It took over two hours before Seimei finally opened his eyes again.
By then, the memories from his wood clone had synced up in his mind.
And just as the clone had reported, nothing noteworthy had happened in Kirigakure over the past month and a half that he needed to worry about.
The trail on Uchiha Obito's whereabouts? Still a dead end, as expected.
Seimei pondered for a moment.
But he quickly shook his head and let it go.
At the end of the day, his curiosity about Obito's movements stemmed only from the guy not following the script from his past life memories.
Did he really care that much? Nah.
He knew Obito's endgame inside and out.
No matter how much things deviated from what he remembered, they'd eventually snap back to the original path.
So, no point obsessing over it.
"Phew…"
With a light exhale, Seimei scanned the wood clone's memories one more time. Confirming the Six-Tails jinchūriki's location was still under control, he didn't stick around.
He formed a seal, casting Wood Clone Jutsu once more.
His shoulder rippled, and in a blink, a new wood clone split off from him.
Without a word, Seimei hit the clone with Senrigan Seal of All Things, carving out a pocket dimension inside it.
Then, he drew chakra from his forehead's pocket dimension, injecting a few million points to ensure the clone had enough for the next month and a half. With that done, he left the cave.
His vision shifted in an instant.
Just like that, Seimei was in the forest near Kirigakure's outer wall.
Byakugan!
With a thought, he activated his Byakugan.
He scanned the area, noting the positions of nearby Kirigakure patrols, then triggered Amenotejikara and dashed toward the wall.
The path was smooth sailing.
Before long, he was outside the village.
Once clear of the sentry towers' detection range, he cast Wind Release: Wings of Wind and Chakra Cloak, soaring into the sky.
Next, he used Earth Release: Super Light-Weight Rock Technique to lighten himself, combined with his Byakugan's gravity manipulation to pull him along.
In the end, he became a streak of light, rocketing straight toward the Land of Lightning across the sea at top speed.
Time ticked away.
In under a few minutes, Seimei crossed into the Land of Lightning.
He kept flying and soon reached the outskirts of Kumogakure.
Thanks to the village's unique terrain, there wasn't a massive sensor barrier covering it—Seimei had zero worries about being spotted.
So, from a distance, he used Flying Thunder God Jutsu to teleport straight into the abandoned base beneath that pond, where his stationed wood clone waited.
Just like in Kirigakure, he chatted with the clone first to prep for the memories, then dispelled Wood Clone Jutsu and started syncing them up.
Another two-plus hours flew by.
It was deep into the night now.
Seimei snapped his eyes open.
The clone's memories were fully absorbed.
Rubbing his slightly throbbing head, he confirmed the Two-Tails and Eight-Tails jinchūriki were still tracked, and nothing big had gone down in Kumogakure over the last month and a half. Satisfied, he moved on.
As usual, he cast Wood Clone Jutsu again, created a new clone, stocked it with chakra, and left.
Next up: Iwagakure.
It didn't take long to enter the Land of Earth and fly right to the village outskirts.
But because the village had been hit by both him and Obito's intrusions, Ōnoki was on high alert. Iwagakure's sensor barriers were dense as heck.
No way he could teleport in like he did at Kumogakure.
Even inside, he couldn't just spam Flying Thunder God Jutsu.
Still, that wasn't a problem for him.
With Amenotejikara, he could always find a gap in even the tightest defenses.
Quickly, Seimei slipped into the village and made his way to the underground spot where his wood clone was hiding.
Then, he cast Earth Release: Earth Dragon Vein Technique, sinking silently into the ground.
He didn't use Flying Thunder God at all, so the village's space-fluctuation monitors didn't trigger any alarms.
The rest was straightforward.
They swapped intel, Seimei updated the clone, and he slipped out the same careful way he came in.
One thing worth noting: because of Iwagakure's heavy defenses, the lurking wood clone stayed super low-key.
That meant syncing its memories took the least time—just about an hour.
So, when he left Iwagakure, it was barely past midnight.
From afar, Seimei glanced back at the village, then bolted southeast toward the Land of Fire without a second thought.
But as he flew over the Land of Rain, something unexpected popped up—he suddenly sensed a weird chakra fluctuation off to one side below.
It wasn't strong at all. If his senses weren't way above average, he'd have missed it entirely.
But since he caught it, he had to check it out.
With his current strength and skills, even if trouble arose, he wasn't worried about his safety—or getting bogged down by anyone.
Decision made, Seimei halted mid-air.
He adjusted his course slightly and flew toward the source.
Soon, he was hovering over Amegakure.
The strange chakra fluctuation was coming straight from below.
Floating high up, Seimei gazed down at the rain clouds blanketing the village. Under his Konoha headband, his Byakugan at his forehead glowed softly.
Clearly, he was pushing his Byakugan to the max.
Using its sharp chakra insight, he spotted tons of chakra scattered through the rain clouds.
That was the source of his weird sense.
Right now, that chakra was seeping into the falling rain, spreading it across every corner of Amegakure via the droplets.
In a flash, Seimei thought of one of Nagato's techniques—Rain Tiger at Will Jutsu!
It was a sensing ninjutsu that used rain to monitor the whole village, matching exactly what he was seeing.
But Seimei was sure: a month and a half ago, this jutsu wasn't here.
So, something major must've happened in Amegakure in the last month and a half—or even earlier.
Maybe the village had changed hands!
From his past life memories, Seimei didn't know exactly when Nagato killed Hanzō.
But in this life, it had to be recent.
Otherwise, this setup wouldn't just appear out of nowhere.
Then, his mind jumped to Uchiha Obito.
No doubt, the guy was probably involved.
After all, with Seimei around this time, the tailed beast collection was ahead of schedule, and Obito hadn't messed with Kirigakure.
Under those circumstances, reaching out to Nagato early and kicking off the plan made total sense.
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