[Rengoku's Original Timeline]
In the forest outside Konoha Village.
"At present, we don't know which space the clan head was taken to by the Dragon Vein."
Uchiha Makumi said with a solemn expression.
Standing in front of him was Yagura Karatachi, who had hurried back from the battlefield.
At this moment, a full four days had already passed since Rengoku had been swept away by the powerful force of the Dragon Vein.
On Sunagakure's side, they had long since impatiently announced: Uchiha Rengoku had been successfully killed by their Fourth Kazekage, Rasa.
This news was like a heavy bomb, instantly spreading throughout the entire ninja world.
However, Konoha firmly denied it and declared that Uchiha Rengoku had merely been injured.
This should have been a trivial matter that could be easily resolved as long as Uchiha Rengoku personally showed himself.
But strangely enough, Konoha Village had now gone into full lockdown, implementing a policy of easy entry but strict exit.
Such abnormal behavior inevitably aroused suspicion, causing people to speculate whether Uchiha Rengoku had truly met with misfortune.
Yagura Karatachi had finally managed to find an opportunity to make contact with the Uchiha clan members.
After hearing Makumi's explanation, the tightly wound string in his heart finally loosened a little.
"Then…"
Yagura Karatachi was just about to ask whether the Uchiha Rengoku clone in front of him needed to be escorted back to Konoha Village,
when he worried that this information might actually be a secret that Rengoku had deliberately concealed.
After a brief moment of thought, he quickly changed the words that were about to leave his mouth and instead said, "Right now, the ninja world has once again become turbulent because of Rengoku's sudden disappearance."
"Do you need my assistance for what comes next?"
After all, Konoha Village had already suffered a great loss of strength due to the loss of the Nine-Tails jinchuriki and the complete annihilation of the Third Hokage's faction, falling into an unprecedented state of weakness.
(At least, that was indeed how it appeared to outsiders.)
At this critical moment, it was Uchiha Rengoku who stepped forward and, with his own strength alone, swept aside both Iwagakure and Sunagakure, stabilizing the situation.
But now, Uchiha Rengoku was suspected to have died on the battlefield, which undoubtedly brought new variables and crises to the entire ninja world.
All sides were probing, trying to find out what the truth really was.
As Rengoku's close friend, Yagura Karatachi was naturally concerned about Konoha's safety.
As for Makumi, he knew nothing about Yagura Karatachi's true circumstances and merely regarded him as the clan head's friend.
Facing Yagura Karatachi's inquiry, Makumi replied calmly, "The clan head already left backup measures to deal with the current situation. Everything is still under our control."
Then he added, "Even if the clan head is not in the village right now, matters on the commercial side will continue to operate as usual. The Mizukage need not worry."
Hearing that Rengoku had already made thorough preparations in advance, and had even properly handled the merchant caravan affairs from before, the heart that Yagura Karatachi had been holding in suspense finally settled a little.
"I understand. In that case, I'll return to Kirigakure first."
"We'll talk about everything else after Rengoku comes back."
"Mizukage-sama, please take care on your way."
Yagura Karatachi turned around and swiftly departed with his mirror clone.
He leapt nimbly through the forest, and from time to time, he would turn his head to glance back at Rengoku's clone.
At this moment, that clone still maintained an appearance identical to Yagura Karatachi's, but it had not the slightest bit of consciousness. Its eyes looked especially empty and lifeless.
At the instant Rengoku was swept into the Dragon Vein's power, he had only managed to pass extremely limited information to the few clones around him.
What Yagura Karatachi received was that brief sentence, "Wait for me to come back," after which this clone ended up in its current state.
Having lost Rengoku's flying support, Yagura Karatachi himself did not possess the ability to fly.
Under such circumstances, it was naturally impossible for him to launch a surprise attack on the Cloud Village forces that had the Eight-Tails jinchuriki and the Raikage stationed there.
