Chapter 131: Choosing a Location for the Laboratory

Chapter 131: Chapter 131: Choosing a Location for the Laboratory

The incident involving Uchiha Shinichi’s defection had indeed exposed the threat posed by the Uchiha Clan.

But at the same time, the incident had also demonstrated just how powerful the Uchiha Clan truly was.

A single Uchiha Shinichi had been enough to throw the entire village into chaos.

Not only had Konoha been left thoroughly humiliated, but even after dispatching a large number of shinobi to pursue him, they had still returned empty-handed. To this day, the rogue Uchiha Shinichi remained at large.

Just imagine—what would happen if the entire Uchiha Clan launched a rebellion?

Merely picturing such a scene sent a chill down the Third Hokage’s spine.

Because of this, even he now found the Uchiha Clan an extremely troublesome problem to deal with.

Danzo continued to urge him, "Hiruzen, it’s time to make a decision!"

The loss of his experimental materials had brought many of his experiments to a standstill.

The loss of the Sharingan, in particular, had caused him almost unbearable heartache. After all, those Sharingan were something he had painstakingly collected one by one during the Third Shinobi World War.

Now that the war was over, getting his hands on more Sharingan would no longer be nearly so easy.

The Third Hokage shook his head. "We’ll deal with the Uchiha matter later. For now, let’s discuss Kumogakure!"

Danzo’s performance this time had left the Third Hokage deeply disappointed.

As the representative of the village’s hardliners, Danzo had always been the leading figure when it came to suppressing Konoha’s major shinobi clans. Yet this time, he had failed to deal with even Uchiha Shinichi, who had only just awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan.

It had left Konoha’s upper echelons utterly embarrassed in front of the village’s major clans.

......

After leaving the Hokage’s office, Team 11 disbanded on the spot.

Upon returning home, Kagami confirmed that no one was watching the surroundings before taking two scrolls out of the storage pouch he carried with him.

"Release!"

Placing both hands on the two scrolls, Kagami gave a low shout.

Poof...

Accompanied by a burst of white smoke, a corpse appeared atop each scroll.

The corpse on Kagami’s left belonged to Uchiha Yui.

In order to get to it before Obito and Zetsu could, Kagami had ordered the Third Kazekage Human Puppet to travel without rest, day and night, allowing it to seize the corpse one step ahead of them.

"Hm?"

After briefly examining Uchiha Yui’s corpse, Kagami let out a soft sound of surprise.

Some kind of medicinal solution seemed to have been applied to Uchiha Yui’s corpse. Despite having been buried for so many days, her body still looked remarkably lifelike, as though she had only recently died.

"Shinichi really spared no expense, huh!"

Although Kagami had no idea what kind of solution had been used, that didn’t stop him from guessing just how expensive it must have been.

After confirming that Uchiha Yui’s corpse was intact—even her Sharingan were still in place—Kagami once again used a sealing technique and sealed the body back into the scroll.

Storage scrolls couldn’t preserve a corpse from decay indefinitely, so keeping the body sealed inside one was only a temporary measure.

After finishing his examination of Uchiha Yui’s corpse, Kagami shifted his gaze toward the corpse on his right.

This corpse belonged to none other than the White Zetsu clone that had been assigned to follow Uchiha Shinichi.

However, because of the explosive tags, the White Zetsu clone had been blown to pieces. Calling what remained a "corpse" was being generous—it was little more than scattered masses of white tissue.

Kagami slowly closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, his eyes had transformed into the brilliant, star-like azure blue of the Tenseigan.

Within the vision of his Tenseigan, even though the White Zetsu clone’s corpse had already been reduced to masses of tissue, a faint trace of chakra activity still lingered within it.

"As expected of something created by fusing First Hokage cells. Its vitality really is astonishing!"

After sighing in admiration, Kagami sealed the remains of the White Zetsu clone back into the scroll.

After putting away the two scrolls, Kagami slowly walked onto the balcony. With a light leap, he floated effortlessly onto the roof, placed one hand on his hip, and gazed out over the entire village.

At present, his most urgent priority was to establish a laboratory and a secure storage vault for experimental materials that belonged solely to him.

And considering the need for secrecy and security, choosing the right location was especially important.

As he surveyed the layout of the village, he pondered to himself,

"The laboratory can’t be too far from home, otherwise traveling back and forth will be too troublesome. The location also needs to be well hidden—at the very least, it has to be capable of avoiding detection by ordinary sensory-type shinobi."

With that thought, he shifted his gaze toward the forests surrounding the village.

Although Konoha was surrounded by forests, those forests weren’t exactly ownerless.

For example, the clan grounds of shinobi clans such as the Nara, Akimichi, Inuzuka, and Aburame were located near these forests. The surrounding woodlands were often treated as part of their respective spheres of influence, whether for cultivating medicinal herbs, raising ninja beasts, or breeding ninja insects.

If Kagami were to establish his laboratory in one of those forests, there was a high chance that it would eventually be discovered.

Kagami’s gaze swept across one forest after another before finally settling on the Forest of Death, situated in one corner of the village.

The Forest of Death didn’t belong to any shinobi clan.

It was one of Konoha’s live-combat training grounds, and nearly every Konoha genin had undergone practical combat training within it at some point.

"Most of the people active in the Forest of Death are genin and chunin. Jonin rarely venture inside. If I establish the laboratory there, then as long as I choose the location carefully, the chances of it being discovered should be fairly low."

"Besides, the Forest of Death isn’t far from the village, so traveling back and forth would be convenient. I could even use ’synthesizing toxins’ as an excuse to openly enter and leave the area."

The more Kagami thought about it, the more he felt that establishing his laboratory in the Forest of Death was a pretty good idea.

After pondering for a moment, he decided to immediately inspect the area in person.

Upon arriving at the Forest of Death, he activated his Byakugan and began surveying the surroundings.

Before long, his attention was drawn to a small corner near the edge of the Forest of Death.

Surprisingly, that particular area was actually capable of obstructing the long-range vision of his Byakugan.

After thinking for a moment, Kagami murmured, "That should be one of the barrier’s nodes, right?"

The entirety of Konoha Village was protected by a barrier, and each of the barrier’s nodes had a large number of barrier formulas inscribed upon it. Because of this, ordinary reconnaissance methods would suffer varying degrees of interference in those areas.

"The team responsible for maintaining this section of the barrier should be Team Three of the Barrier Corps."

After a brief pause, Kagami tried to recall the information he had seen regarding the members of Team Three.

"All four members of their team are chunin, and if I remember correctly, none of them are sensory-type shinobi."

As a member of the ANBU directly under the Hokage, Kagami had been authorized to access the personnel files of ordinary Konoha chunin.

Because of this, he had previously looked through the information on the members of the Barrier Corps.

However, at the time, he had merely glanced over it without paying much attention. As a result, he couldn’t be completely certain whether any of Team Three’s four members possessed a hidden talent for sensory ninjutsu.

Kagami knew that caution was the key to lasting success.

Therefore, he didn’t immediately decide to establish his laboratory in the Forest of Death. Instead, he decided to first investigate Team Three of the Barrier Corps.

Only after confirming that none of Team Three’s members were sensory-type shinobi would he make his final decision...