"Where is Father?"
The girl who came back from school and didn't see her father felt a little uneasy.
The person she asked was her sister who was a few years younger than her.
Black hair and white pupils like his own are the hallmarks of the Hyuga clan.
The only difference is that the younger sister's white pupils have a firm and calm look, which does not look like a little girl.
Looking at such a sister, Hinata had the illusion that she was her sister and she was her sister.
"He went to convene a meeting with the clan elders. It seems that Lord Hokage sent someone over. It seems that they have something important to discuss."
After glancing at her sister Hinata, the girl named Hinata Hanabi pointed to the location of the Zong family's conference room and said to her sister Hinata.
"It turns out I went to a meeting."
When Hinata heard the news, her timid expression seemed to be relieved.
When she thought of her father's stern and demanding expression, she couldn't help but feel nervous.
"In other words, tonight's sparring..."
Soft fist sparring is something Hinata is afraid of.
As the special skill of the Hyuga clan, Rouquan can be said to be a physical skill that every Hyuga clan member has been practicing since childhood.
Not only her, but her younger sister Hanabi also started learning Rouquan, and was praised by her father several times.
This makes Hinata a little discouraged. No matter what he does, he will never be praised by his father, but his younger sister, who is a few years younger, can easily be appreciated by his father... This is all because his talent is too poor, and his sister's talent is not at all the same. Can't compare.
"That's not right. Father has given instructions. Sister, please do as you please."
Hanabi spoke.
"Eh?"
Hinata was stunned there, a little at a loss.
"Brother Neji will be here soon. My father asked me to supervise my sister's homework. As the eldest daughter of the clan, my father will be very angry if he is compared with someone from the divided family, and he will also make him do it in front of Uncle Hizashi. Shameful."
Hanabi said.
After hearing this, Hinata felt even more stressed.
Failure... would make her father angry, and would embarrass her father and the clan. These heavy burdens weighed on her, making her a little breathless.
Just because she is the eldest daughter of the clan, she must strictly accept the family's test.
But... cousin Ningji, who is one year older than her, is already the most outstanding genius in the ninja school. It is said that his strength is already stronger than many genin who graduated from the ninja school.
How could he possibly win against such an opponent?
If it was Hanabi... Hinata smiled bitterly.
This is simply impossible. Hanabi has only been exposed to Rou Fist for a short time. Even if she wins, it will only make her father Hizu feel more humiliated.
She obviously received the best education from the Zong family, whether it was soft boxing or other training techniques, they were all selflessly introduced to her.
People who live in separate families will not learn the true essence of Rou Quan.
The true secret of Soft Fist will only be open to people of the Zong family.
Logically speaking, he would win, but facing his genius cousin, he had no confidence in winning.
"I always feel like sister, you are thinking of something rude."
Hanabi narrowed her eyes, she was worried.
"No, no."
Hinata waved her hands hurriedly.
"In fact, there is no point in worshiping Buddha at this time. Sister, you should think about how to defeat Brother Ningji in the future. Or... find your rightful man to help you muster up the courage to fight, and then come back..."
Before Hanabi finished speaking, she saw her sister Hinata's face suddenly turn red, steam coming out of her head, and her body collapsed to the ground.
"..."
Hanabi was speechless for a moment.
I can’t help but amuse my sister, she is also shy too easily.
◎
"Hokage-sama hopes to select a Jonin from our Hyuga clan to cooperate with the Anbu to carry out a confidential S-level mission. What do you think?"
In the conference room of the Zong family's territory, Rizu knelt and sat on the front cushion, flanked by elders of the Zong family and branch families on both sides.
"What is the mission content? Does Hokage-sama explain it?"
A branch elder asked.
"No."
Hizu shook his head.
The order was delivered by ANBU members directly under the Hokage, but they did not disclose the content of the top-secret S-class mission.
"Remember yesterday, Sunagakure's envoy came to visit secretly...could it have anything to do with this?"
