The trip back only took a few minutes.
When Jie came out of the passage with Hanabi in his arms and Hinata beside him, he did not stop to rest. He went straight back to Konoha and headed to the Hyuga clan.
"Hanabi!"
As soon as Hiashi saw his younger daughter, he rushed forward. He looked relieved at first, but his face changed when he saw the cloth covering one of her eyes.
What he feared had still happened.
"Lord Hiashi, I was too late," Jie said. "When I found Hanabi, one of her Byakugan had already been taken."
There was a hint of apology in his voice.
Even though he saved Hanabi, Toneri still escaped with her eye. Jie felt he had let Hiashi down.
Hiashi looked at his unconscious daughter for a moment and tried to calm himself.
"Lord Hokage, bringing Hanabi back alive is already enough."
He shook his head.
"It is only one eye. Losing it is better than losing her life."
Hiashi then remembered the Byakugan Jie had taken back from Ao of Kirigakure. It had been returned to the Hyuga clan and kept safe.
"We still have the Byakugan you recovered before," he said. "We can put it into Hanabi for now. She is still young, so she should get used to it over time."
Jie stayed quiet for a moment, then nodded. He had already thought about this idea.
With Black Zetsu helping him, it would be hard to find Toneri again. Even if Jie used all of Konoha, searching the whole ninja world would take a long time.
For now, he could only follow the clues as they appeared.
But no matter how long it took, Jie had no intention of letting Toneri keep Hanabi's eye.
Since Hiashi had agreed to the transplant, Jie did not need to convince him. He asked Tsunade to do the operation.
In the ninja world, replacing an eye was not very hard. Rin had once put Obito's Sharingan into Kakashi on a battlefield with almost no tools.
Still, Hanabi was just a child, and the new eye was not hers. It was best to let Konoha's top medical ninja handle it.
Tsunade did not disappoint.
After checking Hanabi and the saved Byakugan, Tsunade carefully fixed the nerves and chakra paths, then finished the transplant. The eye was not a perfect match, but she did her best to lower the chance of rejection.
When Hanabi woke up, she only felt a little pain around her eye.
She did not notice right away that it was not her original eye.
Her memories of Toneri taking her were blurry, like a bad dream she could not remember clearly. Hiashi decided not to tell her everything yet. He would explain later when she was stronger.
With Hanabi safe and the surgery done, the Hyuga compound finally became calm again.
But Jie did not think it was over.
As soon as he left, he told the Anbu to make a wanted notice for Otsutsuki Toneri.
The notice was sent to Konoha's mission office and put in a place where every ninja could see it.
As soon as it appeared, people all over the village started talking about it.
Since Jie became Hokage, Konoha had become stronger and more peaceful. Very few ninjas would betray the village, and almost none could escape the Anbu if they tried.
Many younger ninjas had never seen a wanted notice like this before.
The person on it made them even more confused.
Otsutsuki Toneri was not a well-known missing-nin. He had no village, no mission records, and his name was not in the Bingo Book. Most people in Konoha had never heard of him.
But the warning under his picture was very serious.
Toneri was described as extremely dangerous and powerful.
Anyone who discovered his whereabouts was forbidden from approaching or fighting him. They were to report it to the Hokage right away, and the Hokage would handle it himself.
The reward attracted even more attention.
Anyone who provided confirmed information about Toneri's location would be allowed to choose three S-rank jutsu from Konoha's collection, and the Hokage would give them personally.
For most ninjas, even getting one S-rank jutsu was very hard.
Getting three could change the future of a whole clan.
The reward made many Konoha ninjas excited, but also careful. If Jie was willing to give so much for just one clue, then Toneri was clearly not someone normal teams could deal with.
His name and face were quickly remembered by everyone in the village.
After Jie's order, Konoha's intelligence network started to act.
Ninja teams on missions were told to look out for Toneri. Intelligence agents, merchants linked to the village, and informants in different countries also got copies of his picture.
Soon, Konoha ninja were searching in many places across the ninja world.
The other great villages quickly noticed this strange activity.
At first, some of them thought Konoha was using the search as an excuse to send many ninja into their lands. After Iwagakure's surrender and Konoha's recent growth, they could not ignore it.
Some villages quietly made their borders stronger, while others sent spies to find out why Konoha was moving so many ninja.
Only after watching for a while did they understand that the Konoha teams were really looking for just one person. They did not care about military bases, supply lines, or village defenses.
The tension slowly went down, but people were still curious.
Who was Otsutsuki Toneri?
What did he do to make Jie Uchiha give him the highest bounty in Konoha and say he would hunt him himself?
No one outside Konoha knew.
Even with Konoha's information network spread across the ninja world, they still could not find any trace of Toneri.
There were no witnesses, no rumors, and no signs that someone like him had passed through any town or country.
It was like Otsutsuki Toneri had never come to the ninja world at all.
As the weeks went by and no clues were found, the search slowly became less urgent. Konoha did not remove the wanted notice, but people talked about it less and less.
In the end, Toneri was just a face on the wanted notice in Konoha's mission office.
But Jie still remembered him.
Up to 40 chapters ahead on patreon :-
patreon.com/Vristikk