Chapter 375: The Rebellion Erupts

Chapter 375: Chapter 375: The Rebellion Erupts

Night fell, and as the temperature dropped, mist gradually began to appear, growing thicker and thicker.

Bathed in the dense fog of the night, the entirety of Kirigakure seemed exceptionally quiet. There were hardly any pedestrians left on the streets, all the shops had closed for business, and even lights were rarely seen.

Only the occasional barking of dogs and the pained groans of starving beggars by the roadside gave Kirigakure a faint semblance of life.

Suddenly—

One shadow after another appeared on the silent streets.

Like ghosts, these figures silently threaded their way through the dense fog without even producing the faintest sound of displaced air. It was clear that every one of them was a ninja highly proficient in the hidden mist assassination techniques.

"Ahhh...!"

Before long, a miserable scream rang out from the direction of the Mizukage Building!

That scream, piercing through the tranquil night, seemed to signal the beginning of the turmoil. Immediately afterward, waves of shouting, furious curses, and the shrill, ear-piercing sound of alarms began erupting throughout Kirigakure one after another.

"It’s finally begun!"

Upon hearing the commotion, countless people within Kirigakure who harbored schemes of their own had the exact same thought flash through their minds.

At that moment, Hyuga Kagami, who was staying inside a civilian residence in Kirigakure, also pulled aside the curtain.

"One... two... three... four... There are four battle zones in total..."

Because he was currently using his Fire Release clone, Hyuga Kagami didn’t have the Byakugan and couldn’t see through the dense fog outside the window. However, judging solely from the sounds of battle, he could still roughly determine the situation outside.

The chaotic fighting outside had erupted almost simultaneously. There were four battle zones in total, all centered around the Mizukage Building.

Faint sounds of fighting could also be heard from other areas of Kirigakure, but those battles were either people taking advantage of the chaos to loot merchant establishments, or conflicts deliberately instigated by the rebel faction to tie down the Kirigakure ANBU who remained loyal to the Fourth Mizukage, preventing them from reinforcing the Mizukage Building in time.

"It’s time."

With that thought, Hyuga Kagami’s figure flickered and disappeared from the spot.

The owner of the residence had completely ignored Hyuga Kagami’s intrusion into his home, as though he hadn’t noticed him at all. Only after Kagami left did the man slowly come back to his senses. When he heard the sounds of battle erupting outside, he immediately hid in a corner and began trembling uncontrollably.

In a place like Kirigakure, where turmoil occurred all too often, ordinary residents could do nothing but grit their teeth and endure...

......

In the underground palace beneath the Mizukage Building.

Kisame Hoshigaki pushed open a stone door and swept his gaze across the secret chamber beyond it. Seeing that two figures were already standing silently inside, his expression immediately darkened, though he gave nothing away as he calmly walked in.

The two people inside the chamber also turned their gazes toward Kisame as he entered, but they soon looked away almost simultaneously and remained silent.

The secret chamber once again fell into complete silence.

Leaning against the wall, Kisame felt somewhat uncomfortable.

This discomfort stemmed from the pressure exerted on him by the other two people in the secret chamber. Kisame knew that there were already very few ninja in Kirigakure capable of making him feel this kind of pressure, so he couldn’t help secretly speculating about the identities of the two people opposite him.

"Judging by that hair ornament, is that one from the Kaguya Clan? Weren’t they already wiped out?

"I can’t tell who the other guy is, but whenever I’m in front of him, I get this feeling that he can see right through me... Is it just my imagination?"

Both of them were dressed as Kirigakure ANBU and wore masks, so even with Kisame’s extensive experience, it was difficult for him to determine their true identities at a glance.

While Kisame was pondering this, the sound of footsteps came from deeper within the secret chamber.

Before long, a small, slender figure appeared.

"Lord Mizukage!"

The three of them, Kisame included, simultaneously bowed toward the small figure.

The figure who had appeared in the secret chamber was none other than the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura Karatachi, who had not shown himself in the village for a long time.

His somewhat vacant gaze swept across the three people before him before settling on one of them. Without the slightest trace of emotion, he said coldly, "Ryū, if there is a next time, I’ll personally gouge out your Red Eye!"

The Kirigakure ANBU named Ryū, however, immediately drew his sword and shouted sharply,

"You’re not the Fourth Mizukage!"

Ryū was the sole surviving ninja in Kirigakure from the Red Eye Clan, a prestigious Kekkei Genkai clan renowned for its dōjutsu.

Because the Red Eye Clan had also participated in the previous rebellion launched by Kirigakure’s Kekkei Genkai clans, Ryū had been implicated despite not personally taking part in his clan’s uprising. Left with little choice, he concealed his identity and joined the ANBU, becoming an inconspicuous member of its ranks.

Just moments ago, when he saw the Fourth Mizukage, he had instinctively activated his Red Eye and discovered that the Fourth Mizukage’s brain was saturated with someone else’s chakra.

