Bringing People to Raid Orochimaru's Home

Nighttime.

The group arrived at an inn to stay for the night.

Before this, they had already scouted the local brothels without any unexpected gains; after all, this place was still too close to Konoha.

Naturally, it wouldn't be such a coincidence that they would find Jiraiya.

The group had no choice but to follow their original plan and leave a letter for Jiraiya.

Then, they found an inn to stay in.

The location was very close to Orochimaru's laboratory.

To facilitate the procurement of supplies, Orochimaru had built his laboratory on the outskirts of this small town.

Tomorrow, he would just need to lead the group in that direction.

Kimura Takuya made up his mind.

This meeting would be a big one for Orochimaru, enough to make him and Sasori regret ever crossing him.

These two guys—two days had passed, and they hadn't produced a single result. Kimura Takuya did not need such useless employees!

What? He didn't pay them a salary, yet he still expected them to work themselves to the bone on research?

In his past life, there were even people who paid to work!

So what if he didn't pay them and intended to freeload off their research results?

Was that any reason for them to slack off?

No wonder one was a Sannin who spent his whole life skulking in the shadows, never quite reaching the top, and eventually getting killed by Sasuke; if it weren't for Kabuto resurrecting him, he would have been gone for good.

The other was a genius puppet master of Sunagakure, a ruthless man who turned the Third Kazekage into a human puppet, only to lose in the end due to plot armor.

The fates of these two had really lowered their prestige.

They weren't even as good as Kabuto, whose boss never paid him a salary either.

He was sent on business trips everywhere, through wind and rain, and even after his boss died, he resurrected him and kept his chakra preserved.

Just for that, Kabuto was an employee worth keeping!

Kimura Takuya wondered if he should find an opportunity later to use a Pseudo-Kotoamatsukami on Kabuto.

Although they both came from the Konoha Orphanage, Kimura Takuya wasn't familiar with Kabuto.

Because by the time Kabuto entered Root to begin his life as a sleeper agent, Orochimaru had not yet defected from the village.

At that time, Kimura Takuya was probably only three years old and had never even seen Kabuto as a child.

Later, when Orochimaru defected, he took Kabuto, who had been abandoned by Root, with him.

At that time, Kabuto had accidentally killed the former director of the orphanage who had taken him in, but that was the result of Root's manipulation.

Originally, they had intended for the director to kill Kabuto, but Kabuto had killed the director instead.

This incident had previously been used in the public opinion campaign against Danzo.

He wondered if Kabuto had been triggered by that.

Could the leak of the true information regarding the Uchiha Massacre have been the work of an enraged Kabuto?

Orochimaru shouldn't have had a reason to do that.

After being dealt with by Itachi in the Akatsuki, he had wanted to obtain Itachi's Sharingan, but since he couldn't get it, he had to settle for the next best thing: taking the body of Itachi's younger brother, Sasuke.

This time, he was also using the mission of gathering intelligence as a cover to return to Konoha to target Sasuke's body.

It seemed he had already had a significant impact on the plot.

Kimura Takuya lay in bed, the others beside him already asleep.

But the more he thought, the more his mind raced.

Many plot points had been advanced significantly due to his influence.

He worried that the Akatsuki would also accelerate their progress in capturing the Tailed Beasts because of this.

His current strength was still not enough.

Although he had imitated Naruto by using Shadow Clones to instantly enter Sage Mode.

He had also left several clones in the base, constantly cycling and condensing senjutsu chakra.

Because of the unique nature of Kimura Takuya's soul energy, he was able to remotely dispel his Shadow Clones to instantly activate Sage Mode without needing the Reverse Summoning Jutsu.

However, this method could only be used in emergencies and could not be used as a standard practice. Furthermore, because his current senjutsu chakra was unstable, the senjutsu chakra transmitted through the clones could only maintain stability for one minute.

Therefore, he urgently needed to enhance his soul energy and improve his energy control.

He needed to reach a precision of ten decimal places so that Sage Mode could be stabilized.

