Uchiha Yoru enthusiastically explained to Uchiha Shisui the characteristics of the "Bringer-of-Darkness Technique," the "Flying Thunder God Technique," and the "Impure World Reincarnation Technique," as well as their original direction of application—
Against every single shinobi of the Uchiha clan.
The Bringer-of-Darkness Technique mixed Wind Release, Earth Release, and Water Release, using genjutsu as its foundation to create an inescapable darkness. What it targeted was precisely the Sharingan's dynamic vision, visual genjutsu, and copying ability.
The Flying Thunder God Technique was a reverse-summoning formula performed through sealing techniques. By traversing space, it achieved an instantaneous movement effect. What it targeted was still the Sharingan's dynamic vision, though unlike the Bringer-of-Darkness Technique, this one was developed for offense.
Uchiha Yoru went on at length about the extension of the Flying Thunder God Technique—the Flying Thunder God Slash. In Senju Tobirama's hands, it had even recorded a feat of taking down a Mangekyō user, which made the suspicion that it had been developed specifically against the Uchiha clan all but undeniable.
The Impure World Reincarnation Technique could temporarily revive the dead at the smallest possible cost. So long as the life force and chakra of the sacrifice were not exhausted, the revived dead would possess immortal bodies.
Cold sweat had already soaked Uchiha Shisui's back by the time he heard this much. At last he could not help asking, "Big Brother Yoru, this technique wasn't developed against us, right? An immortal revived dead person still can't really target the Sharingan."
Uchiha Yoru laughed. "The Impure World Reincarnation Technique is a support-type forbidden technique. The Second Hokage developed it in order to pair it with a suicidal forbidden technique called the 'Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags.'"
Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags was basically the shinobi world's version of staking everything on one throw. It combined summoning techniques with sealing techniques, placing a mark on the enemy similar to a Flying Thunder God formula, then summoning explosive tags directly onto the target to detonate them.
The key point was that every time one explosive tag exploded, part of its force would be converted by the summoning mark into two entirely new summoning marks, which would then activate in turn.
As long as the inventory of explosive tags linked to the technique remained sufficient, the explosions would continue in waves, each one larger than the last, until the target was destroyed.
The reason Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags was labeled a forbidden technique was because it activated too quickly. From the moment the first explosive tag went off to the seventh round, when sixty-four explosive tags detonated at once, the total time required was only a little over one second.
No shinobi could escape the blast radius in time. Even if the Second Hokage himself used Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags, it would still be a certain-death suicide move.
That was why a caster who could not be killed was needed.
And that was the original reason the Impure World Reincarnation Technique had been developed.
Uchiha Shisui's brows knitted together. In the shinobi fundamentals he had learned, shinobi themselves were fragile—beings who could be killed by shuriken or kunai. As for powerful ninja tools like explosive tags, once they stuck to the body and detonated, death was certain. He could not understand why the Second Hokage had gone so far as to develop a technique with such absurd destructive power.
Naturally, Uchiha Yoru could guess what Shisui was thinking. So he said, "Once the Sharingan advances to three tomoe, there's still an enormous amount of room for further growth. That next stage is called the Mangekyō Sharingan."
"The dōjutsu of the Mangekyō Sharingan is endlessly varied, but there is one technique all of them share—Susanoo. It is a giant formed from ocular power and chakra combined, possessing 'unbreakable' defensive strength, to the point that it can ignore almost all ninjutsu attacks."
The amount of information Uchiha Yoru was handing over was simply too much. Uchiha Shisui's eyes had already gone hazy. Under his breath, he muttered, "How could the Second Hokage do something like that…"
Uchiha Yoru flicked him sharply on the forehead, snapping him out of his daze, then scolded him, "Idiot Shisui. Haven't I taught you that when you think about the actions of the predecessors, you must always consider the historical background they lived in?"
"The First Hokage, the Second Hokage, and Uchiha Madara were all born in the Warring States Era. They were life-and-death enemies. For the sake of fighting over the rich land of the Land of Fire, they slaughtered one another for nearly a thousand years."
"Growing up in that environment, as a member of the Senju clan, putting effort into researching techniques that targeted our Uchiha clan was exactly what Lord Senju Tobirama ought to have done at the time."
"In that generation alone, both sides lost at least a thousand people to each other's ninjutsu, swords, and kunai. Even the clan heads of both sides died together in battle."
"And if you trace it back another thousand years, the blood hatred accumulated between the Senju and Uchiha is truly like mountains and seas. It's something a new generation like you and me can't even properly imagine."