A clan elder made an analysis.
In fact, everyone knows this very well.
The fact that the Kingdom of Oni has declared war on the Kingdom of Wind has already spread throughout the ninja world.
It can be said that the attention of all the countries in the ninja world is focused on the battlefields of the Kingdom of Demons and the Kingdom of Wind.
Every move over there affects the minds of countless people.
Especially after learning that the behind-the-scenes of the Demon Country had long been controlled by Konoha's rebellious ninja, some public opinions could not be stopped at all and had spread wildly in the village.
Although it has no impact on ordinary people, they can't imagine it happening too far in the future.
But for ninjas, especially the ninjas of Konoha, this is not a good thing.
When I think about the rebellious ninja who went out from his own village and caused such trouble in the world, doesn't it give Konoha a hard slap in the face?
More or less every country will come to condemn it.
For example, the Kingdom of Wind, which is currently experiencing crossfire from the Kingdom of Demons, condemns Konoha the most.
Konoha cannot escape the blame for causing so much pain to the Wind Country because of the delay in hunting down the rebels.
Yesterday, the Sunagakure mission secretly visited Konoha. What it means is self-evident. Anyone with a discerning eye can figure out something.
Coupled with the fact that today the Hokage is going to select a Jonin from the Hyuga clan to cooperate with the ANBU members to carry out the so-called S-class mission, everyone believes in a certain guess in their minds even more.
Konoha is more anxious than Sunagakure about the Kingdom of Demons.
Whether it is the indirect or direct impact on Konoha, it is very bad.
But who would have thought that the three rebellious ninjas who had left the village would become famous at this time.
Regarding the worries and panic of the senior officials, the elders of the Hyuga clan and branch families felt that this was not something difficult to understand.
"No matter what, we are all part of the village. At this time, of course we must contribute our own strength."
A clan of old people spoke out.
In fact, even if a meeting is held on this matter, nothing will change.
Because they couldn't refuse the order from the top, and they had no reason to refuse.
After all, the three people behind the Demon Country also have a share of 'credit' from their Hyuga clan.
At this time, it is even more important to put aside the relationship with the other party and prove our position to the village.
"Then, let's select the personnel from the branch families. I'll leave this matter to you, Hizashi."
An elder of the clan said to Hizashi who was sitting at the branch seat.
"yes."
Ri almost nodded in agreement.
There is no need to discuss this matter at all. As a member of the branch family, we are already ready to fight for the clan at any time.
What's more, the next step is to follow the Anbu to carry out a dangerous S-level mission. The Zong family will not send personnel. Even if the Zong family wants to do so, the village senior officials will not agree.
The meeting lasted for an hour and ended. It was decided to send a branch jounin to assist the ANBU operations, which was an explanation to the senior officials.
"The atmosphere in the village has always felt strange recently. The Uchiha side..."
Walking to the corridor outside, Hizashi followed behind Hidashi and said softly.
Obviously, the previous Uchiha genocide really shocked the Hyuga clan for a long time.
As the only wealthy ninja clan in Konoha, the Uchiha clan has always dominated the Hyuga clan.
However, with the annihilation of the Uchiha clan, the once glorious Uchiha Guard also collapsed overnight.
The village's senior officials had no intention of rebuilding the security force, but instead transferred the business that belonged to the Uchiha Security Force in the past to the ANBU.
This undoubtedly increased the authority of the Anbu and directly expanded the Hokage's influence.
Areas that were once beyond the reach of senior executives are now their home turf.
Hizu gave Hizashi a sideways glance.
"This kind of thing has nothing to do with us. We just have to do our job well."
Hizashi said nothing, but his face still felt sad.
The Uchiha were gone, or perished in the hands of their own people. How should the Hyuga clan live in the village now?
He remembered that he almost became a victim because of Yunyin's frame-up incident a few years ago.
Although Kumogakure's conspiracy failed in the end due to Nebe's actions, it still left a deep impression on Hizashi.
