Chapter 256: If There Was One, There Can Be Two
Everyone who knew him well reacted with surprise when they saw the change in his appearance. That was unavoidable, and it was only more pronounced now that he was Fifth Hokage and every eye in the village was on him. Fortunately, explaining away the disappearance of his horns was considerably easier than explaining their original appearance had been. The standard answer was that his training had reached completion, and the horns — which had been a sign of incomplete training — had naturally receded as a result.
Some people believed it. Some didn't.
But no one had dared come looking for trouble with the Hyuga clan head before, and now that he had become the Fifth Hokage, no one was suicidal enough to start.
"Ritsu. Everything all right?"
Hiruko's expression was full of concern.
"Better than I've ever been." Ritsu smiled.
Hiruko studied him for a few seconds, satisfying himself that his student wasn't putting on a front. The smile told him what he needed to know — the results had genuinely been good.
He also noticed the faint thin line between Ritsu's brows.
But since Ritsu hadn't chosen to bring it up, Hiruko didn't ask.
"Ritsu, I've been in contact with Iwa, Sand, Mist, and Cloud."
"And? What did they say?"
"They're very welcoming."
"Hm?"
Ritsu paused.
Very welcoming? He had expected this to drag on for a while before any agreement was reached. No village liked having another village's ninja wandering freely through their territory. At the pessimistic end of his expectations, the whole thing might have dissolved into every village dealing with its own backyard and nothing more.
He had not anticipated a warm reception.
Hiruko smiled at his expression. "Not following?"
Ritsu thought it over for two seconds. "They don't have the confidence to handle it themselves."
Hiruko's smile widened. "My read exactly. They're worried about actually running into Uchiha Madara or Orochimaru during the operation. They don't feel they have enough to deal with that, so they're swallowing their pride and welcoming our involvement."
"Understandable."
Ritsu said it quietly. "Uchiha Madara's name carries that kind of weight."
A name could cast a long shadow. Orochimaru's reputation was formidable enough on its own, but Madara's was in a different category entirely — a legend that had never lost its power to unsettle every village in the ninja world.
In the original timeline, Uchiha Obito had operated under Madara's name, and the pressure that name alone had placed on the sitting five Kage had been enough to drive the formation of the Allied Shinobi Forces. Five great villages united to face a single legend. The Fourth Shinobi World War had started from that point.
"It really isn't surprising."
Hiruko exhaled slowly. "The ninja world has had no peace these past several years. The Third War ended and things never settled down. Every village took serious losses, including us. Everyone needs time to recover. Everyone is trying to avoid absorbing any more damage than they already have."
He paused. "But they can't leave Madara's hideouts alone either, and if they try to handle it themselves and actually encounter Madara, the casualties would be catastrophic. So after thinking it through, they decided they'd very much like us to take the risk on their behalf."
"What's your read, Ritsu? How do you want to handle this?"
Ritsu was quiet for a moment.
Honestly, he was fairly indifferent about whether this operation happened or not. Uchiha Madara and Black Zetsu weren't the type to lose their composure over a few compromised hideouts — those locations were replaceable and ultimately unimportant. From what Tatsuhata's memories had revealed, Madara's attention in the near term was going to be consumed by his collaboration with Orochimaru. He had no reason and no particular motivation to pick a fight with the five great villages over real estate.
But Ritsu's thinking had shifted in a more fundamental way than that.
Before, he had felt a genuine need to obstruct the Moon's Eye Plan. His presence in this world had already disturbed too many things — the butterfly effect of his interference had reshaped too much — and he had quietly worried whether the two destined saviours of the ninja world would still be able to fulfill their role, or whether he might end up like Hyuga Neji, one of the countless casualties that salvation required.
That was why he had saved Nohara Rin. Why he had changed a young woman's fate.
But things had changed. Time had moved, and so had he.