Uchiha Yoru sighed in admiration. "And under the influence of that much hatred, for Lord Senju Hashirama and Lord Uchiha Madara to cast it aside, suppress the resistance inside their own clans, and join hands to establish Konoha…"
"I can only call both of them great. Even the Second Hokage, Lord Senju Tobirama, was likewise an astonishingly great man."
"The Second Hokage restrained his own hatred and spent his entire life building and protecting Konoha. He even took the first step before us and let the Senju clan melt into Konoha completely, erasing the object of our Uchiha clan's hatred and guaranteeing the village's stability. He was a truly remarkable Hokage."
Uchiha Shisui stared blankly at Uchiha Yoru, then turned to look at Uchiha Shinji, who had been taking care of him.
The old man nodded and said, "Lord Tobirama really was an extraordinary Hokage. It was he who made old men like us fully lay down our hatred. By Fugaku's generation, that thousand-year blood feud had already been forgotten completely."
"It's a pity his eye for people wasn't very good. In the end, the Third Hokage he picked… well…"
Uchiha Shisui nodded thoughtfully. Uchiha Yoru narrowed his eyes and smiled, very satisfied with Shisui's reaction.
But at that moment, he unexpectedly heard Uchiha Yūichirō speak up. Frowning, the elder said, "Actually… I feel that although Sarutobi Hiruzen is hateful, he isn't quite as bad as you all make him out to be."
Uchiha Yoru stared at Yūichirō in disbelief for quite a while, then turned toward Uchiha Ryūnosuke and asked, "You think so too?"
Elder Ryūnosuke hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "The worst one is Shimura Danzō."
Uchiha Yoru: "..."
[Are these two elders serious?]
It did not take Uchiha Yoru long to understand.
The two elders were the same age as Sarutobi Hiruzen. From the age of five, when their memories had begun to form, the environment they grew up in had been the flourishing era after Konoha's founding. Their childhood had fallen right in the longest stretch of peace, during the honeymoon period when the Senju and Uchiha clans had worked hand in hand.
Perhaps that unprecedentedly happy childhood in the shinobi world had carved an indelible innocence into their natures. Even after growing up and experiencing cruel wars, they still believed in the basic goodness of people.
There was nothing especially bad about the elders being a little naive.
Because people like that were precisely the ones who could be trusted.
Unlike Uchiha Setsuna, whose heart was filled with uncontrollable obsession and malice.
Uchiha Yoru reached out and rubbed Uchiha Shisui's head. In truth, he had accepted Shisui precisely because the child possessed that same kind of innocence.
Only someone with an innocent and kind heart could, in the future, remember the debt owed to him. Only an Uchiha clan led by someone like that could become the force at his back—a support for his immortal path rather than a burden dragging him down.
So from beginning to end, Uchiha Yoru's purpose in teaching and guiding him had never been to crush that innocence and purity.
It was to add a layer of protection through thought, so that others could not make use of his innocence to ruin his life and interests.
Why shouldn't the dragon-slayer be a good person?
…
The next day, Uchiha Yoru set out for the battlefield in the Land of Hot Water together with Miwa Masayo, carrying with him a copy of the Shadow Clone Technique.
Uchiha Fugaku had failed to exchange even a single forbidden technique from the Third Hokage, and that dealt yet another heavy blow to his authority within the Uchiha clan.
No matter the reason, going back on one's word was a serious dereliction of duty.
As the leader of the clan, Uchiha Fugaku controlled vast resources and considerable power. No one inside the clan could restrain him from above, but by the same logic, no one would listen to his excuses either.
If war had not already broken out, and if the Third Hokage had not already begun conscripting Uchiha shinobi, then by now someone might very well have started raising formal objections—or even proposing his removal.
Uchiha Fugaku himself was keenly aware that his situation had become dangerous. He doubled down on his work, even to the point of spending entire nights at the Police Force headquarters, and without realizing it, he began to neglect his family.
After arriving in the Land of Hot Water, Uchiha Yoru learned of the subsequent developments through letters Uchiha Shisui sent by way of the little ninja cats.
As for Uchiha Fugaku's efforts, Uchiha Yoru naturally dismissed them with contempt. Choosing to focus on doing one's current work well in the middle of a crisis—that was the typical mentality of a subordinate.
When a leader encountered a crisis, the first thing he ought to do was conduct a complete review of all recent affairs, think through again who the most dangerous enemy was, what the most urgent issue was, and above all whether his direction itself needed to be adjusted.