And that was clearly a phenomenon that could only occur when someone was being controlled by genjutsu.

At Ryū’s sharp accusation, Kisame and the remaining ANBU immediately went on guard as well.

"Heh..."

At that moment, a soft chuckle came from behind the Fourth Mizukage.

Immediately afterward, a figure wearing a single-eyed spiral mask stepped out from behind him.

Ryū demanded, "Was it you who used genjutsu to control the Fourth Mizukage?"

Having manipulated the Mizukage like a puppet in the palm of his hand, Obito merely shrugged before spreading his hands with a smile.

"As expected, I couldn’t hide it from you. Those really are an irritating pair of eyes!"

"Akatsuki...? So the Fourth Mizukage has been under your control all along!"

Upon seeing Obito dressed in the black cloak with red clouds, Kisame suddenly understood. All the suspicions and conjectures he’d had before finally fell into place.

Obito didn’t deny it. Instead, he casually tossed several documents onto the ground and said indifferently, "Ryū, if it weren’t for me, with your identity as a remnant of the Red Eye Clan, the ANBU would’ve executed you long ago. Kisame, Fuguki Suikazan tried to kill you several times, and I was the one who stopped him every time. And Renge—if I hadn’t rescued you from death row, even your bones would’ve rotted away by now."

The three picked up the various execution orders issued by the village from the ground, their expressions shifting uncertainly.

After an intense internal struggle, Ryū slowly lowered the sword in his hand and asked, "What do you want from us?"

Renge also looked toward Obito, both anticipation and vigilance in his eyes.

Kisame, meanwhile, spread his shark-like mouth into a grin.

"You summoned us here in the Fourth Mizukage’s name. I assume you didn’t bring us here just to kill us?"

"Of course not!" After a brief pause, Obito continued, "All of you are abandoned pawns discarded by this village. If you remain in this village where the light of day never reaches, sooner or later you’ll be disposed of like garbage. So why not choose a different way to live?"

Ryū asked suspiciously, "You want us to join Akatsuki?"

Obito smiled.

"Exactly!"

Ryū and Renge exchanged a glance before nodding together.

As remnants of the Red Eye Clan and the Kaguya Clan, both of which had participated in the rebellion, Ryū and Renge no longer had any place for themselves in Kirigakure. Naturally, they didn’t have much loyalty toward the village either.

On top of that, Akatsuki had become famous throughout the shinobi world in a single battle after crushing the joint surprise attack launched by Konoha, Kumogakure, and Sunagakure.

For the two of them, joining such a powerful organization was practically equivalent to being given a new life.

Kisame had also long since grown weary of Kirigakure’s endless cycle of mutual slaughter. After pondering for a moment, he too accepted Obito’s proposal.

"I’m glad all of you made the correct choice."

These three had been carefully selected by Obito after layer upon layer of screening, so their decisions were well within his expectations.

Kisame then asked, "What about the rebellion outside? How should we deal with it?"

Obito curled his lips dismissively. "It’s nothing more than a farce. When the time is right, you three can go put an end to it. But remember—don’t kill Zabuza."

Ryū asked, "Why not kill him? Do you want to recruit him into the organization too?"

Obito smiled. "The organization has no interest in him. But if we leave him alive to disgust those old fossils in the village, don’t you think that would be rather amusing?"

Zabuza belonged to the type whose ambition exceeded his actual strength, and Obito had little interest in people like that.

In truth, among everyone in Kirigakure, the only person Obito truly had high hopes for was Kisame Hoshigaki.

As for Ryū of the Red Eye Clan and Renge of the Kaguya Clan, if the threat posed by Kamigami hadn’t grown so great, Obito wouldn’t have planned to recruit either of them into Akatsuki.

The thoughts of these two were simply too difficult to predict. They couldn’t be trusted, and they were equally difficult to control.

Hearing Obito’s words, both Ryū and Renge broke into grins.

Although the Kirigakure elders who had previously suppressed the rebellion of the powerful Kekkei Genkai clans had also suffered heavy casualties, several of them had still survived. And as remnants of those very Kekkei Genkai clans, Ryū and Renge naturally held no goodwill toward those old fossils.

Kisame asked, "What about the Samehada in his possession?"

Obito replied indifferently, "If you can take it from him, then Samehada is yours!"

Kisame grinned and said nothing more...

......

Meanwhile, Hyuga Kagami, controlling his Fire Release clone, bypassed the fighting around the perimeter of the Mizukage Building and quietly infiltrated the building itself.

"You—"

A Kirigakure ninja had only just opened his mouth when the short blade in Kagami’s hand plunged into his chest, cutting off his cry before it could even ring out.

Pulling out the blade, Kagami flicked the blood from its edge while inwardly grumbling,

"The defenses inside are this weak? Isn’t this way too sloppy?"

