As they slowly approached the village Uchiha Mu had built, he continued, "Seven-Tails, I clearly have the power to summon you by force, yet here I am, talking things over nicely with you. Give it some serious thought."
Seven-Tails said nothing and continued carrying the two of them toward the large-looking village. His arrival caused some initial chaos, but once Uchiha Mu's clones reassured the villagers and explained that this giant would be protecting them from now on, they became rather welcoming.
This surprised Uchiha Mu a little. Hyuga Lingnai explained, "At the end of the day, they've never seen a tailed beast. Even I only knew such beings existed because of the scrolls my family left behind."
"Ignorance knows no fear." Uchiha Mu understood. Why were people so terrified of tailed beasts in the original story? Because when the great nations tried to control their power, the tailed beasts caused tremendous destruction. Over time, they became beings everyone feared.
"That area over there will be yours to roam from now on. If you want to visit human society, just split off some of your chakra and make a little clone. You can do that, right?" Uchiha Mu said, pointing at a patch of forest that had not been cleared.
"Yes." Seven-Tails immediately formed a Little Seven-Tails. He could sense everything around it through the clone.
"Good. I'll come call you when I need your help." With that, Uchiha Mu gestured for Seven-Tails to head over.
Seven-Tails wanted to say something. He had expected Uchiha Mu to bring up the Summoning Contract again, but apparently he wasn't going to.
"Are you thinking about the Summoning Contract? Don't worry. With my strength, having you or not makes little difference. You'd just give me the ability to fly." Uchiha Mu spread his hands.
"I can enter into a Summoning Contract with you, but it'll have to wait a while," Seven-Tails replied.
"All right. That makes us companions from now on. Do you have a name? Do you need me to give you one?"
"Chōmei. My name is Chōmei."
"Right. I'll let everyone know your name. From now on, you'll be the guardian beast of the village-no, the nation. Of course, we should probably add Two-Tails as well." Uchiha Mu planned to catch that oversized kitty too. After all, everyone knew the Uchiha summoned ninja cats. As for the great nations dividing up the tailed beasts? He wanted these two. They could work around that.
"Suit yourself." Chōmei flew straight to his new habitat. Though it was much smaller than his old one, at least he still had relative freedom. At the same time, he began thinking about the Sage of Six Paths' words again.
Could it be him? Indra's descendant, Uchiha Mu? Now that he had no choice but to live alongside humans, he decided to take a look at their world. He took control of his little clone and began roaming the streets.
First, the people here weren't afraid of him. That was partly because he was small now, and partly because his entrance had been so unimpressive: Uchiha Mu had ridden him back.
That made these people, who had never seen a tailed beast before, think he was harmless.
Second, there were many Uchiha Mu clones in this village. Had that guy come to subdue him while maintaining all of these? He felt that the other tailed beasts wouldn't stand a chance against Uchiha Mu either. It looked like Two-Tails would be keeping him company in the future.
"To think humans have actually gathered together and established a nation," Seven-Tails Chōmei remarked. In the past, humans had mostly organized themselves into clans. Had he simply spent too long in the forest?
"Mom, that's the pet the village chief brought back," one child blurted out.
"Come along." The child's mother hurriedly pulled the child away. Their family had fled here as refugees. After all, everyone wanted to live somewhere safe, and the Hundred-Clan Shinobi Nation, which had recently become famous throughout the Shinobi World, offered just that. The idea of shinobi villages was already deeply ingrained, however, so everyone was accustomed to calling Uchiha Mu the village chief.
"So that's what they think I am." Chōmei wandered in another direction. The people's states of mind varied. Judging by what they said, some had only moved here recently.
Those who had lived here all along, meanwhile, carried an air of confidence. Their expressions alone made that clear. Indra's descendant actually had something like this in mind? I really was relying on stereotypes.
He reached another spot where three children had gathered. One of them, a redhead, caught his attention.
"Class rep, what are you planning to do?"
"Catch spies, of course! Haven't lots of shinobi from other villages come here lately? I've just awakened the Mind's Eye of the Kagura, so now I can do my part for the nation." His name was Uzumaki Men. After the ideological brainwashing at Uchiha Mu's Ninja Academy, he had already tossed the Uzumaki Clan by the wayside.
"Huh? But our teacher said we just need to focus on training," a blond girl replied. Their teacher was, of course, Uchiha Mu.
"Idiot. At this rate, when will we ever finish our training? When will we become shinobi?" Uzumaki Men didn't mention that children in the Uzumaki Clan had once had to go to war at four years old.
Though they weren't the Senju or the Uchiha, clashes between shinobi clans were constant. In practice, they weren't much different from the Senju and Uchiha; only the severity of the carnage differed.
"All right," the other boy, who had white hair, replied. They had already mastered the basic ninjutsu Uchiha Mu had taught them, along with fine chakra control-a classic trio of two civilian prodigies and one Uzumaki prodigy.
"But how do we find them? Spies would hide who they are, wouldn't they?" the blond girl asked.
"I already recorded the chakra of every shinobi here. All we need to do is investigate the unfamiliar chakra I find," Uzumaki Men said proudly. This was also possible because there hadn't been many shinobi here before.
"Great! Let's go!" The white-haired child's eyes lit up.
"Yufeng, don't get so excited. We're going up against spies. They're experts at assassination, and we've only just learned some basic ninjutsu. We'd better be careful."
As little troublemakers of the Hundred-Clan Shinobi Nation, and orphans Uchiha Mu had brought here in the earliest days, they were essentially left unsupervised. Uchiha Mu did have plenty of clones, but he had far too much to do and hadn't anticipated what these brats would get up to.
The three little ones arrived at the shopping street. Yufeng looked at Uzumaki Men. "Men, are you sure this is the place?"
"Of course. I've been watching that guy for ages. He joined the nation as a shinobi, but he's always wandering around the village. Let's follow him." Uzumaki Men then led the other two after their target.
Chōmei turned invisible and followed them. He was also curious about this so-called spy. Was this a new human method of warfare?
The Hundred-Clan Shinobi Village had recently purged nearly ninety percent of its spies. This man, a spy sent by Iwagakure named Ōki, had joined under the guise of a wandering shinobi.
Throughout this time, he had worked diligently for the Hundred-Clan Shinobi Village, using Earth Release to work for the village every day until his chakra ran dry. In his free time, he only dared to stroll around the shopping street, and didn't even dare contact Iwagakure.
Though he was only a civilian, he had still gathered plenty of intelligence. If he brought these development plans back, they would surely make his village stronger. For now, however, he needed to lie low and hypnotize himself into believing he was a member of the Hundred-Clan Shinobi Nation: he worked hard, and his favorite pastime was spending his wages on shopping and food.
Today, just like any other day, he came here for a drink after finishing work. Other shinobi also liked to eat and drink here after work. As everyone knew, once people drank too much, they tended to run their mouths. He loved coming here.
Of course, to avoid looking out of place, he bought plenty of food-enough to let him sit here for a long time. As a result, he had almost spent all the funds Iwagakure had given him, but he felt it was worth it.
Before you continue