The Unseen Who Arrived Long Ago

The night had deepened, and the moonlight, like silver thread, spilled silently across the earth.

Inoichi carried Ino on his back, walking along the winding path behind the mountain. To his surprise, aside from a brief struggle at the start, his daughter did not resist as violently as he had anticipated, nor did she insist on being put down. After calling out a distant goodbye to Naruto, Ino had quieted down and remained resting against his back ever since.

This moved Inoichi, as if he had been transported back to the days when Ino was a little girl, clinging tightly to her father.

"Dad..." a faint voice drifted from his back, "you shouldn't have made Naruto pay you back..."

Well, you little wild pig.

The warmth on Inoichi's face collapsed, and the sentiment he had just felt vanished in an instant.

"What kind of man lets a woman pay the bill?" Inoichi retorted with a curl of his lip. Before Ino could lash out at him, he added, "Besides, I said that mostly to see how he would react."

"What reaction?" Ino, as expected, ignored the first half of his sentence and asked curiously.

"To see if that brat would take your kindness for granted." Inoichi shifted Ino higher on his back. "If he truly thought that way, he would have been at least a little surprised when I asked him to pay... but his performance was passable. He showed no unnecessary emotions and answered clearly and firmly. It shows that he never felt he could accept your kindness for free from the very beginning. He owes you, and even if I hadn't appeared, he likely would have found another way to repay you."

Although he found that blond brat quite annoying, Inoichi was not the type to speak against his own conscience behind someone's back.

"In any relationship, both sides must consciously maintain a balance of mutual giving and indebtedness. There is no such thing as taking things for granted or love that seeks no return. Accepting kindness and then reciprocating it is the proper way to maintain bonds... If that brat didn't even have that much self-awareness, I would have truly had to unleash my Fatherly Iron Fist."

"So that means..." Ino said, her tone light, "he's not bad, then."

"Huh?" Inoichi scoffed. "That's the most basic requirement for being a decent person! That's nowhere near 'not bad'!"

"Hmph hmph~" Ino hummed a little tune, shaking her head. She didn't care what Inoichi said; she only heard what she wanted to hear.

After walking a bit further, Inoichi suddenly spoke up:

"But daughter, you need to be a little careful."

"Careful of what?"

"Careful of that blond kid."

Inoichi had accidentally spoken his true thoughts, but fortunately, Ino didn't notice. Instead, her cheeks flushed slightly, and she chided, "Dad!"

Realizing his daughter had misunderstood, Inoichi rolled his eyes and explained, "Not that kind of careful. I mean, the kid himself is dangerous."

"Dangerous?" Ino frowned. "How is he dangerous?"

"Maybe it's just my intuition... but my intuition has always been accurate." Inoichi's tone was calm. "Haven't you noticed? Even when meeting me for the first time, facing a parent who was clearly aggressive and looking to hold him accountable, his words and actions didn't waver in the slightest. He remained calm the entire time he spoke to me."

"To put it nicely, he has character, manners, and is neither servile nor overbearing. But to put it bluntly, I think he simply doesn't care."

"He doesn't care about me, so no matter how much I bared my fangs, he had no extra reaction. He doesn't care about worldly possessions, so even stepping into a place like Mingmie Chijian for the first time, he didn't show a hint of stage fright, surprise, or hesitation..."

Inoichi's words stirred a response in Ino. She recalled that at the food shop, aside from the initial surprise of being pushed, Naruto had been exceptionally calm during the confrontation and the counter-attack. And this evening, when they saw Kakashi... she couldn't sense any of the awe he should have felt toward a Jonin teacher.

Naruto had said he had things he needed to get off his chest... but if one interpreted it as "not caring about Kakashi" or "not caring about the consequences," it seemed to hold water.

"He doesn't care about many things," Inoichi continued. "Therefore, the things he does care about must be very few. But precisely because of that, the weight of the things important to him becomes immense."

Having said this, Inoichi paused, his expression complex. "This type of person... it's not like I haven't encountered them before, and usually, they harbor a very intense... self-destructive tendency."

Ino felt a jolt of alarm, but her father's tone was exceptionally serious, with no hint of a joke.

"Because they only have room in their eyes for those few things they care about, they are usually fine and can follow worldly rules and order. But once something touches upon what they truly value..." Inoichi lowered his voice, "they become beings who disregard morality, order, laws, and rules entirely. They are capable of anything. Boundaries that are insurmountable to ordinary people might be as common as drinking water to them... everything must make way for what they care about. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to call them madmen."

At this, Inoichi couldn't help but think of a certain clan that once existed in the village.

