Early the next morning, Hyuga Kagami, who was in the middle of his morning training, heard rumors that the head of the family had been attacked. This also confirmed that the flesh and blood sample Orochimaru had sent over yesterday was indeed Hyuga Hiashi's.
Although he had long suspected it, the thought that Orochimaru could so easily injure the Hyuga clan's strongest member—even though there was certainly an element of a sneak attack—still left Hyuga Kagami somewhat disappointed.
From Hyuga Kagami's own perspective, for a Hyuga clansman to reach the level of the Sannin through conventional training, the difficulty was simply too great.
Moreover, when it came to talent, Hyuga Kagami clearly belonged to the mediocre category; this was evident from the number of his activated special gene sequences.
Ordinary Hyuga clansmen generally had about 20 out of 33 special gene sequences activated. Outstanding individuals like Hyuga Hiashi could even reach 28, while Hyuga Kagami himself only had 17 activated, significantly below the clan's average.
If he continued to progress step-by-step, Special Jōnin would perhaps be the peak of Hyuga Kagami's entire life.
Regarding the specific details of Hyuga Hiashi's attack, the Main Family (宗家 - Sōke) remained tight-lipped.
Hyuga Kagami guessed that perhaps Hyuga Hiashi had recognized Orochimaru's identity during the attack. Orochimaru was a disciple of the Third Hokage and one of the Sannin; not only was he powerful and influential, but his status was also sensitive. Therefore, facing such a troublesome matter, the Main Family had likely not yet reached a consensus internally, naturally remaining silent to the outside world.
"Orochimaru daring to attack the clan head clearly shows he's not afraid of exposing his identity. This also confirms my suspicion: Orochimaru has indeed completed his preparations for defection and can make his move at any time."
After a little pondering, Hyuga Kagami became even more convinced that Orochimaru was about to defect.
Orochimaru's defection had both pros and cons for Hyuga Kagami. The pro was naturally the removal of a great burden (lit: a great mountain pressing down on him), while the con was losing a powerful protector (lit: a thigh to hug).
"Besides Orochimaru, everyone else who knew about my participation in human experimentation died in the war. As long as nothing goes wrong on Orochimaru's end, the village shouldn't be able to trace it back to me."
The few who had joined Orochimaru around the same time as Hyuga Kagami had all died one after another in the war. After being transferred to the rear, due to the unique nature of his Byakugan, Hyuga Kagami had always conducted experiments in an independent laboratory. Therefore, he had no interaction with Orochimaru's other experimental personnel. Besides Orochimaru himself, no one knew which experimental project he was responsible for.
After mentally reviewing all potential risks, Hyuga Kagami calmly resumed his morning exercises, as if nothing concerned him.
For the next few days, the village remained calm. Then, on the evening of the third day, an Anbu operative wearing a fox mask suddenly appeared at Hyuga Kagami's home and escorted him to a temporary Anbu base.
The base was located in the northwest corner of the village. It was large and heavily guarded. Just the Anbu guards Hyuga Kagami spotted numbered seven or eight squads.
After being taken into a small, single room, Hyuga Kagami frowned slightly.
The room was tiny, with no furniture. Outside, sturdy iron bars had been installed, and beyond the bars, an Anbu operative even stood guard.
Such a setup was less like a temporary base and more accurately described as a temporary prison.
Undoubtedly, for the Anbu, who were directly under the Hokage, to mobilize on such a scale, it meant Orochimaru must have officially defected—perhaps today, or even tonight.
Using his Byakugan's innate ability, Hyuga Kagami calmly observed everything in the temporary prison.
Hyuga Kagami wasn't the first ninja brought here, nor was he the last. After him, many more ninjas were brought in one after another.
Without exception, all the detained ninjas were Orochimaru's subordinates, totaling several hundred. Among them were even several Elite Jōnin renowned in the village.
This wasn't surprising, though. During the war, Orochimaru had successively commanded multiple units. Over the years, it wasn't odd for him to have several hundred former subordinates. After all, a village mobilized for war had tens of thousands of ninjas. If he didn't even have a few hundred subordinates, Orochimaru wouldn't have been qualified to compete with the Fourth Hokage for the position of Hokage.
Several hundred detainees, along with a comparable number of guards, made the temporary prison noisy.
Not everyone knew the full story like Hyuga Kagami. Among the hundreds of Orochimaru's detained subordinates, many were unaware of Orochimaru's defection and thus expressed great dissatisfaction and indignation at being inexplicably detained.
The clamor only gradually subsided when the Third Hokage appeared.
Now that the Fourth Hokage had just taken office, many of the village's major and minor affairs were still managed by the Third. In the eyes of many ninjas, they still habitually regarded the Third as the Hokage.
Under the Third Hokage's supervision, the screening process quickly began.
Undoubtedly, the first to be screened were those formidable Elite Jōnin. As for Chūnin like Hyuga Kagami, who had been promoted provisionally during the war, they certainly wouldn't be attended to for a while.
Three days passed in a flash.
Although he was self-aware, knowing that his promotion to wartime Chūnin was an exceptional measure to meet war demands and his actual skill was only at the level of a senior Genin, he knew he wouldn't receive much attention.
But after being detained for three whole days with no one paying him any mind, Hyuga Kagami's dissatisfaction slowly built up inside him.
Undoubtedly, the village's screening process was not going smoothly. Many detainees simply didn't believe that Orochimaru, one of the Sannin, would defect, so they weren't cooperating with the investigation.
Moreover, the village higher-ups were divided on whether to use torture.
After all, mere interrogation made it difficult to discern which detainees had participated in Orochimaru's human experiments and which were sleeper agents left behind by him. It's important to remember these detained ninjas had all undergone rigorous anti-interrogation training and had just been through the crucible of war; they weren't inexperienced rookies.
But if torture were used, the implications would be too great. It wasn't one or two people detained, but hundreds. To torture hundreds of heroes who had just won the war for the village because of Orochimaru's sole defection was clearly not a wise choice.
On the fifth day of Hyuga Kagami's detention, Danzō appeared in the temporary prison.
Danzō visited the detained Jōnin one by one. It was unknown what they specifically discussed, but in any case, when Danzō left, he took most of them with him.
'They were swayed by Danzō and joined Root!'
Without needing to think too hard, Hyuga Kagami guessed the outcome.
If they couldn't use torture to screen them one by one, then these detained Jōnin were undoubtedly the biggest destabilizing factor in the village. Therefore, allowing Danzō to recruit them into Root became the village's only option.
These detained Jōnin had clearly anticipated their situation in the village. As Orochimaru's former subordinates, the likelihood of being accepted by the Fourth Hokage was slim. And the Fourth was still so young, perhaps he would be in power for twenty or thirty years. If they didn't find a backer soon, they felt their days in the village would surely be difficult. Thus, joining Root, which operated independently of the Fourth Hokage, became their best option at present.
In the following days, Root personnel also invited Hyuga Kagami to join, but he politely declined. In his view, even defecting was better than joining an organization like Root, which specialized in dirty work, lived precariously, and served as a scapegoat.
Fortunately, the Root members didn't make things difficult for Hyuga Kagami. After being rejected, they left readily.
Since the village had allowed Danzō to recruit so many detained Jōnin, they wouldn't permit him to extend his reach too far towards the detained Chūnin. Therefore, Root's recruitment of the detained Chūnin was more like a formality, which was why Hyuga Kagami dared to refuse.
(End of Chapter)