Thanks to the defensive barrier set up in advance by the Sealing Team at the Training Ground, the confrontation between Hyuga Soushu and Orochimaru went largely unnoticed.
Other than a handful of people with vested interests, no one else noticed how two renowned Jōnin nearly escalated to actual combat right inside the village.
Though Soushu mentioned it casually once to Mahiru Uchiha, she barely reacted — his tone had been too offhand to catch her attention. Soon enough, their conversation — and activities — shifted toward their favorite pastime.
After successfully meeting Mahiru-chan's father, Tatsuma Uchiha, for the first time in the Death Forest and reaching a compromise, Mahiru Uchiha became even more open about their relationship. Now that Mahiru had grown older and started a romantic relationship, she no longer felt the need to hide her affectionate behavior in public — if not for finding the Hyuga Clan's territory too insular, where outsiders were rarely seen, Mahiru might've moved straight into Soushu's place already.
Unfortunately, even with Mahiru's naturally carefree nature, constantly being surrounded by Hyuga Byakugan users still felt invasive. After all, the so-called rule against using Byakugan to invade privacy outside the Hidden Leaf Village was little more than lip service. Whether this rule was actually followed remained anyone's guess — trusting others' ethics wasn't really necessary in such situations.
Besides, their preferred intimate moments tended to be adventurous — and anything but quiet. Considering various factors together, Mahiru wisely dropped the idea of moving in immediately.
However, Soushu would soon depart for the northern border of the Land of Fire to assume command as Border Forces Commander. Meanwhile, despite also being officially promoted to Jōnin like Mahiru, Mahiru technically remained Soushu's direct subordinate due to Hokage Tower's negligent or intentional oversight — and thus was naturally bound to follow him north.
Moreover, the power of a Border Forces Commander theoretically held no upper limit within his jurisdiction. Therefore, Mahiru, having firmly established herself as the commander's leading lady, smoothly devised a series of self-serving plans aimed at creating a cozy love nest for both herself and her beloved — all perfectly legal within Konoha's political framework.
Soushu gladly took on the role of a hands-off commander, willingly delegating all housing arrangements to the enthusiastic Mahiru Uchiha, while he himself began contacting various personnel to assemble his personal squad.
According to the standard ninja military hierarchy in the Ninja World, foreign-based commanders typically maintained a private elite force — a trump card they could rely upon when necessary. Such directly commanded units resembled the personal guards or loyal retainers of old rulers — forming the backbone of a commander's control over his forces and ability to carry out high-stakes or complex operations.
Although Konoha, along with other great hidden villages, had long pushed for standardized, professionalized systems — including implementing a collective staff system intended to restrain commanders' autonomy — the system never fully caught on among field commanders. This was largely due to the fact that qualified staff officers were almost exclusively drawn from the Nara Clan. Many commanders, however, weren't particularly fond of having the Nara Clan — who often aligned closely with the Hokage faction — influencing their decisions. As a result, experienced leaders such as Sakumo Hatake and Shirakawa Namiko generally preferred direct command structures instead. Consequently, the prestige and authority of personally controlled elite forces remained undiminished, regardless of staff system policies.
The reason the staff officer system struggles to take root has a lot to do with the ninja mindset back in the Hidden Leaf Village era. Though these warriors had become somewhat more civilized compared to their Warring States-era predecessors, they still firmly believed that strength ruled everything. Naturally, this made low-tier officers who tried to boss everyone around pretty unpopular within the Overseas Ninja Forces.
According to Konoha's ninja force structure, a full-strength Personal Squad consisted of four Squads plus support personnel — totaling about one hundred ninjas.
Right now, aside from Mahiru Uchiha and his only disciple Might Duy, Hyuga Soushu's Directly Commanded Squad only included twelve former members from the Policing Department's Special Operations Unit and nine Byakugan-wielding reconnaissance specialists from the Hyuga Branch House. All in all, that barely added up to twenty-six operatives — which meant a shocking 75% vacancy rate.
