The information left behind by the Third Mizukage in the original history was pitifully scarce.
The only known facts were that he served as a bodyguard for the First Mizukage, Byakuren, during the inaugural Five Kage Summit, and that after his succession, he initiated the "Bloody Mist" policy that gripped Kirigakure for over a decade.
An interesting point to note is that the bodyguards who accompanied their respective Kage to that first summit all eventually became the shadows of their own villages.
Men like Senju Tobirama, Shamon, the Second Raikage, and Mu all became the Second Kage of their respective villages. However, the Third Mizukage—who also attended as a bodyguard—seemed to have skipped a generation. He only became the Third Mizukage after the Second Mizukage, Gengetsu Hōzuki, and Mu perished in their mutual suicide pact.
Hyuga Yu had no way of knowing what transpired within the Hidden Mist during that interval or why the Third Mizukage failed to become the Second. However, if events had followed the original timeline, the collapse of Kirigakure would have proceeded as follows:
The Third Mizukage sends his trusted Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist to infiltrate the Land of Fire on a mission to shift the tide of the war.
Four of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen are unexpectedly kicked to death by Might Duy. Ultimately, two desert the village, and only Fuguki Suikazan returns.
Madara Uchiha departs the Land of Water. The Elder, Genji, discovers this and launches a bold coup d'état against the Third Mizukage.
The coup faction, led by Yagura Karatachi, rises to power. The Third Mizukage vanishes silently from the shinobi world. Simultaneously, due to the events of this period, Kirigakure begins its internal collapse.
With its strength severely depleted and internal affairs in chaos, the Mist is unable to continue the war against Konoha. Yet, due to Konoha's victory over the Hidden Stone on the other front, the Mist is forced to maintain the status quo to pressure Konoha into negotiations. Finally, under the influence of the returned Madara Uchiha, the Mist high-ranking officials choose to capture Rin Nohara, seal the Three-Tails within her, and attempt to detonate it upon her return to Konoha or the main battlefield.
Yu listed each step of the process onto a scroll, and when combined with the currently intricate web of relationships within the Mist, the more he looked, the more alarmed he became.
He quickly discovered a massive, hidden "minefield" lurking in the dark side of the shinobi world that no one knew about.
According to the canon plot involving Kisame Hoshigaki, Kisame obtained the Great Sword Samehada by killing his superior, Fuguki Suikazan. The reason for the execution was that Fuguki had discovered the abnormalities surrounding the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura Karatachi, and was secretly colluding with the enemy to stage a rebellion.
Yu didn't care about how Fuguki Suikazan planned to rebel. What concerned him was something else—according to this description, Fuguki clearly attempted a desperate gamble because he noticed something wrong with his lord. This meant he and Zabuza Momochi shared the same reason for defecting. In other words, Fuguki Suikazan was originally one of Yagura Karatachi's trusted subordinates.
Returning to the period of the Third Great Ninja War and looking at the event through the lens of Kirigakure's internal network:
It wasn't hard to realize that the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist were more than just elite enforcers for the Third Mizukage. They were high-ranking officials within various departments of the village. The Third Mizukage had relied on them to wrestle power away from the Council of Elders. But when the Swordsmen were killed or fled, the only one who returned—Fuguki—was actually Yagura's man.
Therefore, the biggest "minefield" in the collapse of the Mist was this: in a situation where he was betrayed by everyone and left almost entirely alone, the Third Mizukage somehow relied on his own strength to unleash a terrifying level of combat power, brutally crushing the coup led by Yagura.
And then, single-handedly, he broke the entire Hidden Mist Village!
As his deductions reached this point, Yu felt his scalp go slightly numb.
Could this be another powerhouse in the vein of the Third Raikage—one man as strong as an entire nation? Logic told Yu this was unlikely, but the results of his deduction clearly pointed to it. Unless there was a massive internal upheaval, it was impossible for Kirigakure to fall from its peak to ruin in such a short time.
Combining the valuable intelligence gained from their previous encounter, Yu knew the Third Mizukage was strong, but that strength had its limits. His power should be roughly on par with the other Third Kage of the various villages (not counting Kekkei Genkai or secret techniques, his shinobi stats would be around 70). He hadn't reached the "earthly deity" level seen in the later stages of history. As long as a rational strategy was formulated and they worked together to crack his jutsu, defeating him was still possible.
