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Chapter 63 - Chapter 63: Curse

Back at the camp, Suna began intensive preparations to interrogate the Rain prisoners.

Besides Kurein, who had been captured alone by "Fushiguro Tōji," after the Sealing Team arrived, they had also caught over thirty chūnin and eight tokubetsu jōnin.

Even with fairly adequate preparations, having only this single jōnin capture was a bit disappointing. But considering Rain's specialty, they probably had ample experience in killing themselves before capture, so he let it go.

With so many assassination contracts pried from the Five Great Villages, Amegakure's operational capabilities were indeed outstanding.

"Fushiguro Tōji" carried Kurein—his limbs and torso tightly bound with enhanced chakra suppression bandages, looking like a human stump—into a tent arranged early as an interrogation room. He hung the latter on an X-shaped rack, then raised several barriers.

Everyone had worked hard all day and was tired; they couldn't have prisoners' cries disturbing their rest.

Seeing this, although Kurein's jaw was dislocated, his eyes clearly conveyed: "You know barrier techniques too?!"

"Surprised? Actually, that barrier was also set up by me."

Replying casually, "Fushiguro Tōji" noticed a slight strange feeling in his nasal cavity. Blowing hard, a clump of already-coagulated blood dropped onto a tissue.

Composedly wiping away the blood trail under his nose and burning the tissue to ashes, he was somewhat surprised internally.

After all, the Seven Essence Release Gates—this Yang Release ultimate technique—didn't actually impose excessive burden on the body. And this was precisely why, although its concept resembled the taijutsu ultimate technique that would later become famous in the ninja world—the Eight Gates Released Formation—Hii Kōri still classified the Seven Essence Release Gates as a Yang Release secret technique.

Although both involved opening chakra tenketsu, the former's core principle relied on liberating the Eight Gates' suppression of chakra to obtain severalfold or even dozens of fold strength in a short time.

His Seven Essence Release Gates opened tenketsu with more emphasis on functionality and coherence. Its essential purpose was to maximize Yang Release's properties through internal-external coordination to activate the body's state, enhancing physical performance rather than forcibly intensify with chakra.

Activating the body, sharply increasing life force conversion rate, thereby generating more Yang Release chakra, further strengthening the effect—this technique was actually the type that snowballed its effects.

In terms of multiplier, the Seven Essence Release Gates certainly couldn't compare to the Eight Gates, but in other aspects, it was far superior.

Excellent defensive power from the chakra coat, comprehensively enhanced physical abilities and neural reaction speed from bodily activation, enhanced self-healing from Yang Release's properties, and durability from the low burden.

Most importantly, almost no side effects, and it significantly accelerated his Yang Release training progress.

If there was any defect, it was probably that the overly exuberant Yang Release made his personality slightly more "hot-blooded."

The physical burden he endured came mostly from the enhancement tattoos operating for long periods of time to simulate Fushiguro Tōji's physique.

Even with similar height, the gap in muscle mass and physical constitution was still too significant. That guy Fushiguro Tōji had apparently taken a "Red" and only suffered superficial wounds—Heavenly Restriction really was an unreasonable thing.

Thinking this, "Fushiguro Tōji" gradually lifted his body-strengthened state, his entire silhouette becoming much slimmer. Reaching behind his head, fumbling tentatively for a moment, he slowly peeled off a human skin mask.

"Whew... this really is more comfortable. Let me introduce myself properly—my real name is Hii Kōri."

The swelling power gradually receded, taking with it the hyperactive spirit. Returning to a steady state of mind, Hii ​​Kōri felt that choosing to fight disguised as someone else was absolutely the right decision.

A nonexistent person naturally generated no intelligence, and lack of intelligence led to uncertainty.

Uncertainty created crisis, crisis created panic, panic created recklessness, recklessness created mistakes. And seizing every opportunity to magnify small mistakes into big errors, worsen big errors into fatal wounds—Hii Kōri was quite skilled at this.

