Chapter 217: Rumors

Chapter 217: Chapter 217: Rumors

The anguished screams of Uchiha Hideki and the furious curses of Uchiha Ryota echoed in his ears, but Hyuga Kagami paid them no mind.

At this moment, beneath his bizarre and eerie ’Yama’ mask, his magnificent Tenseigan shone with an incomparably dazzling light as he focused intently on observing the fluctuations of chakra within Uchiha Ryota’s body.

Unlike Uchiha Hideki, Uchiha Ryota seemed to possess no particular resistance to sealing techniques.

Thus, even though he was consumed by extreme rage, the Four Symbols Seal kept him firmly restrained, preventing any significant fluctuations of chakra within his body—much less allowing him to forcibly activate his Sharingan the way Uchiha Hideki had.

After observing him for a while, Hyuga Kagami gently shook his head.

There was no doubt about it. The stimulus of pure ’anger’ alone was not enough to make Uchiha Ryota awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan.

It could not even stimulate him enough to break through the Four Symbols Seal and activate his three-tomoe Sharingan.

Clap, clap...

At that moment, Hyuga Kagami clapped his hands again, the crisp sound echoing throughout the cavern.

And as the sound of his clapping rang out, Uchiha Hideki’s screams from the neighboring cavern gradually died away.

Bound to a stone pillar, Uchiha Ryota demanded, "Just what the hell are you people trying to do? If it’s the Sharingan you want, why haven’t you taken them yet? Why are you torturing my brother?"

Hyuga Kagami ignored Uchiha Ryota and walked into the neighboring cavern.

Uchiha Hideki was likewise bound to a stone pillar. At this moment, he was breathing weakly, his body covered in wounds. It looked as though he had just undergone severe torture.

Standing rigidly in front of Uchiha Hideki was a puppet.

This puppet had been captured on the battlefield years ago, during one of Konoha’s wars with Sunagakure.

The puppet itself was nothing special. It was a standard-issue puppet used by Sunagakure Chunin-level puppet masters. It was incapable of using any ninjutsu and could only fire preloaded shuriken, senbon, and other small projectile weapons.

Puppets of this sort had no research value whatsoever. After being captured by the village, they were generally used to train Konoha’s Genin and Chunin in how to deal with Sunagakure puppet masters.

As it happened, Hyuga Kagami was short on someone to handle menial tasks around the secret prison, so using his status as an ANBU directly under the Hokage, he had requisitioned one from the ANBU storehouse.

After activating it with a large amount of Tenseigan chakra, the puppet, much like the Third Kazekage Human Puppet, gained a certain degree of intelligence.

Although its combat strength was only around the level of a Chunin, it was more than sufficient for menial work such as carrying out punishments, cleaning, and serving tea and water.

Hyuga Kagami waved a hand at the puppet and said indifferently, "Stand down."

The puppet immediately put away the instruments of torture and stepped aside.

Having just endured the punishment, Uchiha Hideki wearily raised his head and looked at Hyuga Kagami.

"I thought I heard Ryota’s voice just now..." he said. "Tell me that was only my imagination!"

Hyuga Kagami replied, "No, it wasn’t an illusion. He’s right next door."

Uchiha Hideki stared at Hyuga Kagami. "Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you. Just let him go!"

"The bond between you brothers is even stronger than I expected." After a brief pause, Hyuga Kagami continued, "Unfortunately, I can’t let either of you go."

Uchiha Hideki fell silent.

Deep down, he understood that things had already reached this point. The man before him, wearing that demon-faced mask, would never allow the two brothers to leave alive.

Forget the two of them—he even felt that the entire Uchiha Clan might ultimately be destroyed by the schemes of Konoha’s higher-ups.

After carefully examining Uchiha Hideki with his Tenseigan, Hyuga Kagami said nothing more. He turned around and returned to his study.

Inside the study, Hyuga Kagami took two notebooks from the bookshelf, respectively labeled ’Uchiha Hideki’ and ’Uchiha Ryota’, and laid them open side by side on the desk.

After pondering for a while, he picked up his pen and began to write.

"All ’anger’ tests have failed..."

"The emotion of ’anger’ is not the optimal stimulus for either Uchiha Ryota or Uchiha Hideki..."

"Uchiha Ryota’s ocular power far surpasses Uchiha Hideki’s. His chances of awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan are higher..."

"Uchiha Ryota is extremely cunning. He seems to have realized that I am deliberately trying to provoke him. Perhaps he possesses some degree of understanding regarding the conditions required to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan..."

At this point, Hyuga Kagami stopped writing.

The awakening of the Mangekyo Sharingan involved a certain degree of chance.

A highly gifted member of the Uchiha Clan might go their entire life without awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan simply because they had never experienced a strong enough emotional stimulus.

Conversely, an Uchiha with slightly inferior talent might encounter an overwhelmingly powerful emotional stimulus, trigger an extremely low-probability event, and unexpectedly awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan.

Therefore, Hyuga Kagami had never placed particularly high hopes on this round of stimulation experiments. His mindset remained quite calm.

After all, awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan was simply too dependent on one’s state of mind. It was something that could only be encountered, not sought.

You could rack your brains and exhaust every possible method, only to gain absolutely nothing—yet when you least expected it, you might stumble upon an unexpected success.

Thus, rather than focusing solely on whether the subjects would awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan, Hyuga Kagami’s primary goal with these stimulation experiments was to observe how Uchiha possessing the three-tomoe Sharingan would change when subjected to different extreme emotional stimuli.

After closing the notebooks, Hyuga Kagami did not linger in the secret prison. He immediately returned to his surveillance post.

In the blink of an eye, several days passed.

The attack and subsequent disappearance of Uchiha Ryota immediately caused an uproar throughout the village. Every Konoha shinobi regarded this latest action by Kamigami as a serious provocation against Konoha!

As a result, the village’s crackdown on the black markets throughout the Land of Fire became even more ruthless. Many small ninja organizations that had absolutely nothing to do with the matter were caught in the crossfire and became targets of Konoha’s suppression as well.

At the same time, a rumor began spreading throughout the village.

At first glance, it sounded utterly ridiculous.

But the more people thought about it, the more it seemed to make a strange amount of sense.

And naturally, the central figure in this rumor was none other than Shisui.

After hearing the rumor concerning himself, Shisui’s heart immediately skipped a beat. He hurriedly sought out Hyuga Kagami and said anxiously, "Senpai, we’ve been exposed!"

Over the past few days, Hyuga Kagami had either been carrying out Team 11’s ANBU surveillance duties or pondering over his stimulation experiments. He really had not paid much attention to the rumors quietly spreading throughout the village.

So when Shisui suddenly said this, Hyuga Kagami was stunned for a moment before asking, "How do you know?"

Shisui looked somewhat anxious. "It’s already spread throughout the entire village. Everyone knows that I’m Kamigami’s ’Homura’!"

Hearing this, Hyuga Kagami immediately wore a strange expression and muttered, "That doesn’t make sense. Even if the village had obtained evidence of something like this, there’s no way they would deliberately spread it around until everyone knew about it, right?"

Shisui froze for a moment. "That’s true... If the village deliberately spread this information, wouldn’t they be worried that I’d defect on my own after realizing I’d been exposed?"

"Strange. This is really strange..." Hyuga Kagami rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Just where did we give ourselves away?"