Chapter 97: So My Great-Grandfather Is Uchiha Madara?
To the villagers of Konoha, the wind tonight was unusually fierce.
When Asuka finished his mission and walked out of the cave, he checked the time on his wrist before looking up at the brightly lit village of Konoha.
One in the morning.
Every household still had its lights on.
Even in this remote corner of the village, he could hear the barking of dogs from all around.
The Inuzuka clan was destined to lose sleep tonight.
However...
Asuka turned around and looked at the cave behind him, a strange look flashing through his eyes.
Why had more than a hundred people all been used up?
Were those people Danzō's subordinates?
They looked more like bandits.
"Ah~~~"
Just as Asuka had walked a short distance toward the clan compound, he heard a painful groan coming from the bushes nearby.
That voice sounded somewhat familiar.
He pushed aside the bushes and followed the sound.
Not far away, he saw a Konoha shinobi wearing a jōnin vest lying on the ground, his face contorted in pain.
Watching the man writhe helplessly, Asuka immediately chuckled.
"Oh, isn't this Mengmeng?"
Hearing the mocking voice nearby, the shinobi gritted his teeth.
"My name is Mengmeng. Hyūga Mengmeng."
"Mengmeng?"
Asuka approached and crouched down, examining the man's battered body before shaking his head regretfully.
"Do you have any last words?"
Hyūga Mengmeng opened his eyes and glared at Asuka indignantly.
"If you want to take care of my little sister, just say so."
"Your stingy little sister is my student. I've been taking care of her all along."
Green light began to glow from Asuka's hand as he raised it over Mengmeng's chest.
"Kid, you're lucky you happened to run into me. Otherwise, you'd be dead."
Hearing this, Hyūga Mengmeng took a deep breath.
A sharp pain immediately stabbed through his lungs.
"My lung was punctured."
"I'll take you to the hospital in a moment."
Looking at the man bleeding from multiple wounds, Asuka sat cross-legged on the ground and asked,
"By the way, why were you here?"
"I received orders from my superiors saying that someone had infiltrated the area. Then we were ambushed halfway here."
"Which shinobi village did the ambushers come from?"
At those words, Hyūga Mengmeng's brows furrowed deeply.
He looked around and, seeing that there was no one nearby, turned toward Asuka with a grave expression and deliberately lowered his voice.
"Our village."
"???"
Asuka's heart jolted.
Something wasn't right.
Although Konoha had quite a few rogue shinobi, there certainly weren't more than a hundred rogue shinobi appearing at once.
He secretly observed Hyūga Mengmeng.
Seeing that the man didn't appear to be lying, Asuka frowned.
"Do you know those people?"
"Yes!"
Mengmeng nodded.
Knowing what Asuka wanted to ask, he simply said,
"The group's composition was rather complicated."
"There were people who sold dango, Teuchi from the ramen shop, the owner of the bookstore, and even Lord Hiruzen's son."
"What's even more bizarre is that I actually saw our clan head among them."
Remembering the scene of the group shouting and charging into the village, Mengmeng's expression involuntarily darkened.
His Byakugan hadn't detected anything abnormal about them.
That meant they were all real people.
Why had the clan head been shouting like an idiot before beating him up?
After taking Hyūga Mengmeng to the hospital, Asuka turned around as he left and looked back at the building.
A trace of suspicion flashed through his eyes.
Based on the information Mengmeng had provided, it could be confirmed that the people causing chaos in Konoha had been enemies disguised as familiar faces.
At the time, many of the people involved had alibis.
For example, Hiruzen Sarutobi had been beating his son, and then his son had run into the village and smashed someone else's window.
Teuchi had been working on a new ramen flavor, while another Teuchi had overturned his stall.
This Transformation Jutsu was extraordinary.
Even the village's most perceptive shinobi couldn't detect anything unusual.
The Byakugan itself regarded them as genuine people.
As far as Asuka knew, there was only one thing in the shinobi world capable of accomplishing something like this on such a massive scale.
White Zetsu!!
In his previous life, when he had read the Fourth Shinobi World War manga, he had seen White Zetsu transform into other people.
Only Naruto had been able to detect the abnormality.
Everyone else could only passively endure their attacks.
But now...
According to Shukaku, Kushina's relationship with the Nine-Tails was absolutely terrible.
Forget about transformation.
If Kushina merely tried talking to the Nine-Tails, it would probably spit in her face.
White Zetsu!!
Had those things already infiltrated Konoha this early?
White Zetsu.
Black Zetsu.
White...
Damn.
Smack!
A bolt of lightning seemed to flash through Asuka's mind.
Then a heavy slap landed on his forehead.
