Chapter 270 Merchants from the Land of Lightning Flee South
After Shiranui Genma and the other two escorted Uchiha Touko to the border post, Uchiha Touko told them to return to the village first, while he headed alone towards the location where Jiraiya had sent the message.
When Uchiha Touko arrived, the area had already been sealed off by the Rain Country's barrier team. The Amegakure ninjas on guard outside went in to report Uchiha Touko's arrival, and soon after, Konan personally came to the entrance of the barrier to welcome Uchiha Touko inside.
"Hokage, please."
Uchiha Touko asked as he followed Konan into the barrier, "How is the situation? Have you found anything?" "
Nagato is maintaining the black rods that can seal that special energy, and Jiraiya-sensei is studying those things. At present, we can basically conclude that the team that attacked us was not human," Konan said.
"Let me take a look first." Uchiha Touko nodded and followed Konan to Jiraiya and Nagato, who were currently studying the dozen or so artificial human corpses with Nagato.
"Touko, you're here." Jiraiya stood up and made way for Uchiha Touko upon seeing him. "Take a look. There's no blood in these people's bodies, and their internal organs are all mechanical devices. However, their bodies look very much like real flesh and blood, and there are different kinds of chakra inside their bodies."
"Chakra?" Uchiha Touko reached out and turned over the corpse of one of the attackers. Looking at the shell-like pattern on the armor, his expression turned serious. It really was shell tissue. So, these guys must be artificial humans. "I'll take
these corpses back to Konoha later and hand them over to the professionals for research," Uchiha Touko said.
"Hokage, if I'm not around, these black rods that suppress the special energy in their armor won't last long. Once these rods disappear, that energy will instantly go berserk and explode." Nagato pointed to the deep crater caused by the explosion of the armor of the previous attacker squad leader not far away.
"Explosion? What explosion?" At this moment, a blond-haired guy came over.
"This is none of your business. Go and take care of the other guests." Seeing this, Konan grabbed Deidara by the ear and walked out.
"Jiraiya, can Sage Chakra suppress this kind of energy?" Uchiha Touko turned to Jiraiya and asked.
"Sage Chakra is useless. Only pure natural energy can suppress this stuff. When Sage Chakra encounters this energy, the chakra portion of it will be quickly decomposed by this energy. If the remaining pure natural energy cannot be controlled, it will be even more dangerous." Jiraiya said.
"Only natural energy? I understand then." Uchiha Touko nodded, his eyes closing and opening again, silver eyeshadow appearing at the corners of his eyes.
Then, Uchiha Touko took a deep breath and began to guide the natural energy in the air using Sage Chakra. Then, to Jiraiya's disbelief, Uchiha Touko used pure natural energy to construct a sealing technique, enveloping the corpse of an attacker within it.
"Try removing the black rods," Uchiha Touko said to Nagato after completing this.
Nagato nodded, his Rinnegan flashing, and the black rods embedded in the corpse slowly dissipated. At this moment, the Six Paths of Pain puppets stood ready, prepared to retreat with the others at the first sign of trouble.
However, after the black rods disappeared, Uchiha Touko's sealing technique locked away the remaining energy within the armor, preventing any leakage.
"Sealing techniques can be used like this?" Jiraiya exclaimed in astonishment.
"Why not?" Uchiha Touko chuckled. "Unlike ninjutsu that can only be released with chakra, sealing techniques, once their principles are understood, can be activated with any energy."
Although Jiraiya's mastery of sealing techniques was renowned in the current ninja world, his ninja training from a young age had left him with little mathematical thinking; his sealing techniques were mostly rote memorization.
"Your sealing techniques are already stronger than Minato's and Kushina's back then. If only Naruto could learn this technique," Jiraiya sighed.
"There's nothing we can do, you just can't do it." Uchiha Touko shrugged. The two exchanged a glance, then simultaneously looked at Naruto, who was grinning foolishly with Deidara not far away, and shook their heads helplessly.
They had tried both Uchiha Touko's math-based teaching methods and Jiraiya's rote memorization approach on Naruto, but Naruto had only learned the most basic Ryougi Seal, and even then, it was unreliable.
"Teacher? Grandpa Jiraiya? What are you talking about?" Since the Nine-Tails' seal was completely broken, Naruto's senses had become extremely sharp. Their stares quickly caught his attention, and he leaned closer to ask.
"We're talking about your sealing techniques!" Jiraiya said irritably.
"What's so great about my sealing techniques? I just can't learn this one, so what? Teacher can't learn it either…" Naruto's voice trailed off as he suddenly sensed Uchiha Touko's malice.
Naruto slowly turned his head and saw that Uchiha Touko was already unbuckling his belt, so he quickly said, "Sensei, that's not what I meant..."
"I think you've been out for too long, and your skin is starting to itch," Uchiha Touko said with a sneer.
The next moment, Naruto began to spin like a top, screaming as he spun.
"Kurama-nii! Don't just watch!" After screaming for a while, Naruto tried to enter Kurama Mode to escape, but this time, his request to transform was directly rejected by Kurama, a mode he had always been able to enter successfully before.
"Don't drag me into this if you're looking for a beating." Inside the sealed space, Kurama, who was lying on his stomach sleeping, changed his position and said without looking up.
"Yo, you stinky fox, you have someone you're afraid of?" At this moment, Shukaku's sarcastic voice rang in Kurama's ears.
"If you're so good, go fight him. If you can beat him, I'll admit you're good." Kurama said without looking up.
Of the nine tailed beasts, only Shukaku, sealed away by the monk Bunpuku when Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha were capturing them across the ninja world, hadn't been beaten. Now that the opportunity had arrived, Kurama (the Nine-Tails) was eager to see this stinky tanuki get its comeuppance.
