Chapter 459: The Five Kage Assemble

Chapter 459: Chapter 459: The Five Kage Assemble

Kagami quickly composed himself and began examining the results of Danzo’s experiments.

The Chimera Bud’s ability to fuse with flesh allowed it to freely alter its form. Because of this, fuinjutsu that relied on inscribed formulas had great difficulty maintaining an effective restraint on it over long periods.

After all, if the sealing technique remained active, the Chimera Bud would be unable to devour and fuse with flesh.

But if the sealing technique was released, the sealing formula inscribed onto the Chimera Bud would inevitably become damaged as the Chimera Bud itself expanded and changed shape.

Once that damage accumulated beyond a certain point, the fuinjutsu inscribed on the Chimera Bud would naturally cease to function.

Every single Chimera Bud test subject in the cultivation tanks that had been inscribed with sealing formulas had encountered this exact problem. As their bodies twisted and changed shape, the sealing formulas engraved upon them had suffered varying degrees of damage.

"Four Symbols Seal..."

"Five Elements Seal..."

"Evil Sealing Method..."

"Eight Trigrams Seal..."

Examining them one by one, Kagami recognized many fuinjutsu he was familiar with. There were also quite a few that even he had never seen before.

Based on his experience, barring any unforeseen circumstances, it would take at most a week before every fuinjutsu inscribed on these Chimera Bud test subjects completely failed.

Kagami sighed inwardly.

"Looks like ordinary fuinjutsu really can’t restrain the Chimera Bud!"

Fuinjutsu such as the Four Symbols Seal were already considered extremely advanced even by the standards of the shinobi world, yet even they could not restrain the Chimera Bud for long.

Or rather, any seal that relied on inscribing sealing formulas was fundamentally incapable of meeting the requirements necessary to restrain a Chimera Bud.

Only fuinjutsu based on spiritual or chakra power—such as the Adamantine Sealing Chains, Dead Demon Consuming Seal, or Phantom Dragons Nine Consuming Seal—could potentially fulfill those requirements.

But that created another problem.

It meant that no outsider could perform the sealing on the user’s behalf. The person themselves would have to master this type of fuinjutsu so they could constantly restrain the Chimera Bud within their body and ensure that it never lost control and turned against them.

Danzo spoke up at this point. "You’ve all seen it yourselves. Ordinary fuinjutsu are far too ineffective. They simply cannot restrain the Chimera Bud for any significant length of time."

The corners of Orochimaru’s mouth curled upward as he smiled. "Perhaps we could try modifying the Uzumaki Clan’s Adamantine Sealing Chains."

Kagami nodded slightly. "Our target is only the Chimera Bud, which can devour flesh and blood. It isn’t a Tailed Beast with an enormous amount of chakra. So even if we sacrifice some of the sealing power, it shouldn’t matter much."

Modifying a top-tier fuinjutsu while preserving its original sealing power was indeed extremely difficult. It would require an enormous amount of calculation and experimentation—and perhaps even a bit of luck.

But if they were willing to sacrifice a portion of its sealing power, modifying it would become much easier.

Orochimaru walked around the cultivation tanks for a moment before continuing, "There’s also a problem with the primary material used to create these Chimera Buds. The gelatinous substance Hiruko chose is far too unstable. Perhaps we could experiment with other, more stable materials to improve the Chimera Buds’ overall stability."

Kagami walked over to another cultivation tank. As he observed the living Chimera Bud inside, he proposed, "There’s also room for improvement in the cultivation process itself. We could begin matching and fusing the Chimera Bud with the user’s own flesh and blood from the very beginning of its cultivation. Although that would increase the cost of cultivating each Chimera Bud, it should also make the Chimera Bud far easier to tame."

Hiruko’s current procedure was to first cultivate a living Chimera Bud and only afterward fuse that living Chimera Bud with his own cells.

By placing the cell-fusion step at the end of the process, the cultivation success rate of the Chimera Buds could be maintained. However, because the Chimera Buds grew independently beforehand, even if the subsequent cellular fusion succeeded, they would still remain wild and difficult to tame.

Kagami’s idea was to move the cell-fusion step to the beginning of the process.

Although doing so would drastically reduce the cultivation success rate of the Chimera Buds, as long as they were fortunate enough to successfully cultivate even a single living Chimera Bud, that Chimera Bud—which had been fused with its owner’s cellular tissue from the very beginning of its growth—would be far more docile than one that had developed independently.

Listening as Kagami and Orochimaru traded suggestion after suggestion, Danzo, who had originally believed that the experiment had reached a dead end, suddenly felt as though everything had become clear.

Looking at Kagami and Orochimaru, who were still discussing ways to improve the Chimera Buds, he thought to himself,

"Bringing them into the experiment really was the right decision!"

What Danzo didn’t know was that these ideas for improving the Chimera Buds weren’t something Kagami and Orochimaru had come up with on the spot.

They had already conceived of them long ago.

They simply lacked the financial resources necessary to actually put those ideas into practice.

Take the choice of gelatinous material, for example. Hiruko wasn’t an idiot. Since he had chosen this particular substance, he obviously had his reasons.

Perhaps there really were better gelatinous materials somewhere in the shinobi world, but the manpower and resources required to find them were impossible to estimate. They might even pour an enormous fortune into the search only to end up with absolutely nothing to show for it.

As for modifying the cultivation procedure, that would directly affect the success rate of cultivating Chimera Buds.

And probability was a very peculiar thing.

Once the success rate dropped below a certain threshold, the cost of experimentation could increase tenfold, a hundredfold, or even a thousandfold—perhaps even ten thousandfold.

In truth, all of these suggestions belonged to the same category: either don’t try them at all, or prepare to throw money into a bottomless pit once you did.

So Kagami and Orochimaru were simply planning to take advantage of Danzo’s financial resources to test, one by one, all the ideas they had previously been unable to put into practice.

...

Outside Konohagakure.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Amid a series of sharp whooshes, several figures landed within the forest.

Every one of them was dressed in the attire of Konoha ANBU. If Kagami had been here, he would have immediately recognized the man leading them as the captain of the Third Hokage’s Shadow Guard.

After sweeping his gaze around the surroundings, the captain called out into the seemingly empty forest, "Lord Tsuchikage, we were ordered to come and escort you."

At that moment, streaks of light flashed throughout the forest.

Numerous figures emerged from their concealed states. In the blink of an eye, more than a dozen figures appeared in the forest that had seemed completely deserted just moments before.

Leading them was the Third Tsuchikage of Iwagakure, Onoki, and behind him were three full squads of elite Iwa shinobi.

The captain of the Shadow Guard stepped forward and bowed.

"Lord Tsuchikage, please follow me into the village."

Onoki nodded before asking, "Has everyone else arrived?"

The captain replied, "Yes. The Kazekage, Raikage, and Mizukage have all arrived safely."

With his hands clasped behind his back, Onoki wore a somewhat disgruntled expression as he said, "To think that there would come a day when we Five Kage would have to sneak around like this. Sigh... what a sorry state of affairs."

Before long, under the guidance of the Shadow Guard’s captain, the Tsuchikage’s party bypassed Konoha’s patrols.

Just like the Kazekage, Raikage, and Mizukage before them, they silently slipped into Konoha without attracting any attention...