As a spy, Damu was naturally sensitive to danger.
The moment he realized he was being followed, he became alert.
Outwardly, however, he behaved exactly as usual.
The only difference was that today he focused entirely on his food and stopped paying special attention to conversations at the surrounding tables.
“Is there actually something wrong with that guy?” Yufeng whispered.
“I can’t tell.”
The blonde girl shook her head.
“There is.
A huge problem.”
Uzumaki Mon frowned.
“My Mind’s Eye of the Kagura sensed his chakra fluctuate the moment we arrived.
He probably entered a sensory state.”
On the surface, however, Damu showed nothing suspicious.
“That ability is seriously amazing.”
Yufeng’s curiosity toward the Uzumaki bloodline only grew.
This time, Damu didn’t remain long.
Once he finished eating, he headed home.
Since the three children still hadn’t seen concrete evidence, they couldn’t attack him outright.
After following for a while and reaching an area with fewer ninja nearby, Yufeng suddenly had an idea.
“Let’s go find Teacher Mu.
One look with his Sharingan and he’ll know whether this guy is a spy.”
Yufeng didn’t lower his voice.
Damu had been paying close attention to the children behind him, so he heard every word.
The instant he realized they intended to bring Uchiha Mu here, he ran.
No matter what happened, he had to send his intelligence back to Iwagakure.
The Nation of a Hundred Clans had not been developing for long.
It might currently be somewhat ahead of other villages, but the gap wasn’t enormous yet.
That was why spies like Damu remained loyal.
As far as they were concerned, if they delivered Mu’s methods home, their own villages could catch up just as quickly.
There was little chance of them defecting.
“I knew it!
Yufeng, you’re a genius!”
The three children immediately chased him.
Damu looked back.
Only children.
He confirmed that they didn’t know any particularly advanced ninjutsu.
Damu himself didn’t know much either, but assassination and covert work were areas where he had plenty of experience.
He pulled out a kunai and cut himself without hesitation, drawing blood.
Then he summoned a small creature, intending to send away the intelligence he had gathered.
“That’s intelligence!
Don’t let him send it!”
Mon shouted and pushed more chakra into the soles of his feet, accelerating toward Damu.
“Too late, brats!”
Damu’s expression twisted.
He had worked incredibly hard to infiltrate this country.
He had done endless construction work here.
He had even spent every coin he earned back inside the country.
Now these children were about to expose him.
Of course he was furious.
But before the summoned creature could take the message, the paper in Damu’s hand suddenly burned into ash.
Damu’s eyes widened.
“Who’s there?!”
“Get him!”
The three children threw kunai together.
Mu had used genjutsu training to make them experience high-speed moving targets before.
They weren’t ordinary children by the standards of the ninja world.
Strength mattered enormously in this era.
With ninjutsu still requiring long strings of hand seals, swordsmanship, throwing techniques, and taijutsu were all critical.
As priority students, these three frequently fought Mu’s shadow clones.
That was training from a top-tier monster.
There was no reason they should lose to an ordinary espionage specialist.
Damu began sweating.
He had never expected fighting children from this village to put him under this much pressure.
He couldn’t find a single opportunity to form another sequence of hand seals.
The red-haired brat’s sensory ability was especially troublesome.
The three cooperated naturally.
Compared with fighting Mu while he used the Sharingan to torment them, this man felt almost easy.
Yufeng blocked an attack.
The blonde girl, Yucheng, immediately stepped in and punched Damu away.
“Combination ninjutsu!”
Mon rapidly formed seals and released a broad Wind Release technique.
Yufeng followed with Phoenix Sage Fire Jutsu.
Yucheng threw shuriken into the flames.
Together, the three produced an Uchiha-enhanced version of Phoenix Sage Fire.
“Their hand seals are that fast?
These are children?!”
Damu was stunned.
It wasn’t as though he had underestimated children entirely.
In this era, four-year-olds sometimes went to war.
But chakra volume and physical strength still mattered.
Normally, adults held an overwhelming advantage.
“Not bad.
They’re still losing some efficiency because of inexperience, but that’s only a matter of time.”
Invisible nearby, Chomei casually evaluated the fight.
It had originally planned to help.
Apparently there was no need.
As for whether Chomei had the qualifications to criticize their technique?
Please.
A thousand years of life experience wasn’t decorative.
“Not yet!
