Hizashi Hyuga, long burdened by ill fortune, reluctantly led a group of Ninja Students temporarily mobilized from the Instructor Corps. It took them three full days to complete the [Three Pests Extermination] mission casually assigned by Hyuga Soushu. Just as he turned to leave after reporting the mission's completion, a servant ninja sent from Lord Soushu's Mansion had already been waiting for him.
After exchanging formal pleasantries, the servant handed him a Sealing Scroll, adding, "Thank you for always looking after our people in the Branch House."
"This is Lord Soushu's wedding gift, sent ahead of time," the servant explained.
"Ahh…"
A chill shot down Hizashi's spine, and his temples immediately dampened with cold sweat.
"By the way," the servant went on, "I believe Lord Soushu and the rest of the family hope you can move past any lingering bitterness. After all, one must always look forward."
Also hailing from the Branch House, though never particularly close with Hizashi back in those days, the servant seemed moved enough by their shared bloodline—and by the fact that Hizashi had always shown kindness toward the Branch—to add, "You surely understand, Lord Hizashi—there are some things no one among us can keep entirely hidden from the clan."
"What do you mean by that?" Hizashi responded with a tight smile. "I'm afraid I don't quite follow."
"In that case, I must've misunderstood." The servant showed no intent to clarify or press further, politely bowing instead. "Please forgive my boldness."
"Safe journey," Hizashi nodded.
Only after the servant disappeared into the distance did Hizashi slowly regain his composure—though by then, his back was already soaked through.
Whether this was merely the private warning of a lowly servant or something more, he couldn't tell.
Yet what was certain was this: no matter how hard he worked in his role as commander at the Eastern Ninja Force headquarters, like an old ox pulling a cart without complaint, many former members of the Branch House would always see his birth itself as an unforgivable sin.
In other words, he remained under judgmental eyes wherever he went.
Though inwardly he had always known this well, Hizashi had deliberately avoided confronting it. Now, with that delicate veil publicly torn away, he felt an unprecedented bitterness and discomfort—as if a deep wound had been suddenly exposed in broad daylight.
"Father…" He raised his gaze toward the sky.
After a while, he stomped his foot and performed the Body Flicker technique, dashing straight toward the direction of the Eastern Ninja Force headquarters.
As for Hyuga Soushu, whatever private relations Hiashi and Hizashi might share held little significance either way.
Now that business expansion into the Land of Water—the final commercial frontier of the Ninja World—had been successfully completed, Soushu redirected all his focus toward the equally vital enterprise: dedicating himself fully to starting the great enterprise of conceiving offspring with his beloved Mahiru-chan.
After all, whether in this life or the previous, Soushu had always belonged to a family obsessed with preserving the family line. And now, with the massive powerbase he personally built, the need for an heir capable of securing everyone's loyalty and stabilizing this hard-won foundation became ever more urgent.
So with multiple factors at play, it's no wonder Hyuga Soushu had been acting somewhat hastily. However, Mahiru Uchiha was enjoying herself thoroughly.
At the entrance of Hakone Prefecture city during the rainy season, an endless line of carriages filled the area. Wealthy merchants from all corners of the Ninja World carried their delivery notes, patiently waiting to enter and collect their goods.
Standing at the pedestrian entrance wearing a straw hat and raincoat was Jiraiya, who couldn't help but get all choked up inside.
Frankly speaking, purely in terms of prosperity, Hakone Prefecture city nowadays rivaled the Daimyo's courts of the Five Great Countries.
And unlike the extravagant banquets where nobles drank and feasted away their days in various Daimyo courts, Hakone exuded a raw, untamed vitality.
Of course, this didn't mean the Hyuga Clan itself had become savage. Rather, everything about Hakone was simply out of sync with the rest of the Ninja World, radiating its own unique charm like the rising sun, completely indifferent to others' opinions.
"This is a city built entirely upon authority."
Jiraiya summed it up in his head — this city was full of ninjas leaping around like it was nothing, and nobody even blinked an eye.
Under the one-village-one-nation system (where each Hidden Village serves as the military power of its respective nation), shinobi were meant to be separated from civilians to protect ordinary people from getting caught in ninja conflicts. Therefore, aside from Hidden Villages, many commoners throughout the Ninja World would never even see a single ninja in their entire lives.
Yet, before he even officially entered the city, Jiraiya had already spotted over a hundred ninja darting through the gates with Body Flicker techniques. It was like nobody gave a damn about restricted zones here. Even Konoha wouldn't dare allow such reckless leaps and bounds.