As everyone knows, the phrase "You're amazing!" often has a powerful effect on males. Upon hearing Kurama's words, Shukaku immediately said to Gaara, "Kid, hand over control of your body to me!"
"No way, that's Naruto's teacher." Gaara refused Shukaku without hesitation. Whether he was the Hokage or not didn't matter; the main concern was that Uchiha Touko was his only friend and elder in the ninja world.
"That's not up to you!" Tempted by the words "You're so tough," Shukaku immediately began to seize control of Gaara's body.
Sensing the abnormal chakra fluctuations, Uchiha Touko turned around and frowned.
His Mangekyou Sharingan instantly activated, and he appeared beside Gaara, his spiritual power directly entering his sealed space.
Above Shukaku's head, who was struggling for control of the body, a giant black hand pressed down, smashing a huge crater into Shukaku's sealed space.
"Who?" Shukaku roared from within the sealed space, turning around, and then, with just one glance, his eyes cleared.
The reason was simple: the Susanoo of Uchiha Touko, appearing within the sealed space, was even larger than the Nine-Tails at its peak.
"You...you...you...what are you doing?" Shukaku stammered, finally understanding why Kurama hadn't bothered to help his Jinchūriki while he was being beaten.
Uchiha Touko said nothing, only giving Shukaku a good beating before arriving at Gaara's side inside the sealed space. He examined Shukaku's seal, frowning, and said, "Your Sand Village's seal is too crude! Other villages' tailed beasts can at most erode the Jinchuriki's sanity through the sealing system, but yours can directly seize control of your body?"
"It's been alright lately," Gaara said, scratching his head. "He seems quite afraid of the giant fox inside Naruto, so he hasn't caused me any trouble."
"From now on, he won't have a chance to cause you any more trouble." As he spoke, Uchiha Touko directly released Gaara's seal from the outside. Before Shukaku could react, he used two Four Symbols Seals to form an Eight Trigrams Seal, completely reorganizing the sealed space.
Then, Uchiha Touko handed Gaara a key to a sealing technique, saying, "This seal allows you to unilaterally extract his chakra for your use. Once he's willing to get along with you, use this to open the seal."
"Thank you," Gaara said after a moment's hesitation, accepting the key.
"Your sister is already dealing with your situation; you'll be able to go back soon," Uchiha Touko said.
After speaking, Uchiha Touko led Gaara away from the sealed space, leaving the dazed Shukaku bewildered.
This little incident didn't waste much time. Uchiha Touko returned to the corpses and, using the same method, sealed them all with a sealing technique constructed from natural energy.
"Should we leave you a copy for research?" After packing up all the corpses and armor, Uchiha Touko asked Nagato. After all, this was on Nagato's territory, and it was spoils of war acquired with their help. Taking everything would be impolite.
"No need. Amegakure doesn't have anyone skilled in this area. If we leave it here, I'll have to worry about it exploding all the time," Nagato shook his head and refused.
"Then I'll take it all," Uchiha Touko nodded, then turned to Naruto, who had quickly recovered from his beating. "What about you? Do you want to come back to the village with me?"
"Sensei, Kurama asked me to go to Fu-nee's place to meet the other tailed beasts," Naruto said.
"Oh? Is that so?" Uchiha Touko nodded, then used his spiritual power to enter Kurama's sealing space.
Upon seeing Uchiha Touko, Kurama immediately became wary: "What are you doing here?"
"Why does he want Naruto to meet the other tailed beasts?" Uchiha Touko asked.
"Didn't your eyes see me fighting alongside this brat? Then you should know who our enemy really is," Kurama said.
"Is it the Ten-Tails? This energy that can decompose chakra comes from the Ten-Tails, right?" Uchiha Touko asked.
"You really do know these things," Kurama said, sitting up and looking at Uchiha Touko seriously. "Since you understand what that thing is, you should also know what it means to us tailed beasts. It can be said that the people in this world who least want that thing to return are us tailed beasts."
Uchiha Touko nodded. Kurama's words confirmed his guess. The armor of these artificial humans indeed contained the power that Otsutsuki Isshiki extracted from the other Ten-Tails' hand. That's why this power has such a huge restraining effect on chakra. After all, the Ten-Tails can be said to be the source of all chakra in the entire ninja world.
"And after seeing the other tailed beasts?" Uchiha Touko then turned to look at Naruto.
"After meeting the other tailed beasts, I plan to continue my travels in the ninja world," Naruto said. "My plan is already halfway complete; I can't just give up halfway."
"You saw the enemy's strength. With that kind of energy, you probably can't handle them with just Kurama's power," Uchiha Touko reminded him. "How's your Sage Mode training from Mount Myōboku coming along?"
"Almost, but it seems Kurama isn't too keen on me learning that," Naruto said, scratching his head.
"What's the point of learning those toad techniques?" Kurama scoffed.
"Kurama, you saw it yourself. Natural energy is currently the only source of power Naruto can obtain to deal with the Ten-Tails," Uchiha Touko said.
"Yes, yes, I understand. I won't bother this kid learning those toad techniques anymore," Kurama said impatiently.
...
After Uchiha Touko returned to Konoha with the dozen or so artificial human corpses and their armor, he sent three to Konoha's current Scientific Ninja Tool Research Institute, and then five to Orochimaru, who was currently hiding in Ryuchi Cave. Of course, Uchiha Touko didn't forget to leave two for the older generation scientist, Senju Tobirama, as research material. With these three approaches combined, they should be able to make some progress soon.
A month or so passed, and the research on the artificial human corpses hadn't made much progress yet. However, during this time, many wealthy merchants from the Land of Lightning fled to the Land of Fire with large sums of cash.
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(End of Chapter)