Konoha.
Relations between two of the village’s great ninja clans had become extremely tense.
If Hashirama hadn’t stepped in to mediate, they probably would have started fighting already.
“Oh, so much for the great and glorious Uchiha Clan!” Hyuga Ryono’s father shouted.
“What happened to caring about the purity of your bloodline?
You actually tricked one of our Hyuga into running away with you!
Are you finally admitting that the Byakugan is the greatest kekkei genkai?”
Originally, he had intended for Ryono to inherit his branch of the main family.
The Uchiha couldn’t possibly let that insult pass.
They were already an absurdly proud clan, and Madara was still alive.
He had yet to fade into legend.
So naturally, they shouted right back.
“Heh!
From where I’m standing, it looks like the Hyuga wanted Uchiha blood so badly that you deliberately sent a woman over!
And that idiot Uchiha Mu actually let himself get seduced into leaving with her!”
“Why would we want the bloodline of a clan full of lunatics?” a Hyuga immediately shot back.
“As if we’d care about the Byakugan!” an Uchiha yelled.
As far as the Uchiha were concerned, Mu’s actions were embarrassing.
In this era, bloodline purity still mattered enormously.
Intermarriage between clans was rare, and for the Hyuga it was practically unheard of.
“Heh.
Don’t the Hyuga have that Caged Bird Seal?
Go ahead and activate it from a distance.”
The Uchiha immediately started pouring oil on the fire between the Hyuga main and branch families.
The branch family members present looked ugly.
By this era, the Caged Bird Seal had long since changed from its original purpose.
It had become a method for the main family to control the branch family.
The main family members looked just as bad.
The problem was that the Hyuga who had run away was a young lady of the main family.
They couldn’t remotely blow up her brain with the Caged Bird Seal even if they wanted to.
“Madara leaves, and suddenly the Uchiha can’t even keep their own clansmen under control.
Heh.”
The Hyuga’s sarcasm hit exactly where it hurt.
The Uchiha instantly saw red.
How dare they rub salt into that wound?
This was intolerable!
One Sharingan after another activated, while veins bulged around the Hyuga’s eyes as their Byakugan opened in response.
“Enough.”
Senju Hashirama arrived.
His voice held none of its usual warmth.
It was stern.
The Uchiha and Hyuga immediately behaved themselves.
“Tell me exactly what happened,” Hashirama said.
Beside him, Senju Tobirama remained silent as he took the note Mu had left behind and read it.
As for Ryono, both clans already knew she liked Uchiha Mu.
Before Konoha was even founded, she would use any excuse she could to sneak away and see him.
After the village was established, she became even more shameless about finding ways to visit.
If someone still couldn’t figure out how she felt, they might as well find a block of tofu and bash their head against it.
[I am leaving.
This place was never where I belonged.
— Uchiha Mu]
That was all he had written.
In truth, the Uchiha hadn’t cared much when they first discovered Mu was gone.
To them, he was merely another three-tomoe clansman.
Because of the endless wars of the Warring States Period, there were quite a few Uchiha with fully matured Sharingan.
Losing one wasn’t a major issue.
The problem was that this particular bastard had taken a Hyuga woman with him.
Now the clan had to stand here and trade insults with the Hyuga because of him.
“The Uchiha side doesn’t have anything useful,” Tobirama said.
“What about the Hyuga?”
The Hyuga shook their heads.
The three branch family guards assigned to Ryono explained what had happened.
Ryono had spotted Uchiha Mu and told them to wait elsewhere.
She had done the same thing plenty of times before, so they were used to it.
They simply hadn’t expected her to run away for good this time.
“Hyuga Ryono may have acted on impulse, but Uchiha Mu definitely planned this in advance,” Tobirama said decisively.
“And he’s clearly trying to take a different path from Madara.”
“Huh?”
The Uchiha looked at one another.
None of them had noticed anything of the sort.
“The Land of Fire issued a mission,” Tobirama continued.
“A portion of the nobles’ money disappeared.
Not enough from any one family to seriously hurt them, but money vanished from every noble household involved, and none of them can explain how it happened.”
“Genjutsu.”
The Uchiha understood immediately.
They were masters of genjutsu themselves, after all.
There was a reason people said that when facing an Uchiha one-on-one, the correct choice was to run.
“We can basically assume that finding Uchiha Mu will complete the mission.”
“Hokage-sama, leave this mission to the Uchiha,” one clansman volunteered.
“No.
Leave it to the Hyuga.
Finding people is our specialty.”
“Heh.
Not to be rude, but can you Hyuga actually beat an Uchiha?”
The insult came without hesitation.
“Both clans will handle the mission together,” Tobirama decided.
His prejudice against the Uchiha hadn’t disappeared, but his brother was still alive.
With Madara gone, this was a good opportunity to help the remaining Uchiha integrate into Konoha properly.
Hashirama nodded in approval.
With his decision made, neither clan argued further.
They began discussing who would be sent after the pair.
The Hyuga had a headache.
Sending branch family members wasn’t appropriate.
Ryono knew how to activate the Caged Bird Seal.
Members of the main family generally only used it against the branch families under their own direct authority, but that didn’t mean they were incapable of using it against someone else’s branch.
If such an obvious loophole existed, the branch family would have exploited it long ago.
So they needed to send someone from the main family.
The problem was that sending a main family member outside carried another risk: someone might steal their Byakugan.
Hashirama seemed to understand their concern.
“If anyone takes advantage of this opportunity to attack the Hyuga, I will not forgive them.”
Coming from the famously good-natured Hashirama, words like that meant he was serious.
Any ninja from another country would have to think very carefully before attacking a Hyuga for their eyes if it meant attracting Senju Hashirama himself.
And even if they succeeded, he would simply come take the eyes back.
It wasn’t worth it.
The Uchiha had already made their choice.
They would send members of the clan’s dove faction.
Successfully completing a village mission would help those people integrate into Konoha and move closer to the Hokage’s faction.
The Hyuga main family had a different problem.
For generations, most of their actual fighting had been left to the branch family.
Now that they couldn’t rely on them, the main family suddenly found itself at a loss.
They knew perfectly well what they were capable of.
Sending someone who spent most of their life protected by branch family guards to face an Uchiha who had survived the Warring States Period?
Please.
In the end, they sent Hyuga Tenka, the next head of the clan.
He was reasonably capable.
Reasonably.
After all, as the father of Hiashi and Hizashi, he hadn’t even been important enough to receive a name in the original story.
And so, the Hyuga and Uchiha formed a four-man team and headed toward the capital of the Land of Fire to investigate.
“Tobirama,” Hashirama said worriedly, “what if they’re going to find Madara?
Wouldn’t sending only those four be dangerous?”
“Brother, you don’t understand the Uchiha.
If Uchiha Mu intended to follow Madara, he would have left with him.
He wouldn’t have waited until Madara was already gone.”
Tobirama shook his head.
No one understood the Uchiha better than he did.
“Sigh…”
Hashirama looked out over the thriving village.
Children ran through the streets laughing and playing.
They no longer had to live the way his generation had, being sent onto battlefields at four or five years old.
That was the reason he and Madara had created Konoha.
The village had finally been built, yet Madara had muttered a few strange things and walked away.
Then Uchiha Mu had left right behind him.
Was Konoha really that unbearable?
No matter what the answer was, Hashirama would protect it.
This village was the home he had built with his own hands.
He would never allow anyone to destroy it.
No matter who the enemy was.