Within the Hyuga clan, someone is in contact with the leader of the family, Danzo.
According to the speculations of the clan elders, the Hyuga clan members who are in contact with Danzo are likely to be from the branch clan.
But over the years, he has continued to investigate, but he has not been able to find any useful information from the separated families.
Perhaps, when Danzo helped the Hyuga clan overcome their difficulties, it was just to protect the ninjas from the same village.
After all, the opponent is a rare hard-liner in Konoha, so he will naturally not let ninjas from the same village be bullied by ninjas from other villages.
Walking through the corridor, at the corner, a thin figure suddenly appeared.
The other party was stunned for a moment, then immediately bowed respectfully.
"My lord, my father."
The person who came was a boy about nine years old, with long straight black hair, handsome appearance, and the iconic white pupils of the Hyuga clan members.
Hyuga Neji is this boy's name.
He is the son of Hizashi and a very outstanding genius in the Hyuga clan. He is highly anticipated by the clan.
Seeing that the direction that Ning wanted to go did not seem to be a training ground, but seemed to be heading back, Nizu frowned slightly.
"Are you going back so soon?"
He remembered that he had told him to let Neci come over to sparring with his eldest daughter Hinata. Normally, sparring could never end so quickly.
Neji replied calmly: "Yes. Because Hinata-sama seems to be a little unwell, Miss Hanabi will take care of her when I go."
"Physical discomfort?"
Hizu's brows furrowed even more when he heard Neji's words.
He didn't remember that Hinata's body bones were so fragile. They were fine yesterday and in the morning. In addition, Hinata had received good teachings from the Hyuga clan and would never eat strange foods that would cause physical problems.
Are you pretending to be sick? Or is it laziness in cultivation?
Or is it because you really feel unwell all of a sudden?
"Yes."
Neji answered in the affirmative again.
"That's it. In that case, let's cancel today's sparring session."
Hizu nodded, then turned to look at Hizashi.
"That's it for today, Hizashi, you go back with Neji first, I'll go check on Hinata."
Hichi nodded and took Neji out of the clan's territory.
Hiashi paused in the corridor for a while before leaving, heading towards the room where his daughter Hinata was.
Thinking of his eldest daughter Hinata, who always looked weak and cowardly, Hiashi sighed lightly.
◎
"Boss, check out."
In a barbecue restaurant, a man goes to the counter to pay.
It can be seen that he is not a ninja, there is no trace of a ninja on his body, he is just a normal Konoha villager, but it can be seen from his clothes that he is the type with a well-off family.
"Thank you for taking care of our store's business, a total of thirty thousand taels."
Haruno Zhao reported the bill.
As an ordinary chuunin in Konoha Hidden Village, like most chunin, he works part-time when there are no missions to support his family.
After all, as a family man with a wife and daughter, he always has to bear some responsibilities that a man should have.
But here's the problem.
He didn't apply for the job at the barbecue restaurant where he works part-time, but was recommended here.
He was a waiter in this store three years ago, was promoted to manager two years ago, and is now the acting store manager.
The salary has also increased accordingly, and I have become a 'successful person' in the eyes of many colleagues.
In the past, he aimed to be the Hokage and become a ninja, but now he has become the manager of a high-end barbecue restaurant in Konoha... This experience, to be honest, is always a bit too magical.
But Haruno Zhao also knew that all this was because of a certain woman who was behind it.
Asami Masumi.
In his eyes, a woman whose true identity is extremely mysterious.
The other party is one of the top administrators of Konoha Hospital, and it is said that he has prepared for promotion to the director of Konoha Hospital.
The manipulator behind this barbecue restaurant is Asami Masumi.
In this store, from the lowest-level waiter to all levels of management, or even him as the acting store manager, they are all 'spies' under Asami Masumi.
The reason why he became a 'successful person' in the eyes of others and his wife and daughter so quickly was just because of his excellent intelligence work that he was specially promoted to the acting manager of this barbecue restaurant.
