Danger! The Experiment Exposed!

There were gains, and there were losses.

By maintaining a diligent, devoted facade, Toji had earned an identity that allowed him to integrate into Konoha.

But in doing so, he had also lost a measure of freedom.

Without Hashirama Senju, Konoha could still keep functioning in the short term. At least until the various powers learned that the God of Shinobi had fallen, the surface peace would not easily shatter.

But without Toji, Gospel Hospital truly could not function.

Quite a few highly advanced specialized surgeries could only be performed by him in all of Konoha. Not only within Konoha itself—even the powerful and wealthy throughout the Land of Fire had heard of Gospel Hospital. Appointment registrations had never stopped.

If he left the village the first time he took leave, it would easily attract the attention of interested parties over time. Toji would not allow such an uncontrollable, uncertainty-filled situation to arise.

That meant Toji could only secretly leave Konoha late at night, when he returned to the clan grounds to rest.

The window was too short, and the risk was too great.

The bandits around Konoha had long since been wiped clean like wild mobs by the ravenous shinobi.

If he wanted fresh shinobi human test subjects, he had to go far away.

The maximum distance at which his Earth Grudge Fear Clone could operate independently was around the Forest of Death.

Konoha had not yet erected a barrier because Hashirama was still alive. Once the barrier was completed, he would not even have the chance to sneak out at night.

So, the first task Toji gave Uchiha Yan was to collect human test subjects for his experiments outside the village.

"Alright!"

Uchiha Yan agreed without hesitation.

She did not care what the captured shinobi were for, nor what kind of fate awaited them. She only knew that helping Toji meant helping herself obtain greater power.

"But—"

Uchiha Yan changed the subject. "Where is this place? And how am I supposed to bring people to you?"

She had not seen the sun for more than three months. Aside from the clock in the laboratory that let her judge the time, she had no idea where she was.

Every meal delivered to her was a standard nutritional meal. It did not taste bad, but it offered no way at all to determine her location.

If it was seafood, then it was the Land of Water; if it was camel meat, then it was the Land of Wind... That was Uchiha Yan's stereotype.

"Can you use genjutsu?"

"Yes."

"After using genjutsu to control the target shinobi, take them to the Forest of Death. I'll mark the exact coordinates on a map. You don't need to concern yourself with what happens afterward. Once you leave here, clean up your tracks and don't leave a tail behind. The Uchiha Clan is searching the entire Shinobi World for you."

"The Forest of Death?!"

Uchiha Yan looked stunned and blurted out, "This place... couldn't be near the Forest of Death, could it?"

By all logic, she had been captured in the Forest of Death by the bird-beaked masked man before her and should have been held far away from the scene. Yet the handover location he had given was the Forest of Death.

"That isn't something you should be concerned about."

Toji's tone was cold.

In his vision, a sufficiently tight underground organization required subordinates only to obey their superiors' orders absolutely. They should not ask a single question they were not supposed to ask.

The boss's identity had to remain absolutely secret. All contact had to pass through intermediaries, preventing anyone from following the trail and wiping them all out in one sweep.

And in this crude "organization," which currently consisted of only him and Uchiha Yan, the intermediary was his Earth Grudge Fear Clone.

"Say, you aren't a Konoha shinobi, are you?"

Toji ignored her probing and said to himself,

"Prepare to lose consciousness now. When you wake up, you'll be near the Forest of Death. That will also be the handover location for future missions."

Uchiha Yan said disdainfully, "I was unconscious when I came in. Now that I'm leaving, can't you at least let me walk out awake?"

Toji did not answer. He simply picked up a thick syringe and walked toward her.

"Alright, alright. Whatever you say."

Under cover of night,

Toji controlled his Earth Grudge Fear Clone and sent Uchiha Yan away.

The Five Elements Seal, the Earth Grudge Fear Curse Mark, the Mangekyō Sharingan bait... Toji had already made every necessary preparation.

This first chess piece cast into the Shinobi World would bring him an unending supply of human test subjects.

Still, this method was far too crude.

Once Konoha began laying down its barrier, he would have Uchiha Yan use "legal" means to deliver the human test subjects he needed to him through Gospel Hospital.

The night passed without incident.

The next morning.

Toji went to Gospel Hospital as usual, only to find Takayuki Senju waiting at the entrance early in the morning. The moment he arrived, Takayuki stepped forward. "Teacher Toji."

"Takayuki, is something wrong?"

"My father asks that you come over."

"Alright, I'll go now."

Toji got up and headed for the Hokage Building.

Hashirama knew he was busy, so he had not specially summoned him like this for quite some time.

Something had likely happened...

What could it be? Toji silently speculated as he walked.

Soon,

Toji saw Hashirama in the Hokage Office.

Uchiha Chiri was there as well.

Tobirama had been back in the village for some time, but he had kept a low profile and no one knew what he was busy with. He had not even appeared for this meeting.

The last time the four of them had gathered together was when the Ninja Academy had just been established.

"Toji, you're here. Sit." Hashirama raised a hand to gesture for him to sit, his expression gradually turning serious. "Now that everyone's here, I'll get straight to the point."

"Recently, someone reported to me that prisoners have been frequently disappearing from Konoha Prison. Some prisoners' families have even come to me to issue missing-person requests. I personally went to the prison to investigate, but all the prison shinobi claimed they knew nothing."

"Toji, Chiri, do either of you have any leads on this?"

Although many departments had yet to be established, the prison for holding criminals had been built early on.

That was something that could not be helped.

Even Konoha, the most civilized place in the Shinobi World, had only emerged from the chaotic era into peace not long ago. The crime rate in the surrounding areas was astonishingly high.

Many village commissions involved capturing and eliminating these criminals. Hashirama was kindhearted and had not ordered them killed on sight. Instead, he demanded they be "captured alive," giving the criminals a chance to turn over a new leaf.

Prisoners had disappeared?

Toji's heart suddenly tightened.

A guilty conscience feared a knock at the door. His first instinct was to think his own affairs had been exposed.

But in the next instant, Toji realized something.

He had not touched the prisoners in the prison, nor had he made a move against hospital patients yet. This had nothing to do with him.

Which meant...

Someone besides him was secretly abducting people in the village?

Given the current circumstances, a certain suspicion arose in Toji's mind. He said in an ambiguous tone, "Lord Hokage, this matter... may be related to Tobirama."

"Tobirama?!"

Hashirama froze, his expression growing even more solemn. "How could this be related to Tobirama? Toji, explain carefully."

Toji calmly laid out his analysis:

"Konoha Prison is heavily guarded. Ordinary people could never silently take prisoners away. Unless the prison shinobi responsible for guarding them deliberately concealed the matter. Or they were under genjutsu."

"But even after the Hokage personally questioned them, they still refused to speak, and there were no signs that they were under genjutsu."

"Then there is only one possibility. The 'criminal' responsible for the prisoners' disappearance has a special identity—one that makes them afraid to speak, and unable to speak."

"In the village, someone capable of doing that..."

"The only person I can think of is Tobirama."

"Most likely, Tobirama took the prisoners from the prison to some place and ordered the prison shinobi to keep it secret from you, Lord Hokage."