Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
The sound of a cane echoed through the dim underground chamber.
The cane's owner walked slowly, arriving at the deepest cell. Looking at the figure restrained inside, he said coldly, "How pathetic, Orochimaru!"
Undoubtedly.
Locked in this deepest cell was Orochimaru, defeated by Shinji in the guise of Akatsuki's 'A' during the Hidden Leaf battle and subsequently captured by the village.
Bound head to toe with sealing formulas, Orochimaru peered through the cell bars at the figure outside and smirked. "Danzo, I didn't expect you'd be the first to visit me! Looks like the old man has reinstated your position as advisory elder, hasn't he?"
Leaning on his cane, Danzo said, "You dared to desecrate the First and Second's bodies. Utterly foolish!"
"Hmph!"
Orochimaru let out a soft snort.
Danzo continued, "The interrogation team will question you next. I don't want our collaboration to be known to the village. You understand what I mean, don't you?"
Orochimaru chuckled. "So you want me to keep my mouth shut? If that's the case, you'll have to offer something in return, won't you?"
Danzo replied, "At the right time, I'll set you free—but not now!"
Orochimaru nodded slightly.
He held plenty of leverage over Danzo. If Danzo went back on his word, Orochimaru had ways to deal with him.
Having said his piece, Danzo turned to leave. Halfway out, he paused and added, "Three days from now, Tsunade will face the Jonin trust vote!"
Orochimaru wasn't surprised. "So it's Tsunade!"
Danzo said, "If you want to get out sooner, think carefully about how to deal with her. You're a smart man—you should know what to do!"
…
At nearly the same moment, in Koharu Utatane's elder office, Koharu said to Shinji, "Shinji, your performance this time was exceptional!"
Shinji nodded.
He neither beamed with pride nor deflected the praise.
Koharu continued, "Based on your contributions, I can authorize your entry into the Anbu and allow you to form your own team."
"Understood!"
Shinji nodded again, seeming somewhat distracted.
The conditions he'd previously proposed weren't what he truly wanted.
Koharu, preoccupied with her own concerns, didn't notice Shinji's demeanor and went on, "Three days from now, Tsunade will assume the Hokage title, becoming the village's Fifth Hokage. She's currently focused on mentoring Kurama Yakumo, so don't cross her. You'll serve under me instead!"
"Oh?"
Hearing the Third was stepping down piqued Shinji's interest.
As the saying goes, a new leader brings new advisors. With the Third's retirement, Koharu and Homura, from the same era, found themselves in an awkward position.
Even if they clung to their advisory elder roles, their power and influence would inevitably wane.
Leaving Koharu's office, Shinji glanced back at the Hokage Building and shook his head slightly.
The Chunin Exam battle had fundamentally altered the shinobi world's landscape. Three of the Five Great Shinobi Villages had, openly or covertly, changed leadership.
Everyone knew the next clash with Akatsuki might be the final one.
But Shinji had no time to dwell on this. His immediate priority was finding the girl named Mumei.
Awakening the Rinnegan had elevated his strength, but it came at a cost.
The greatest loss was undoubtedly the disappearance of his three Mangekyo dojutsu: Susanoo Tomoshibi, Jikibi, and Wazunagi.
To recover these dojutsu, he needed to find Mumei, the Uchiha girl.
Though he couldn't fully trust her claim of safeguarding Susanoo Tomoshibi, Jikibi, and Wazunagi for him, it was a lead worth pursuing.
With this in mind, Shinji headed toward the archive.
When he awakened the Rinnegan, his surging dojutsu power had expanded Jikibi's range from an initial hundred kilometers to over two hundred.
Thus, Mumei's sealing location must be within this two-hundred-kilometer radius; otherwise, she couldn't have infiltrated his Jikibi.
But a circle with a two-hundred-kilometer diameter was an absurdly large area.
Every inch of land within could be Mumei's sealing site. Even ten years wouldn't be enough for Shinji to search it all.
Shaking his head, Shinji shifted his approach. "Mumei infiltrated my Jikibi, so her dojutsu power is at least Mangekyo-level. The clan records mark every Mangekyo user. If I start with the records, I should quickly identify her…"
With a plan, Shinji reached the archive.
As the First Chair of the Ninja Academy, he accessed the Uchiha clan records without needing approval and began flipping through them page by page.
He'd seen the records before, but this time he studied them more carefully.
Yet, after going through them two or three times, he found no Uchiha matching Mumei's circumstances.
Even for a war-torn clan like the Uchiha, with nearly a thousand years of history, Mangekyo Sharingan users were exceedingly rare, and almost all had clear birth and death records.
"Could Mumei not be in the records?"
As this thought emerged, more ideas surfaced in Shinji's mind.
In any era, Mangekyo Uchihas were exceptional within the clan. If Mumei was truly a Mangekyo user, she would surely be recorded.
Unless she committed a grave crime or her existence was deemed unfit for documentation.
Considering Mumei's sealing, Shinji leaned toward the latter—that Mumei, or her Sharingan, possessed an ability too extraordinary to be openly recorded.
For another clan, this might seem far-fetched.
But for the Uchiha, it wasn't impossible. Every Mangekyo Sharingan user was like drawing a blind box.
If luck was as extraordinary as Obito's, pulling a Space-Time Dojutsu wasn't out of the question.
Mumei's sealing intrigued Shinji, especially regarding her dojutsu. Even if she had an Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan like Madara, she could still be killed—sealing her was unnecessarily complicated.
The act of sealing itself suggested Mumei's uniqueness—or rather, the uniqueness of the dojutsu in her Sharingan!
"Yachihoko - is it because of this dojutsu?"