Konoha was the first place to receive the full report.
When news spread of Uchiha Mu’s overwhelming performance, the Uchiha Clan found itself deeply conflicted.
Another pair of Mangekyo Sharingan had walked away from the clan.
And these eyes belonged to someone whose power was apparently approaching that of Madara and the late Lord Izuna.
Some Uchiha even began wondering if there was something fundamentally wrong with their clan.
Why did Mangekyo users keep leaving one after another?
The clansmen who had occasionally spoken with Mu in the past were especially shaken.
They found it almost impossible to reconcile the quiet, unremarkable young man they remembered with the monster described in the reports.
The Hyuga Clan had already been paying attention to Mu because of Hyuga Ryono.
Now that they knew the truth about his strength, their feelings were equally complicated.
Putting a Caged Bird Seal on her was obviously no longer an option.
On the other hand, this connection wasn’t entirely bad.
The Hyuga had effectively formed a marriage alliance with Uchiha Mu.
Perhaps they could receive his help in the future.
After all, who among the other ninja clans didn’t envy the Uzumaki for marrying one of their women to Senju Hashirama?
Naturally, some stubborn elders still insisted that the Byakugan of the main family could never be allowed to remain outside the clan.
They were silenced with a single response.
“Then why don’t you go to the Nation of a Hundred Clans and bring her back yourself?”
Silence.
What a joke.
Bullying members of the branch family was one thing.
Actually walking into Mu’s territory and confronting that Uchiha personally?
They were old men now.
They wanted to enjoy retirement, not throw their lives away.
Ironically, the average age of Hyuga branch-family members was noticeably younger than that of the main family.
Anyone who bothered looking at those distorted numbers for more than a moment could tell something was wrong.
Even so, the Hyuga had no intention of placing bets on both sides.
They had already decided at the beginning that trying to support both Konoha and Mu would only make both sides distrust them.
They would simply treat Ryono as a daughter who had married outside the clan.
After several generations, her descendants would probably lose the ability to awaken the Byakugan anyway.
At the Hokage’s office, Hashirama sighed.
The war had taken place outside Konoha, but that didn’t make the deaths any less painful to him.
He and Madara had founded Konoha precisely to reduce warfare.
Tobirama, meanwhile, silently raised Uchiha Mu’s threat classification.
Mu’s territory directly bordered the Land of Fire.
There was no such thing as being too cautious.
Nobody understood the Uchiha better than Tobirama, and a country established by one of those lunatics was definitely going to be aggressive.
The other ninja clans in Konoha had also turned their attention toward the Uchiha.
Privately, many of them were envious.
The Uchiha had somehow produced two top-tier monsters in the same generation.
But what everyone cared about more was what the clan would do next.
At this point, if an Uchiha chose to leave Konoha and join Mu’s country, Hashirama’s presence meant nobody would stop them.
Later, however?
Leaving might become impossible.
Iwagakure received the news second thanks to its ability to move messages through the air quickly.
When First Tsuchikage Ishikawa heard people describing Mu as a second Uchiha Madara, he felt exhausted.
The Uchiha and Senju bloodlines were simply unreasonable.
Still, the report contained good news too.
The two countries Mu controlled bordered the Land of Fire, but their resources were mediocre.
Without Uchiha Mu, invading them would have been profitable.
With Uchiha Mu present, the numbers no longer worked.
So Ishikawa issued a simple order.
Until Uchiha Mu was confirmed dead, Iwagakure ninja were not to approach his territory unnecessarily.
Perhaps they could even cooperate with him one day.
Konoha was extremely wealthy, after all.
Ishikawa only had one lingering concern.
Would Mū and Ōnoki develop some sort of psychological problem after this?
In an absurdly short period, those two had already encountered two Uchiha monsters capable of dominating an era.
Kumogakure received the report that same day through summoned animals.
The First Raikage gripped the document tightly.
“He didn’t kill you?”
“No.
I suspect he deliberately allowed us to survive so we could spread word of his strength.”
“Haa…
another Uchiha Madara?
And his country isn’t far from ours.”