Yagura Karatachi spent several days carefully studying the taijutsu mysteries of Rengoku's clone, and eventually chose to come to the vicinity of Konoha Village to gather related intelligence.
Although this clone of Rengoku still contained residual tailed beast chakra within its body, and could follow some of the simple commands he issued, once it involved more complex and delicate operations, it was completely incapable of carrying them out properly.
Yagura Karatachi guessed that it was because of the chakra of the Three-Tails Isobu, which naturally made it close to him.
In any case, outsiders did not know these things.
Since there were no problems on Konoha's side, he had to head back early. If this clone were to be controlled by someone else, he would not even have tears left to cry.
———
Inside the Uchiha clan grounds, everything was quiet.
Before long, Makumi hurried back and bowed to Orochimaru as he reported, "Orochimaru-sama, Yagura Karatachi has already left."
After saying this, he stood quietly to the side and waited for instructions.
After hearing the report, Orochimaru merely slowly raised a hand and gave a light wave, indicating that he understood.
However, his sharp eyes remained fixed on the screen in front of him, and he did not turn around.
Makumi was already used to Orochimaru's focused demeanor, so he respectfully saluted and then withdrew silently.
When Rengoku was swept away by the Dragon Vein, he simultaneously sent out an emergency message to all of his clones.
However, in reality, there were only three clones that remained here.
One of them was the mirror clone that contained the chakra of the Three-Tails Isobu; another was the clone by Karin's side, carrying a massive amount of shamanic power as well as a great deal of natural energy; and the final clone was the one Orochimaru himself was using at this very moment.
At the instant Rengoku was forcibly torn away from the current space-time, he instantly extracted the spiritual essence from all of these clones.
Orochimaru had been startled at the time, thinking that he would have to carry out the reincarnation ritual ahead of schedule.
After all, at that moment, he was not yet prepared with a perfect body of his own.
Fortunately, although their consciousness had been forcibly stripped away, the physical shells of these clones were still able to function and be used normally.
Not long after, Minato Namikaze swiftly used space-time ninjutsu to safely bring everyone back here.
Orochimaru then carried out a detailed examination and in-depth analysis of the clones.
After careful investigation, he ultimately arrived at a conclusion.
Uchiha Rengoku had indeed completely disappeared from this space-time, as if he had evaporated from the world, leaving not the slightest trace behind.
Although as long as Rengoku's clones still existed, it meant that Rengoku himself was safe and sound, one had to know that the flow of time between different space-times was very likely not the same.
Therefore, the time of Rengoku's return was difficult to predict. He might return in the blink of an eye, or it might take several years, or even decades.
Under these circumstances, Orochimaru's top priority was to focus on researching how to locate Rengoku and bring him back smoothly.
Looking again at the results of this ninja world war, aside from the unfortunate death of the Two-Tails jinchuriki Yugito Nii, the losses on the Cloud Village side were negligible; Iwagakure lost roughly two to three thousand ninja, as well as the Four-Tails jinchuriki; and Sunagakure was undoubtedly the biggest loser of this war, with more than seven thousand deaths.
Such heavy casualties left Sunagakure severely weakened.
It was estimated that they would be unable to recover for as long as ten years in the future.
Yet what was unexpected was that Rasa shamelessly claimed that he had personally killed Rengoku.
Naturally, the people of Konoha did not believe this claim. With a bit of thought, they saw through Rasa's true intentions.
Nothing more than trying to use so-called "war merits" to offset the crime of his defeat and escape.
At the same time, he wanted to test Konoha, and even intended to provoke conflicts between other villages and Konoha.
After all, when Rasa fled, he had personally seen that Rengoku's clone still existed.
What Rasa did not expect, however, was that Konoha had backup measures prepared.
At this moment, Konoha Village was going along with the situation, deliberately putting on a posture of extreme vigilance and tight security.
Now it was simply a matter of seeing which ninja village would fail to hold back and come to die next.
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