Puppet Test

After tending to Hyuga Kagami's wounds, Anko understood their situation clearly. She said nothing more and quietly returned to her room.

Hyuga Kagami lay on his bed, carefully reflecting on everything that had happened that day.

There was no doubt that today's mission had been a trap, and Sunagakure had been involved as well. If Sasori had not interfered, he would likely have faced Sunagakure's Assassination Squad today.

Perhaps, when necessary, he would also have had to deal with the captain at his side, Mitsui Chuichi!

As for why Sunagakure had gotten involved in Konoha's Purge, Hyuga Kagami only pondered it briefly before finding the answer.

Sunagakure's Fourth Kazekage had ascended to the position in haste because of the Third Kazekage's disappearance.

With the pressure of war gone, the Fourth Kazekage would inevitably have to weaken the Third Kazekage's influence within Sunagakure. Thus, Sunagakure also had a need to purge its own people, and that need was far stronger than Konoha's.

Moreover, postwar Sunagakure had also intended to form an alliance with Konoha.

That explained why Sunagakure had participated in Konoha's Purge. The upper echelons of both sides had clearly reached some sort of agreement, purging each other's expendable pawns.

This would not only keep their own hands from being stained with the blood of comrades from the same village, but also give them someone to shift blame onto should anything go wrong.

Having figured this out, Hyuga Kagami also understood that even if Danzo was presiding over this Purge in the village, the Third Hokage and the other higher-ups must have tacitly approved of it or at least known about it.

Otherwise, Danzo alone did not have the ability to bypass the village and negotiate such a major operation with Sunagakure.

Thinking of how so many people had been ruthlessly abandoned by the village, Hyuga Kagami was both shocked and furious.

It could be said that ninety percent of these people were innocent. Only a small fraction had truly participated in Orochimaru's human experiments, and most of them had merely taken part in peripheral experimental projects, like Hyuga Kagami.

The truly core projects involving bloody human experimentation had almost all been personally handled by Orochimaru. Very few people had been able to participate, and even Hyuga Kagami had not been qualified to come into contact with them.

Hyuga Kagami was not trying to shirk responsibility. There truly were only a few people in the village besides Orochimaru who possessed the skill to independently conduct complex human experiments.

"Why had the village gone so far this time? What exactly was it for?"

The more Hyuga Kagami thought about it, the more something felt wrong. The village's higher-ups could not possibly have been unaware that this Purge would implicate many innocent people, yet they had still done it. There had to be some reason Hyuga Kagami did not know.

Then he thought of Orochimaru's voluntary defection, as well as Danzo's unusual behavior despite his long-standing cooperation with Orochimaru.

All at once, Hyuga Kagami felt that perhaps Orochimaru had truly done something so outrageous that it had provoked such hysterical pursuit from the village's higher-ups.

Whatever the cause, the Purge had already begun. Hyuga Kagami could only rein in his wandering thoughts and calmly sort through the threats he currently faced.

The most immediate threat was undoubtedly the village's Purge.

Since the Purge had already begun, the village would not leave things half-finished. Even if Hyuga Kagami escaped this time, another attempt would be waiting for him, each one more intense than the last.

Furthermore, Sasori's threat could not be ignored.

The Third Kazekage had once been praised as the "strongest Kazekage," yet he had still fallen into Sasori's hands without anyone noticing. That showed just how formidable Sasori was at ambushes and assassinations.

Now that he had become enemies with Sasori, Hyuga Kagami had no choice but to guard against Sasori's schemes.

But after thinking it over, the most urgent matter was still how the village would react to Mitsui Chuichi's death. Once the village suspected that Hyuga Kagami had been involved, defection would be his only path.

"I wonder whether that act I put on can really fool the village."

Having the Third Kazekage Human Puppet play the part of a rogue ninja had actually been a brilliant move. Due to the previous war, large numbers of rogue ninja had been active everywhere. In regions like the border, where every shinobi village had weak control, it was perfectly normal to encounter rogue ninja by chance.

On top of that, the other two squad captains at the outpost, who were suspected of being from Root, had personally seen the Third Kazekage Human Puppet disguised as a rogue ninja and had even fought it. This made Hyuga Kagami's account far more convincing.

After spending the entire night lost in thought, Hyuga Kagami found an opening the next day to retrieve the Third Kazekage Human Puppet hidden near the outpost and seal it into the Scroll he carried with him.

At present, the outpost had suffered severe losses.

Of the four remaining shinobi, Anko and Hyuga Kagami were both injured. The village could send a support squad at any moment, and it was even possible that one was already on the way.

There would inevitably be sensor-type shinobi in the support squad. If the Third Kazekage Human Puppet continued lingering near the outpost, it might run into the support squad and be exposed.

In the end, the Third Kazekage Human Puppet was simply too conspicuous.

Even Sasori, bold as he was, did not dare use it casually in daily life. Once it was exposed in Hyuga Kagami's hands, not only would he lose a trump card, but it would also be difficult to explain.

Though the Third Kazekage was dead, he had once been the Kage of a village and had represented Sunagakure's dignity.

Even if only to preserve the authority of one of the Five Great Shinobi Villages, Sunagakure would spare no expense to recover the Third Kazekage Human Puppet and kill whoever possessed it.

Already listed as a Purge target by the village, Hyuga Kagami had no desire to stir up more trouble by provoking Sunagakure.

In any case, only Hyuga Kagami and Sasori currently knew that the Third Kazekage had been made into a Human Puppet. Sasori, as the culprit who had murdered the Third Kazekage and turned him into a Human Puppet, would certainly not publicize the matter himself.

Besides, given Sasori's temperament, he was probably still figuring out how to snatch the Third Kazekage Human Puppet back from Hyuga Kagami. So long as Hyuga Kagami did not make a mistake, the matter of the Third Kazekage Human Puppet would not be exposed anytime soon.

Over the following days, everything remained calm.

Taking advantage of this brief respite, Hyuga Kagami shut himself away to study the Tenseigan's ability to control puppets.

After many attempts, he discovered that a puppet's agility depended entirely on the amount of Tenseigan chakra he infused into it. Simply put, the more chakra he infused, the more agile the puppet became.

Hyuga Kagami did not know much about puppets.

He did not know whether the Third Kazekage Human Puppet was an especially high-end puppet, but merely activating it required at least half of Hyuga Kagami's chakra to maintain. If he went further and wanted the Third Kazekage Human Puppet to use Magnet Release, he would need to expend at least two-thirds of his chakra to maintain it.

In other words, while operating the Third Kazekage Human Puppet, Hyuga Kagami could retain at most half his chakra, barely reaching the chakra level of an elite Chunin.

Hyuga Kagami had also tried pouring all the chakra in his body into the Third Kazekage Human Puppet to see whether it could go a step further and gain a small degree of independent consciousness.

But the result disappointed him.

Whether his total chakra was simply too low or there was some other reason, even after infusing all his chakra, the Third Kazekage Human Puppet showed no further change. At most, it was only a little more nimble than when infused with two-thirds of his chakra.

However, Hyuga Kagami had already learned to adjust his mindset. He no longer compared everything to the Otsutsuki Toneri from his memories, so he did not feel too frustrated, only slightly annoyed...