Pupil Technique: Great Freedom Heaven!

Land of Wind, Sand Village.

Inside the Kazekage Building.

The Fourth Kazekage, Rasa, stared at the intelligence report sent from Kirigakure, his expression growing increasingly somber.

The new agreement sent by Kirigakure was much the same as the previous one, save for the critical demand that Pakura be handed over to them once again, dead or alive.

Rasa pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a sigh.

Pakura—it was always that damned Pakura. Why couldn't she just go and die quietly?

And what were those idiots in Kirigakure doing? To think they let Pakura escape, and now they had the gall to demand assistance in capturing her. What a bunch of incompetent allies.

What could have been handled silently and discreetly had now become a massive headache.

Now that the target was on guard, finding her in the vast Ninja World was no simple task.

Not to mention that Pakura herself was powerful; aside from himself and Elder Chiyo, no one else in the Sand Village stood a chance against her in a one-on-one fight.

Those damned fools in Kirigakure had truly handed him a difficult problem.

The mere thought of Pakura lurking in the shadows, watching him, made it impossible for him to eat or sleep in peace.

Coupled with Kirigakure's hardline stance on the matter, the capture of Pakura had become an urgent priority.

Soon, news spread throughout the Sand Village that Pakura had sabotaged the peace talks between Kirigakure and the Sand Village and had defected.

Upon learning this, many in the village found the news impossible to accept, but as Rasa stepped forward and issued a kill-on-sight order for Pakura, they were forced to accept the reality that the former hero of their village had now become their enemy.

As the two great powers, the Sand Village and Kirigakure, dispatched large numbers of personnel to search the Ninja World for Pakura, some factions began to sense that the situation was not as simple as it seemed.

Even if a rogue ninja were strong, it shouldn't warrant such intense attention from two major powers. Could there be some hidden secret behind all this?

However, as Pakura was currently severely wounded and had gone into hiding to recuperate, their search was destined to be in vain for the time being.

Land of Fire, somewhere in an underground space.

This underground area had long since been converted into a makeshift base, where a group of puppets was busy organizing scrolls scattered across the floor.

Some of those scrolls were covered in seals and appeared highly valuable, clearly belonging to some form of secret technique.

Such items were common among the many scrolls strewn about, indicating that the secret techniques in this base were of extraordinary origin.

For some reason, the busy puppets suddenly ceased their movements in unison and looked toward a certain spot in the chamber, where a golden vortex had appeared.

The golden vortex then expanded into a spatial gateway, from which a masked figure and the Third Kazekage Human Puppet emerged.

Judging by the countless secret scrolls in this place, this was the person who had seized the opportunity to steal the treasures from Kirigakure's secret vault during the chaos.

The masked figure was, naturally, Lan, and the spatial gateway he had opened relied on a newly awakened ocular technique of his Tenseigan:

"Great Freedom Heaven!"

The way he had previously opened a spatial gateway to enter the Kamui Dimension was by using this very technique.

Likewise, in the face of space-time ocular techniques, Kirigakure's defensive seals were meaningless, and he had obtained his prize with ease.

He had swept the vault clean of all its stored secret scrolls and dumped them here.

"Great Freedom Heaven" was a space-time ocular technique that allowed for the opening of a spatial gateway between two distant points, enabling rapid travel to one's desired destination.

It would not have been easy for him to locate and enter the Kamui Dimension with his newly awakened powers, but Obito had done him a great favor by foolishly sucking Pakura into the Kamui Dimension.

Since he had already planted a Spirit Orb inside Pakura, the sensory link between them could transcend space and time.

Thus, when Pakura was pulled into the Kamui Dimension by Obito, he had used that connection to pinpoint the location of that space, allowing him to easily open a gateway and enter.

Only space-time ninjutsu could counter space-time ninjutsu; it could be said that Obito's Kamui had lost its air of mystery before him. If the two were to clash, the opponent's otherwise invincible intangibility would be rendered useless.

While his "Great Freedom Heaven" might not be as versatile as the Kamui's ability to turn the user intangible, his technique happened to be the perfect counter.

With this trump card, he was at least secure in his survival. There might still be many existences in the Ninja World he could not defeat, but there was almost no one who could truly threaten his life.

He also had a premonition that his "Great Freedom Heaven" was not merely limited to opening spatial gateways; there were likely other wonders waiting for him to discover.

Seeing the puppets still organizing the stolen scrolls, Lan felt quite satisfied with the gains from his trip to Kirigakure.

With so many secret techniques, even those that required time to decipher were worth the effort. As the collection of a major hidden village, he believed many would prove useful to him.

Of course, that was a matter for another time; he had other pressing business to attend to.

Without paying further attention to the puppets, Lan walked straight toward a private chamber with the Third Kazekage Human Puppet in tow.

Once inside the chamber, Lan finally had the time to properly examine one of the greatest gains of his trip—the Third Kazekage Human Puppet!

As his understanding of this human puppet deepened, he couldn't help but marvel at Sasori's craftsmanship.

This human puppet retained almost perfectly the chakra strength the Third Kazekage had possessed in life. Combined with the various weapons added to its interior, in the hands of a powerful puppeteer like Sasori, its combat capability would be no less than it was in life.

While Lan was not a puppeteer, the Tenseigan's unique ability to imbue puppets with a semblance of life made it even more effective when applied to a human puppet than a standard one.

During his confrontation with Obito and Sasori, the Third Kazekage Human Puppet had not only possessed consciousness but had also been able to freely utilize Magnet Release. It was safe to say that this puppet was now one of his greatest trump cards.

Although the power of the Tenseigan was immense, the limitations on his ocular power and chakra reserves prevented him from engaging in prolonged combat. Should a battle become a war of attrition, he risked falling into a trap of his own making.

Had he not been inside the Kamui Dimension, he would never have been so reckless in displaying the power of the Tenseigan to intimidate Obito.

Because his own Tenseigan was so deeply connected to the Giant Tenseigan on the moon, prolonged use of his own power would very likely trigger an unintended resonance between the two.

By then, the elders of the Otsutsuki Branch Family on the moon might discover his existence, and since the Giant Tenseigan was crafted almost entirely from the Byakugan of the Otsutsuki Branch Family, it would undoubtedly favor them.

Therefore, even though he also possessed a Tenseigan, he could not override their authority. It could be said that the surviving Otsutsuki Branch Family elders on the moon were like a Sword of Dalix hanging over his head, forcing him to be cautious when wielding his Tenseigan's power.

After all, setting aside the terrifying power of the Giant Tenseigan, as the direct descendants of Otsutsuki Hamura, those Otsutsuki Branch Family elders surely possessed many powerful secret techniques; if he were to clash with them, he would certainly come off worse.

Thus, in a situation where he could not freely use the power of his Tenseigan, this Third Kazekage Human Puppet naturally became increasingly important to him.

Furthermore, he had another Tenseigan ability he needed to develop, and this Third Kazekage Human Puppet was perfectly suited for experimentation.

Lan sat cross-legged on the ground and began to channel his Tenseigan. Before long, a powerful surge of Yin Release energy flew out from Lan's body and poured into the Third Kazekage Human Puppet before him.

Clatter, clatter...

The body of the Third Kazekage Human Puppet twitched, then suddenly stood up as if granted a new life, slowly moving its limbs in place.

"Tsk, tsk...

How interesting.

So this is what it feels like to have a puppet body..."