"Are you really going to wait here in line to get in?"
A faint whisper came from inside Jiraiya's robe.
"Be quiet!"
Jiraiya quickly covered his mouth, replying softly under the pretense of coughing.
The voice fell silent immediately.
Outside the five great Hidden Villages, Hakone Prefecture city indeed possessed the highest number and density of ninja across the Ninja World. Thus, Jiraiya dared not relax his vigilance in the slightest. He had no choice but to rely on a secret talisman granted by Mount Myoboku before his departure as cover, disguising himself as an ordinary person attempting to sneak into the prefecture city.
Moreover, to avoid revealing his identity, Jiraiya even refrained from employing chakra-based sound transmission techniques for fear of leaking the slightest trace.
After all, several Uchiha and Hyuga ninja stood atop the city walls, scanning the caravans and crowds with sharp gazes.
Furthermore, this was already the city gate entrance where Jiraiya had previously scouted and selected the smallest number of guards.
As for the usual infiltration strategy that Jiraiya and the ninja frogs of Mount Myoboku habitually employed — entering through underground waterways — it had long been abandoned after Hizashi Hyuga's team established the "Eliminate the Three Pests" operation as a permanent, ongoing task. The security vulnerability had since been effectively sealed off.
Compared to the slow progress of incoming vehicles, pedestrians moved through the gates at a much faster pace.
Jiraiya barely waited ten minutes before being let into the city.
Still, having to pay fifteen copper coins for an entry pass rubbed him the wrong way.
Although according to the Ninja World's universal exchange rate, one Gold Kan could be exchanged for over ten thousand copper coins, Jiraiya still couldn't shake his irritation.
It felt completely different from his usual extravagant spending at sake bars—where he'd throw away thousands just to win a smile from a dancing girl.
"You're really sulking over just fifteen copper coins?"
After entering the city, the creature hiding inside Jiraiya's robe spoke up again, "I remember you spent no less than a hundred Gold Kans in Kabuki-cho last night!"
"These are two completely different situations!"
As Jiraiya stepped calmly into the city, his tension visibly eased. As always, he covered his mouth with his hand and faked a cough to hide their conversation: "Save where you should save, spend where you should spend! These are entirely incomparable matters!"
"Fine fine fine! Just go ahead and mess everything up then!"
The voice chimed in again from within his robe, "Hurry up and find a place to let me out—I need to quickly rebuild my spy frog network!"
"Don't rush!"
Jiraiya casually scanned his surroundings with the wide-eyed look of a country bumpkin seeing the city for the first time, while quietly responding, "First I have to make sure it's safe around here. If I release you now, those dog-faced ninja will kill you in a day. Then Lord Sage will blame me."
"What's there to worry about? If anything happens, I can just use Summoning Technique to escape!"
Though the creature hiding inside Jiraiya's robe talked tough, it stopped nagging.
The reason Jiraiya had risked sneaking into Hakone Prefecture this time was precisely to rebuild the spy frog intelligence network destroyed by Hyuga Soushu's careless command.
The reason Mount Myoboku, despite living in remote wastelands, remained fully informed about the Ninja World lay in its countless numbers of spy frogs.
Moreover, to prevent ninja from accidentally discovering and dismantling their intelligence network, Mount Myoboku adopted clever camouflage methods—using secret techniques to accelerate the breeding of numerous frog species uniquely adapted to specific regions, thereby lowering ninja suspicion through local appearances. Meanwhile, these created spy frogs lacked intelligence, functioning merely as confused, low-level lifeforms that received commands issued by higher-ranked ninja frogs like the one currently hiding inside Jiraiya's robe and then simply appearing in designated areas as instructed.
As for the intelligence collected by these spy frogs, it was all summarized and sent back to Mount Myoboku by these high-level ninja frogs.
Although this method was extremely inefficient—and many times those unintelligent spy frogs messed up their reconnaissance spots due to sheer stupidity—it was undeniable that this one-to-many intelligence network offered very high security.
Even though the current Hakone Prefecture had eradicated both the original spy frogs and regular local frogs, it still hadn't truly damaged Mount Myoboku's core intelligence system because the commanding ninja frog fled immediately upon detecting unusual ninja activity.
"A flashy yet dull workshop town!"
After touring Hakone Prefecture, Jiraiya once again summed up his opinion on the city.
