Chapter 57: Speculation About the Divine Artifact

Chapter 57: Chapter 57: Speculation About the Divine Artifact

At first, the Uchiha clan’s challenges against Hyuga Kagami were only discussed within the Uchiha clan itself.

But after Uchiha Shinichi and Uchiha Hiiragi were defeated one after another, there was only so long the truth could be kept under wraps. Word eventually leaked out, and before long, the other ninja clans in the village had joined in on the discussion as well.

That night.

After clearing away the dishes, Rei hesitated for a moment before finally being unable to hold back any longer.

"Kagami, are the things people are saying outside true?"

Kagami was still preoccupied with figuring out how to formulate his toxins, so he absentmindedly asked, "What are people saying outside?"

Rei hurriedly replied, "About you and the Uchiha!"

"Oh, that."

Kagami smiled and nodded. "Yeah, the Uchiha did send people to challenge me, but I defeated them all."

With worry written all over her face, Rei said, "The Uchiha aren’t people you want to mess with. Can’t we just... avoid provoking them?"

Hearing this, Kagami froze and stared blankly at Rei.

Rei cautiously asked, "Did I say something wrong?"

Kagami shook his head.

He really had been a little surprised just now. He hadn’t expected that even Rei, a member of the prestigious Hyuga clan, would be so wary of the Uchiha. From that alone, it wasn’t hard to imagine what the village’s ordinary shinobi thought of them.

In terms of public sentiment alone, it could be said that the Uchiha had already become completely alienated from the rest of the village.

Thinking of this, Kagami’s expression darkened.

The Uchiha weren’t merely a stepping stone for Kagami to build his reputation—they were also a magnet that drew attention away from him. As long as the Uchiha clan existed, whether it was the Third Hokage, Danzo, or even Obito lurking behind the scenes, all of their eyes would remain fixed on the Uchiha.

But if the Uchiha clan were to disappear, there was no telling who those eyes would turn toward next.

Therefore, from the standpoint of Kagami’s own interests, the Uchiha clan couldn’t be allowed to fall. At the very least, they couldn’t fall too soon—not before his strength had fully reached the Kage level.

This was another reason why he was so willing to cooperate with Shisui.

Besides, Kagami had long had his eye on the divine artifacts, the Totsuka Blade and the Yata Mirror.

As he remembered it, Orochimaru, whose Eight Branches Technique allowed him to rival a Tailed Beast, had been sealed away by a single strike from Itachi’s Totsuka Blade. Throughout the entire confrontation, Orochimaru had barely even gotten a chance to fight back before Itachi swiftly and decisively suppressed him.

It was precisely because of this that Itachi’s two divine artifacts had left such a deep impression on Kagami.

As for what exactly these two divine artifacts were, Kagami had come up with many theories of his own.

As far as he could see, there were only two possibilities.

The first was that the Totsuka Blade and the Yata Mirror were nothing more than unique abilities belonging to Itachi’s Susanoo—part of Itachi’s own chakra, with no possibility of existing independently.

The second was that these two divine artifacts were some kind of spiritual weapons that existed in a chakra-based state, which was why they could be directly equipped to Itachi’s Susanoo.

Between the two possibilities, Kagami leaned more toward the latter.

That was because when Itachi used the Totsuka Blade and the Yata Mirror, both Orochimaru and Black Zetsu, who had been watching the battle, immediately recognized the two divine artifacts. They even knew something about their abilities.

That fact alone suggested that the two divine artifacts must have existed in the shinobi world long before Itachi obtained them, and that they had likely left behind certain deeds and legends throughout history.

Otherwise, there was simply no way Orochimaru and Black Zetsu could have known the details of these two divine artifacts the very first time they saw Itachi use them.

No matter how he looked at it, anything else simply wouldn’t make sense.

Of course, until he actually obtained the two divine artifacts, all of this was nothing more than speculation.

As for where the two divine artifacts might be, Kagami thought it over from every angle and eventually concluded that regardless of whether the first possibility or the second was correct, the task of finding them was best left to Itachi.

After all, even Orochimaru, who knew countless secrets of the shinobi world, had searched for the Totsuka Blade for years without finding it. That alone showed that these two divine artifacts had to be hidden somewhere extremely unusual.

Kagami even suspected that clues to the whereabouts of these two divine artifacts were hidden somewhere within the Uchiha clan, and that perhaps Itachi only discovered those clues after the clan’s massacre, then followed them to find the two divine artifacts.

After pondering it for a while, Kagami pulled back his wandering thoughts.

Itachi was still young, so the matter of the divine artifacts could be set aside for the time being. After all, aside from Itachi, there probably wouldn’t be anyone else capable of finding the two divine artifacts within the next decade or so.

For Kagami, the most pressing matter right now was still the Artificial Tailed Beast Project.

As long as he had the support of a massive supply of chakra, not only would he be able to further explore the mysteries of the Tenseigan, he would also be able to freely study all kinds of secret techniques and forbidden techniques without having to worry about the chakra cost.

The next day, Kagami arrived at the Forest of Death as usual.

After repeated failures, the eighth version of his paralysis toxin had finally begun to show promising results. The moment he fed it to the little wild boar, the boar immediately began showing signs of paralysis. After struggling a few times, it toppled stiffly to the ground.

Although only five or six minutes passed before the little boar was back on its feet, bursting with energy again, that was already more than enough.

On a battlefield, forget losing the ability to move for five or six minutes—even being immobilized for five or six seconds would leave a shinobi with an opening fatal enough to cost them their life.

Seeing this, Kagami smiled faintly.

"Looks like my approach was right."

Previously, the mottled poisonous moths he had collected had all been ordinary specimens. Although he’d gathered plenty of them, the potency of their toxins varied considerably.

For the eighth version of his paralysis toxin, however, he had used the poisonous powder of a Mottled Poison Moth King.

The amount he could obtain was much smaller, but its toxicity was exceptionally potent.

Moreover, he had discovered that the Giant-Jawed Ant’s saliva had the effect of suppressing toxicity, so when formulating the toxin, he reduced the proportion of Giant-Jawed Ant saliva in the mixture.

Doing so shortened the paralysis toxin’s active lifespan from the previous three days to just one day, but in exchange, its potency was guaranteed.

After all, when it came to poison, toxicity was the most important factor. Everything else had to give way to potency.

Just as Kagami was recording the results of the experiment and considering whether he could use Giant-Jawed Ant saliva as the main ingredient for an antidote, a figure suddenly landed on a large tree in front of him.

"Special Jonin Hyuga Kagami, Lord Hokage urgently summons you!"

The newcomer left behind only those words before hurriedly departing. From the looks of it, he still had other shinobi to notify.

Kagami put away his notebook and frowned.

"My half-month vacation isn’t even over yet. Don’t tell me Iwagakure really came knocking?"

The reason he had spent these days of his vacation frantically developing toxins was precisely because he was worried that Iwagakure would use the destruction of its Beheading Unit as an excuse to make trouble for Konoha.

Having lost the Fourth Hokage and the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, Konoha no longer possessed the same deterrent power it had immediately after the end of the Third Shinobi World War. It wasn’t impossible that Iwagakure might choose this moment to come and take a bite out of them.

When that happened, even if a full-scale war didn’t break out, localized clashes would almost certainly be unavoidable.

And as a member of the ANBU directly under the Hokage, Kagami would inevitably be thrown onto the front lines.

That was why he had no choice but to improve his strength as much as possible within this short window of time...