Elder Genji had the courage to launch a coup, so he must have known the limits of the Third Mizukage's abilities. Under the extremely strict secrecy of the "Bloody Mist," this information was a top-secret among secrets for ordinary ninja, but for the highest echelons of the Mist, it was a "secret" that was almost transparent.
That is to say, besides the Third Mizukage's own formidable strength, he held a trump card that Genji, Yagura, and the others knew nothing about. And it was precisely this trump card...
That allowed him, even when abandoned by all, to take the entire Hidden Mist Village down with him!
And where did this trump card come from?
Yu's gaze fell upon the "Third Mizukage" on his scroll, slowly moving upward until it landed once again on Madara Uchiha!
If it were confirmed that the Third Mizukage and Madara Uchiha had already joined forces to manipulate the Land of Water from the shadows, then it wasn't hard to judge that before heading to the Land of Grass, Madara had likely left the Third Mizukage a portion of his power.
This was the biggest minefield!
What was this power? What was this trump card that could blow up the Mist?
Hashirama cells? The Sharingan? A Tailed Beast? Or perhaps the Ten-Tails?
For a man who was the closest thing to the Sage of the Six Paths in this era, the possibilities were so numerous that they formed a complete "intelligence black hole."
Yu was unable to make a definitive judgment.
However, when he shifted his gaze from the events of the original history back to the present, he discovered something—he was facing a situation far more troublesome than the original timeline.
There were three points where the present diverged from the original history:
First, because Yu had prevented Teacher Duy from opening the Eight Inner Gates and dying, Yu himself had faced the Seven Ninja Swordsmen during their collapse. The original outcome—where only one mole, Fuguki Suikazan, returned to the Mist—had changed. Now, there were still 5.5 Swordsmen left, and they all belonged to the Third Mizukage's faction. This meant the Third Mizukage was not fighting alone; his power and influence were far greater than in the original history!
He still held nearly half of the Hidden Mist's military strength in his hands!
Second, because Yu had moved faster than Ao of the Mist and gouged out the Byakugan from the Hyuga Head Family, Ao never obtained the eye. Since Ao clearly belonged to Genji's camp, the coup faction may have lost a massive intelligence advantage that would have been provided by the Byakugan.
Third, the role Konoha played in this incident was different. In the original history, Konoha hadn't been backed into a corner yet when the Mist fell apart on its own. This likely meant that the "Mist Collapse Plan" formulated by the Konoha high-ups had only just begun—perhaps Root had stirred the pot between the two internal factions, and they simply imploded.
But now, in the storm stirred by the wings of a small butterfly like Yu, the Third Mizukage was highly likely to win this coup with overwhelming momentum!
The Konoha side would be forced to carry out the "Mist Collapse Plan" to the end. Otherwise, the balance of the Five Great Nations, and even the future trajectory of the entire world, would undergo a massive shift because of Hyuga Yu!
At this thought, Yu finally felt the profound weight of this world that had changed so drastically because of him. He, this little butterfly, was already trapped in the center of a giant storm sweeping across the globe!
From this moment on, everything about the future was completely different from the one Yu knew!
Whether it was the corrective force of the world or the accumulation of various coincidences, Yu now had no choice. On one side of the scale were those who had loved him until now; on the other were the ambitious men fighting for the future of the Mist.
He could only personally twist everything that was about to spiral out of control back onto the "righteous path" he desired.
But what kind of butterfly effect would that produce?
Yu did not know.
Under the cover of night, the Hidden Mist was shrouded in a heavy silence. The hazy mist swirled upward in the quietly rising wind, like an omen before a great tempest!
Through the eternal fog and over the deep waterways, large stretches of moss-covered walls were faintly visible.
The night wind drifted through the open arched glass window into the room. Whoosh... rustle... It caught the giant sheet of paper next to Yu, which was densely packed with names and intelligence, making a soft rustling sound.
Yu rolled up the paper and ignited it using the oil lamp burning nearby.
In the reflection of the dancing flames, a calm yet cold resolve appeared in his pale eyes. It was a greedy and selfish determination—even if he had to burn the entire Hidden Mist to cinders, he would protect the "treasures" by his side within the world-swallowing fire!
Yu slowly looked up, his gaze piercing through the layers of mist to land on the towering Mizukage Building in the distance.
"It's time to act!"
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