Kei learned of his new, highly official role as Hinata's psychiatric counselor the very next morning, when Clan Head Hiashi formally summoned him to the Main House to deliver the instructions.
For some reason, as Hiashi officially handed over the responsibility of his eldest daughter's mental conditioning, Kei could physically hear the man grinding his teeth. It was as though Hiashi felt he was surrendering a prized possession.
Kei accepted the assignment without a fraction of hesitation. It was a flawless tactical arrangement.
After all, he routinely operated on the minds of various patients; who the patient actually was made very little difference to his methodology. A broken heir was just as easily manipulated as a broken assassin.
Walking out of the Main House gates, Haru fell into step behind him. "Is this truly a wise maneuver, Kei?" she asked quietly, ensuring the courtyard was empty. "When the time finally comes for us to execute our endgame against the elders..."
Kei understood her hesitation immediately. She was referring to the inevitable complication of Hinata becoming his devoted student. Forging a deep, teacher-student bond with the Clan Head's daughter would undoubtedly create messy emotional entanglements when he finally launched his coup against her family.
"Do not worry about the political fallout, Haru," Kei shook his head dismissively. "When the board is finally set, we will engineer a solution."
Haru didn't press the issue. If Kei said he had a contingency plan, she believed him implicitly.
Since it was still early and Kei had no intention of opening the public clinic that day, he descended directly into the subterranean laboratory to resume his gruesome, highly classified human experiments.
The entire morning evaporated in a haze of surgical focus. Standing over yet another batch of ruined, necrotic eyeballs, Kei let out a heavy, frustrated sigh. He accepted the damp towel Haru offered and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.
"Executing these microscopic procedures entirely alone is agonizing," Kei muttered, rubbing his temples. "If only I possessed a capable surgical assistant."
Before he had actively begun human experimentation, Kei had arrogantly assumed that merely possessing Orochimaru's theoretical notes would make the surgeries straightforward.
However, live-fire application was vastly more complex than reading a textbook. Without a second pair of highly trained hands to manage the life-support jutsu, stabilize the tissue, and monitor the chakra flow simultaneously, every single procedure took twice as long and drained his stamina rapidly.
Watching his mounting exhaustion, Haru stepped closer. "Kei... what if I assisted you in the lab? I am more than willing to study the medical texts."
Kei shook his head immediately. "You are already managing the entire administrative and logistical burden of the Sanatorium above ground. Adding highly classified, illegal human vivisection to your daily schedule is entirely unrealistic. You would burn out."
Haru was already working herself to the bone maintaining his perfect public alibi; she simply didn't have the hours in the day to help him slice into black-market corpses.
Furthermore, advanced medical ninjutsu—specifically ocular microsurgery—required an incredibly rare, specific baseline of talent. It wasn't something anyone could just pick up by reading a book.
Kei himself had only bypassed years of grueling medical school because the system had instantly hardwired Shinnō's knowledge into his brain. If Haru had to start from absolute scratch, it would take her years to become useful in the lab.
He needed to acquire a fully trained, highly compromised medical prodigy.
Knowing his logic was sound, Haru didn't argue.
After resting his hands for a few minutes, Kei grabbed his cane. "It is time for our scheduled visit to the orphanage. Let us go together today."
Haru nodded, retrieving the heavy canvas bags of civilian snacks and wooden toys they had prepared earlier, and followed him out of the compound.
Ever since Kei had formally sworn to protect the orphans, he made it a point to visit the facility frequently. He genuinely enjoyed his time there. Stepping away from the bloody, treacherous politics of the shinobi world to simply build mud castles with innocent children was the only true psychological relaxation he allowed himself.
Soon, they passed through the rusting iron gates of the orphanage. Having visited dozens of times, the children were instantly ecstatic to see him, swarming his legs the moment he entered the courtyard.
Just as Kei was preparing to distribute the sugar, Acting Matron Reina hurried out of the main building, looking highly flustered. "Doctor Kei! I apologize for the interruption, but could I trouble you to step into the administrative office for a moment?"
Kei paused, tilting his head. "Has a logistical crisis occurred within the facility, Reina? Please, speak freely; I will resolve the funding immediately."
