Early summer in the forty-second year of Konoha should have been a season teeming with vitality.
Yet the air surrounding the Hatake residence was cold as deep winter.
Ryuha stood in the shadows across the street, gazing at the quiet residence.
The manor was currently blanketed by an invisible, suffocating pressure.
Passersby would unconsciously quicken their pace, and neighbors deliberately detoured around the main gate.
Even when children were playing, their parents would pull them away, warning them in hushed tones, “Don’t go near there.”
Because the master of this estate was Sakumo Hatake.
Konoha’s White Fang.
Once a hero, now a laughingstock.
Ryuha had walked two laps around the street, hearing discussions of the same sort everywhere.
“Have you heard?
The Chunin he rescued were discharged from the hospital yesterday.
They were weeping in the tavern, saying it was all Lord Sakumo’s fault for recklessly abandoning the mission, making them unable to hold their heads up in front of everyone…”
“Lord Hokage hasn’t taken a stance, but I heard that during the high-level council, Advisor Utatane and Advisor Homura both severely criticized the ninja involved in this mission.”
“The mission failure caused the trade agreement between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind to be delayed, resulting in a loss of at least thirty million Ryo…”
“His son Kakashi hasn’t even gone to the training ground these past two days.
He must’ve been dragged into this too.”
Ryuha Uchiha listened with an expressionless face.
He opened his system interface and looked at the quest panel.
[Current Side Quest: The White Fang’s Swan Song] [Remaining Time: 84 days] [Target Status: On the verge of mental collapse; life energy steadily waning.]
The status indicator representing Sakumo Hatake had shifted from its original green to a glaring orange-red.
Moreover, the color continued to deepen, like charcoal embers on the verge of going out.
Ryuha Uchiha closed the interface.
He returned to the Uchiha compound and waited in his room until late at night.
It wasn’t until one in the morning that dead silence fell over the surroundings.
He changed into a set of dark gray casual clothes, Kyoka Suigetsu strapped behind his waist, carrying only Kunai and smoke bombs in his ninja tool pouch.
He wore a black mask over his face, revealing only his eyes.
Pushing open the window, the night wind rushed in.
His Spiritual Pressure sensing spread out quietly like spilled quicksilver.
Within a three-hundred-meter radius, every Chakra fluctuation was reflected clearly in his mind.
Seven Anbu members were scattered throughout the village, five of whom were stationed near the Hokage Residence.
Two were on the outer perimeter of the Uchiha compound—the Third Hokage’s men sent to monitor him.
There were also three even more concealed, chilly Chakras lurking in different directions around the Hatake residence.
Root.
Danzo Shimura truly hadn’t let this place off the hook.
Ryuha Uchiha pushed up his glasses, a trace of coldness flashing in his eyes.
He took a deep breath and tapped the toe of his foot lightly against the window sill.
Shunpo.
His figure vanished from the spot.
From the window sill to the rooftop thirty meters away, there was no trajectory in between, as if space itself had folded.
He landed on the roof tiles with barely a whisper of sound.
His Spiritual Pressure sensing locked onto the positions of those three Root ninja: one at the second-floor window of the tea house across the street.
One atop the signpost at the corner of the street, and the third, the most hidden, concealed in the attic of an abandoned warehouse next to the Hatake residence.
Three angles perfectly covered all entrances and exits of the Hatake estate.
Danzo Shimura had certainly spared no expense just to keep tabs on a dying man.
Ryuha Uchiha didn’t linger.
He used Shunpo again.
This time he moved fifty meters, landing on the back courtyard wall of a house neighboring the Hatake residence.
The family kept a dog, but it merely twitched its ears, turned over, and went back to sleep, completely unaware that someone had passed by.
With a third Shunpo, he landed directly inside the courtyard of the Hatake residence.
Both feet stepped onto the gravel path without making a sound.
Almost the moment he touched down, Ryuha Uchiha rested his right hand on the hilt behind his waist.
“Shatter, Kyoka Suigetsu.”
*Buzz—*
An invisible ripple expanded outward with him at the center.
Silently, it enveloped the entire Hatake courtyard and the surrounding fifty-meter area.