The Raikage sighed.
“Raikage-sama, as long as we don’t provoke him, it should be manageable.
From what I learned, those two countries possess resources, but nothing comparable to the Land of Fire.”
“Fine.
That’s the rule, then.
We leave him alone while Uchiha Mu is alive.
After he dies…
heh.”
The Raikage immediately lost interest in Mu and moved to another topic.
“What about the tailed beasts?”
“So far, we only have reliable intelligence on the Nine-Tails.
But as you know, even Kinkaku and Ginkaku couldn’t gain much from fighting it.
They did at least obtain the ability to use Nine-Tails chakra.”
“Then proceed from there.
Gather information on the other tailed beasts and use Kinkaku and Ginkaku’s method to figure out how we can control tailed-beast chakra.”
“Yes.”
The squad leader who had visited the Nation of a Hundred Clans immediately left to distribute the new orders.
“We still need to become stronger.”
The First Raikage sighed again.
“Konoha.
The Nation of a Hundred Clans…”
Living in this era was both fortunate and unfortunate.
Three beings had already been confirmed to exist completely outside normal standards.
The First Raikage needed to establish a policy his successors could follow.
His own generation could do little more than keep its head down and survive.
Sunagakure lay two small countries away from Mu’s territory and also received information through summoned animals.
The First Kazekage fell silent after reading it.
He had wanted his young geniuses to gain experience outside the village.
Instead, they had returned with psychological trauma.
The Magnet Release ninja now had what could only be described as an allergic reaction whenever someone mentioned the Uchiha.
Chiyo and Ebizo were in better condition, but both had developed an extremely deep wariness toward the clan.
The intelligence itself was terrifying.
A B-rank Fire Release technique in Mu’s hands had displayed S-rank power.
Combine that with his massive chakra reserves and the legendary Mangekyo Sharingan…
The First Kazekage looked at the map.
The two countries possessed some resources, but they were far from Sunagakure.
There was no reason to take the risk.
His order was simple.
Do not provoke the Nation of a Hundred Clans.
Kirigakure had never intended to participate in the first place.
The distance was too great.
After confirming Mu’s strength, the Mist simply made a note to avoid him in the future.
It was only a small ninja nation.
There wasn’t enough profit there to justify angering someone like him.
The other small countries began paying attention as well.
Their nobles looked as though they had swallowed something disgusting.
They could only quietly increase spending on personal guards while working together to isolate Mu’s country diplomatically.
The money he stole hadn’t been enough to seriously hurt any one noble family.
But nobody complained about having more money.
The Daimyo also held an extremely poor opinion of Uchiha Mu.
If he wanted to be a ninja and play the usual game of founding a ninja village, fine.
But he had founded a country.
What exactly was he trying to do?
And what if other powerful ninja copied him?
What happened to the Daimyo then?
So even though most of them had suffered no direct losses, the Daimyo were perfectly happy to watch the nobles unite against him.
Someone needed to teach the man a lesson.
If you’re going to be a ninja, then behave like a ninja.
Stop getting involved in things you shouldn’t.
And so, in an extremely short time, both Uchiha Mu and the Nation of a Hundred Clans became famous throughout the entire ninja world.
Among ninja villages, nobles, and Daimyo, Mu had somehow managed to offend almost everyone.
For ordinary civilians and wandering ninja, however, his rise was good news.
They suddenly had another place to go.
The neighboring Land of Grass reacted first.
Anyone with the money and ability to move began relocating toward Mu’s territory.
The Land of Grass sat between two great nations.
Anyone with a little foresight could tell that the country would eventually become a battlefield for larger powers.
As a small nation, Grass would have no choice but to cooperate with whichever great nation pressured it.
And cooperation meant war.
People trying to escape war had no desire to remain there.
The Nation of a Hundred Clans was different.
Uchiha Mu himself guarded it.
At least during his lifetime, the region would remain safe.
And if danger came after he was gone, the Land of Fire was still close enough to flee toward.
That was far better than the Land of Grass, where people already had to think about escaping to the Land of Fire right now.