And through increasingly proficient application, he hoped to achieve true instant activation, as well as the ability to condense senjutsu chakra while simultaneously maintaining Sage Mode for an unlimited duration.

And the things that could enhance his soul energy were the negative energies he had discovered earlier.

Negative energy—could it be that I really have to go mess with a Tailed Beast?

As for the Tailed Beasts, the One-Tail, Shukaku, is in Sunagakure.

The Two-Tails, Matatabi, and the Eight-Tails, Gyuki, are in the Cloud Village.

The Three-Tails, Isobu, and the Six-Tails, Saiken, are the Tailed Beasts controlled by Kirigakure.

The Four-Tails and the Five-Tails, Kokuō, are in Iwagakure.

The Seven-Tails, Chomei, is in Takigakure.

The Nine-Tails, Kurama, is of course in Konoha.

Among them, the Three-Tails, Isobu, had died, but by now, it should have just about resurrected.

"Forget it, time to sleep. I don't even know where I am right now, I'll deal with it later."

The night passed without incident.

The next morning.

"We didn't find anything here, let's head to the next famous brothel."

"Yosh! Alright, let's go!"

The group left the inn, following Kimura Takuya.

Kimura Takuya, guided by the soul energy, arrived before a hill.

Behind him, Neji was suddenly startled.

He activated his Byakugan.

"Wait, I've discovered something unusual!"

"What's going on?"

The group quickly hid, and Kimura Takuya feigned curiosity as he asked Neji.

The latter widened his Byakugan again and looked toward the hill; it was no hill at all, but clearly a sealed passageway!

Neji described what he saw to the group.

Kimura Takuya put on an expression of shock, matching the others.

"To think there's a passage hidden by a Sealing Jutsu? If it were a facility belonging to the village, there would be no need to hide it like this; this must be an enemy outpost!"

The others all agreed with Kimura Takuya's assessment; after all, they were still in the vicinity of Konoha.

Their own facilities wouldn't need to be handled this way, so it had to be the enemy's, no doubt about it.

However, the squad had other missions, and for a ninja, their own mission takes priority.

Any irrelevant battles encountered along the way should ideally be avoided.

But what they had encountered this time was an enemy outpost built right on the edge of Konoha.

This was intolerable; with the enemy right on their doorstep, this outpost had to be rooted out!

Lee immediately prepared to charge in recklessly.

But he was stopped by Might Guy.

"Lee, the number of people in this base is unknown, and their strength is unknown. Rushing in blindly is no different from suicide. Let's wait for Neji to finish scouting before making a decision."

"Sorry, Guy-sensei, I was impulsive!"

Immediately, everyone waited for the results of Neji's Byakugan reconnaissance.

Although the Byakugan could not see through the sealed entrance, it could still see the situation inside the underground base.

While Neji was observing the base, Kimura Takuya was watching his Byakugan, contemplating a few things.

The Byakugan can ignore obstacles and light to see things directly, and can even see faint chakra invisible to ordinary people, all with 360-degree vision without blind spots.

This ability is fundamentally not the same thing as vision in the general sense.

It is actually a form of spatial vision.

What the Byakugan sees is not light reflection presented on the retina, but a sensory perspective of matter existing in space.

That is why the Byakugan's field of vision has no color, only the objects themselves.

Simply put, the Byakugan is not an optical observation device like a normal person's eyes, but a spatial sensing device.

That is why the Byakugan's perspective is 360 degrees, and why it can ignore obstacles and light.

Because the Byakugan is not an eye at all, but a spatial detector.

Though it does possess the visual acuity of a normal eye as well.

But the potential of the Byakugan should go far beyond this!

In the original work, the Hyuga Clan was a bloodline family capable of rivaling the Uchiha.

However, its performance in the later stages was completely crushed by the Sharingan.

Perhaps it was simply because it didn't belong to the protagonist.

The Tenseigan, which is the evolved form of the Byakugan, is still quite formidable.

And by the era of Boruto, the Jōgan is even more powerful.

"Orochimaru!"