Chapter 120: The Bloodstained Tree Hollow

Chapter 120: Chapter 120: The Bloodstained Tree Hollow

After removing the small message tube from the messenger hawk, Kakashi unfolded the secret letter inside and took a look. His brows immediately furrowed.

Shisui, standing beside him, hurriedly asked, "Did Lord Danzo and the others catch up to Shinichi?"

Kakashi shook his head. Handing the secret letter to the anxious Shisui, he explained to everyone, "Lord Danzo and his men were lured away by Shinichi’s shadow clone. They failed to catch up with the real Shinichi."

Hearing this, Shisui quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

This time, Uchiha Shinichi had not only wreaked havoc inside the Root base, but had also thoroughly humiliated Danzo, dealing a heavy blow to his prestige within the village.

And Danzo had never bothered hiding his hostility toward the Uchiha Clan in the first place.

Now that Shinichi had caused such a massive incident, Shisui knew perfectly well that if Shinichi fell into Danzo’s hands, there was absolutely no chance he would survive.

Hyuga Kagami took the secret letter and glanced over it before chuckling softly.

"Heh. Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us."

Shinobi possessing powerful ocular kekkei genkai were almost invariably experts in both tracking and counter-tracking.

Within the Hyuga Clan, once a clansman reached the level of a chunin, the clan would assign an expert tracker to provide them with specialized instruction. Hyuga Kagami himself had once received guidance in tracking techniques from a jonin of his clan.

The Uchiha Clan might not be as proficient in tracking as the Hyuga Clan, but when it came to counter-tracking, they were true experts.

Because of that, tracking down even an ordinary Uchiha jonin was an extremely difficult task, let alone someone possessing the extraordinary perception of the Mangekyo Sharingan.

Since the incident had erupted so suddenly, Danzo had only managed to recruit Hyuga Hizashi from the Hyuga Clan before setting out.

As for the village’s other two great ninja clans renowned for their tracking abilities—the Inuzuka and the Aburame—their clan compounds were located near the outskirts of the village. Anxious to depart, Danzo had not waited for their experts to assemble before hurriedly leading his forces out.

Clearly, Danzo wanted to eliminate Uchiha Shinichi as quickly as possible and minimize the fallout from this entire incident.

Unfortunately for him, things did not go according to plan.

Without the Inuzuka Clan, who specialized in tracking scents, and the Aburame Clan, who could command their kikaichu to conduct large-scale searches, relying on a single pair of Byakugan to locate a Mangekyo Sharingan wielder skilled in counter-tracking within the vast forest was simply far too difficult.

This awkward situation also exposed the most serious problem currently facing the village.

They lacked a Kage-level powerhouse capable of dealing with unexpected crises.

Konoha had no shortage of elite jonin, but there were very few true Kage-level powerhouses capable of taking control of a situation when it mattered.

The Third Hokage needed to remain in the village, while Jiraiya was stationed on the front lines defending against Kumogakure. Therefore, when Uchiha Shinichi wreaked havoc inside the Root base, the person who should have stepped forward was Danzo, the leader of Root himself.

However, Danzo had remained in the shadows for far too long.

So long, in fact, that he had already lost the edge and boldness he once possessed. All that remained in his heart were petty schemes and underhanded calculations.

And so, when Uchiha Shinichi rampaged through Root, Danzo had instead chosen to temporarily avoid confronting him head-on.

Hyuga Kagami was not surprised by this in the slightest.

During the Nine-Tails’ attack, Danzo had backed down.

In the original timeline, when Orochimaru launched his assault on Konoha, Danzo had backed down again.

Later, when Pain attacked Konoha, Danzo still remained hidden away.

From beginning to end, no matter how severely the village suffered, Danzo would always remain concealed within the shadows, watching everything unfold with cold eyes.

At that moment, Guy scratched his head and asked, "Even Lord Danzo and his men lost Shinichi’s trail. So where are we supposed to find him?"

