Chapter 5: Fugaku Uchiha

At the Uchiha Security Bureau, Kawaki Aoba dragged in two Hyuga chūnin who looked as though they had already been beaten half to death.

Having captured two of the Hyuga clan’s chūnin, if he did nothing and allowed the Hyuga side to recover its senses, what awaited him would surely be another round of targeting.

And how would that be any different from being fish laid out on a chopping block?

So Kawaki Aoba chose to strike first. Rather than sit and wait for the Hyuga clan to react, it was better to stir up trouble for them himself.

As for why he had chosen the Uchiha, one reason was that the two great noble clans of Konoha, Hyuga and Uchiha, already looked down on each other. Another reason was that even if he took this matter to the Third Hokage, given the old man’s nature, he would most likely not trouble the Hyuga clan for the sake of a mere genin with some potential.

More likely, he would simply be traded away in exchange for some more concrete benefit.

As for whether approaching the Uchiha would offend the Third Hokage, or some fellow lurking in the sewers, Kawaki Aoba felt the chance was slim. With the value he had displayed so far, it would be very hard for him to enter the eyes of Konoha’s upper ranks.

If not for this suddenly awakened Byakugan, Konoha’s higher-ups would not necessarily care much about him, this little ninja.

When Kawaki Aoba explained his purpose under the watchful eyes of two Uchiha security ninja and revealed the identities of the two Hyuga chūnin, the two Uchiha, as expected, wore expressions as if they had seen a ghost.

“You’re saying these two Hyuga chūnin attacked you outside your home, so you suspect they were spies sent by another village?” Fearing that he might have been hallucinating before, the Uchiha ninja repeated the question.

Kawaki Aoba nodded emphatically and gave the same answer again. “Exactly. They attacked a Konoha shinobi in our village, and me at that—a rare genius like myself. So I have reason to suspect these two Hyuga ninja were definitely spies bought by an outside village.

“They were trying to crush the geniuses of Konoha through such a method. Such a conspiracy is utterly vicious, so I beg the great officers of the Security Bureau to punish these kinds of people severely, to uncover the truth of this matter, and to find out every last one of those damned spies.”

Uchiha security ninja: ...

This really was the kind of complaint that stuck in one’s throat, impossible to spit out.

Were there spies from other hidden villages in Konoha? Absolutely. Even Konoha ninja could be turned; that much was possible. But to say that members of the Hyuga clan were spies was going a little too far.

Whether branch family or main family, the chances of betraying Konoha and serving as spies for another village were virtually zero.

The former was because they held an exalted position within the clan; so long as they themselves did not want to, they did not even need to go to the battlefield, much less take missions. As for the latter, well, let us just mention the bird in the cage.

Still, whether believable or not, they had to handle it, especially with clear evidence in hand.

Very quickly, the Uchiha security force sprang into action. While separating the three of them for individual questioning, a group of Uchiha ninja also headed in force to the outside of Kawaki Aoba’s home to verify the traces.

As for why use the phrase "headed in force," the reason was simple: there were many of them.

Because their duties overlapped heavily with those of the Anbu, the Uchiha security force normally dealt only with the most trivial of incidents.

Now that they had finally received a major case, how could they not be excited? And when that case involved the Hyuga clan, it made the Uchiha even more delighted.

News spread rapidly through the Security Bureau that the Hyuga clan had produced two suspected spies who had assaulted a reasonably talented genin within the village. From ten told to a hundred, it soon reached the ears of the current captain of the Uchiha Security Force, Uchiha Fugaku.

A case that implicated the Hyuga clan and also counted as a major matter for the Uchiha Security Force—if Fugaku did not come to take a look, that would be strange indeed.

And the Uchiha’s efficiency truly was no joke. Under the illusionary interrogation of three-tomoe Sharingan, the two Hyuga chūnin whom Kawaki Aoba had identified as spies quickly spilled every scrap of information they knew.

Compared with their ordeal, Kawaki Aoba was treated much more leniently. After being questioned in detail, there was nothing more that followed.

During questioning, Kawaki Aoba also honestly recounted, word for word, everything that had happened after the two ninja appeared.

As for anything deeper, such as his own Byakugan, he did not mention a single syllable. No matter how the Uchiha asked, he maintained the stance of knowing nothing when asked.

In the captain’s office of the Security Bureau, Uchiha Fugaku flipped through the intelligence extracted from the two Hyuga chūnin, his expression unusually strange.

A foreigner who possessed a thin trace of Hyuga blood, yet hovered at the edge of the Hyuga clan, had awakened the Byakugan. This was truly rare.

If such a thing had happened in the Uchiha clan, it would not have been strange at all. After all, their Sharingan talent was not something one could see from birth. But this was the Hyuga clan, a clan whose talent and fate were decided from the moment of birth.

Fugaku thought carefully and was certain that before this Kawaki Aoba, among those who had Hyuga blood in thin measure within their bodies yet had not inherited the Byakugan at birth, there had never been a precedent of awakening the eye later in life. At least in the records since Konoha’s founding, there had never been such a case.

Though this was somewhat bizarre, it was not altogether impossible to accept. What Fugaku was thinking now was how the Uchiha Security Bureau should handle this matter.

He picked up Kawaki Aoba’s statement from the side and felt somewhat troubled.

Clearly, there was something wrong with Kawaki Aoba’s testimony. Though every sentence was true, he had deliberately concealed the matter of his Byakugan awakening.

To say that Kawaki Aoba had not opened the Byakugan, or that he had no idea why those two had come, would be utter nonsense.

If the boy were truly as innocent as he claimed, then why was he wearing sunglasses?

An injured eye, afraid of bright light hurting it? That was obviously nonsense. Their Security Bureau was not outside; there was no glaring sun here to blind anyone.

Moreover, the boy’s behavior could already be called shifting the blame. He wanted to exploit the conflict between the Uchiha and the Hyuga clan to make a big issue out of it, so as to escape this disaster.

The idea was not bad. It was a pity that this boy was still too naive.

Uchiha Fugaku shook his head, feeling that Kawaki Aoba had made things far too simple, and at the same time he looked down on the Hyuga clan from the bottom of his heart.

What nonsense main family and branch family. Did a clan like that deserve to stand on equal footing with the Uchiha?