The news leaked even faster than Qingwu had expected. Rather than Jingze spreading it unwittingly, every step seemed to follow the rhythm Qingwu had laid out—
Those carefully selected scraps of information were like sparks scattered into boiling oil. They opened the first cracks in Konoha, then swept outward like wildfire.
"Otsutsuki? Isn't that the surname of the Sage of Six Paths, the legendary founder of Ninshu?"
"Wait, wasn't that just a legend?"
"There are people on the moon? Are they a branch of the Hyuga Clan or distant relatives? But how is that possible?"
In Konoha's private tearooms, beside the Anbu training grounds, and in the clans' secret council chambers, cries of astonishment and disbelief wove a dense web.
Jonin clutched the snippets leaked through Anbu channels, their expressions as grim as storm clouds;
The clan heads summoned their core members overnight, repeatedly running their fingertips over ancestral scrolls, trying to pry clues about the "moon" and "Otsutsuki" from the yellowed writing.
The most maddening detail was the one everyone kept turning over—
"Have you heard? The Hyuga Clan's eldest and second daughters—their eyes have turned blue and sparkle with starlight!"
"Just those two? Is this an evolution of their bloodline limit, or... the price of some ritual?"
Questions wound around everyone's hearts like vines. The tightly shut gates of the Hyuga Clan Compound became the focus of the Ninja World's attention. After all, the Byakugan had evolved...
"Quick, issue an order forbidding anyone from spreading this..."
Sarutobi Hiruzen and Danzo reacted quickly, but it was too late. The news could no longer be contained. Konoha's winds never blew within Konoha alone—
In little more than a week, spies from Iwagakure, the Cloud Village, Sunagakure, and Kirigakure had cast a vast net around Konoha, using every means they could