Chapter 91: Shaping

Chapter 91: Chapter 91: Shaping

After the three members of Team 11 left the Hokage’s office, Danzo rose with the aid of his cane and slowly walked over to the Hokage’s desk. He fixed the Third Hokage with a cold stare.

"Hiruzen, it’s time to make a decision!"

The Third shook his head. "Things haven’t reached the point of no return yet."

"Have you considered how much damage the village will suffer if they make the first move?" After a brief pause, Danzo continued to urge him, "Leave it to me. I’ll keep the losses to an absolute minimum."

The Third took a slow drag from his pipe. "Was the lesson from the recent turmoil in Kirigakure not profound enough? From now on, I’ll handle the Uchiha matter myself. You are not to interfere anymore."

At the mention of the turmoil in Kirigakure, Danzo was momentarily left speechless.

The recent upheaval had nearly shattered Kirigakure’s standing as one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages. Not only had the village itself suffered devastating losses in strength, but even the Land of Water had been plunged into chaos.

So everyone understood one thing clearly—

A tragedy like that could never be allowed to happen in Konoha.

After pondering for a moment, Danzo spoke again. "We can’t allow Uchiha Shisui to remain in the ANBU. His strength is already no weaker than yours or mine. If he completely sides with the Uchiha, you’ll be in grave danger."

The Third nodded.

One of the reasons he had so readily agreed to Danzo’s proposal to suspend every member of Team 11 was because he, too, had grown wary of Shisui.

Since Shisui had taken credit for Hyuga Kagami’s achievements in the battle at the valley, both the Third and Danzo had greatly overestimated his combat strength. Coupled with Shisui’s Mangekyo Sharingan and Kotoamatsukami, the threat he posed had suddenly been raised by several levels.

At this point, neither the Third nor Danzo was confident that they could overpower Shisui in a one-on-one fight.

And since the ANBU answered directly to the Hokage, its members had the authority to freely enter and leave the Hokage Building. Therefore, if Shisui ever developed ulterior motives, the Third could very well suffer a fatal surprise attack while completely unprepared.

Although the Third did not believe Shisui would betray the village, as Hokage, he simply could not afford to take that risk.

A week later, Hyuga Kagami openly returned to the village before his two-month leave expired.

Only after returning did he learn that he had been suspended from the ANBU. However, he wasn’t surprised in the slightest. Besides, as far as he was concerned, his ANBU position had already become more or less dispensable.

In truth, from the very beginning, he had never intended to remain in the ANBU for long.

Even if the Third hadn’t suspended him, he would have found a suitable opportunity to resign from the ANBU of his own accord.

Because by now, he had already gotten his hands on everything he wanted—the Uzumaki clan’s sealing techniques, the internal layout of the Hokage Building, the detailed security arrangements of the classified archives, information on ANBU members, and so on.

Even his official record now included a stint in the ANBU directly under the Hokage.

So there was really no reason for him to remain in the ANBU any longer.

After all, while the ANBU enjoyed many privileges, they were also subject to many restrictions.

For example, as long as an ordinary Konoha ninja hadn’t been assigned a mandatory mission by the village, they could freely accept missions from the Mission Center and then naturally leave the village to carry them out.

The ANBU couldn’t do that.

All ANBU missions were assigned directly by the Hokage. Their every move was subject to the Hokage’s authority. Where they went, what they did—everything had to be reported back to the Hokage.

There was very little freedom.

For an ordinary Konoha ninja, this might not have mattered much.

But for Hyuga Kagami, it was extremely inconvenient.

At this point, his status as an ANBU brought him more disadvantages than benefits.

"But why suspend all of Team 11?"

At that thought, Kagami vaguely realized that perhaps the village’s higher-ups weren’t actually targeting him.

Maybe they were merely using the death of the Root ninja as an excuse to target someone else on Team 11.

And that person was undoubtedly Shisui.

After pondering the matter for a while, Kagami put those thoughts aside.

As long as the peace negotiations between the village and Kumogakure had yet to be finalized, nothing would happen to the Uchiha. So what Hyuga Kagami needed to do right now wasn’t go around stirring up trouble, but take advantage of the fact that everyone was too preoccupied to pay attention to him and increase his strength.

In the shinobi world, when all was said and done, strength was what truly mattered!

Over the next few days, Kagami met up with the other three members of Team 11 and also made a few appearances around the Hyuga clan, making sure everyone knew that he had returned to the village.

After that, he shut himself away at home and went nowhere.

Danzo hadn’t sent anyone to monitor him again during these past few days. As for the reason behind that, Kagami couldn’t be bothered to investigate.

On the seventh day after returning to the village, with all his preparations complete, he officially began his Artificial Tailed Beast Project.

First, he needed to create a vessel for his artificial tailed beast.

The material for the vessel was the Purple Clay Gel recorded in the artificial tailed beast scroll.

Over the past few days, he had secretly conducted several experiments with it and discovered that Purple Clay Gel was indeed an extremely effective material for isolating chakra, making it perfectly suited for constructing the vessel of an artificial tailed beast.

As for the sealing formulas, he had already memorized every single one recorded in the artificial tailed beast scroll by heart.

The probability of making a mistake was practically zero.

"Byakugan!"

Once again, Kagami swept his gaze around the area surrounding his home. After confirming that no one was spying on him, he took out the scroll containing the Purple Clay Gel and released all of it from the seal.

Looking at the pile of Purple Clay Gel before him—material worth its weight in gold—he pondered for a moment before deciding to shape the artificial tailed beast’s vessel into a simple sphere.

He hadn’t chosen a spherical shape merely for convenience. Rather, the simpler the shape, the more structurally stable it would be.

After all, to Kagami, the artificial tailed beast was essentially nothing more than a "battery."

If he gave it some elaborate, extravagant appearance at the cost of reducing its stability, he would be putting the cart before the horse.

Having made his decision, he began meticulously inscribing the sealing formulas onto the Purple Clay Gel, bit by bit.

The inscription process had to be completed in a single uninterrupted attempt. He could neither stop midway nor make even the slightest mistake.

Otherwise, at best, obvious flaws would appear in the artificial tailed beast’s vessel, becoming points of instability.

At worst, the vessel would simply explode when the chakra source was placed inside it.

Precisely because this process was so crucial, Kagami directly activated his Tenseigan while inscribing the formulas. Using the Tenseigan’s unparalleled powers of perception, he controlled his chakra with extraordinary precision, pushing the accuracy of every inscription to the absolute limit.

Whenever someone became completely absorbed in a task, time always seemed to fly by.

Glancing at the first rays of dawn outside the window, Kagami deactivated his Tenseigan.

After an entire night of tirelessly inscribing the sealing formulas without sleep or rest, Kagami finally completed the shaping of the artificial tailed beast’s vessel.

Fortunately, he had chosen a simple spherical shape. Otherwise, even with the assistance of the Tenseigan, a single night would never have been enough to complete such an enormous amount of work.

After sealing the newly shaped outer shell of the artificial tailed beast’s vessel back into the scroll, Kagami slowly rose to his feet and stretched his entire body toward the morning light streaming in through the window...