Along the way, he passed through areas where not even a single decent tavern could be found, let alone popular entertainment districts like Kabuki-cho's infamous pleasure quarters.
As far as the eye could see, workshops stretched endlessly, each ringing with the constant clinking of metal. Streams of steel tools flowed steadily from these workshops and were loaded onto carts bound for all corners of the Ninja World.
In fact, the volume of steel production and metal goods in Hakone Prefecture surpassed anything Jiraiya had seen during his many years of traveling across the Ninja World—even exceeding the famed Land of Craftsmen, renowned for its superior ninja tools.
"Using ninja to compete with commoners for profit—such shamelessness is truly disgraceful!"
After mulling it over, Jiraiya snorted coldly, deeply dissatisfied with the very idea of such a city.
It was precisely because of this that he became more convinced of what the Great Sage had explained when summoning him—the matter regarding Hyuga Soushu:
"He is an unpredictable variable outside standard parameters; no one knows how profoundly he might change the Ninja World!"
For Jiraiya, who firmly believed in predestination, nothing could be more disturbing than this idea.
And it was exactly this sentiment that compelled Jiraiya to take risks and venture into a dragon's den and tiger's lair.
"Don't forget, your own teacher is also expanding across a vast territory under the Will of Fire!"
The intelligence frog hiding inside Jiraiya's robe chattered inappropriately.
"That cannot be called control at all!"
"Spreading the Will of Fire isn't the same as promoting it!"
"They're completely unrelated matters!"
Upon hearing this, Jiraiya nearly exploded in anger.
Were it not for a sliver of remaining rationality reminding him never to overreact publicly amidst bustling pedestrians, he probably would have yanked out this mute ninja frog just to curse it aloud.
Afterward, Jiraiya muttered softly to himself phrases like "That's not stealing," "Ninja must remain ninja," and "expanding ninja outreach"—incomprehensible words indeed. As for the intelligence frog nestled in his arms, after witnessing Jiraiya's genuine rage, it finally quieted down.
After wandering around the city a bit longer, Jiraiya finally found a modest inn. He lavishly spent a fortune to rent an entire residence for a whole month before beginning his operations within the city.
Meanwhile, deep beneath Hakone Prefecture, eight White Zetsu creatures covered in muddy filth were digging tunnels using both hands and feet, preparing them as future surveillance bases.
"I wonder whether Lord Madara ate too much crap or what—he actually made us come here to dig dirt!"
One talkative White Zetsu whose back bristled with spine-like protrusions kept grumbling while working: "Plus there isn't even a speck of light; I feel myself withering away already!"
Though it continued nonstop complaints, the other seven White Zetsus completely ignored its presence, focusing solely on their work.
White Zetsus were the most bizarre existence within the Ninja World; among them were both highly eccentric varieties and also many dull, almost mindless low-level specimens. After persistently chatting without receiving any response whatsoever, the chatty White Zetsu gave up trying to spark conversation and dejectedly resumed doing half-hearted work.
Gradually, the underground tunnels expanded further, and rising groundwater began to flood the area, quickly soaking up to the knees of the White Zetsus.
"Again we dug in the wrong place!"
"That talkative White Zetsu let out an eerie screech, waving its arms wildly. 'We must change locations now!'
'Let's go! Let's go!'
The other seven White Zetsu, who had been silent all this time, also started screeching loudly. Following the talkative White Zetsu's lead, they moved to a new spot.
Then there was the recurring issue of accidentally tunneling straight into underground water sources—nobody could even keep track of how many times it had happened by now.
White Zetsu were the ultimate labor force in the Ninja World—they never needed food, rest, or sleep. That alone made them the most cost-effective option. Though, their brains were seriously lacking.
Madara Uchiha, who had dispatched them for this mission, was well aware of this issue. But he had no choice but to work with them anyway.
After all, Madara didn't have anyone else at his disposal but the useless White Zetsu. Moreover, with his personality, he wouldn't place his trust in others unless absolutely forced to do so.
'Then what if we dig upward into the rocky layer?'
The talkative White Zetsu shouted, then actively defied Madara Uchiha's orders, immediately starting to burrow toward the upper soil layers.
The other seven Zetsu exchanged glances, hesitated for a moment, then rushed after him without thinking twice.
As for Madara's earlier instructions before the mission began—those seven were simply too dumb to remember anything. So naturally, they just followed whoever seemed the most sensible among them. Whatever—if anything goes wrong, Madara will just execute us all anyway. So why bother thinking?"
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