Forty meters beneath the Naka River riverbed.
Sakumo's White Fang short blade sliced through the last sealing lock. The metal door creaked open to either side, and a stench of formaldehyde mixed with rotting flesh rushed out.
Mikoto covered her nose.
Nawaki did not. He stepped forward, and a faint green glow lit up in his right palm—a sphere of light condensed from Wood Release chakra. It silently hovered in the air, illuminating the entire space.
This was an underground laboratory of at least two hundred square meters.
IV tubes and chakra conduits were embedded in the walls, while dried, blackened liquid remained in the drainage channels on the floor. Three two-meter-tall cultivation tanks stood side by side in the center, their glass surfaces coated in dust.
The one on the left had already shattered. All that remained at its bottom was a dried-up pile of black residue.
The middle one was intact, but empty. Scratch marks covered the inner wall.
Nawaki stared at those marks for two seconds. They had been scratched from the inside out.
"One escaped," Sakumo said quietly.
"Mm." Nawaki did not ask further and walked toward the cultivation tank on the far right.
The nutrient solution in this tank was still full. In the murky green liquid floated a fist-sized lump of flesh. It had no shape, no facial features, but it pulsed faintly.
Like a heart.
Nawaki leaned close to the glass and watched it for three seconds.
"It's still alive."
He said it as casually as if he were saying, "Nice weather today."
Mikoto had already reached an iron cabinet against the wall. Its doors hung crookedly, and documents were scattered across the floor inside. She crouched down and activated her Sharingan. Her red pupils spun rapidly beneath the fluorescent light as she