He suddenly thought of something.
Something he had overlooked for a very long time.
That's right!
The old man who had suddenly appeared across the street was Uchiha Ryoichi's cousin—the old man himself.
Uchiha Ryoichi was his second granduncle.
His older brother, Uchiha Ryota, had died young, so Asuka had never met him. But according to the family's seniority, Ryota was his great-grandfather.
Apparently, his grandfather and Uchiha Ryota had died in the same year, and Ryoichi was Ryota's cousin.
Uchiha Madara was also Uchiha Ryota's cousin.
By seniority, Uchiha Ryoichi should therefore also have addressed Uchiha Madara as his cousin.
"Cousin... and a cousin who disappeared for nearly fifty years."
"Who else could it be besides Uchiha Madara?"
Thinking about the way Ryoichi affectionately called Madara "cousin," Asuka slowly lowered his hand from his forehead.
Damn it!
As the old man across the street gradually overlapped with a certain memory in Asuka's mind, his expression became exceptionally grim.
He had been blinded by his own assumptions.
He remembered that after Madara had dragged Obito into darkness, he had removed his life-support system.
Even if Madara hadn't done that, there was no way he should have been able to leave that cave.
Because of this, when Asuka first saw the old man, he had merely thought the man looked somewhat familiar.
He had never connected the old man with Uchiha Madara.
But if that person really was Uchiha Madara, then everything suddenly made sense.
The old man who had inexplicably moved into the house across from him.
The inexplicable sensitivity toward Senju Hashirama.
The inexplicable Sharingan he had deliberately shown Asuka.
The White Zetsu inexplicably appearing in Konoha.
And someone inexplicably drawing shit outside his house.
Once all the inexplicable pieces were connected, Asuka clicked his tongue.
He looked at the clan compound only a short distance away and suddenly didn't want to go home.
That old man appearing here definitely wasn't a good thing.
The Uchiha clan was the source of Madara's sorrow.
If Madara hadn't destroyed the Uchiha clan, it was already an act of consideration for their feelings.
How could he possibly have escaped to a house across from the Uchiha compound and lived there for a month?
Although his grandfather and Madara had apparently shared some old friendship, Asuka didn't think Madara would still remember that old affection.
At this moment.
Inside Uchiha Ryoichi's house.
Madara viciously poked Uzumaki Zetsu on the head, gritting his teeth.
"Idiot. Who told you to do that?"
Uzumaki Zetsu scratched its head, suddenly looking aggrieved.
"Didn't Lord Madara order me to help him?"
"You... you..."
Uchiha Madara viciously poked it on the head again, fury written all over his face.
"Foolish nonsense."
After angrily cursing it, Madara suddenly sat back down in his chair.
He had been sleeping peacefully one night when he suddenly heard explosions outside in Konoha.
Before he could figure out what was happening, Uzumaki Zetsu had excitedly rushed in and reported the night's battle.
"Our losses: zero."
"Konoha's losses: two million ryō in cash, with the other losses impossible to quantify."
After Madara questioned it about everything that had happened that night, he had nearly killed the thing.
At the same time, he understood why Konoha had reacted so strongly.
Although Konoha hadn't discovered any traces of White Zetsu and hadn't captured a single one, Madara's heart was still hanging in midair.
His agent, Uchiha Obito, was currently incapable of confronting the Five Great Shinobi Villages.
This idiot.
The more Uchiha Madara thought about it, the angrier he became.
A flash of fury crossed his eyes as he suddenly looked up at Uzumaki Zetsu.
Seeing the mischievous expression on its face, Uchiha Madara paused.
Then he slowly closed his Sharingan.
Hashirama had made a similar mistake back then.
He had naively believed that as long as he smiled, every problem could be solved.
Idiot.
Just as stupid as Hashirama back then.
"From now on, you are not allowed to leave this old man's side without his permission."
"After this old man dies, bring him back here."
"And you're not allowed to come here again after that."
"Yes!"
Hearing Uchiha Madara's cold voice, Uzumaki Zetsu didn't seem bothered in the slightest.
It simply grinned.
"Lord Madara, I collected a lot of evidence today."
"Should we still hand this evidence over to Konoha's higher-ups?"
"Hand it over!!"
Madara practically gritted his teeth as he spat out those words.
Just because he had wanted to report someone and let Asuka personally witness the darkness within Konoha, so many things had happened tonight that his Eye of the Moon Plan had nearly been ruined.
"Come back!"
Seeing Uzumaki Zetsu turn to leave, Madara pointed at the documents in its hands.
"Leave a copy."
"Let him see what kind of Konoha he wants to protect."
Heh.