Riding the Nine-Tails Back to the Clan

Seeing Arin leave, Mito formed hand seals with both hands.

Ram–Snake–Tiger!

As the white smoke dissipated, a clone appeared at Mito's side.

"Find a time to retrieve the Seal Book Father hid away."

The clone nodded at her words.

She activated the Body Flicker Technique and vanished from the room.

Lower reaches of the Naka River.

Over the past few days, rows of rough stone houses had sprung up along the riverbank.

"Kaguya Hōseki!!"

An angry roar suddenly rang through the sky, startling the birds on the opposite bank into flight.

"You were already defeated by God! If God hadn't shown you mercy, you would have died in the Land of Water! How dare you swagger around here?!"

"Swagger around?!" Hōseki stubbornly raised his head and glared viciously at Tetsu. "I only sent someone to ask God whether he could arrange a dose for me. How did that become swaggering around?"

"A dose? Heh, a piece of trash like you sure has pretty dreams."

"You!"

"Kaguya Tetsu!"

Just as Hōseki was about to explode, a cold shout came from outside the crude clan grounds.

Hearing the call, Tetsu immediately abandoned Hōseki, who still seemed to have more to say, and quickly turned to stride toward the entrance.

"Tetsu?" Uchiha Maki looked at the newcomer and asked in confusion.

"You are?" Seeing the other man dressed in red-and-white attire bearing a fan clan emblem, Tetsu asked cautiously.

"One of God's subordinates."

"God's subordinate?"

Seeing the doubt in his expression, Maki took a vial from his ninja tool pouch without expression. "You recognize this, right?"

"Hahaha, you should've taken it out sooner! Then wouldn't I have recognized you at a glance?"

"You should've taken it out sooner..."

Seeing that the other man was about to keep rambling, Maki promptly interrupted him.

"My lord has ordered that in five days, you lead ten clansmen to wait at the entrance to our clan. Once this mission is complete, each person will receive ten doses."

"Ten doses each?!"

The simple, honest look on Tetsu's face instantly melted away as he stared at Maki excitedly.

"Please rest assured, God. I will select the strongest clansmen to go. We definitely won't delay God's important business!"

After confirming that he had received the order, Maki immediately used the Body Flicker Technique and vanished outside the Kaguya Clan's grounds.

"Hehe, ten people means a hundred doses. Then what if I choose twenty people? Wouldn't that be two hundred doses?!"

At that thought, a comical smile appeared on Tetsu's face. "Surely God won't mind, right?"

Tetsu slowly walked back into the clan grounds, repeatedly recalling the blissful expression Hōseki had worn when the dose was injected.

The building standing to the left of the Uchiha Ancestral Hall.

Over the past several decades, under Uchiha Jūchū's constant renovations, it had nearly reached a height of fifteen meters.

Seeing that it was about to surpass the Ancestral Hall beside it, Kosuke hurriedly told Jūchū to stop upon hearing the news.

Looking at Jūchū's simple, honest, self-reproachful expression, Kosuke did not blame him. Instead, he offered words of comfort.

He also told him to focus next on the building's interior and the various underground research rooms.

At that moment, Kosuke stood alone outside a certain room.

His eyes were fixed blankly on the plaque reading "Sealing Squad" on the door, and he did not move for a long time.

"I heard you sent people to that newly arrived clan downriver?" Madara, clad in crimson armor, slowly appeared as he stepped across the wood-scented floor. "Are you planning to bring them along?"

"Mm..." Kosuke glanced back at him indifferently, then turned and walked toward a room to the side. "Have them go ahead to the route we'll have to take and stay there for a while."

"Stay there for a while?" Madara passed the room marked "Sealing Squad" and followed Kosuke inside.

The moment he returned to the clan, he had heard that Kosuke had hauled an entire clan back with him.

At the time, Madara had watched them from afar for a while with curious eyes.

He found that they were all muscle-bound simpletons.

He promptly lost interest in the clan and turned to leave.

"You're having a bunch of simpletons stay somewhere temporarily. Aren't you afraid they'll run away?"

"Run away?" Kosuke opened a drawer, took out a vial, and tossed it to Madara. "They suffer from severe Bloodline Disease. If I hadn't said I could cure them, my personal strength alone wouldn't have been enough to charm an entire clan into coming back with me."

Madara reached out and caught the vial tossed to him, lowering his eyes to glance at it. "The stuff we injected is really that powerful?"

"Of course." Kosuke pulled out a chair and slowly sat down. "Did you think Gene Potion was just a name we made up for fun?"

"It was made by combining the current Hashirama Cells."

"How many beatings from Hashirama did the two of us take for this?"

At the mention of Hashirama, Madara recalled the time Kosuke had told him that Hashirama was the child of the Ninja World.

His face immediately twisted.

"What about this potion?" Madara noticed that the vial in his hand seemed to have changed somehow and looked at Kosuke in confusion.

Could this potion have received some kind of "update"?

"This is a diluted version for the Kaguya Clan."

"It can keep their Bloodline Disease from worsening while slowly treating it."

Seeing Kosuke's indifferent expression, Madara's pupils contracted.

"When did Kosuke become the capitalist type he always talked about?"

"So you're using this potion to keep them under control and make them obey you completely?"

"More or less."

Kosuke raised his head from the documents on the desk and looked at Madara's figure on the sofa. "How's your Sealing Technique training going?"

"Not bad." Madara set down the potion and poured himself a cup of clear tea, answering softly.

"Not bad?" Kosuke did not quite believe it. "When facing the Nine-Tails, you won't come riding it back like last time, will you?"

Madara's expression instantly fell.

He recalled Kosuke's soul-searching question from back then, asked with his head tilted up: Why didn't you forcibly turn it into a Summoning Beast?

He was left speechless.

"Who else could be as farsighted as you?"

"We'll set out in five days. I'll take them to the designated location then. Are you coming?" Kosuke asked calmly as he watched Madara rise to leave.

"No. Notify me when they go to fetch the bride later."

Kosuke watched Madara's departing figure in silence.

Only after a while did he lower his head again and continue handling the documents sent back by the Intelligence Department.

Madara left the building now renamed Tiandao and returned straight home.

"Older brother, what did Kosuke say?"

Izuna and Mina had long been waiting there, both looking anxiously at Madara.

"In five days, he'll lead the Kaguya members from the lower reaches of the Naka River to the unavoidable route the Senju will take to fetch the bride. The Kaguya members will stay there until the wedding procession arrives."

Sensing their anxious expressions, Madara slowly walked into the living room. "He'll go there with me personally when the time comes."

"Yeah!" Izuna excitedly waved his arms, looking at the beauty beside him. "Mina, see? I told you Kosuke wouldn't be so heartless."