A week later, at the village’s main gate.
A girl was carefully helping Hyuga Kagami straighten and organize his gear.
From her pure white eyes, it was clear that, like Hyuga Kagami, she was also a member of the Hyuga clan.
She appeared to be around the same age as him, but her delicate brows were slightly furrowed over her pretty face, making her seem weighed down with worry.
Hyuga Kagami, who had been gazing toward the distant Hokage Rock, smiled and said, “Don’t worry.
It’s just a routine rotation.”
The girl nodded slightly.
Then, reaching into the pouch at her waist, she took out a new pair of goggles and handed them to Hyuga Kagami.
Hyuga Kagami glanced at her but said nothing more.
He simply tucked the goggles into his own waist pouch.
In fact, Hyuga Kagami had started wearing goggles a long time ago, just like Obito.
The only difference was that the lenses of the goggles he bought were much darker, almost like sunglasses.
He did this not only to protect his eyes, but also to conceal his identity as a member of the Hyuga clan on the battlefield, preventing enemies from deliberately targeting him.
Another reason was to hide the Tenseigan he might possess in the future.
After all, in terms of appearance, there were still noticeable differences between the Tenseigan and the Byakugan.
The girl was obviously worried that the old pair of goggles Hyuga Kagami was currently wearing might break, and that it would be difficult to buy a replacement out on the border.
So she had bought him a new pair to keep as a spare.
At that moment, a middle-aged shinobi not far away waved his hand and called out, “It’s time.
We should get going.”
Hearing this, Hyuga Kagami patted the girl on the shoulder.
“Rei, I’m leaving.
Don’t worry about me.
Maybe I’ll be back before long.”
The girl named Rei nodded gently, but no matter how she tried, she couldn’t hide the worry on her face.
Finally, Hyuga Kagami cast another glance toward the distant Hokage Rock.
In the turmoil caused by Orochimaru’s defection, the village had undoubtedly suffered the greatest loss.
Orochimaru had defected, and Jiraiya had left in pursuit of him.
With that, all three of Konoha’s renowned Legendary Sannin had left the village!
Orochimaru had lost the village’s support, but at the same time, he had freed himself from its restraints.
In a sense, he had gotten exactly what he wanted, neither gaining nor losing overall.
Danzo, on the other hand, had absorbed most of Orochimaru’s former forces and was undoubtedly the biggest winner.
Hyuga Kagami even suspected that it was through this very recruitment that Danzo gained access to some of the results of Orochimaru’s human experimentation, laying the groundwork for him to later obtain the Sharingan and the First Hokage’s cells.
But none of that mattered much to Hyuga Kagami right now.
The village’s higher-ups had already reached a consensus: all of Orochimaru’s former subordinates who, like Hyuga Kagami, had not been recruited into Root would gradually be reassigned to various border regions.
Put simply, they were being banished to the frontier—
far away from the village!
Hyuga Kagami walked over to the middle-aged shinobi and took a moment to size up his companions.
Including himself, there were twelve shinobi in total, divided into three squads.
Aside from the three squad captains, all nine remaining members were former subordinates of Orochimaru.
Their destination was a border outpost located near the boundary between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind.
The moment they left the village, Hyuga Kagami activated his Byakugan.
As though he had entered a war zone, he immediately became fully alert, keeping a close watch on his surroundings.
Hyuga Kagami wasn’t being overly cautious.
He had already learned a painful lesson once before.
Just a few months ago, he had been ambushed less than ten kilometers from the village while escorting wounded shinobi back from the front lines.
The entire group had suffered heavy casualties.
If a Jonin dispatched from the village hadn’t arrived in time to reinforce them, Hyuga Kagami’s name would probably already have been engraved on the Memorial Stone.
The brutality of war had taught Hyuga Kagami many things.
Although the war was now a thing of the past, some habits simply couldn’t be changed overnight.
And Hyuga Kagami wasn’t the only one who had become more vigilant.
After leaving the village, the other shinobi traveling with him had also instinctively gone on guard.
There was only one exception.
Glancing at the small, slender figure trailing at the very back of the group, Hyuga Kagami let out a soft sigh.
If there was anyone in the village who was most unwilling to believe that Orochimaru had defected, it was undoubtedly Anko Mitarashi, who was trailing behind Hyuga Kagami!
Almost overnight, Anko had fallen from being the student of one of the Legendary Sannin and one of the village’s rising stars to becoming a prisoner.
After several weeks of confinement, she was sent off to the border together with Hyuga Kagami, completely removed from the village’s center of power.
Just from the emptiness in her eyes and her dazed expression, it was obvious that she still couldn’t accept the fact that her teacher, Orochimaru—one of the Legendary Sannin—had betrayed the village.
The collapse of something she had believed in so deeply was perhaps something she would never fully recover from for the rest of her life.
Withdrawing his gaze from Anko, Hyuga Kagami carefully looked over the other shinobi traveling with them.
Of the twelve members of the group, only the middle-aged shinobi leading them was a Jonin.
The remaining eleven—including Hyuga Kagami and Anko—were all Chunin.
Overall, the group possessed a respectable amount of combat strength.
As long as they didn’t run into an ambush squad composed entirely of Jonin, there should be virtually no danger along the way.
Besides, the war was already over.
The chances of enemy Jonin appearing within the Land of Fire had become exceedingly small.
Sure enough, just as Hyuga Kagami had expected, they encountered no trouble along the way and arrived safely at the border outpost.
After settling into the border outpost, the twelve-man group was officially divided into three squads.
Hyuga Kagami, Anko, and a Chunin named Oda were assigned to the squad led by the Jonin.
The Land of Fire and the Land of Wind did not actually share a direct border.
Several smaller countries, such as the Land of Rivers and the Land of Rain, lay between them.
In practice, however, these small countries did little to serve as a true barrier.
The border outpost where Hyuga Kagami was stationed was responsible for guarding a stretch of roughly twenty kilometers.
On one end of the outpost lay the edge of a forest, while on the other stretched an endless sea of sand.
And so, Hyuga Kagami began his monotonous life of endlessly patrolling back and forth through the desert.
Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, two months went by.
All news from the village had been completely cut off.
Stationed at the border, Hyuga Kagami felt as though he had been isolated from the rest of the world, spending every day trapped in the same cycle of patrolling, standing guard, and resting.
During this time, he could clearly sense that the Jonin leading the group had been keeping a constant watch on him and the other eight former subordinates of Orochimaru.
Because of this, Hyuga Kagami behaved himself and made no suspicious moves whatsoever.
Privately, however, he suspected that this surveillance wouldn’t last for very long.
Even a great village with resources as vast as Konoha’s didn’t have enough manpower to keep more than a hundred shinobi under constant surveillance indefinitely.
There had to be a time limit.
Sure enough, not long afterward, the village dispatched three new Chunin to replace the previous three squad captains, including the middle-aged Jonin.
At first, Hyuga Kagami assumed this meant that the village had finally ended its surveillance of them.
But after observing the three newcomers for a while, he noticed that all three Chunin captains were unusually quiet and withdrawn, each of them giving off a cold, sinister air.
“These people aren’t ordinary Chunin!”
Hyuga Kagami quickly came to a realization.
These three newly arrived squad captains were either ANBU or members of Root!
Would an ordinary border outpost really require three ANBU or Root shinobi to serve as squad captains?
The answer was obvious.
Hyuga Kagami’s thoughts immediately began racing.
He had no idea what exactly had happened in the village during the past two months, but one thing was clear—
Danger had already arrived.
There was no time to waste.
He had to begin the Tenseigan Plan immediately…