Before Reina could answer, a little girl tugged urgently on Kei's coat. "Orphanage Mama is back! She heard about all the amazing things you've been doing for us, Doctor Brother, and she really wants to meet you!"
Kei's sensory web spiked with sudden, intense calculation. He turned to his assistant. "Haru. Please entertain the children. I will handle this."
Haru nodded, opening the bags of toys, while Kei followed Reina into the dim, drafty administrative building.
Pushing open the heavy wooden door to the director's office, Kei instantly sensed a new, highly trained chakra signature standing near the window, gazing down at the playing children.
Nonō Yakushi turned around. She was dressed in the dusty, travel-worn clothes of a long-term covert operative. Despite her deep exhaustion, she offered Kei a brilliant, deeply grateful smile.
"Doctor Kei," Nonō bowed respectfully. "I have heard nothing but absolute miracles from the children regarding your charity. I truly do not possess the words to thank you for shielding them in my absence."
"Please, there is no need for gratitude. It is a trivial expenditure of my time," Kei smiled warmly, returning the bow. "As long as those children are safe and happy, my ledger is balanced."
Nonō shook her head, her expression deadly serious. "Men who operate with your level of pure, uncompromised selflessness are incredibly rare in this village. It is an absolute blessing that they found you."
Having read the frantic, joyous letters from Reina detailing how the blind Hyuga had single-handedly saved the orphanage from bureaucratic starvation, Nonō held a profound, immediate respect for the young doctor.
"I was informed you had accepted a long-term deployment outside the village walls," Kei noted casually, probing for intelligence. "Are you departing again, or has your rotation finally concluded?"
Kei was genuinely fascinated by her sudden appearance in Konoha. Based on the canonical timeline, the legendary 'Wandering Maiden' should be neck-deep in Root espionage in the Earth Country right now.
"This return is merely a brief layover to deliver a classified intelligence report," Nonō sighed, the deep, agonizing exhaustion bleeding into her voice. "I will be departing again before nightfall."
Her face twisted with a heartbreaking mixture of maternal longing and bitter resignation. "Doctor Kei... I must humbly beg you to continue watching over this facility."
She had desperately hoped that after years of flawless, deep-cover espionage, Danzo Shimura would finally grant her a reprieve, allowing her to return to her children. Instead, the Root commander had ruthlessly ordered her to immediately infiltrate the Hidden Stone Village for an even more dangerous, prolonged assignment.
She had no idea if she would survive the next mission, so she could only pray the blind doctor would continue to act as the orphanage's shield.
"It is absolutely no burden, Director. You have my word," Kei promised solemnly. "But are you truly being deployed again so rapidly?"
Nonō turned her gaze back out the window, watching the orphans laugh in the sun. "If my exhaustion buys their safety... it is a price I will gladly pay."
"You are a truly magnificent woman," Kei said softly.
Nonō simply shook her head. Reaching into the inner pocket of her flak jacket, she withdrew a small, worn stack of photographs. She traced the glossy paper with her thumb, her face softening into an expression of pure, desperate love.
Sensing the dimensions of the paper, Kei's mind instantly snapped to the canonical trap. "Director Nonō... are those photographs of your child?"
"He is my adopted son," Nonō whispered, a profound sorrow coloring her voice. "His name is Kabuto. Due to the classified nature of my deployments, I have not been permitted to see him in years. Danzo-sama provides me with these photographs so I can watch him grow."
Perfect, Kei thought, a cold thrill of victory rushing through his veins. He had just found his surgical assistant.
"I see," Kei murmured sympathetically. "May I 'look' at the photographs? I imagine he must be a brilliant boy."
Nonō glanced at the thick bandages covering his eyes, momentarily confused. "But... how can you...?"
"Do not worry. While my physical eyes are damaged, my sensory perception allows me to read the microscopic indentations of ink and silver on the paper with absolute clarity," Kei lied effortlessly.
Still slightly bewildered, Nonō handed over the worn stack of photos.
Kei accepted the pictures, pretending to carefully scan them with his chakra. He 'looked' through the stack for a long minute.