He used the Substitution Jutsu!”
Mon shouted after sensing Damu’s chakra elsewhere.
“Tracking people is what we’re best at!”
Yufeng charged immediately.
“That idiot.”
Yucheng covered her forehead with one hand, then rushed after him.
Damu was starting to despair.
The longer the fight continued, the harder it became.
How was his taijutsu actually this ineffective against children?
Before long, the three captured him alive.
“Good work.”
Uchiha Mu appeared and looked over the three children.
Konoha really did have some ideas worth borrowing.
Three-man and four-man squads, for example.
Once Mu fully mastered medical ninjutsu, he would need to develop a proper medical system and eventually integrate medics into team structures.
The moment fighting began, Ryono had detected it with her Byakugan.
One of Mu’s shadow clones had also been watching from the shadows.
When Mu realized Chomei had quietly prevented the intelligence from being sent, he nodded to himself.
The tailed beasts really weren’t bad creatures.
“Teacher Mu!”
The three children immediately rushed over, clearly fishing for praise.
Their relationship with the Uchiha was very different from Konoha civilians’ relationship with the clan.
Mainly because Mu himself was nothing like a normal Uchiha.
“I’ll teach you this.”
A normal Rasengan formed in Mu’s palm.
“A ninjutsu without hand seals!”
All three children’s eyes lit up.
They immediately demanded to learn it.
“Chomei.”
“Uchiha Mu.”
Chomei revealed itself.
“So you were the one who did that earlier!”
Mon immediately stared at it.
“You actually escaped my perception.
How’d you do it?”
“Brat, you still need a lot more practice.”
Chomei dismissed him casually.
Mu looked at the tailed beast.
“From now on, spar with them.
They need experience dealing with pressure and killing intent.
A beginner facing a truly powerful enemy can freeze so badly they can’t even move.”
Then Mu taught the children the first stage of learning the Rasengan.
Once they mastered it, they could proceed to the next.
He also began teaching them the Shadow Clone Technique.
They might end up like Naruto and need an extra pair of hands to stabilize the Rasengan early on.
As before, Mu first used genjutsu to let them experience the process, then made them train until their bodies could reproduce what they had felt.
Mon turned toward the tailed beast.
“So you’re Chomei.
I’m Uzumaki Mon.
Take care of us from now on, Chomei.”
“Mm.”
Chomei quietly acknowledged him.
Looking at the boy’s open, carefree expression, it suddenly thought that moving from the deep forest into a human town might not be so bad after all.
Again, it remembered the Sage of Six Paths’ old words.
Perhaps the person he meant really was Uchiha Mu.
“Uchiha Mu, I want to—”
“No need.”
Mu cut Chomei off.
“Between you and a cat, I prefer cats.
But I do want you to sign a summoning contract with Hyuga Ryono.”
Mu was serious.
The Uchiha had worked with ninja cats for years.
Mu already had a contract with one, and he had ninja crows available as well.
“Fine.”
Once Chomei made a decision, it acted decisively.
That same day, it signed a summoning contract with Ryono.
Afterward, it frequently visited the ninja academy in miniature form to spar with the students.
Mu also deliberately shaped public opinion around it.
Before long, Chomei became famous throughout the country as a heroic guardian who protected the Nation of a Hundred Clans.
For people who had survived the chaos of the Warring States Period, the peace and stability of the current village—of the current country—was especially precious.
They adored Chomei for protecting it.
And after hearing praise day after day, Chomei gradually lost itself in the compliments.
Before long, it had started treating the Nation of a Hundred Clans as its own country.
If ninja from another village dared invade, Chomei would be the first one furious about it.
Its chakra reserves couldn’t compare to the absurd Nine-Tails, but in aerial combat, Chomei was one of the best creatures in the world.
And given the Seven-Tails’ size and intimidating presence, there was no way the other ninja villages could remain unaware of it.
Once they realized Uchiha Mu had successfully recruited a tailed beast, every village began turning its attention toward these gigantic living weapons.
Intelligence networks spread throughout the different countries in search of them.
Sunagakure was the first to confirm the location of the One-Tail.
Unfortunately, the One-Tail’s environment heavily favored it, and unlike many other tailed beasts, it used ninjutsu skillfully.
That made it exceptionally difficult to capture.
Sunagakure had discovered a mountain of gold.
They simply had no way to mine it.