As a ninja force commander, having fewer subordinates than authorized wasn't necessarily a problem. But having such severe understaffing within one's own Directly Commanded Squad would be considered extremely disgraceful. So for Hyuga Soushu, filling those empty positions became an urgent priority.
Although hastily assembling a Directly Commanded Squad under time pressure inevitably raised reliability concerns, he decided to establish its basic framework first. Later on, once he reached the Northern Border Defense Force, he could handpick qualified personnel from subordinate units to fill out the rest.
At times like this, a ninja's personal reputation and fame started to play a key role.
Coming from martial-faction ninja clans, Yamanaka Toshimichi and Mitotou Kousuke had strained relationships with their families due to ideological differences. Still, they quickly learned about Hyuga Soushu's new assignment and paid him a joint visit, requesting to serve under him.
Both had already been promoted to official Jonin of Konoha through merit, each commanding capable Directly Commanded Squads. So after checking with them personally, Hyuga Soushu welcomed them into his squad.
Furthermore, as these two martial-faction ninjas actively spread the word among their faction circles, over the next few days another twenty-seven independent martial-faction ninjas voluntarily came forward, asking to join Hyuga Soushu's forces.
Though Hyuga Soushu didn't know them well, since they showed up anyway, he figured he might as well put them to use. He accepted every single applicant without exception.
These volunteers certainly carried strong martial-faction convictions, but in Hyuga Soushu's eyes, most were all talk and no skill. Out of the group, twenty-five were regular Chunin, and only two had achieved special Tokubetsu Jonin status through battlefield experience and seniority. Even those two, though, probably wouldn't last two minutes against him before suffering [Skull Crushing] — showing just how mediocre their actual abilities were.
Still, thanks to these additions, Hyuga Soushu managed to piece together a total of sixty-one direct subordinates from various sources. While their overall quality varied greatly, this at least covered three-fifths of a standard Personal Squad establishment, which satisfied Hyuga Soushu for now.
As for acquiring additional personnel beyond that, that would have to wait for better opportunities down the road.
On February 18th, Year 39 of Konoha, the Hokage Tower officially released an announcement regarding appointments for command within the Ninja Force.
According to the official document, Hyuga Soushu, the rising star of the Martial Faction, was formally appointed as the Commander of the Northern Border Defense Force. Meanwhile, Hiashi Hyuga was named Chief of Coastal Defense for the Eastern Seaboard of the Land of Fire. As soon as this news broke, the lower and middle-tier civilian ninja in Konoha were instantly thrown into an uproar.
But this public chatter didn't ruin the celebration at the Hokage Tower or among the ninja clans. After all, people rarely share each other's joys or sorrows—it's a truth that cuts through every realm. The ninja from the clans, proud and clearly superior in skill to their civilian counterparts, paid no mind to the opinions of the lower ranks.
At the same time, in an effort to balance the influence of the Hyuga Clan, the Hokage Tower issued another personnel adjustment order later that afternoon.
The Rain Country Frontline Army, originally under the joint command of the three disciples of Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi, would now be placed solely under the leadership of Orochimaru. Jiraiya and Tsunade would remain in advisory roles. Moreover, the entire batch of Chunin promoted after the recent easing of standards during the Chunin Exams would also be placed directly under Orochimaru's command, heading to the Rain Country battlefield after further training.
Hatake Sakumo, who still commanded border forces stationed in the Land of Rivers under the title of Jonin Unit leader, sent his congratulations via ninja hawk to Hyuga Soushu upon the official release of the commission letter. Alongside it came a small gift: five Chunin squads previously under Soushu Unit command on the Western Camp—now reassigned from the manpower-starved western front line to the north, falling directly under Hyuga Soushu's command.
"Now *that's* a thoughtful yet humble gift!"
Hyuga Soushu couldn't help but exclaim.
How could someone so noble just up and take his own life over a single failed mission?
Could that really happen?
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