Although in terms of salary, he was very satisfied.
This gave him the idea of giving up his career as a ninja and instead joining the catering world, aiming to become the king of barbecue.
Haruno Zhao thought about taking away the thirty thousand taels from the customer in front of him.
When he is not working, he usually stands at the front desk of the barbecue restaurant and is responsible for the cashier.
Because of this, he can observe more people and make his boss satisfied with him.
But after collecting the money, Haruno Zhao realized something was wrong.
There is something wrong with the thickness of the three 10,000-tael banknotes.
You can't tell anything from the outside. Only by touching it in person will you feel the abnormality.
Haruno Zhao looked at the paying customer in front of him with strange eyes. The other person showed a normal smile and left with steady steps.
"..."
Is this guy... also one of our own?
Haruno Zhao was a little stunned.
However, it is impossible for him not to recognize the intelligence agents working under Asami Masumi, and there is no chance of him admitting his mistake.
In other words... he is an intelligence agent for the other teams who are not under the jurisdiction of his superior Masumi Asami...?
Haruno Zhao looked at the street scene of Konoha outside the store and had the urge to see a ghost.
What is going on in this village?
Why can I see 'my people' everywhere?
I don’t know what’s going on at the top, but here on the bottom, it’s almost infiltrated into a sieve, right?
The intelligence agents I have met so far have various jobs.
Construction workers, those who hand out movie flyers on the street, cleaners of public toilets, fruit farmers who guard orchards, farmers who farm under the scorching sun... almost any occupation that can be thought of is covered.
And now, the customers of the barbecue restaurant are also our own people...
I feel that the cats and dogs I encounter on the roadside in the future may be one of my own.
This kind of Konoha will end sooner or later.
Asking a waiter to take over his cashier job at the front desk, Haruno Zhao immediately hid in the toilet and pulled out a note.
Above is a series of numbers and symbols that are completely unreadable.
It looks like a child's random scribblings, without any rules.
After correct interpretation, Haruno Zhao discovered that this was a list.
Some of the names on the list felt strange to him, while others felt familiar to him.
"Jiraiya, Sarutobi Takashi, Sarutobi Takashi, Matt Dai, Hyuga Takeshi..."
There are more than thirty names in total.
Half of them are jounin who are extremely famous in Konoha.
Jiraiya, one of the three ninjas.
The eldest son and eldest daughter-in-law of the Third Hokage.
Although he is not a jounin, he is said to be a chuunin with terrifying physical skills.
In addition, there are ninjas from the Hyuga clan, ninjas from the Aburame clan, the Inuzuka clan, and the Inorakacho clan.
What do these names mean?
Is this the list of people to be assassinated next?
Soon, Haruno Zhao denied this answer.
He had a gut feeling that this was not some hit list.
This list is more like conveying some message.
"Forget it, let's leave it to the superiors. Even if I know it, it doesn't make any sense."
He is just an ordinary chuunin, an ordinary acting manager of a barbecue restaurant. Such a troublesome matter cannot be solved by a small character like himself.
No matter what this list means, it will always be a struggle game between the people on it and has nothing to do with him.
◎
The country of tea, in a certain hotel.
"Oh, it's really troublesome... At this time..."
Jiraiya put down the writing pen and held the scroll that Konoha ANBU had given him not long ago, which recorded the important information left to him by his teacher, the Third Hokage.
I hope he gets involved in a top-secret S-class mission.
From Jiraiya's point of view, this so-called top-secret S-class mission is nothing more than closely related to the ongoing commotion in the Demon Country.
After all, this matter is so important and widely publicized. He is extremely good at intelligence, so there is no reason for him to miss such news.
After receiving the scroll, Jiraiya felt that the scroll was extremely hot and wanted to throw it away.
But when he thought of the old figure of his teacher Hiruzen Sarutobi when he passed by Konoha a year ago, a trace of unbearable color flashed in Jiraiya's eyes.
