The Nine-Tails Attack

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Three weeks slipped by.

Naoki was quite surprised. After so much time, the village still had not sent a support squad, nor had it resumed the purge against him and Anko.

That clearly did not match his expectations, and it did not match common sense either.

What kind of purge dragged on this slowly?

'Did something happen in the village?'

Naoki searched through the hazy memories in his mind, trying to find a clue that might explain what had happened. For a long time, he came up with nothing.

Then an image suddenly flashed through his mind. His whole body shook, and he murmured, "The... Nine-Tails Attack?"

Although he did not know the exact date of the Nine-Tails Attack, Naoki knew it had happened on the night Naruto was born.

Naruto's mother, Kushina Uzumaki, was the Nine-Tails jinchuriki. Everything related to her was classified. With Naoki's status in the village, there was no way for him to investigate it directly.

But that did not stop him from making deductions. Hinata and Naruto were similar in age, and before Naoki left the village, he had already heard that the clan head's wife was pregnant. If Naruto was a few months older than Hinata, then his birth should have been around this period.

'How did I forget something this important?'

Naoki blamed himself inwardly.

In truth, it was understandable. He had been in the shinobi world for more than ten years. His memories had blurred, and because he had never been strong, he had spent all this time living under the threat of death. He had neither the ability nor the desire to interfere in major events, so he had not paid much attention to them.

Now things were different. With the Tenseigan, he already had the ability to involve himself in certain matters. He had to start paying attention to every major event in the shinobi world like a true powerhouse, so he could seize opportunities from them.

After reflecting on his mistake, Naoki analyzed the village's current situation.

If the Nine-Tails Attack had truly happened, then the balance inside the village was about to change completely.

The young Fourth Hokage and Kushina, the Nine-Tails jinchuriki, had both died. Konoha had lost its two most promising Kage-level combatants at the same time, leaving the village in an awkward gap between generations.

The White Fang had committed suicide. Tsunade had left. Orochimaru had defected. Jiraiya had left the village to pursue him.

In the current Konoha, across both the younger and middle generations, there were no truly reliable Kage-level shinobi left aside from Jiraiya, who was not even in the village. Only the Third Hokage, Danzo, and the other old men who had held power for more than twenty years remained to prop up the village's image.

In addition, during the Nine-Tails Attack, the Nine-Tails had allegedly been controlled by the Sharingan. That meant the Uchiha clan, one of the village's major combat forces, would inevitably fall under suspicion. Every powerful Uchiha would be placed under surveillance. Even without memories from another life, Naoki could predict that conflict between the Uchiha and the village would become unavoidable.

After analyzing the shift in Konoha's power structure, Naoki turned back to his own situation.

Without question, compared to the powerful and united Uchiha clan, who were suspected of causing the Nine-Tails Attack, old subordinates of Orochimaru like Naoki were no longer much of a threat in the village's eyes.

Beyond that, large numbers of ordinary shinobi had died during the Nine-Tails Attack. The village had lost a great deal of manpower. It now had to rebuild the destroyed districts immediately while also assigning elite personnel to monitor the Uchiha clan. Even a village as strong as Konoha was likely stretched thin. It was reasonable that no one had time to worry about a border outpost.

It did not take long for Naoki's guess to be confirmed.

The village sent a message: abandon the outpost and have all personnel return to Konoha immediately.

After briefly packing up, the four remaining shinobi at the outpost set out for the village. On the road, Naoki secretly felt lucky. Sasori had not found him after all this time.

In reality, Naoki had misunderstood the situation.

Seizing the Third Kazekage human puppet had been an accident. Naoki knew that, but Sasori did not.

From Sasori's perspective, Naoki's Revolving Will and his method of controlling puppets without chakra strings were far too strange. That had led Sasori to misjudge Naoki's strength and assume he was at least an elite jonin. Because of that, Sasori had directly ignored the border outpost.

After all, by common sense, a border outpost used mainly for early warning would not have an elite jonin stationed there.

As a result, the very outpost where Naoki was stationed became the blind spot. It turned into the safest place precisely because it looked too unlikely. That was why Sasori had failed to find him.

After a week of fast travel, the four finally returned to Konoha.

At this moment, the village looked like one enormous construction site. Everywhere Naoki looked, there were busy workers, scaffolds, and transport carts moving back and forth.

Anko pointed toward the damaged wall in the distance, somewhat dazed. "What happened here?"

The two suspected Root shinobi traveling with them seemed to know something, but even they showed matching looks of surprise at the sight before them.

Clearly, the damage to the village had far exceeded what they had expected.

Naoki also looked shocked.

Although he had known that the Nine-Tails Attack had wounded Konoha deeply, the devastated state of the village was still difficult for him to accept at first glance.

Even during the brutal war, the village had never suffered losses this severe.

After arriving at the Mission Center and completing a simple handoff, the four of them dispersed on their own.

Naoki, free for the first time in months, did not idle. He began investigating what had happened in the village.

Before long, he gathered quite a bit of information.

First, the exact time of the Nine-Tails Attack had been roughly one month ago. Counting the days, it had happened right around the time Naoki encountered Sasori at the border.

Second, in that single night of chaos, the village had lost more than twenty jonin and hundreds of lower- and mid-ranking shinobi. Almost every shinobi clan in the village had casualties. It was said that the funerals alone had lasted an entire week.

Finally, several districts ravaged by the Nine-Tails had been completely flattened. Civilian casualties were impossible to estimate, and even now, many civilian bodies had not been found.

After collecting enough information, Naoki returned home with heavy thoughts.

Obito Uchiha was not unfamiliar to him. Among their classmates, there had been only a few people Naoki could barely keep beneath him, and Obito had been one of them.

Yet this former dead-last, who had looked like he was missing a few screws, had now grown into the hidden mastermind who could force the Fourth Hokage and the Nine-Tails jinchuriki to their deaths and manipulate the entire shinobi world from behind the curtain.

To be honest, Naoki was irritated.

But irritation was one thing. In his heart, he also understood that the Obito who now possessed the Mangekyo Sharingan and First Hokage's cells was already completely different. He could no longer look at him with the same eyes he had used back in school.

At the same time, ambition rose in Naoki's heart.

If Obito could rely on the Mangekyo Sharingan to stir up storms across the shinobi world, then why could Naoki, who possessed the Tenseigan, not leave the audience and step onto a stage that belonged to him alone?

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