The village chief turned around, his voice carrying a hint of exhaustion and helplessness, but even more so, compromise in the face of absolute force.
"Please, follow me."
Uchiha Jun followed the village chief, with Kakuzu and Uchiha Hikari close behind. The three of them descended the spiral staircase.
The staircase was long. After several hundred steps, the air grew increasingly humid, and they could hear water dripping in the distance.
At the end of the spiral staircase was a natural cave roughly a hundred square meters in size.
The cave walls were covered in thick moss and stalactites. Water that had dripped for years had carved countless tiny pits into the rock surfaces.
At the very center of the cave stood a massive stone pillar, wide enough that several people would need to join hands to encircle it, stretching from the ground to the ceiling.
A slender crystal cluster had formed at its peak, and from the tip of that cluster hung a transparent droplet, on the verge of falling.
"Hero Water condenses from the top of this stone pillar."
The village chief's voice echoed through the empty cave.
"Every three to five years, the stone pillar produces a single drop. Drinking it can increase the user's chakra by dozens of times—but it also rapidly consumes the user's Life Force."
"According to the records, every person who has consumed it throughout history died from excessive depletion of their Life Force. And the process is irreversible."
Uchiha Jun's gaze fell on the transparent droplet at the top of the stone pillar. After a moment of silence, he asked, "How much Hero Water have you saved over the years?"
"What we have saved... there are more than twenty drops left."
The village chief took out a palm-sized Celadon Bottle from his robes, its opening tightly sealed with wax.
He offered the jade bottle to Uchiha Jun with both hands and lowered his head. "This is everything Takigakure has accumulated over the past century. Every drop is a treasure passed down through generations. We would never use it lightly unless the village faced a crisis of extermination."
Uchiha Jun took the bottle and removed the wax seal. Looking inside, he saw over twenty pale-blue droplets resting quietly at the bottom.
Each was only the size of a mung bean, yet they emitted an incredibly dense aura of Life Force. Merely approaching them made the chakra within one's body stir faintly.
Uchiha Jun put the jade bottle away, then raised his head and looked at the village chief. "In a while, I want to meet your village's Seven-Tails. Go make the preparations yourself."
The village chief's body stiffened again.
His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but beneath the calm gaze of Uchiha Jun's Sharingan, he ultimately swallowed every word.
He turned around and walked out of the cave with heavy steps.
Kakuzu watched the village chief's retreating back, then glanced at the Celadon Bottle in Uchiha Jun's robes. Unable to hold himself back, he asked, "Boss, what are you planning to do with the Hero Water?"
"Research it."
Uchiha Jun replied indifferently, "Maybe I can find a way to safely trigger its chakra-boosting effect without consuming Life Force."
"At worst, it's still an exceptionally rare treasure. Takigakure lacks the virtue and fortune to possess it. This treasure belongs under my command!"
Uchiha Hikari and Kakuzu fell silent for a moment, feeling somewhat embarrassed by Uchiha Jun's righteous declaration.
"Kakuzu."
Uchiha Jun spoke in an even tone. "What are your requirements for hearts? Freshness, attributes, strength—pick whatever you want. If there's nothing in Takigakure that catches your eye, you can choose from other ninja villages later, including Konoha and the Uchiha Clan."
"By the way, if you take the hearts of ninjas with ocular Kekkei Genkai like the Uchiha Clan or Hyuga Clan, can your mung-bean eyes grow a Sharingan or Byakugan?"
"What about Kekkei Genkai users?"
Kakuzu froze for a moment before explaining in a low voice, "No. The hearts I take can only provide chakra natures; they can't inherit Kekkei Genkai. The two hearts that shattered earlier were lightning-nature and wind-nature hearts."
"I checked. Takigakure currently happens to have two suitable targets."
"Then go take them yourself. Bring the corpses back after you're done. Don't waste them."
On the way here, Uchiha Jun had seen that Takigakure had declined badly. There were barely any Jonin left, and even the Elite Jonin were survivors from the previous generation—the village chief from earlier included.
Kakuzu spread the mouth hidden beneath his mask into a dry grin, then turned and strode toward the cave exit.
For a while, only Uchiha Jun and Uchiha Hikari remained in the cave.
Uchiha Hikari was silent for a moment before speaking softly, her voice carrying a trace of probing curiosity. "That Hero Water... can it really let someone unleash dozens of times more chakra?"
"It can give a Genin the chakra reserves of a Jonin for a few minutes, but after those few minutes, it makes the user rapidly age and die." Uchiha Jun looked down at the Celadon Bottle in his hand, his tone calm. "It's a typical method of trading Life Force for power."
"Then why would you still..."
"But what if there were a way to mass-produce a weakened version of Hero Water?"
Uchiha Jun raised his head and looked into the distance, a faint curve appearing at the corner of his lips.
"Then its value would be far more than simply increasing chakra."
"Let's go take a look at this Seven-Tails. Did it get captured by a small village like Takigakure because its strength is absurdly terrible, or did it inherit the laziness of its insect form and choose this kind of 'stable' life?"
Deep beneath Takigakure, within the Tailed Beast sealing space.
Uchiha Jun stood before an enormous sealing formation. At its center was a frail-looking old man—the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki of Takigakure.
He had been the Jinchuriki from two generations ago, once an Elite Jonin.
But now, his face was pale as paper, his lips cracked, and he wore a white robe like that of a prisoner. His breathing was so weak that it seemed as though it could fade away at any moment. He was already at death's door and could likely hold on for only a few more years at most.
A pale blue sealing barrier isolated him from the outside world, yet his eyes were unexpectedly clear. There was no madness, no hatred—only an almost numb calmness.
"You're not from Takigakure. You're an invader?"
The Jinchuriki raised his head and looked at Uchiha Jun outside the sealing formation. There was neither fear nor anger in his voice, only a trace of curiosity. "You're really young. Did you sneak in?"
"What a pity. You're about to die here! This will be my final dance!"
"What the hell are you babbling about? I fought my way in fair and square. Enough nonsense—eat my Genjutsu!"
Standing before the sealing formation, Uchiha Jun spoke casually. In the next instant, he activated his Mangekyō Sharingan and pulled the Jinchuriki, who had been preparing for Tailed Beast Transformation, into a Genjutsu space. Using the Mangekyō's ocular power, he also infiltrated the Jinchuriki's seal.
It was similar to how Sasuke Uchiha, while still possessing the Three-Tomoe Sharingan in the original story, entered Uzumaki Naruto's body through his Sharingan and saw the Nine-Tails formed from chakra.
Drip—
Seriously, couldn't they make the sealing environment a little nicer? Even the people next door playing Pokémon, Bugs, and Master Balls know to set up a better environment to raise their capture rate.
This dark lightning-and-water prison is enough to make even me sigh. No wonder Tailed Beasts try to break through their seals every other day.
The moment his consciousness entered the Seven-Tails' seal, Uchiha Jun was rendered speechless by the environment inside, and he began ranting wildly in his heart.
Compared to the sealing environments he had seen in the original story in his previous life,
the Seven-Tails' sealing environment was far worse.
It was a dark, damp dungeon, with gloomy and eerie stone walls. Looking up, he could see an oppressively low dome covered in sealing formulas.
Following the dungeon toward its end, he saw a peculiar insect: enormous in size, yet bound by countless shackles, its insectoid body pierced through by a gigantic chakra rod, its wings restrained by chains.
—the Seven-Tails, Chomei.