"Alright, I'm rather pressed for time, so let's get straight to the point."

Taking gloves and pliers from a scroll on his wrist, putting on his non-prescription glasses again, Hii ​​Kōri stepped forward as if unconcerned, leisurely gripping Kurein's dislocated jaw with pliers, clamping onto a tooth, and pulling forcefully.

"—!!!"

"Don't worry, I won't let you die—at least not until I've completely squeezed out your value."

Holding the prisoner—who rattled his chains—with one hand, Hii ​​Kōri rapidly injected some Yin Release chakra into his brain to stabilize his spirit, then pulled out a second tooth.

Yin Release stabilizing the spirit, Medical Ninjutsu ensuring surviva

l, pliers extracting teeth without anesthesia—thirty-two teeth cleared in just a few minutes.

"You... used genjutsu, didn't you..."

Kurein, his teeth completely pulled and speech whistling through the gaps, lowered his head and asked in a dead tone of utter despair.

Repeatedly "stabilized" by Yin Release like a mental patient after medication, Kurein only now realized that during that battle, his emotions—and those of all Rain ninja present—had been somewhat off.

The hatred, the anger, the despair—all had been excessively magnified.

"Sort of? Mm... just think of it that way."

Washing the blood from his hands, Hii ​​Kōri paused mid-motion, seeming to consider the exact answer, then replied somewhat uncertainly.

He was quite adept at dispelling genjutsu, but in casting genjutsu, he was indeed rather unskilled. Although he had done similar things in the previous battle, Hii ​​Kōri still found it hard to say whether what he used counted as genjutsu.

In his previous world, places like schools and hospitals—laden with memories—easily accumulated curses. Whenever people awakened those "bad memories," these places became vessels for emotions. That's why most such places placed powerful cursed objects to "ward off evil."

The principle was the same as the Yin Release and Yang Release chakra cores he created within his body—relying on the massive curse itself to gather accumulated curses.

And on this battlefield, Rain ninja inevitably harbored strong negative emotions toward Suna as invaders.

In open areas, it was hard to say, but in enclosed environments—like within barriers—diffusing a trace amount of cursed energy, to the point where it was almost undetectable like filth, was enough to inflame their negative emotions.

While excessive emotions could enhance power to some extent, they also exposed vulnerabilities.

Indeed, so-called obsession was what enabled people to cross boundaries. Precisely because they harbored firm ideals, humans could transcend the illusion called "reality" and obtain abilities beyond that boundary.

Even though humans remained beings that couldn't survive reality, the power of "heart" would become a permanent beacon, be engraved forever.

However, if one remained trapped in overly narrow boundaries, they would only cocoon themselves, like an elephant tied in place by a thin rope. Unable to see beyond the boundary, obsession had nowhere to guide them.

Hii Kōri didn't think the anger and resentment Rain harbored was wrong. But Konoha, as one of the parties invading the Country of Rain, was also a victim besieged by two great nations. Suna declaring war on Konoha was equally for their own people.

Since Hashirama Senju's death, the peace he had briefly maintained had already collapsed. In this era, every side was doing their best to protect their "own people's" interests.

If one simply poured hatred onto "enemies" without seeing this reality, without thinking how to change it all, that obsession was merely hatred.

Well, from a small nation's standpoint, rather than saying Rain had taken the wrong path, it was more accurate to say there had never been a right path before them from the beginning. Expecting them—caught between three great nations, often becoming battlefields—to think about changing the era was too harsh.

But regardless of Rain's predicament, it didn't prevent Hii Kōri from exploiting it.

"The best way to deal with impurities is to let impurities handle impurities themselves. Because no matter who, trying to clear impurities will inevitably be stained by them. This inauspicious cycle we call a 'curse.'" Someone in the jujutsu world had once said this, and Hii Kōri deeply agreed.

