Chapter 395: Mutual Flattery

Chapter 395: Chapter 395: Mutual Flattery

"Seal!"

After sealing the plump, ball-shaped purple dragon into the gourd artifact at his waist, Hyuga Kagami let out a long sigh of relief.

If he were controlling his true body, Kagami wouldn’t have been particularly worried about the Dragon Vein going berserk. But right now, he was controlling his Fire Release clone, and to make matters worse, his ocular power had been severely depleted. Under these circumstances, he couldn’t help but remain on edge.

Watching the chubby Dragon Vein slowly shrink before finally disappearing into the gourd artifact, Yagura Karatachi instead fell into serious contemplation, murmuring to himself, "Could that shape have some kind of special function?"

Kagami’s face darkened.

Pretending not to have heard Yagura’s muttering, he took a scroll from the ninja pouch at his waist and tossed it over.

"This list contains the supplies the organization needs. Do your best to gather as much of it as you can!"

Yagura caught the scroll and opened it. Inside was a long list of instruments and materials, many of which he had never even heard of before.

His face immediately darkened as well.

"I’ll do my best."

Kagami nodded.

He hadn’t expected Yagura, who was already buried under a mountain of debt, to be able to purchase a complete set of experimental equipment for him anyway. After all, a large-scale procurement like this would put even a comparatively wealthy village like Konoha under considerable financial pressure.

At that moment, the faint sound of footsteps came from the distance.

Kagami and Yagura exchanged a glance.

Then, with perfect tacit understanding, they each retreated in opposite directions and resumed their distant standoff.

By now, not only had the terrain of the valley been completely transformed, but the entire area was also shrouded in a thick cloud of dust and smoke. It was difficult to see clearly even three to five meters ahead.

So, after hearing the thunderous sounds from within the valley finally cease, although Mei Terumi and the others decided to enter and investigate, they did not simply charge straight in.

Instead, they cautiously advanced little by little, carefully probing their way deeper into the valley.

Ao’s Byakugan finally came in handy. Staring toward the center of the valley, he said, "The Fourth and ’Homura’ seem to be facing each other in a standoff!"

Mei Terumi asked quietly, "How does it look?"

Ao shook his head. "It’s difficult to tell. Both of their chakra reserves are still abundant, with no signs of exhaustion. But in terms of chakra alone, the Fourth clearly has the advantage."

Hearing this, Mei no longer hesitated.

"Let’s go. We’re heading over!"

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Before long, Mei and the others landed beside Yagura Karatachi.

Seeing that their audience had arrived, Hyuga Kagami said coldly, "As expected of the Mizukage. I’ll remember what happened here today!"

Yagura planted his iron hook against the ground.

"Susanoo truly is extraordinary. But if it weren’t for a sneak attack, even the Mangekyō Sharingan wouldn’t be able to do anything to me!"

"Hmph! Don’t get too full of yourself. It’s still far too early to say who the Six-Tails will ultimately fall into the hands of!"

After this round of mutual flattery, Kagami had no intention of lingering any longer. His figure flickered, and he vanished from the spot.

Seeing Kagami voluntarily retreat, Mei immediately prepared to pursue him.

Yagura quickly stopped her.

"Don’t chase her!"

Confused, Mei asked, "Lord Mizukage, why shouldn’t we pursue her? You finally managed to defeat her! This is the perfect opportunity to eliminate her once and for all!"

"Our primary enemy is the Akatsuki!" After a brief pause, Yagura continued, "Let’s go. We’re going after Utakata!"

...

After swiftly escaping the valley, Hyuga Kagami soon rendezvoused with the Third Kazekage human puppet that had been waiting to receive him.

Then, using the Third Kazekage human puppet’s Magnet Release flight ability, he quietly returned to the air fortress hovering not far from the coastline of the Land of Water.

The moment he returned to the air fortress, he impatiently headed straight for the training ground.

The two intense battles he had fought in succession—first against Obito, and then against Kirigakure’s pursuit force—had caused the compatibility between his soul and his Fire Release clone to rise higher and higher. It had essentially reached the minimum standard he was aiming for.

But that wasn’t why he had rushed to the training ground.

The real reason was that he had vaguely sensed a significant improvement in his mastery of Blaze Release.

Especially during the battle in the valley just now, when he had used Blaze Release to scatter golden flames across almost the entire valley, the amount of ocular power and chakra he had consumed was noticeably lower than he had expected.

And this change undoubtedly meant that his control over Blaze Release had improved considerably.

"Why has my mastery suddenly improved so much in just a few days?"

Standing in the training ground, Kagami silently pondered the question.

The improvement in his mastery of Blaze Release was most likely related to his battle against Obito. After all, the battle in the valley just now had mostly been an act and hadn’t involved a true life-or-death struggle.

Kagami rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Did I do anything unusual while fighting Obito?"

After carefully recalling the battle, Kagami realized that the most unusual thing he had done while fighting Obito was consecutively activate three Mangekyō Sharingan-level dojutsu—Susanoo, Iwato, and Mikoto.

However, activating those dojutsu shouldn’t have had much to do with the improvement of his Blaze Release.

Suddenly, Hyuga Kagami’s gaze sharpened.

"Could it be because I overexhausted my ocular power?"

Thinking about it carefully, if he excluded the "unusual" act of consecutively activating three Mangekyō Sharingan-level dojutsu, then the only other unusual aspect of his battle with Obito was that he had pushed his ocular power far beyond its limits.

"That must be it. At the very end, when my ocular power was already completely exhausted, I still forced myself to use a large-scale Blaze Style technique. Maybe that’s exactly what caused my mastery of Blaze Release to improve so dramatically!"

This wasn’t just some baseless guess on Kagami’s part.

He had thought of Sasuke.

In the original timeline, Sasuke frequently fought powerful enemies head-on, repeatedly exhausting his ocular power in the process. It could be said that among the Uchiha clan, Sasuke had one of the shortest intervals between awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan and suffering severe deterioration of his eyesight.

It had taken him only a handful of battles to nearly blind the Mangekyō Sharingan he had only recently awakened.

Perhaps it was precisely because of this that Sasuke had managed to master Blaze Release in such a short period of time.

During Kagami’s previous Blaze Release training, however, he had never allowed himself to fall into the miserable state of completely exhausting his ocular power.

Usually, once his ocular power had been depleted to a certain degree, he would voluntarily stop and rest. As a result, he had never attempted to train Blaze Release while his ocular power was completely exhausted.

But his battle with Obito had been a true life-or-death struggle.

The slightest mistake could have resulted in the complete loss of his Fire Release clone—the clone carrying his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.

Therefore, Kagami hadn’t held anything back during that battle. Even after his ocular power had already been exhausted, in order to kill Obito a second time, he had resolutely overdrawn his ocular power and unleashed a large-scale Blaze Style technique.

Such circumstances were undoubtedly a rare accident.

But that accident had shown Kagami a path forward for training Blaze Release.

"My ocular power is already heavily depleted anyway. I might as well take advantage of this opportunity and test my theory. If this method really works, then there won’t be much standing in the way of mastering Blaze Release!"