As a successor of the Yamanaka Clan, who understood the human heart better than anyone, his view of the Uchiha was naturally not as simple or black-and-white as the average villager. He never believed the Uchiha were born evil. In his eyes, the obsession those red-eyed Uchiha had for what they protected was more intense than anyone else's... this was something Inoichi had realized while fighting side-by-side with Uchiha teammates during the Third Great Ninja War.

Once they recognized you as a comrade, you could trust them unconditionally; even if it meant trading their lives for yours, they wouldn't hesitate for a second.

However, since it was an obsession, it inevitably symbolized extremism. In situations where ordinary people wouldn't go to extremes, the Uchiha certainly would. Sometimes he wondered in private if this was the underlying reason for the Uchiha massacre.

But now, after all these years, he never expected to see a shadow similar to the Uchiha in the son of the Fourth Hokage. It was truly... a cruel twist of fate.

Inoichi sighed inwardly, his tone softening with a father's concern. "So what I mean is, since you have a good relationship with him now... observe him more, keep an eye on him. This isn't just for your sake; in a way, it's for his own good as well."

"...Mm." Sensing the deep-seated worry in her father's words, Ino did not argue, though those few lyrics surfaced in her mind once again.

She realized with a start that beneath Naruto's seemingly optimistic and easygoing exterior, there seemed to be a deeper gloom that even he was struggling to suppress and unwilling to let out.

And, come to think of it, Naruto never seemed to take the initiative to build connections with people. Everyone connected to him had reached out to him first. Other than that, he seemed to live in a world of one... which in itself was very unusual.

The deep blue sky hung low, and the father and daughter walked on in silence, each chewing on their own thoughts.

Suddenly, Inoichi stopped. A second later, an Anbu wearing a tiger-patterned mask appeared silently in the moonlight.

"Lord Inoichi."

The Anbu bowed respectfully. The warmth on Inoichi's face vanished instantly, replaced by his usual calm and self-restraint. He set Ino down and asked:

"What happened?"

"The Hokage has summoned you urgently, saying there is important intelligence that requires your assistance to analyze," the Anbu said. "Lord Shikaku is already at the office."

"Even Shikaku is there? It seems something truly major has happened..." Inoichi spoke with feigned surprise, but in his heart, he had already guessed what it was.

During this period, elite Jonin in the village had been frequently mobilized, and the movements of the Anbu and Root had become increasingly dense. Even though the prominent families of Konoha had been tactful enough to keep their distance from these sensitive areas and hadn't asked questions, their inner suspicions were inevitable.

In fact, at the periodic gatherings of the Ino-Shika-Cho, Shikaku had already had the three families make preparations for emergencies.

"Ino, you go back first."

Inoichi Yamanaka created a Shadow Clone and had it escort Ino back, ensuring the little cabbage wouldn't turn around to go looking for wild boars.

"It seems the head of the Yamanaka Clan truly dotes on his daughter..."

The Anbu watched this scene with some surprise, not expecting that even within Konoha, Inoichi Yamanaka would expend half his chakra just to feel at ease sending his daughter home.

"Let's go." Watching the Shadow Clone and Ino disappear into the night, Inoichi Yamanaka delayed no longer and vanished alongside the Anbu using Body Flicker.

A moment later, once silence had returned to the area, leaving only the bright moon and the dark night, a figure slowly stepped out from the heavy shadows in the distance.

"Bili-bili-bili—"

At that moment, a bizarre, jarring sound suddenly rang out from the figure's waist, shattering the terrifying atmosphere he had cultivated.

The figure let out a cold snort, pulled out an object resembling a snail, and spoke coldly:

"Moria... how many times have I told you not to call during work hours? Do you need me to kill you?"

"Hee-hee-hee-hee..."

"...I've also told you many times, don't laugh at me. Your laughter is disgusting; it sounds like a rag scrubbing a toilet. I really want to snap your neck right now."

"Lucci... don't be so hot-headed." The voice from the receiver remained flippant, though the laughter subsided. "So what if the world passage was accidentally discovered by the natives and we can't go back for now? It just means no one can come over from our side, and no one will fight us for the 'Gift'. Isn't that great?"

"...Get to the point."

"Did you catch that person from the Yamanaka Clan?"

"No. Are you done with your nonsense?"

"Hee-hee-hee... I think I managed to kill someone of 'weight'. What was his name? Kizashi Haruno? My imprint has increased. Once I go back, the World Will surely reward me with an even greater Gift—"

Snap!

Lucci hung up the phone; he knew this guy was just calling to show off.

"This is exactly why I hate working with these freelancers..."

A cold glint flashed in Lucci's eyes.

Perhaps he should find an opportunity to let him "die in a foreign land"... If that happened, all of his imprints would belong to him.