At the outermost edge of the Underground Level stood a row of warehouses that had already been emptied.
Beyond the warehouses, several Main Tunnels intersected. Large quantities of cables and pipe fittings that had yet to be transported away lay piled along them. Pipes stretched out from deep within the Underground Level, their walls coated in a thin layer of condensation-the cooling system was still running.
Farther in, the Main Tunnels converged on a spacious underground chamber. Six large Culture Tanks stood at its center, still humming away.
The Culture Tanks were much smaller than the hexagonal prism in the Southern Mountain Region, each roughly two meters tall. The culture fluid was an extremely pale green, and five humanoid silhouettes floated inside with slow, barely perceptible movements-five inactive vessels. They were a size smaller than the six-gland experimental subject in the Southern Mountain Region, and no glands had yet been implanted in their backs.
A pile of opened surgical instrument packs and several rows of sealed medicine bottles lay scattered across the workstation beside the Culture Tanks.
At the far end of the underground chamber, a sloping passage led deeper inside. Four Jinchuriki in grayish-white robes stood at its entrance-not members of the ten blocking the branching gully outside.
These four were additional guards.
Neji pushed the focus of his Byakugan to its limit and saw what lay deep within the passage-a smaller room tightly encased in material that blocked the Byakugan. His penetrating vision was completely cut off at its outer walls.
But the door was open, and a pair of feet stood on the floor just inside-wearing ninja sandals covered in volcanic ash, their soles worn almost smooth by the volcanic sand of the Crescent Archipelago.
Kabuto was inside.
Neji deactivated his Byakugan and condensed what he had