Hokage: Ryo’s Path

The day after, Ryo and his new team left Orochimaru’s base, with Shisui guiding them to the portal to the moon.

In order to prevent people from discovering their whereabouts, the people of the moon had the pathway hidden in a remote area.

Still, a few years ago, a few of their puppets left the passage and went on to wreak havoc on nearby villages.

These villages were extremely damaged, and their inhabitants were forced to raise funds and pay for a Rank-A Mission from Konoha.

Sakumo sent an elite team including Shisui to perform the task.

These dozens of puppets were too strange. They had the fighting power of ordinary Chunins, but they didn’t seem to be killable at all. No matter how many times they would be destroyed, they would recover indefinitely.

Shisui’s team didn’t get this bit until it was too late and they were surrounded. In the end, Shisui’s close friend had to die to open up a path for him to escape, which ended up activating Shisui’s Mangekyo.

This had happened a few years ago, but the images of the incident were still vivid to Shisui. As he told everything of what happened, Ryo could still hear the hatred in his tone.

“Shisui, have these puppets been in action since you left?” Minato asked.

“I have no idea. Right after I returned, Sensei asked Sakumo sama to keep news about the matter secret.”

Hearing Shisui, everyone turned around to Ryo.

“As far as I know, those puppets have changed their behavior a lot after the incident. They are still roaming around the villages, although they are no longer destroying anything. Before we left, I asked Sakumo san to send scouts to one of the villages, and the puppets are still there.” Ryo told everyone what he knew.

“According to Ryo, these puppets are being controlled by the Shinobi of the moon, who are still choosing to be on the sidelines with the situation in our world.

Therefore, I can only speculate that their purpose was not to destroy those villages, but to find something.” said Minato.

“I think so as well; and I think that someone or something had gone missing from the moon.” Ryo nodded.

“This thing or one must be very important; important enough for the Moon Shinobi to risk exposing their existence.” Minato added.

“Since that’s the case, let’s pick up speed! With most of us being users of sage mode and two of us having the Sharingan, we have an advantage over their puppets when it comes to searching.”

Everyone heard that and they picked up speed, and half a day later, they arrived to the village where Shisui had his battle last time.

“Sensei, Minato sama, this is it.” Shisui pointed to the village.

Ryo nodded and entered Sage Mode, and using that to enhance his perception, he “scanned” the entire area.

After some inspection, Ryo found that there were no abnormalities with the surroundings, and that everyone around were ordinary civilians with no signs of special Chakra.

As for the puppets, since they were lifeless, they actually flew under Ryo’s Sage Mode’s “radar”.

Ryo told everyone what he had sensed, and no one was surprised. If this thing or someone was so easy to find, it would have been found by those puppets with all these years passing.

“Let’s go and check out the village, and get to know the situation from the villagers.” Lain suggested.

“Yeah, we have no clues right now.” Minato agreed.

Ryo and Shisui nodded, and all four entered the village.

As soon as they did, Shisui began looking around. Back when he came here last time, everyone in the village was afraid and no one dared to go out during the day, for fear of being hurt by the puppets.

Now however, the villagers had obviously returned to normal. With the puppets still roaming, how come they were no longer afraid?

Ryo, Minato and Lain all felt very strange as well. All three were users of Sage mode and were very sensitive to Natural Energy. As soon as they walked in, they could feel that the levels of Natural Energy around them were much higher than outside.

It stands to reason that, except for the three Sage Regions and some places with special geographical environments, because of the continuous circulation of natural energy, its levels were almost the same everywhere.

There was nothing special about this village, but it was so rich in Natural Energy. Obviously, something was wrong.

After looking at each other, Ryo and Minato closed their eyes and walked towards the area with the most Natural Energy, while Lain and Shisui carefully guarded them.

A few minutes later, the two stopped in front of a seemingly ordinary wooden house.

Ryo nodded to Shisui, and the latter pulled out his Kunai and approached the door slowly.

“What do you want to do?” Before Shisui knocked on the door, a nearby villager approached with his hoe.

Shisui immediately stopped moving, looking at his Sensei.

Ryo definitely did not want any conflicts with the civilians. After giving the matter some thought, he said: “Hello uncle, we’re Ninjas passing by. I’ve just sensed something abnormal in this house, so we wanted to check it out.”

After they heard that these people were Ninjas, the attitude of the villagers became much more reserved. After all, to ordinary people, Ninjas were all powerful, and made them feel fear instinctively.

They looked at Ryo and the others carefully, and then said: “No. Our village is fine. You don’t need to trouble yourselves.”

Hearing that made Ryo and Minato even more certain that something fishy was going on inside that house.

After looking at each other, Minato nodded and showed his signature smile. He said kindly: “Uncle, don’t worry, we are not malicious. We won’t get in. Just let the people inside get out; we need to talk to them.”

Minato was definitely more agreeable than Ryo, and his smile made everyone around relax a little. But still, they were still tense, and did not answer.

“Sensei, I think this is a dead end. We should just use Genjutsu.” Shisui was rather impatient, and Ryo did not want to waste time either. Minato frowned, believing more in communication as he always did. In the end however, he could only agree as he saw the stubbornness of the villagers.

Shisui immediately made everyone around fall asleep in their places, and then once again pulled out his Kunai and approached.

“Knock Knock!”

“Who’s there?” A crisp female voice came out of the door, sounding a little bit out of breath. Ryo judged that the woman inside was probably injured.

Ryo and the other did not answer, and a few moments later, the door open.

At the sight of the woman who opened the door, everyone was in awe, especially Ryo…