Early the next morning, while doing his daily exercises, Hyuga Kagami heard rumors spreading through the village—the Hyuga Clan Head had been attacked.
That confirmed his suspicion. The flesh and blood sample Orochimaru had sent him yesterday truly did come from Hyuga Hiashi.
Although he had already guessed it, realizing that Orochimaru had been able to seriously wound the strongest member of the Hyuga Clan still left Kagami feeling faintly disheartened. Even if there had been an element of ambush involved, the gap in strength was undeniable.
From Kagami's own experience, it was simply too difficult for a Hyuga clansman to reach the level of the Sannin through conventional training alone.
Moreover, Kagami himself clearly belonged to the mediocre tier in terms of talent—something plainly reflected in the number of activated sequences in his special genetic code.
An ordinary Hyuga usually had around twenty of the thirty-three sequences activated. Exceptional figures like Hyuga Hiashi could reach twenty-eight. Kagami, however, only had seventeen, well below the clan's average.
If he continued down the orthodox path, Special Jonin would likely be the ceiling of his entire life.
The Main House remained tight-lipped about the details of Hyuga Hiashi's attack.
Kagami guessed that during the assault, Hiashi had probably recognized Orochimaru. As a direct disciple of the Third Hokage and one of the Sannin, Orochimaru occupied an extremely sensitive position. Faced with such a thorny issue, the Main House likely hadn't reached internal consensus yet, so they naturally chose silence.
"Orochimaru dared to strike at the clan head without fear of exposure. That alone proves my guess—he's already completed his preparations to defect and can act at any time."
After a moment's thought, Hyuga Kagami became even more certain: Orochimaru's defection was imminent.
For Kagami, Orochimaru's defection was a double-edged sword.
The upside was obvious—a massive weight pressing down on him would finally be gone. The downside was equally clear—he would lose the powerful patron who had been shielding him.
"Other than Orochimaru, everyone who knew about my involvement in human experimentation died during the war. As long as nothing goes wrong on Orochimaru's end, the village shouldn't be able to trace anything back to me."
The others who had joined Orochimaru at the same time as Kagami had all perished one after another on the battlefield. After being transferred to the rear, and due to the unique nature of the Byakugan, Kagami had always conducted his research in an independent laboratory. He had no contact with Orochimaru's other researchers. Aside from Orochimaru himself, no one knew which experiments Kagami had been responsible for.
After carefully reviewing all potential risks, Kagami calmly continued his morning exercises, as though none of it concerned him at all.
For the next few days, the village remained eerily quiet.
Then, on the third night, an ANBU operative wearing a fox mask suddenly appeared at Kagami's home and escorted him to a temporary ANBU base.
The base lay in the northwest corner of the village—sprawling and heavily guarded. Kagami spotted no fewer than seven or eight ANBU squads stationed around it.
After being led into a small, solitary room, Kagami frowned slightly.
The room was cramped and completely bare. Thick iron bars had been installed outside, and an ANBU stood guard just beyond them.
Calling it a temporary base was generous—it was far more accurate to call it a temporary prison.
That the ANBU, directly under the Hokage's command, had mobilized on this scale could only mean one thing: Orochimaru had officially defected—perhaps today, perhaps even tonight.
Activating his Byakugan, Kagami calmly observed his surroundings from within the cell.
He was neither the first nor the last shinobi brought here. One after another, detainees were escorted in.
Without exception, every single one was a former subordinate of Orochimaru.
There were hundreds of them—among them several well-known elite Jonin.
This wasn't surprising. During the war, Orochimaru had commanded multiple units. In a village mobilizing tens of thousands of shinobi, it would have been stranger if he didn't have several hundred subordinates. In fact, without that level of influence, he wouldn't have even been qualified to compete with the Fourth Hokage for the Hokage position.
With hundreds of prisoners and an equal number of guards, the temporary prison quickly grew chaotic.
Unlike Kagami, many of the detained shinobi didn't know the truth. A large number of Orochimaru's former subordinates simply couldn't believe that one of the Sannin had defected. Being detained without explanation filled them with anger and resentment.
The noise only gradually died down when the Third arrived in person.
Although the Fourth had already taken office, many village affairs were still being handled by the Third. In truth, a great number of shinobi still subconsciously regarded him as the Hokage.
Under the Third's supervision, the screening and investigation process officially began.
Naturally, the first to be examined were the powerful elite Jonin. As for Chunin like Hyuga Kagami—promoted temporarily during the war—they were clearly not a priority.
Three days passed in the blink of an eye.
Kagami knew his own standing well. As a wartime Chunin promoted out of necessity, whose true strength was only that of a seasoned Genin, he shouldn't have drawn much attention.
Even so, being left alone for three entire days without a single interrogation caused a trace of dissatisfaction to surface in his heart.
Clearly, the village's screening process was not progressing smoothly.
Many detainees simply refused to believe Orochimaru had defected and therefore refused to cooperate. At the same time, the village's upper leadership was divided over whether to employ torture.
Ordinary interrogation methods made it nearly impossible to determine who had participated in Orochimaru's human experiments and who might be sleeper agents he left behind. These weren't inexperienced rookies—they were veterans who had undergone rigorous anti-interrogation training and survived the crucible of war.
Yet using torture carried enormous consequences.
This wasn't a matter of one or two suspects, but hundreds of shinobi—heroes who had just fought and bled for the village. Torturing them because of one man's defection was clearly not a wise choice.
On the fifth day of Kagami's detention, Danzo Shimura appeared at the temporary prison.
Danzo met with the detained Jonin one by one. What was said remained unknown, but when Danzo left, he took the vast majority of them with him.
"They were recruited by Danzo… into Root."
Kagami arrived at the conclusion instantly.
If the village couldn't afford to screen them through torture, then these detained Jonin were the greatest potential source of instability. Allowing Danzo to absorb them into Root became the only viable solution.
Those Jonin understood their situation perfectly. As Orochimaru's former subordinates, the chances of being fully trusted by the Fourth were slim. And with the Fourth so young—likely to rule for decades—if they failed to secure protection quickly, their future in the village would be bleak.
Root, operating independently of the Fourth, became their best temporary refuge.
In the days that followed, Root also approached Hyuga Kagami and invited him to join.
He politely refused.
In his view, even defecting would be preferable to joining an organization like Root—one that specialized in dirty work, existed to take the blame, and offered no real security.
Fortunately, Root did not press the issue. After his refusal, they withdrew without further trouble.
After all, since the village had already allowed Danzo to take in so many Jonin, it wouldn't permit him to reach too deeply into the pool of detained Chunin. The recruitment of Chunin was little more than a formality—which was precisely why Hyuga Kagami dared to turn them down.