"Could you describe Kabuto's personality to me?" Kei asked slowly.
"Is something wrong?" Nonō's maternal instincts flared instantly, detecting the subtle, deliberate hesitation in the doctor's voice.
"I cannot be certain yet," Kei answered carefully. "As a psychiatrist, my entire profession relies on reading the microscopic physiological cues of a person's face. While I cannot see them visually, I can often perceive the truth of a person's nature far more clearly than a sighted man."
Seeing the absolute, clinical seriousness on Kei's face, Nonō immediately began describing her son. "He is incredibly quiet, and he projects a very mature, stoic exterior. But beneath that armor, Kabuto possesses a profoundly gentle, deeply compassionate heart. He is a healer..."
As she spoke of the boy she had saved from the battlefield, her face radiated pure, unfiltered maternal devotion.
Kei listened patiently. When she finally finished, he let out a heavy, deeply troubled sigh.
"Listening to your psychological profile, I can perfectly construct the image of the boy you raised," Kei said softly. "But..."
"But what?" Nonō demanded, her pulse spiking.
"But the individuals depicted in these photographs... their micro-expressions, their posture... they absolutely do not align with the psychological profile of the boy you just described."
Nonō froze entirely. Then, she violently shook her head in denial. "No. That is impossible. I have received a new photograph of Kabuto every few months for years. I have watched him age sequentially. I could not possibly be mistaken about my own son's face."
If Reina and the orphans hadn't spent the last hour treating Kei like a living saint, Nonō would have instantly dismissed the blind man as a complete lunatic. But even now, she desperately hoped his blindness was simply causing a sensory misfire.
"I understand how violently your heart wants to reject this hypothesis," Kei said, his voice dropping into a tone of absolute, chilling calm. "I possess no proof. But I strongly advise you to engage your shinobi instincts and look at the situation objectively."
"Because I am intimately aware of the specific black-ops division you operate under. And we both know that the man who commands it is a monster who trades in deception."
Nonō fell entirely silent. Although Kei hadn't spoken Danzo's name aloud, the implication was deafening.
The horrifying thought began to metastasize in her mind. These photographs were hand-delivered to her by Root operatives. She hadn't laid eyes on Kabuto in years. If Danzo was manipulating the images...
Sensing the bedrock of her reality beginning to fracture, Kei drove the psychological blade deeper.
"In the world of espionage, visual intelligence is the easiest variable to forge," Kei lectured softly. "Particularly when the target has no ability to verify the data."
"You know how drastically a child's bone structure and facial features change during puberty. During that rapid growth phase, if a handler were to slowly, sequentially substitute photographs of a different boy... shifting the features by a microscopic fraction in every new picture... it would be horrifyingly easy to entirely replace your son's face in your memory."
Kei raised his cane, pointing it toward the window. "Tell me the truth, Director. When you walked into this courtyard today... were you able to instantly recognize every single orphan you left behind? Did they look exactly as your memory predicted they would?"
Nonō's breath hitched. She shook her head slowly. If Reina hadn't explicitly introduced several of the older children, Nonō wouldn't have recognized them at all. Their faces had changed too much.
Which meant Kei's horrifying hypothesis was not only possible... it was highly probable.
Furthermore, this was Danzo Shimura. As a veteran Root operative, Nonō was intimately, terrifyingly aware of the agonizing lengths Danzo would go to in order to ensure absolute, unquestioning loyalty from his assets. Brainwashing and memory manipulation were standard Root protocols.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, the blood drained entirely from Nonō's face. "Doctor Kei," she whispered, her voice trembling with absolute, bottomless terror. "I... I do not know how to repay you. If you hadn't forced me to see this... I might have made a catastrophic mistake."
She dared not even imagine the endgame. If Danzo had systematically brainwashed her into forgetting her own son's face... what exactly was the tyrant planning to make her do if she ever encountered the real Kabuto in the field?
"I simply found the psychological discrepancies highly suspicious," Kei waved his hand dismissively, his warm smile returning. "Just ensure you keep your eyes wide open in the dark, Director."