Once that became clear, the proper targeted adjustments could be made naturally. And at the very least, he should be able to identify the person who had brought about the problem. Even if the problem itself could not be solved, the person who caused it should be dealt with.
For example: Uchiha Yoru.
So the Third Hokage and Shimura Danzō's group were still qualified, at least by that standard. There were a full thirteen Root shinobi following behind Uchiha Yoru, tailing him all the way to the Land of Hot Water.
If they were not here for Uchiha Yoru, then not even a dog would believe it.
At this point, the only thing Uchiha Yoru was curious about was what sort of assassination plan Shimura Danzō had put together.
Would he choose brute force and simply ram through at any cost? Would he lure Kirigakure shinobi into making the attack? Or would he arrange a mission that looked simple on the surface but was actually impossible to complete?
Smiling, he said to Miwa Masayo, "We'll know tomorrow."
The calico cat did not care much about such matters. She trusted that Uchiha Yoru could resolve the problem perfectly. So what concerned her more was the matter of the techniques.
"The forbidden techniques you wanted were all really good things. If we could get them, everything we do would become much more convenient. So what now?"
"Simple. Since Senju Tobirama could develop those forbidden techniques from scratch, then why can't I reproduce them?"
"Nya? But that's something even tens of thousands of shinobi across the entire shinobi world can't do. You can really manage it, nya?"
"Heh. Old Shinji and the others joke that I'm the Uchiha clan's Tobirama. I think I can."
"No matter how you look at it, the difficulty I'm facing is still lower than what the Second Hokage had when he developed them out of thin air. Back then, when he was doing that development work, even he didn't know whether it would succeed."
"But now Senju Tobirama has already completed the most important part of ninjutsu development—he proved that these miraculous forbidden techniques can in fact be developed. And I already know where those techniques originate from. Naturally, that means I can reproduce them."
"Alright then, nya. So your first target for development is…"
"The Flying Thunder God Technique. The effect this forbidden technique draws on comes from summoning techniques. It uses sealing techniques to reproduce a summoning or reverse-summoning effect, calling the caster directly to the location of a seal."
"You and I have both personally experienced summoning and reverse summoning, and we've already used that to achieve long-distance movement. So the real focus of the development will be researching sealing techniques."
Uchiha Yoru patted the various large and small scrolls strapped across his back and smiled. "These are the sealing technique materials I copied from the archive room, from Shisui's house, and from the homes of the two elders."
"The depth of the Uchiha clan's foundation truly astonishes me. They spent several hundred years as enemies of the Uzumaki clan, and generation after generation, our predecessors used the Copy Eye to replicate every sealing technique the Uzumaki had."
"Add to that the public foundational sealing knowledge from Konoha stored in Shisui's house and the elders' homes, and you could say that our Uchiha clan also possesses a complete Uzumaki sealing tradition."
"It's just a pity. The previous generations worked so hard to accumulate something this important, only for it to be forgotten and left to gather dust in the archive room."
"Now all that knowledge has fallen into my hands. As long as I thoroughly learn and understand these sealing techniques, I'm fully confident I can reproduce both the Second Hokage's Flying Thunder God Technique and the Impure World Reincarnation Technique."
"The Impure World Reincarnation Technique… you really do want to meet the Second Hokage in person, nya."
Uchiha Yoru grinned and joked, "Of course. As the Uchiha clan's Tobirama, how could I not meet the genuine article at least once? Besides, I sincerely want to ask that genius to help correct and refine my immortal path."
Tilting her head, the calico cat asked, "It's said this Second Hokage hated the Uchiha very much. Aren't you afraid he'll trick you, nya?"
Uchiha Yoru answered with absolute confidence, "Not at all."
"I don't care what he says. I don't even need to care whether he's lying. As long as this forbidden-technique master opens his mouth, he'll inevitably reveal the flashes of inspiration that arise in his mind. And that's enough."
"Rika-chan, I'm not an idiot like the Third Hokage, who only knows how to walk along the roads opened by his predecessors, patching and mending techniques built on his father's and the Second Hokage's foundations."
"Nya? You can't even beat the Third Hokage, and yet you dare look down on him that much, nya?"
"Tch. I'm not looking down on his current combat power. I'm looking down on his ability in ninjutsu research. Just look at that Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique of his—an A-rank technique that can be blocked by a C-rank Earth Release: Earth Wall. What kind of trash is that?"
