The Land of Wind, Sunagakure.
Inside the Kazekage Building.
As Fourth Kazekage Rasa read the information sent from Kirigakure, his expression grew increasingly grim.
The new agreement from Kirigakure was little different from the previous one. Its main demand was that Pakura be handed over to them once again, dead or alive.
Rasa pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.
Pakura. That damn Pakura again. Why couldn't she just lie down and die?
And what were those idiots in Kirigakure doing? They'd actually let Pakura escape, and now they had the nerve to ask for help capturing her. What kind of useless allies were they?
Something that could have been handled quietly had now become a headache.
Now that the other side was on guard, finding her somewhere in the vast Ninja World wouldn't be easy.
What was more, Pakura was powerful. Aside from him and Elder Chiyo, no one in Sunagakure could be sure of beating her one-on-one.
Those damn fools in Kirigakure had really handed him a difficult problem.
The thought of Pakura lurking in the shadows and watching him made him uneasy even in his sleep.
And with Kirigakure taking such a hard line, capturing Pakura couldn't wait.
Before long, word spread through Sunagakure that Pakura had sabotaged peace talks between Kirigakure and Sunagakure and defected from the village.
Many in Sunagakure couldn't accept the news. But after Rasa came forward and issued an order to kill Pakura on sight, they had no choice but to accept that their former village hero had become an enemy.
As the two great powers of Sunagakure and Kirigakure sent large numbers of people to search the Ninja World for Pakura, some factions began to sense that there was more to the matter than met the eye.
No matter how strong a rogue ninja was, two great powers shouldn't have been so invested in her. Was there some hidden reason behind all this?
But Pakura had been seriously injured again and was now hiding away to recover in secret, so their search was destined to come up empty in the short term.
In an underground space somewhere in the Land of Fire.
At some point, this underground space had been turned into a makeshift base. A group of puppets were picking up scrolls scattered across the floor.
Some of the scrolls were covered in seals and looked extremely valuable. They were likely scrolls containing secret techniques.
Such scrolls made up a considerable portion of the ones scattered across the floor, showing that the secret techniques in this base had extraordinary origins.
For some reason, the busy puppets all stopped what they were doing and looked toward one spot in the space. A golden vortex appeared there.
The golden vortex widened into a space-time passage, and a masked figure stepped out with the Third Kazekage Human Puppet.
Judging by the countless scrolls containing secret techniques here, this was the person who had taken advantage of the Mist Village Rebellion to steal the treasures from Kirigakure's vault.
The masked figure was, of course, Lan. The passage he had opened relied on the newly awakened Dojutsu of his Tenseigan:
"Great Freedom Heaven!"
The reason he had been able to open a space-time passage into the Kamui Dimension earlier was that he had used his newly awakened Tenseigan Dojutsu, "Great Freedom Heaven."
Likewise, Kirigakure's sealing techniques had been meaningless against a space-time Dojutsu. He had broken through them and succeeded with ease.
He had swept up all the scrolls containing secret techniques stored in the vault and brought them here.
"Great Freedom Heaven" was a space-time Dojutsu that could open a passage between two places far apart, allowing him to quickly reach his destination.
With his newly awakened Dojutsu, he wouldn't have been able to find and enter the Kamui Dimension so easily. He owed that to Obito, who had foolishly sucked Pakura into the dimension.
He had already planted a Spirit Orb inside Pakura, allowing him to sense her across the distance between them, even through space and time.
So when Obito sucked Pakura into the Kamui Dimension, Lan had used their connection to pinpoint the dimension and easily opened passages between the two locations to enter it.
Only space-time techniques could counter other space-time techniques. In a sense, Obito's Kamui had completely lost its mystique in front of him. If the two of them clashed, Obito's normally invincible intangibility would be useless.
His "Great Freedom Heaven" might not be as useful as Kamui's ability to make its user intangible, but his Dojutsu happened to be the perfect counter to Obito's.
With this trump card, at least he no longer had to worry about staying alive. There might be many beings in the Ninja World he couldn't handle, but almost none could truly threaten his life.
He also had a feeling that his "Great Freedom Heaven" was more than just a way to open space-time passages. Perhaps it had other uses for him to discover.
Seeing the puppets still sorting through the scrolls stolen from Kirigakure, Lan couldn't help feeling satisfied with what he had gained from his trip there.
Even if some of these secret techniques would take time to decipher, they were worth it. Kirigakure was a major ninja village, so he was sure its collection held many techniques that could help him.
But that was for later. For now, he had other important business to attend to.
Without paying much attention to the puppets still sorting the scrolls, Lan headed straight for a hidden chamber with the Third Kazekage Human Puppet.
Only after entering the chamber did Lan finally have time to examine one of the greatest treasures he had gained on this trip: the Third Kazekage Human Puppet!
The more he learned about the Human Puppet, the more impressed he was by Sasori's skill at making puppets.
The Human Puppet had retained almost all of the Third Kazekage's chakra reserves. Combined with the various weapons added inside it, it would have been no less powerful than the Third Kazekage in life if it were in the hands of a master puppeteer like Sasori.
Although Lan didn't know the Puppet Technique, the Tenseigan had a special ability that could give puppets a will of their own. When applied to a Human Puppet, it worked far better than it did on ordinary puppets.
During his standoff with Obito and Sasori, the Third Kazekage Human Puppet hadn't just shown signs of awareness; it had also used Magnet Release freely. It was safe to say that this Human Puppet had become one of his trump cards.
The Tenseigan's power was formidable, but limits on its Dojutsu Power and his chakra reserves meant he couldn't fight for long. If a battle dragged on, he might end up losing through sheer carelessness.
If they hadn't been in the Kamui Dimension, he would never have used the Tenseigan's power so recklessly to intimidate Obito.
His Tenseigan was deeply connected to the Giant Tenseigan on the moon. Using his own Tenseigan's power for too long could unwittingly cause the two Tenseigan to resonate.
If that happened, the Otsutsuki Branch Family elders on the moon might discover his existence. And since the Giant Tenseigan had been made almost entirely from the Byakugan of the Otsutsuki Branch Family, it would certainly favor their people.
So even though he possessed a Tenseigan himself, he still couldn't outrank them in terms of authority. The surviving elders of the Otsutsuki Branch Family on the moon hung over him like the Sword of Dalix, forcing him to be cautious about using his Tenseigan's power.
After all, aside from the terrifyingly powerful Giant Tenseigan, the elders of the Otsutsuki Branch Family were direct descendants of Otsutsuki Hamura. They were bound to possess many powerful secret techniques. If he faced them, he would certainly come off worse.
That was why, with the Tenseigan's power off limits, the Third Kazekage Human Puppet had become all the more important to him.
Besides, he still had another Tenseigan ability to develop, and the Third Kazekage Human Puppet was ideal for testing it.
Lan sat down on the floor and began to activate his Tenseigan. Before long, a powerful force of Yin Release surged out of his body and flowed into the Third Kazekage Human Puppet before him.
Clatter...
The Third Kazekage Human Puppet's body convulsed. Then, as if reborn, it sprang to its feet and slowly began moving its limbs.
"Tsk, tsk...
How interesting.
So this is what it feels like to have a puppet body..."