His teacher Hiruzen Sarutobi is already old. From his body, the heroic appearance of the 'Doctor of Ninjutsu' back then can no longer be found.
Moreover, the Uchiha clan was annihilated, Uchiha Itachi defected, and the cause of death of another Uchiha genius Uchiha Shisui was a mystery... This made Jiraiya even more unable to help sighing.
How is it possible that a thirteen-year-old child can destroy the Uchiha clan?
If the Uchiha clan could be easily exterminated in Konoha, then they would not be feared by ninjas from all over the world in the previous ninja wars.
Even the Sannin in their heyday could only avoid the sharp edge when facing the entire Uchiha clan and did not dare to fight head-on.
Even a sneak attack was not something a thirteen-year-old kid could do. Moreover, after the genocide, the ANBU was not aware of it until the next day. The ANBU's ability to act in Konoha Village directly under the Hokage could not be so weak.
If there was no root involvement, he wouldn't believe it at all.
As for what role his teacher Hiruzen Sarutobi played in this, Jiraiya couldn't imagine anymore.
The investigation into the genocide of the Uchiha clan was also immediately terminated.
He was afraid that at the end of the investigation, he would see the darkest part of the village, and that he would never be able to look directly at his teacher Sarutobi Hiruzen again, and would keep him in his memory together with the compassionate and loving teacher in the past.
This is the ruthlessness of time.
What will you become when you reach that age?
Will you change your original ambition?
Or……
Jiraiya shook his head, it was too early to think about this now.
He is not yet fifty, so there is no need to feel sad at this time.
He looked at the scroll in his hand, thinking whether he should agree to his teacher Hiruzen Sarutobi, join this top-secret S-class mission, and become one of them.
The top village officials who secretly planned this S-level mission were obviously in a state of chaos, otherwise they wouldn't have acted in such a hasty manner.
"Oh, if Minato is still here..."
Watergate……
Thinking of this name, Jiraiya's brain suddenly woke up, as if he had thought of something.
That happened a long time ago. At that time, Sakumo had not yet committed suicide, the Third Ninja War had not yet begun, and the three Chiba Shiraishi were still ninjas who believed in the will of fire...
There is a prophecy of 'destruction' made by the Great Toad Immortal of Mt. Miaomu.
The black hand that subverted the ninja world is hidden in Konoha.
He has never found such a dangerous person in Konoha.
Later, Qianba Shiraishi and three others defected, and he had a vague feeling that one of these three people was the 'Son of Destruction' predicted by the Great Toad Immortal.
Representing absolute destruction, it will become a nightmare for the ninja world, bringing countless pain and blood, and making the ninja world linger in the endless flames of war.
And this person, in his opinion, Qianba Shiraishi has the greatest possibility.
Mysterious, unknown, and good at hiding his true nature, it was only when he defected that his true ferocious face was revealed, which hit Konoha hard.
Compared with Uchiha Ruri and Hinata Ayane who had already emerged during the Konoha period, Chiba Shiraishi was really inconspicuous. People's only impression of him was that he was Uchiha's son-in-law, who was excellent in medical ninjutsu. A ninja with good educational ability. He is a member of the White Fang team and is highly appreciated by Tsunade, one of the three ninjas... Apart from that, people know nothing about the rest of his things.
Ninjas who are good at hiding their true nature are synonymous with danger.
Chiba Shiraishi fits this concept perfectly.
Later actions also proved that he was extremely dangerous.
Jiraiya rolled up the scroll and put it aside casually.
"It seems that I can't agree if I don't agree..."
Rather than the task itself, he wanted to find out the answer to a question that had puzzled him for a long time.
Can the future of the ninja world still be on the right path?
If the scene predicted by the Great Toad Immortal really occurs, I, who shoulder the responsibility of guiding the 'Son of Prophecy', have the responsibility to prevent such a disaster from happening.