He had awakened the Rinnegan. He had gained a unique ocular technique of remarkable potential. His Physical Regeneration had touched the ceiling of Level 5, with Level 6 — the threshold where one "hears the will of the divine without divine form" — now only the thinnest of barriers away.
Standing here now, he found he no longer viewed the Moon's Eye Plan as an unacceptable catastrophe.
The Otsutsuki traveled through the universe planting the Divine Tree on worlds with life, letting it absorb the planet's energy and bear a Chakra Fruit. Any Otsutsuki who consumed that fruit would gain immense power, and potentially trigger their own evolution. According to what he remembered from Boruto, there were members of the Otsutsuki clan who had broken through the boundaries of this universe entirely, ascending to higher dimensions.
If there was one, there could be two.
And Hyuga Ritsu was beginning to think he could be that second.
The applications of a Chakra Fruit were boundless. Whether he fully qualified as an Otsutsuki was uncertain, but he was deeply interested in what that level of power might offer him. If he could obtain and consume it, it might be exactly the thing that shattered the ceiling his superpower was pressing against.
That wasn't something he could say out loud, of course.
And it wasn't something he could pursue openly.
At minimum, he couldn't think of any reasonable justification for advancing the Moon's Eye Plan right now. Setting everything else aside, it would require harvesting chakra from jinchuriki — and he wasn't going to harm Nohara Rin or Namikaze Naruto. His standards weren't high, but they weren't low enough for that. Dealing with the Main Family, the Third Hokage, and Shimura Danzo was a different matter entirely — none of them had treated the Branch Family as people worth protecting. Rin and Naruto were his own.
Back to the matter at hand.
The ideas taking shape around the Moon's Eye Plan, around Otsutsuki Kaguya, around the Chakra Fruit — they weren't ready yet. They needed time. There were obstacles still to be worked out.
"We do it."
Ritsu considered for a moment, then spoke. "Madara and Orochimaru are both exceptionally intelligent. Given the current situation, the chances of either of them showing themselves over a few exposed hideouts are low. The actual risk of this operation is manageable."
He paused. "That said, we clean our own house first before we start helping anyone else."
He glanced across at Hiruko. "What do you think?"
"I think it works."
Hiruko nodded. "Madara's danger is beyond question, and while you can stand against him, Ritsu, there's a real chance he and Orochimaru are already working together — and with Orochimaru's mind..." He trailed off for a moment, his expression becoming complicated in a way that resisted simple description. He exhaled. "What Orochimaru might produce is genuinely unpredictable. The Moon's Eye Plan isn't necessarily dead. So I think the right move is to be prepared, to take precautions, and to maintain the close ties with the four villages that the Fourth Hokage built. If something does go wrong, Konoha doesn't have to carry the weight of the entire ninja world alone."
Ritsu gave a small nod. His mind was made up.
Then —
Two quiet knocks at the door.
Hiruko turned toward it.
Ritsu had already sensed who was outside. The corner of his mouth lifted. "We can move on this right now."
He called out for them to come in.
A moment later Inuzuka Jaw pushed the door open and stepped inside.
"Lord Hokage." He greeted Ritsu, then noticed Hiruko settled on the sitting area sofa. "Hiruko-senpai is here too. Good timing. The operational plan for clearing out Uchiha Madara's and Orochimaru's hideouts is ready. I'd like both of you to look it over and tell me if anything needs adjusting."
He held up a document — not thick — and brought it to Ritsu's desk.
"Elder Jaw, that was fast."
Ritsu opened it.
No unnecessary preamble. Just a clean, direct operational plan, with a team composition list appended at the back.
"Thirty strike teams?"
He had skimmed through and landed on the list. He raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that too many? If I recall correctly, the combined count of known Madara and Orochimaru hideouts inside the Land of Fire and the surrounding smaller countries doesn't reach that number."
The list was full of Hyuga and Uchiha names — the two clans making up the clear majority.
"Excluding the Land of Earth, Land of Wind, Land of Water, and Land of Lightning, the known hideout count for Uchiha Madara and Orochimaru is eleven."
