Chapter 117: Ransacking the Laboratory

Chapter 117: Chapter 117: Ransacking the Laboratory

Inside the Root base.

After looting the secret vault where Root stored its various experimental materials, Hyuga Kagami and Obito once again found themselves facing each other.

Their previous exchange had been brief, but it had made one thing perfectly clear to both of them—neither could do much to the other in a short amount of time.

And right now, time was of the essence. Root and ANBU shinobi could return to reinforce the base at any moment. Once they missed this opportunity, casually looting Root’s secret vaults again would not be nearly so easy.

Obito spoke in his deep voice, "There’s more than one secret vault. How about we each rely on our own abilities and take what we can?"

Kagami nodded. "As long as you don’t interfere with me, we’ll stay out of each other’s way."

Neither of them was the type to act purely on impulse. Since they had already determined that neither could easily deal with the other, they might as well split up and loot the other secret vaults first.

At the very least, neither of them would leave empty-handed.

After reaching another temporary understanding, Obito’s figure flickered and vanished into thin air.

Kagami thought to himself, "It really is convenient—and bizarre. As expected of a dōjutsu capable of tearing apart even Truth-Seeking Balls!"

Watching Obito come and go as he pleased, Hyuga Kagami couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.

In the original timeline, Kakashi, someone without Uchiha blood, had managed to effortlessly break through Six Paths Madara’s Truth-Seeking Ball defense with just a single transplanted Mangekyō Sharingan.

From this alone, it was obvious just how absurdly overbearing Kamui was.

At the same time, it also proved that the defense of the Truth-Seeking Balls was not absolute. At the very least, they couldn’t defend against attacks on the spatial level.

Pulling back his wandering thoughts, Kagami’s figure flickered as he rushed out of the secret vault that had already been completely looted.

Now was obviously not the time to marvel at just how powerful Kamui was. If he didn’t take full advantage of this opportunity to loot everything he could, who knew how long his plan to build an entirely new laboratory would be delayed.

After quickly passing through several dark corridors, Kagami stopped at another corner.

Focusing his gaze ahead, he discovered what appeared to be a laboratory—and an extremely large one at that. There were more than a dozen glass experimental tanks designed for large-scale live-subject experiments alone.

However, there were no test subjects inside any of the glass tanks, nor were there any researchers in the entire laboratory.

From the looks of it, this was a laboratory whose operations had been temporarily suspended.

After repeatedly confirming that there were no enemies nearby, Kagami slipped inside.

Stopping in front of a machine that resembled a refrigerator, Kagami peered into the glass cover at the top of the machine.

"Is this a large-scale cell incubator?"

Withdrawing his gaze, Kagami took another few steps and arrived before a row of large experimental tanks.

"Huh? I’ve never seen this model of nutrient tank before. Did the village only recently develop it?"

Running his hand over the glass casing of the nutrient tank, he continued on until he reached the laboratory bench, where his gaze fell upon a microscope.

"Heh, even Orochimaru only seems to have one high-powered microscope like this!"

After merely taking a quick look around, Kagami already had a rough understanding of the specifications of this laboratory.

If the laboratory Orochimaru had left him could be considered Level 1, then this laboratory was at least Level 5 or higher.

There were even pieces of equipment whose purposes Kagami couldn’t identify at all, which showed just how advanced and comprehensive the equipment here was.

"They’re all large-scale machines..."

Kagami suddenly felt a headache coming on, because only now did he realize that the storage scrolls he had brought with him were nowhere near enough.

The space inside a storage scroll was limited. In particular, when sealing away precision instruments, some extra space usually had to be left unused to prevent the equipment from being damaged during the sealing process.

As a result, an ordinary storage scroll could hold, at most, a single large piece of equipment.

Kagami had come tonight specifically to fish in troubled waters, so he had brought a full ten storage scrolls with him.

He had originally thought that ten storage scrolls would be more than enough, but after entering this laboratory, he realized that ten was nowhere near sufficient.

"Tch, I underestimated just how deep Danzo’s pockets were!"

After grumbling inwardly, Kagami began selecting the equipment.

Since he couldn’t simply pack up the entire laboratory and take it with him, he could only choose the most advanced and expensive pieces of equipment...

...

In the dense forest outside the village.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The shockwaves from the explosions swept everything in the surrounding area away.

As Kakashi rapidly retreated, he raised a hand to shield the Sharingan in his left eye, keeping a close watch on Uchiha Shinichi at the center of the battlefield.

After carefully observing him throughout the battle, Kakashi discovered that Shinichi wasn’t merely formidable in genjutsu. His taijutsu and ninjutsu were also nearly flawless.

His swordsmanship, in particular, was exceptionally fierce!

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Once again, Shinichi used the short blade in his hand to deflect the shuriken flying toward him, then sneered, "The way you throw ninja tools looks like children playing around to me!"

The five ANBU shinobi surrounding him ignored his mockery, remaining silent as they panted heavily.

Their relentless barrage of attacks just now had consumed a huge amount of chakra, yet the result was utterly disheartening.

Uchiha Shinichi didn’t have so much as a scratch on him.

Seeing that morale was beginning to fall, one of the ANBU shouted, "Don’t panic! Just keep him occupied! Reinforcements will be here soon!"

"Keep me occupied?"

Shinichi seemed to have heard some ridiculous joke. He immediately snorted.

"With just the likes of you?"

In an instant, a dark-green phantom surged out from Shinichi’s body, transforming into the upper half of a gigantic skeleton.

Without a doubt, Uchiha Shinichi had unleashed an incomplete Susanoo.

"You people have absolutely no idea what it means to possess the Mangekyō Sharingan!"

With that, he drove his Susanoo to swing one massive arm.

In an instant, all five ANBU shinobi surrounding him were swept away.

"This...!?"

Hidden in the shadows, Kakashi stared at the scene in shock.

After sending the five ANBU shinobi flying, Uchiha Shinichi didn’t bother finishing them off one by one. Instead, he glanced toward the tree where Kakashi was hiding and shouted,

"Kakashi, get your ass out here and die!"

"This kind of power simply isn’t something an ordinary shinobi can withstand. If all of Team 11 were here, we might still have a chance... but with just me alone, there’s no way I can defeat him!"

Beads of cold sweat rolled down Kakashi’s forehead.

He had originally thought that the Mangekyō Sharingan in his left eye would at least allow him to contend with Uchiha Shinichi’s Mangekyō Sharingan to some extent.

But the moment Shinichi unleashed Susanoo, Kakashi realized he had been far too optimistic.

Just then, Shinichi, who had been arrogantly calling Kakashi out, suddenly furrowed his brows.

Immediately afterward, he dismissed his Susanoo.

Without so much as a word, he turned around and fled.

He left in such a hurry that he even looked somewhat disheveled.

Kakashi, who had just been preparing himself for a fight to the death, froze on the spot.

Confused, he muttered, "What’s going on? He clearly had the absolute advantage... so why did he suddenly retreat?"