Kakashi said nothing. Instead, he immediately formed a series of hand seals.

"Summoning Technique!"

Poof!

As the white smoke dispersed, eight ninja hounds of varying sizes appeared before them.

Kakashi then took out a bloodstained scrap of cloth and held it in front of the ninja hounds.

"I need everyone’s help finding the owner of this scent."

Kakashi had found this scrap of cloth while clearing the battlefield the previous night.

Naturally, its owner was none other than Uchiha Shinichi.

And the blood staining the cloth belonged to Shinichi as well.

Among the Eight Ninja Hounds, the leader, a ninja hound named Pakkun, leaned forward and sniffed the bloodstained cloth.

"Follow me."

With that, Pakkun took the lead and began guiding the way.

Following the trail, Team Eleven traveled for several hours before finally coming to a stop.

Pakkun raised one of his front paws and pointed ahead.

"Kakashi, the owner of the scent should be hiding somewhere over there!"

Everyone looked in the direction Pakkun was pointing.

But all they could see were trees upon trees. There appeared to be nothing else there.

At that moment, everyone turned their attention toward Hyuga Kagami.

With his Byakugan activated, Kagami carefully scanned the area before shaking his head.

"There’s only a tree hollow over there. It looks like some things were left behind inside, but Shinichi isn’t there."

The group made their way over to the tree hollow.

The moment they entered, everyone was stunned.

Bloodstains covered the inside of the hollow, with patches of dried, congealed blood everywhere. Blood-soaked bandages had been discarded all over the ground, as though someone who had suffered extremely severe injuries had once stopped here to dress their wounds.

Shisui looked puzzled.

"Shinichi was injured this badly? But didn’t Lord Danzo and his men fail to find him?"

Kakashi turned toward Pakkun and asked for confirmation.

"Does the scent inside this hollow match the scent on that scrap of cloth from earlier?"

Pakkun’s nose twitched a few times.

"There’s no mistake."

Hyuga Kagami crouched down and examined the ground for a moment before calmly saying,

"The blood on the ground has already congealed and turned dark. This didn’t happen today. It should have been sometime last night."

Shisui asked with a grave expression, "Could there be another group hunting Shinichi?"

"We can’t rule out that possibility." After a brief pause, Hyuga Kagami turned to Kakashi and asked, "Are you certain Shinichi wasn’t injured when he retreated?"

Kakashi replied, "During the battle, he did suffer several fatal injuries, but he recovered from them almost immediately. And I mean completely recovered. There wasn’t even a scar left where the wounds had been!"

For Kakashi, who possessed a Mangekyo Sharingan himself, his ability to perceive minute details was hardly inferior to that of Hyuga Kagami or Shisui.

More importantly, at the time, Kakashi had been completely focused on observing Uchiha Shinichi. Not a single detail had escaped his eye.

"He wasn’t injured when he retreated, and he used a shadow clone to shake off the village’s pursuit afterward. So why did he end up suffering such severe injuries? Could a third faction really have intervened? Was it Obito? Or someone else?"

Hyuga Kagami rested his chin on one hand and quietly sank into thought.

As far as he could see, if Obito had been the one to make a move, then Uchiha Shinichi would either have been taken down through some underhanded trick or escaped outright.

There shouldn’t have been such a fierce battle.

That simply didn’t fit Obito’s usual fighting style.

"Unless... Shinichi managed to force Obito to use Wood Release!"

Hyuga Kagami quickly shook his head, dismissing the absurd thought from his mind.

For one thing, Obito had no reason to fight Uchiha Shinichi to the death.

For another, Obito had been impersonating "Madara" all this time. There was no way he would expose his own Wood Release merely for the sake of dealing with Uchiha Shinichi.

Gathering his thoughts, Hyuga Kagami turned toward the rest of Team Eleven.

"Another faction may have gotten involved. We need to be even more careful from here on out!"