In the days that followed, the atmosphere in Konoha grew stranger and stranger.
Passing by the Hatake house often, sometimes even going up to visit, Uchiha Feiyu couldn't fail to notice it: villagers sneaking glances at the Hatake home, pedestrians on the street going stiff and solemn as they walked past, every one of them wearing that "I know a huge secret but can't talk about it" look.
Feiyu knew exactly what they'd heard.
It was nothing more than the story of Hatake Sakumo's failed mission.
He'd originally thought the whole thing would blow up loudly and publicly. Instead, what he saw was… cold violence. No shouting in the streets, no open condemnation—just people shrinking away in silence.
If you thought about it, that was only natural.
Konoha's White Fang—what kind of man was he? On the battlefield, each swing of his blade took another life. If he hadn't killed a thousand shinobi, it was still close to eight hundred. His name shook the entire ninja world.
The civilians of Konoha weren't about to throw rotten vegetables at a man like that.
The line between civilian and shinobi in this world was razor sharp. Even the villagers who lived inside Konoha, who saw shinobi all the time and might not fear them as much, weren't stupid enough to go that far.
So instead, when the White Fang walked down the street, people scattered like he was the plague. Then, only once he'd gone past, they gathered behind him to whisper in low, anxious voices.
Of course, with Sakumo's level of skill, most of those whispers never really got past his ears.
Not everyone stuck to gossip behind his back, either.
One day, when Feiyu passed by the Hatake home again, he heard raised voices coming from in front of the house.
"I never asked anyone to save me! A shinobi who accepts a mission must be prepared to die for it!"
"Because of my personal weakness, the mission failed and the village suffered heavy losses. It's my fault. I should pay with my life!"
By the time Feiyu pushed through the gathered crowd, he saw several shinobi from the Konoha Military Police hauling a regular-looking ninja away. A big crowd of civilians had gathered nearby, filling the street with their commentary.
He didn't even need to ask. Just by listening for a moment, he pieced together what had happened.
The Chunin whose life Sakumo had saved had come to apologize publicly. At one point, he'd even tried to kill himself right there, only to be stopped by the Police and ANBU.
Feiyu rubbed his chin.
The hand behind the scenes was being awfully clumsy this time—obvious and heavy-handed.
The logic was simple: if you really wanted to die to atone, you could do it at home. Why come all the way to Hatake Sakumo's doorstep?
If this wasn't meant to dump salt in White Fang's wounds in front of an audience, what was it?
They were only getting away with this because nobody here had ever lived through an internet era. Pull this stunt in Feiyu's previous life and it would've been ripped apart on the spot.
Crude methods or not, the intent was vicious.
Public blame, ruin by rumor—was all this really necessary, just to claw for power?
With this scene, the reputation Sakumo had built over two decades—fighting and bleeding for Konoha—was smashed to pieces.
It had taken twenty years for him to become the White Fang of the Leaf.
It took the mastermind behind this mess less than twenty days to destroy him.
The next morning, when Feiyu passed by the Hatake residence again, he felt it immediately—a powerful soul radiating from within.
His heart leapt, though his face didn't show a thing. He slowed his pace, walking up to the door as if he were just planning to knock like always.
He never got the chance.
A piercing scream tore through the house.
Feiyu froze for the briefest instant, then threw himself forward and crashed the door open, charging inside.
In the room beyond, the always-calm, always-composed Hatake Kakashi had his eyes wide open in utter shock. His face mask had been nearly ripped off, hanging askew and exposing a twisted expression of horror.
On the floor before him, the man whose name had shaken the ninja world—Konoha's White Fang—was slumped on his knees, body tilted, blood pooling beneath him.
The White Fang Short Sword, which had cut down so many enemies, was buried in his stomach, the blade drawn sideways to carve a gaping wound. His insides had spilled onto the floor.
"Aaahhh—! Father… Father, how—how could this—!"
Kakashi threw himself onto Sakumo, hands shaking as he touched his father's body.
The flesh was already cold.
His entire frame began to tremble.
Feiyu's gaze flicked to the White Fang Short Sword. Through the Soul Marshal, he could feel the enormous soul trapped inside the blade—and his heart surged with savage joy.
With a small, subtle gesture, he called.
The soul sealed in the sword slipped free and flew straight to him, unseen by any normal eye in a world without chakra. Kakashi, lost in grief and panic, never noticed Feiyu's quiet movements.
This was the strongest soul Feiyu had ever obtained.
If not for the situation, he would've thrown his head back and laughed out loud.
But Kakashi was still his friend. And Feiyu did genuinely have respect for Konoha's White Fang.
So he forced his excitement down, arranged his features into a mask of grief, and reached out to pull the dazed Kakashi to his feet.
Konoha Year 39, Eleventh Month.
War hero of the Leaf. Commander of the ANBU. The man whose name was known across the entire shinobi world—Hatake Sakumo, the White Fang—ended his own life.
The news shook the ninja world.
Some rejoiced. Some mourned. Some were stunned. Some were secretly delighted.
Most, simply… hadn't expected it.
Those who were happy, though, were the majority.
When they heard the news, most shinobi from other villages were ecstatic—clapping hands, cheering in private.
On the battlefields of the Second Great Ninja War, the White Fang had accumulated far too much blood-debt. Like the Yellow Flash would later, he was a speed-type shinobi, unmatched at mowing through enemy ranks. No one knew how many ninja had died to his blade.
To the average shinobi in other villages, he was a demon king.
And yet, this man—the one war hadn't killed, the one his enemies hadn't managed to defeat—ended up dying in peacetime.
Over something this absurd.
He killed himself—and because it was suicide, he didn't even qualify to have his name engraved on Konoha's Memorial Stone.
To other villages, it was a darkly funny joke.
To Konoha… it was black humor at its bleakest.
Almost as soon as the news of the White Fang's death spread, Sunagakure moved. The Sand dispatched their forces to the border of the Land of Rivers, making no effort to hide their intent.
They were ready to fight.
The other great villages moved as well, each stirring in its own way. By this point, Konoha's shinobi could no longer pretend.
The Third Great Ninja War was about to begin.
Sakumo's suicide didn't just rob Konoha of its sharpest blade among its top-tier fighters. It struck a much deeper blow—to the heart of the entire village.
The White Fang had spent his life fighting and bleeding for Konoha. No one could count the number of feats he'd racked up in her name. This one failed mission, however serious the consequences, had been nothing but a blemish on an otherwise flawless record.
And yet, a man like that—brave, selfless, nearly perfect in character—had been hounded to death by his own village's public opinion.
Every shinobi in Konoha felt the chill of it.
The jonin and higher-ranked Chunin, the ones who knew that this storm of rumor was tied to the village leadership, saw their trust in the higher-ups plummet.
Ordinary shinobi, meanwhile, were simply terrified by the White Fang's end.
If even Hatake Sakumo could be driven to death for the crime of saving his comrades…
Who would ever dare to trust their comrades again?
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