This was “area coverage.”
It wasn’t hypnosis targeted at an individual, but a complete “override” and “replacement” of perception across the entire zone.
In the eyes of the Root ninja on the second floor of the tea house across the street, everything in the Hatake residence remained normal.
Moonlight fell quietly onto the courtyard, and the gravel path was empty.
He even let out a yawn and wrote on his log scroll: “Midnight.
No anomalies at the target residence.
Target individual has not gone out.”
The Root ninja atop the signpost at the corner of the street didn’t notice anything unusual either.
As for the one in the neighboring warehouse attic, he was the strongest sensor among the three.
He kept his eyes closed, expanding his Chakra sensing formula to cover the entire area.
Within his sensory net, the Hatake residence possessed only a single faint, decaying Chakra fluctuation—Sakumo Hatake himself.
He frowned slightly, feeling that something was slightly off, but the sensory results were unequivocal.
Perhaps he was just tired.
In reality, Ryuha Uchiha was standing in the very center of the Hatake courtyard.
He raised his head and looked toward the dojo.
The sliding paper doors were tightly shut, but an oil lamp flickered inside.
The dim, yellowish light cast the silhouette of a kneeling figure through the paper door.
The figure was motionless, like a stone statue.
In front of him on the wooden floor lay a short sword horizontally.
Even through the paper door, Ryuha could feel the chilling aura emanating from that blade.
It was a fiendish air forged from slaughtering through mountains of corpses and seas of blood alongside its master.
The White Fang short sword.
Its tip pointed directly at the kneeling figure himself.
Ryuha Uchiha withdrew his gaze and stepped toward the dojo.
The gravel path produced an extremely faint rustling beneath his feet, but under the coverage of Kyoka Suigetsu, these sounds existed only within his own perception.
To the outside world, the courtyard remained dead silent.
He walked up to the dojo entrance and stopped.
The light from the oil lamp on the paper door reflected the kneeling figure’s upright silhouette, yet it exuded an indescribable fatigue and…
resolve.
Ryuha reached out, preparing to slide open the paper door.
Just then, a hoarse voice sounded from within:
“Whoever is outside…
since you’re here, come in.”
The voice was very calm, but beneath that composure lay bottomless exhaustion.
Ryuha paused briefly in his movement.
Discovered?
Sakumo Hatake, Konoha’s White Fang—even at a time like this, he retained the sharp keenness of a top-tier ninja.
Truly worthy of a Kage-level powerhouse.
With only a Shikai-level Kyoka Suigetsu, it was still difficult to deceive him completely.
His Spiritual Pressure intensity was still too low; if it were a regular Jonin, he probably could have fooled them.
Ryuha pushed up his glasses and slid open the paper door.
The sound of the paper door sliding open was remarkably distinct in the silence.
The scene inside the dojo entered his view.
It was a vast, empty dojo with clean, dark wooden flooring.
A calligraphy scroll hung on the wall, bearing the single character “Shinobi” written in bold, forceful strokes.
In the corner stood a sword rack, currently empty.
In the center sat Sakumo Hatake in a kneeling posture.
He wore dark gray casual clothes, his hair somewhat disheveled, and stubble clearly visible on his face.
Before him on the floor, the White Fang short sword lay quietly horizontal.
Ryuha stepped into the dojo, and the paper door closed silently behind him.
The oil lamp’s light flickered between them, casting swaying shadows.
The dojo was quiet, with only the faint crackling of the lamp wick burning.
Sakumo Hatake raised his head and looked at Ryuha Uchiha.
His eyes first fell upon Ryuha’s face, sweeping over his glasses, then his high-collared robe, and finally stopping at Kyoka Suigetsu resting at his waist.
“An Uchiha brat,” Sakumo spoke, his voice hoarse.
“At this hour, dressed like that, sneaking into my residence…
what do you want?”
Ryuha stood in place without stepping closer.
He maintained a distance of three meters—a safe distance that allowed conversation without triggering excessive alarm from the other party.
“I’m here to stop you from doing something foolish, Lord Sakumo,” he said.