"Among the techniques the Third Hokage developed, only the Five Release Combination Barrage is mildly interesting. He can't even come up with a single kekkei genkai."
"It's only someone like him who'd need to worry about being deceived by Senju Tobirama."
Uchiha Yoru thumped his own chest proudly and said, "I'm different. I'm very confident in my ability to research and develop ninjutsu and senjutsu. What I want is exactly the inspiration and insight of Senju Tobirama, that forbidden-technique master. Even if he opens his mouth only to mock my mistakes, the precious spark of inspiration I want will already be in my hands."
Miwa Masayo was so stunned by her servant's shamelessness that even the motion of grooming her fur froze. Muttering to herself, she said, "So from the very beginning, you intended to use Lord Senju Tobirama in reverse… you can actually do that, nya?"
"No wonder you keep saying the Impure World Reincarnation Technique is a divine technique. Following this line of thought, it really does have endless value, nya."
Uchiha Yoru nodded in agreement. "Exactly. At no particularly great cost, we can temporarily revive the geniuses of history and build the strongest research group in existence for our own use, using their intellect to break through one obstacle after another on the path of immortality."
"The value of the Impure World Reincarnation Technique is worth more than one Ōtsutsuki Kaguya."
"Ōtsutsuki Kaguya… what kind of nonsense are you daydreaming about, nya? That's a god!!"
"Heh. A so-called god… is nothing more than an extremely powerful wielder of chakra. Sooner or later…"
Uchiha Yoru was not afraid of Ōtsutsuki Kaguya in the slightest. To him, she was the best and most perfect research subject imaginable.
Although that Rabbit Goddess was also his ancestor, too many generations lay between them. Their relationship was not even as close as that between him and an enemy from Sunagakure. Using her as a research subject carried absolutely no ethical burden for him.
As for her status as a god, that too meant nothing in Uchiha Yoru's eyes. In his view, when a god wanted to bring the world to ruin, sparing her life at all already counted as exceptional mercy.
And besides, Ōtsutsuki Kaguya possessed unimaginable realms and power, yet lacked the corresponding mentality and combat strength to match. No matter how one looked at her, she was prey to make one salivate.
Rather than leaving her sealed in the moon to waste away, it would be better for her to "freely and naturally" become Uchiha Yoru's research object. After all, his method of research was nothing like Orochimaru's. It was not some destructive method of peeling skin, stripping bones, dissecting, and slicing into samples.
It was careful and thorough observation.
Using a true god as a reference, learning the way she used power, and then opening up a road suited to himself.
Ōtsutsuki Kaguya had eaten the chakra fruit formed from the gathered power of the shinobi world itself, and by relying on that, had achieved the Bloodline Expansion. Her power must therefore contain the characteristics of the shinobi world's own forces, condensing the natural laws of this world. In that regard, she was clearly different from the other Ōtsutsuki.
Although the immortal path Uchiha Yoru had embarked upon was completely different from the immortal cultivation of the Five Elements World, one principle would never be wrong: man follows earth, earth follows heaven, heaven follows the Dao, and the Dao follows nature.
Immortal methods must come from nature.
Nature itself was obscure, hard to understand, full of conflict and endless change.
But the natural laws manifested through Ōtsutsuki Kaguya, because of the sheer abundance of power within her, would inevitably be clearer—comparable to the direct manifestation of natural law in an extreme environment.
In the shinobi world, there was no better reference for cultivation than the Rabbit Goddess.
Even if he could not turn her into a dao companion, then at the very least he would make her into a close dao friend.
That old line—"Dao friend, please stay a while"—was exactly the sort of thing meant to be shouted at her once.
Don't worry.
He, Uchiha Yoru, had no intention of taking his dao friend's life.
…
Just as Uchiha Yoru was happily imagining the future with his dao companion, he was suddenly jolted awake.
He sensed someone approaching him.
They carried with them concealed malice and killing intent, and from far away there drifted that cold, lifeless stench.
Miwa Masayo caught the scent too. In a low voice, she said, "They're Root shinobi. They've come over."
Uchiha Yoru was genuinely surprised. "They actually came straight for me inside Konoha's frontline camp. It seems Lord Danzō's plan isn't a refined one. Could it be he intends to force things head-on?"
And when the Root shinobi appeared, both Uchiha Yoru and Miwa Masayo were so startled they could not speak for a moment.
That they wore no masks at all was understandable enough.
But those nearly identical smiles on their faces—rigid and stiff like puppets—
What the hell was that?
It was far too creepy.
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