Chapter 99: Speaking Up

Chapter 99: Chapter 99: Speaking Up

After roaring in grief for a while, the three tomoe in Uchiha Shinichi’s Sharingan gradually slowed their rotation.

Tears poured from his eyes, falling drop by drop onto Uchiha Yui’s lifeless body.

Watching from a distance, Zetsu said with some regret, "What a shame. It still didn’t work."

The masked man, however, showed not the slightest disappointment.

"There’s no need to rush."

Zetsu turned toward the masked man. "But your plan already failed."

"This is only the beginning."

With a soft chuckle, the masked man slowly continued, "Do you think Uchiha Shinichi will let that Root ninja from earlier get away with this?"

Zetsu shook his head.

The answer was obvious.

No one who had gone through something like this would simply let it go, much less Uchiha Shinichi, who was straightforward by nature and had little patience for schemes or subtle maneuvering.

The masked man smiled again.

"Then do you think Danzo will hand that Root ninja over?"

Zetsu froze.

Given how domineering Danzo was within Konoha, there was no chance he would bow his head to the Uchiha Clan. Forget the fact that the Root ninja wasn’t actually responsible—even if he really had killed her, Danzo would never hand him over.

"So that’s why you told me to let that Root ninja go!" As he spoke, Zetsu suddenly asked worriedly, "But if we do this, won’t Danzo notice us?"

The masked man replied without the slightest concern, "They’ve already noticed us."

During the Nine-Tails’ attack, the masked man had fought the Fourth Hokage and left behind numerous traces of their battle. Because of this, Konoha’s higher-ups had long since realized that someone had been manipulating the entire incident from behind the scenes.

They simply had no way of determining whether the mastermind came from outside the village or was hiding somewhere within the Uchiha Clan itself.

As for Danzo, he had long since stopped concealing his hostility toward the Uchiha Clan. Many times, he was simply pretending not to understand what he already knew, deliberately looking for excuses to target the Uchiha.

Zetsu asked again, "Then what do we do next?"

"We wait and enjoy the show!"

The masked man chuckled before saying mockingly, "Uchiha Shinichi won’t be able to avenge her, and the Uchiha Clan won’t be able to help him either."

Zetsu pressed, "Then what will he do?"

"He’ll hate."

"Danzo. Konoha. The Uchiha. Everything!"

The masked man spoke with absolute certainty, as though he had already seen the future.

Zetsu glanced at Uchiha Shinichi, who was carrying Uchiha Yui’s body back toward the village, and casually said, "But what if he never awakens the Mangekyo Sharingan? I feel like we’ve already wasted quite a bit of time here."

The masked man also watched Uchiha Shinichi’s retreating figure and murmured, "A useful chess piece is worth putting some effort into."

Land of Wind.

In the seemingly endless desert, Hyuga Kagami walked while silently calculating the distance remaining.

It had already been exactly ten days since he secretly slipped out of the village.

He estimated that in another three days, he would be able to safely escort the caravan of Roran survivors into the Land of Rain. That would leave him seven days, which should be more than enough time to return to the village.

"Good thing I agreed on twenty days with Shisui."

Just as he was feeling relieved, the cry of an eagle suddenly rang out from the distance!

Kagami looked toward the sound and saw an eagle circling high in the distant sky. Judging from its flight pattern, it seemed to be searching for something.

Clearly, the eagle in the sky was no ordinary bird.

It was a trained ninja beast.

The corner of Kagami’s mouth curled upward as he smiled.

"As expected of Sunagakure, one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages. Their response really isn’t slow. They’ve already managed to search all the way out here."

After saying that, however, he made no attempt to do anything.

Instead, he simply stood there quietly, as though waiting for someone to arrive.

Not long afterward, a figure landed in front of Hyuga Kagami and dropped to one knee, speaking in a cold, mechanical voice.

"Master, there’s a four-man Sunagakure squad behind us."

The figure was none other than the Third Kazekage Human Puppet.

Over the past few days, while escorting and covering the Roran survivors’ caravan, Kagami had taken some time to redo the Jinchuriki Fusion Sealing Ritual on the artificial tailed beast that had been temporarily sealed within his body.

With that, he had finally become a true Dragon Vein Jinchuriki.

And only after becoming the Dragon Vein’s Jinchuriki did he truly understand just how different the Dragon Vein’s chakra was from ordinary chakra.

First of all, the Dragon Vein’s chakra contained an extremely high proportion of energy drawn from the earth’s ley lines—in other words, natural energy.

As a result, the quality of its chakra was noticeably higher than that of an ordinary ninja’s chakra.

This meant that the Tenseigan chakra within Kagami’s body couldn’t instantly fuse with an equivalent amount of the high-quality Dragon Vein chakra.

Therefore, whenever Kagami wanted to draw upon the Dragon Vein’s chakra, he had to spend some time gradually converting it into Tenseigan chakra within his body, much like how Naruto needed time to absorb natural energy when using Sage Mode.

However, precisely because the Dragon Vein’s chakra was of such high quality, the amount of Tenseigan chakra produced after conversion was enormous.

Secondly, Kagami was surprised to discover that the Dragon Vein’s chakra possessed a natural self-healing property.

Perhaps this was because the Dragon Vein’s original instinct had been to restore itself by absorbing energy from the earth’s ley lines. After being nurtured in this manner for hundreds upon thousands of years, its chakra had naturally developed an inherent regenerative quality.

Ordinary wounds, even without Medical Ninjutsu—or even so much as a bandage—could heal at several times the normal rate.

Finally, because the second-generation Dragon Vein source was essentially a newborn—ignorant of the world and possessing a temperament far milder than that of the tailed beasts—it was extremely easy to tame.

As a result, Kagami had little difficulty controlling it.

The only problem was that the Dragon Vein possessed such an enormous amount of chakra that every time Kagami drew upon it, he had to proceed with extreme caution.

And after obtaining this enormous supply of Tenseigan chakra, the very first thing Kagami did was pour a massive amount of it into the Third Kazekage Human Puppet beside him.

Originally, he merely wanted to see whether he could increase the Third Kazekage Human Puppet’s spirituality and grant it a small degree of consciousness.

But unexpectedly, after being infused with a tremendous amount of Tenseigan chakra, the Third Kazekage Human Puppet not only developed a certain degree of independent consciousness—

It could even speak.

Kagami had studied the Third Kazekage Human Puppet long ago and knew perfectly well that there was no mechanism in its throat capable of producing sound.

Therefore, the fact that it could actually speak came as a surprise even to him.

However, after activating his Tenseigan and carefully observing it for a while, Kagami finally discovered what was happening.

The Third Kazekage Human Puppet was using chakra to simulate portions of the organs necessary for speech.

Thus, although it could speak, its voice remained cold and mechanical.

The feeling it gave off was almost like hearing the ghost of a dead man brought back to life suddenly open its mouth and speak.

In the past, Kagami would have absolutely despised such a wasteful use of chakra.

But now that he had become the Dragon Vein Jinchuriki...

A tiny bit of wasted chakra was no longer something he particularly cared about.