha Akira had calmed down. Hyūga Tokuhiro was already dead. The murderer had placed Hyūga Tokuhiro's body near their Uchiha clan camp, naturally to frame the Uchiha clan.
But although Uchiha No had the motive to kill Hyūga Tokuhiro, he absolutely had no motive to steal the Byakugan. The loss of the Byakugan was a great loss for Konoha, but for the Uchiha, it could actually reduce some suspicion.
Given the pride of Uchiha members, everyone wouldn't think the Uchiha would covet the Byakugan.
"Shisui, you're fast. Go back and inform Lord Patriarch," Uchiha Akira instructed Shisui. He himself had to stay here and watch Hyūga Tokuhiro's body. Among the remaining three, Shisui's speed far surpassed that of his two teammates.
"Yes." After acknowledging, Shisui returned to the camp at his fastest speed to report to Uchiha No.
Watching Shisui quickly disappear, Uchiha Akira nodded, very satisfied with Shisui's talent. Shisui's only shortcoming was that he was too simple and kind; Shisui actually believed in that "Will of Fire" stuff used to deceive civilians.
He would still have to guide Shisui properly in the future to prevent him from going astray.
Soon, Uchiha No arrived. At the same time, he brought a large group of people, most of whom were ninjas wearing Uchiha clan attire, and also a small number of civilian-born ninjas.
Among the non-Uchiha ninjas, one person was most conspicuous. This person wore an animal mask and was dressed as Anbu – it was precisely Hei, sent by Danzō to liaise with Uchiha No.
When Shisui returned to the camp to deliver the message, Hei was also in the command post. Upon hearing the news of Hyūga Tokuhiro's death, Hei's first reaction was that Uchiha No had done it. But after seeing Uchiha No's reaction, this thought wavered.
Thinking further that he had been in the Uchiha camp these past few days, if Uchiha No had made any major moves, it certainly wouldn't have escaped his notice. Only then did he temporarily stop suspecting Uchiha No.
Then, Hei's second suspect was his master: Danzō. After all, such a straightforward and direct approach was very Danzō-like. But this time, Hei dismissed it even faster than before, because if Danzō were to make a move, he wouldn't fail to bring him along.
Even if he didn't bring him, he would have given him a mission to monitor the Uchiha clan.
Then Shisui mentioned the missing Byakugan. Just as Uchiha Akira had thought, upon hearing the Byakugan were also gone, the Uchiha dropped directly beyond the top five in Hei's list of suspects.
If the motive was the Byakugan, then enemy ninjas were the most likely culprits.
After arriving at the scene, Hei inspected Hyūga Tokuhiro's body before Uchiha No could.
Then he stood up and said to Uchiha No, "Patriarch Uchiha No, please inform the Hyūga clan."
Although Uchiha No was dissatisfied with Hei's attitude, he didn't want to get too involved in this matter either. So he directly sent Uchiha Akira's squad to the Hyūga camp to inform the Hyūga clan.
When the Hyūga clan heard the news of their patriarch's death, their internal thoughts aside for now, the conflict between the Hyūga and Uchiha was also put aside.
Anyway, with a main family member dead, they couldn't even find someone in the Hyūga camp to take charge. Even if the Hyūga wanted to start a conflict with the Uchiha, they couldn't do it.
First, let's talk about the Kirigakure side. After a bitter battle, Fuguki Suikazan and the others finally dealt with the dozen or so Hyūga branch family members. Unfortunately, three still managed to escape in the end.
This made Fuguki Suikazan very angry. If Kushimaru Kuriarare and his two companions had arrived in time, those few Hyūga branch family members wouldn't have been able to escape at all.
Fortunately, before dawn, the men he had last sent to pursue Hyūga Tokuhiro returned. Seeing the Byakugan in Ao's hand, Fuguki Suikazan finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Finally, something had gone right. As long as the Byakugan was obtained, then everything could be explained away. Even his own retreat could be described as a strategic withdrawal. Anyway, as the person in charge of this operation, his ultimate goal was achieved.
And the setbacks in the plan could be entirely blamed on Kushimaru Kuriarare and his two companions.
To stabilize his position, Fuguki Suikazan kept his promise and proposed to the Third Mizukage to let Ao, the ninja who had seized the Byakugan, use it.
...
This trip out, although it didn't start smoothly, had a good outcome in the end.
Ishiro successfully obtained the Byakugan, and his understanding of the S-rank ninjutsu "Mind's Eye" became clearer. Furthermore, he had been cooped up in the village for too long, and finally being able to get out for some fresh air felt incredibly good.
However, having come out with such difficulty, Ishiro didn't want to go back so soon. After flying at high altitude over the Land of Whirlpools for a while, Ishiro stopped.
After identifying his direction, Ishiro flew towards the original site of Uzushiogakure.
The Uzumaki clan's sealing jutsus had all been plundered by Ōnoki and the others; Uzushiogakure certainly wouldn't have many valuable things left. But Ishiro still wanted to go and see, to look at this ninja village whose destruction he felt somewhat responsible for.
Additionally, the original story mentioned a place where the Uzumaki clan stored the Reaper Death Seal Masks. Ishiro also wanted to try his luck and see if he could find it.
Of course, the description in the original story was not clear. Ishiro felt that this "Mask Temple" (Nàmiàntáng) had likely been moved by Konoha. It was most probably in the Land of Fire now.
Ishiro felt that Minato Namikaze, without the Reaper Death Seal Mask, probably couldn't learn the Reaper Death Seal. Such a high-level seal couldn't be achieved by simply drawing sealing runes. It should also involve a lot of knowledge about summoning jutsus and souls.
Ishiro felt the difficulty of the Reaper Death Seal (Shiki Fūjin) should still be above that of the S-rank "Fire Realm" seal.
Because he had experienced the Jashin incident, Ishiro was somewhat curious about "Reaper" type beings. That's why he wanted to see if there was anything similar in the Uzumaki clan's ruins.
The location of Uzushiogakure was easy to find; Ishiro's map had detailed markings for this place.
After descending from the sky into Uzushiogakure, Ishiro's "Mind's Eye" told him there were at least three chakra fluctuations within a hundred meters of him. This surprised Ishiro somewhat. Were there still Uzumaki clan members around?
But Ishiro immediately dismissed this guess. For no other reason than the chakra levels of these three individuals were too weak.
"Probably just people trying their luck like me."
Ishiro didn't want to get entangled with these rogue ninjas now. So, he formed hand seals, and a giant fire jutsu was unleashed towards the sky.
Ishiro cast a B-rank fire jutsu, and it was a B-rank fire jutsu with increased chakra output.
A large sheet of flame rushed towards the sky above the former Uzushiogakure, then spread out radially in the air.
The entire fire jutsu's coverage directly reached several hundred meters. Ishiro believed that anyone in Uzushiogakure would be able to see it.
Seeing this fire jutsu, any rogue ninja with some intelligence should understand Ishiro's intention of clearing the area.
Sure enough, after casting the fire jutsu, Ishiro focused his attention on "Mind's Eye" and sensed that within a 200-meter range, seven or eight ninjas, including the original three chakra sources, were rapidly fleeing away from Ishiro.
Ishiro smiled, paid them no mind, and instead activated his sensory ninjutsu to conduct a wider-range scan, to see if there were any stubborn individuals left.
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