Inuzuka Jaw stated the number precisely.
Then he continued, his tone direct. "Lord Hokage, given the high-risk nature of this operation, my plan is to have teams move in groups of two or three rather than independently. A single team, if it encountered something beyond its capability, could be wiped out entirely before word got back to anyone. Even with the Heavenly Transfer Technique, if you never receive a signal there's nothing to act on."
He said it plainly, without softening it.
Ritsu didn't mind. He nodded. "Fair point. I was being shortsighted. Madara and Orochimaru are genuinely dangerous, there's no arguing with that."
He didn't actually believe Madara was likely to surface over abandoned hideouts. But he saw no reason to argue against the extra caution either. Deploying more people had no real downside — it just cost money, and Konoha's finances, though strained by the war and the recent attacks, could still support an operation of this scale. The gains extracted from the Mist during the Third War had provided enough cushion.
"Have a look, Hiruko."
Ritsu stood, walked over, and passed the document to his teacher.
Hiruko read through it quickly. "The cost is significant, but acceptable. And this is actually a good opportunity to let the daimyo and everyone else who has doubts about Konoha right now see clearly that we haven't been broken. We're still standing. We're still strong."
He offered his endorsement from a different angle.
Since the Fourth Hokage's death, Konoha's problems hadn't been limited to internal recovery. The external environment was just as troubled. The news of Konoha being attacked and losing its Hokage had made a number of clients uncertain whether the village still had the capacity to take on missions. The number of commissions coming in recently looked respectable on the surface, but measured against previous years, the decline was real.
At a moment like this, something to reinforce confidence in the village was exactly what was needed.
"Hiruko, Elder Jaw — let's proceed. We concentrate our strength, clear every hideout in the Land of Fire and the surrounding countries first, and deal with the Land of Earth, Wind, Water, and Lightning afterward."
He paused. "And this work doesn't come free. We charge for it."
The mention of money gave Ritsu a new line of thought.
"Charging the Rock, Sand, Mist, and Cloud delegations? Fine, I'll handle that negotiation." Hiruko smiled. He hadn't thought of extracting payment from this, but once Ritsu said it, the logic was obvious — it would help offset the village's current financial strain, the state of spending reserves without replenishing them.
But his student's appetite turned out to be larger than he had anticipated.
Ritsu shook his head. "Not just the four great villages. The Moon's Eye Plan isn't a threat to Konoha alone — it's a threat to all of humanity. Which means the daimyo of the Land of Fire, as the ruler of this country, has a responsibility to support us appropriately."
He let that settle. "And the daimyo of the smaller countries surrounding the Land of Fire should be contributing as well."
Hiruko and Inuzuka Jaw looked at each other.
A few seconds of silence passed between them before Inuzuka Jaw, outranked and with less standing to push back, steeled himself. "Charging the smaller countries is no problem, but the Fire Daimyo — the lord is ultimately our patron. If he were to commission this himself, then naturally we would charge. But given the current circumstances, asking him directly for —"
"Elder Jaw."
Ritsu cut him off pleasantly. "I don't think the relationship between Konoha and the daimyo's office is one of superior and subordinate. It's a partnership of mutual benefit. What you need to understand is that it isn't Konoha that can't afford to be without the Land of Fire. It's the Land of Fire that can't afford to be without Konoha."
Inuzuka Jaw stared at him. He appeared to be at something of a loss for words.
Hiruko let out a quiet sigh. "What you're saying isn't wrong, Ritsu. But I think we can approach this with a little more tact."
Ritsu glanced at Inuzuka Jaw's barely-concealed discomfort and smiled without committing either way. "Then handle it your way, Hiruko. But not a single coin less than what we're owed. I imagine the lord won't refuse to lend his support to an operation aimed at saving the ninja world."
"Leave it to me."
Hiruko accepted the troublesome task without hesitation.