Throughout his infiltration, he had encountered only three Kirigakure ninja, and all three were merely ordinary chūnin.

It was honestly rather baffling.

After determining his bearings, Kagami arrived at the southwestern section of the Mizukage Building and thought,

"Where’s the entrance...?"

According to the intelligence sent back by Konoha’s spy, Kirigakure’s secret technique archives and treasure vault were both located within the underground palace beneath the Mizukage Building.

The entrance to the underground palace was somewhere in the area Kagami was currently searching, but even the spy Konoha had planted inside Kirigakure had been unable to determine its exact location.

Activating his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, Kagami carefully examined his surroundings.

Although the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan didn’t possess the Byakugan’s ability to see through objects, when it came to perceiving the smallest details, its insight surpassed even the Byakugan.

Thus, after carefully surveying the area, Kagami quickly discovered a well-concealed hidden door.

After opening the hidden door and entering the underground palace, Hyuga Kagami relied on his experience and deliberately searched toward areas densely covered in sealing formulas. Before long, he discovered a place that appeared to be either the secret technique archive or the treasure vault.

"Two squads... eight ninja, huh..."

Hidden around a corner, Kagami locked onto the positions of all eight guards before calmly stepping out.

"Who’s there!?"

"Stop!"

Seeing Kagami suddenly emerge, all eight guards immediately became vigilant. However, upon realizing that he was alone and dressed as a Kirigakure ninja, they didn’t attack right away. Instead, they spread out into formation and surrounded him.

When Kagami remained silent, the guard leading the group snarled viciously, "Who the hell are you, and why are you here? You’d better answer honestly, or I won’t mind letting you experience the torture methods of our Village of the Bloody Mist!"

The corner of Kagami’s mouth curled upward as the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan in his eyes slowly began to rotate.

In an instant, a golden phantom projected outward from Kagami’s body.

In the blink of an eye, the golden phantom transformed into the upper body of a gigantic warrior wielding two golden longswords.

The eight guards stared blankly at the suddenly appearing golden giant, momentarily stunned.

Before they could even recover—

The half-bodied golden giant, wielding twin swords wreathed in golden flames, brutally swept through them, instantly reducing all eight guards to mangled masses of flesh and blood!

After dealing with the guards at the entrance, Kagami’s gaze fell upon the sealed vault before him.

At that moment, the door of the vault was shimmering with the light of sealing formulas. Kirigakure had clearly inscribed an extremely sophisticated sealing technique onto it.

Kagami knew absolutely nothing about this particular sealing technique, so there was no possibility of undoing it through conventional means.

That was precisely why he had activated his Susanoo—

He intended to break through it by force.

As for those guards just now, dealing with them had merely been incidental.

BOOM!

Accompanied by a thunderous crash, the glowing sealing technique endured less than three seconds beneath the slash of Kagami’s Susanoo’s golden sword before completely collapsing. The vault door crumbled along with it.

Kagami dismissed his Susanoo and leisurely walked into the vault.

After looking around, Kagami said with slight disappointment,

"So it’s the treasure vault..."

As one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, Kirigakure’s treasure vault should, in theory, have contained countless valuable treasures.

But considering that even the Mizukage had been reduced to Obito’s plaything, if there really had been anything exceptionally valuable here, Obito had probably looted it long ago.

Therefore, compared to the treasure vault, Kagami was far more interested in plundering Kirigakure’s secret technique archive.

Still, since he was already here, Kagami naturally intended to have a thorough look around.

The most abundant items in Kirigakure’s treasure vault were swords and blades. Row after row of display racks were filled with all kinds of bladed ninja tools, but none of them could truly be considered treasures.

Compared to Kagami’s own Kusanagimaru, they were far inferior.

Before long, Kagami reached a display rack deep within the treasure vault.

His gaze sharpened as he murmured,

"The Seven Ninja Swords of the Mist..."

......

At the other end of the underground palace.

When Kagami used his Susanoo to smash apart the entrance to the treasure vault, Obito felt the ground tremble faintly beneath his feet.

His brows immediately furrowed.

"Someone broke into the underground palace?"

Although fierce fighting was raging outside, the underground palace was covered in all kinds of sealing formulas. Tremors from the surface couldn’t possibly reach this deep underground.

That meant there was only one possibility—

A battle had broken out inside the underground palace itself.

With a thought, Obito stepped into a swirling vortex and disappeared from the spot.

A moment later, a vortex suddenly appeared inside the treasure vault.

Obito emerged from it and narrowed his eyes at Hyuga Kagami, who was currently examining one of the display racks.

Looking at Kagami, who was dressed as a Kirigakure ninja and even wore a Kirigakure ANBU mask, Obito was somewhat puzzled.

"Who is this woman? Is she one of the Kirigakure elders’ people... or a spy from another village?"

With that thought, Obito reached his hand toward Kagami’s back...