And Kurein, who had been engaged in direct combat with Hii Kōri, endured not only the cursed energy is attached by the barrier, but also the cursed energy and spiritual shock Hii Kōri released during attacks, and even some unstable Yin Release chakra discharged along with the Seven Essence Release Gates.

The malice Hii Kōri unreservedly poured out, mixed with the poison of "inability to kill the enemy" that Kurein inflicted on himself—that was the curse Kurein had been contaminated.

That was why, in the end, with his spirit shattered, Kurein collapsed to that extent.

As for why the Suna ninja under Hii Kōri's command were unaffected?

One of the constituent elements of their enhancement tattoos was Hii Kōri's cursed energy. Of course, he had preventive measures in advance.

"Snake oil? Want some? It's high-grade stuff I refined myself, quite effective."

Taking a small box of salve from his wrist scroll, Hii ​​Kōri applied it to his philtrum and temples, inhaling deeply.

With his development of Yang Release, he no longer needed to take those strong drugs to maintain his physical state. This level of salve was sufficient.

He shook the box at Kurein, hanging in mid-air like a roast duck, and unsurprisingly received no response.

"No? That's fine. Then... before the interrogation, is there anything you want to confess?"

Kurein remained silent.

"Mm, I figured."

The red-haired youth nodded, completely understanding this Rain jōnin's attitude of refusing to respond to enemies ravaging his homeland.

Actually, Hii ​​Kōri asked this question merely as a formality. He hadn't expected to pry any information from the other's mouth at all.

Completely different from being captured after mission failure, Rain now faced a situation of "foreign invasion." If Kurein, as a jōnin, didn't even have this much backbone, Rain would have collapsed long ago.

What Hii Kōri needed to do was simply wear down Kurein's spirit through torture, facilitating subsequent extraction of memories from his brain using other means.

During the Warring States Period, the Yamanaka Clan's mind techniques were already quite famous. Other ninja clans and organizations had each developed similar technologies for extracting memories and reading consciousness.

Although most such techniques had fairly harsh application conditions and uncertain effects, hardly comparing to the Yamanaka Clan's secret techniques.

Correspondingly, as countermeasures against such techniques and genjutsu, means for sealing consciousness or processing memories weren't particularly rare in the current ninja world—at least fairly common among jōnin.

But those methods were basically based on the individual's willpower and spirit. If you could destroy the opponent's will, the effect of memory extraction techniques could be maximized.

However, this would surely be a protracted tug-of-war.

As the only surviving jōnin prisoner, if Kurein could hold out until Amegakure began its real action, he would achieve complete victory. Hii Kōri needed to wear down his will before then.

The victory conditions for both sides were clear at a glance. Hii Kōri's favorite operations with clear objectives like this.

And so, the interrogation began.

"Why..."

When Kurein's fingernails were pulled out for the third time, and then, like squeezing out jelly, his fingers' bones and flesh were squeezed out from the skin, this anguished man finally uttered something beyond heavy panting and grunts.

"Hm? What are you referring to?"

Thoughtfully wiping away the saliva mixed with blood dripping from Kurein's mouth corner with gauze, then casually using a chakra scalpel to peel the skin at the corner of his mouth, tearing off the entire jaw along with the neck skin, Hii ​​Kōri asked back with an unchanged expression.

Why do you have this kind of strength at such a young age?

Why can you commit such cruel acts without changing expression?

Why can you Suna ninja ravage my homeland without any concern?

Or why, until now, do you still show no other emotions?

Perhaps even Kurein himself didn't know what exactly he was asking, but Hii Kōri was happy to give him an answer.

After all, inflicting physical torture on others was purely mechanical labor for him—he derived absolutely no pleasure from it. But since he had already allocated a thread to focus on the other's situation, just lifelessly cutting flesh and applying torture would be too wasteful.

His brainpower was quite precious, and besides, some words could indeed only be spoken to a stranger destined to die.

"As a 'companion' I'll be spending quite some time with, I'll gladly answer your questions."

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